Our Newsletter

Check out the September 2026 Newsletter, plus past issues!

Be a Part of the Ambassador Campaign! (9/2/26)

CHCOA has entered into an agreement with the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership (H2FCP) for what is being called the “Ambassador Program” in an effort to improve reporting of hydrogen station conditions and make the Station Operational Status System (SOSS) more efficient and accurate
with fewer false positives.

In a nutshell, Ambassadors will:
• Verify whether station status information matches actual operating conditions.
• Report station outages or discrepancies.
• Help educate other hydrogen vehicle owners on how to submit reports.

Ambassadors would ideally perform their duties while making their normal fueling stops rather than making special trips solely for ambassador
work.

This is a HUGE opportunity for each of us to be a part of the long-term H2 delivery infrastructure solution. Please consider joining this effort. H2FCP will host a CHCOA-wide webinar in the coming days.
To learn more or to find out the exact date and time of the webinar,
contact info@h2coa.org, check out our h2coa.org/ website, or follow our Facebook page "California Hydrogen Car Owners Association”.

Colton H2 Fire and Refueling Repercussions (update 6/13/26)

First and foremost, our hearts go out to the families of the workers that were killed or injured in the Colton hydrogen explosion and fire on February 24. The subsequent cessation of much of the hydrogen fuel deliveries in Southern California has severely impacted LD-FCEV drivers.

In early April, the Association leadership had a great Zoom call with Doug Coleman, Head of the Project Management Office at FirstElement (parent company of TrueZero HRS). While much of the conversation was off the record, Doug did want to convey the message that, ". . . we are planning on building more stations in the near future", and that "we hope to build a stronger relationship with the hydrogen car owner base going forward."
We were very encouraged by the optimistic tone of the conversation. We agreed to have more conversations, and will have more to share in the months to come.

Other recent updates from the First Element Fuel and Iwatani (including a June 13 update) can be found in our "What's New" section here. You can also view our Facebook Page for our latest information. Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership has a great status update page located here.

CHCOA Board member Nathan Okawa is also doing an excellent job of tracking the station and fuel delivery status on his Facebook (see report).

A Review of Hydrogen Refueling Stations in 2025 (3/17/26)

These past two years we saw some stations come online and some stations go offline. We saw Shell Oil pull back on investment and we saw Chevron further theirs.

We all want to see more station reliability and availability. Are we making progress? CHCOA Board member Nathan Okawa has produced a top notch summary of recent events, it will put your own observations into perspective. You can see "The Station Beat" by clicking this link.