California's hydrogen network in crisis: 60% of stations offline

California, long held up as the leading market for hydrogen mobility, is facing yet another serious supply disruption. Since late February 2026, more than 60% of the state's public hydrogen refuelling stations have been out of service. According to the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership, 32 of California's 52 retail stations were unavailable as of 23 March — with no confirmed timeline for when deliveries will resume at the affected sites.

The cause is a disruption in the gaseous hydrogen supply chain, which in California relies heavily on deliveries by trailer truck. An incident at a third-party supplier triggered a halt on deliveries across multiple operators, including Iwatani-operated stations. The stations still functioning are under abnormal pressure, with drivers converging on a shrinking number of working locations.

The episode exposes a structural vulnerability that has been acknowledged for years but never properly resolved: a refuelling network built on just-in-time truck deliveries of compressed hydrogen has no meaningful resilience when supply falters. One broken link in the chain and the whole network effectively goes dark for thousands of drivers.

This is not California's first rodeo. Similar outages occurred in 2019 and 2023. Each time, the fragility of the supply model is laid bare — and each time, the damage to driver confidence compounds. With hydrogen car sales already sluggish and station expansion targets quietly revised downward, another prolonged outage is the last thing the market needs right now.