Hydrogen Power Moves: Air Products’ Pivot, Plug Power’s Struggle, & GM–Hyundai’s $2.4B Alliance

In this episode of The Hydrogen Podcast, Paul Rodden unpacks three game-changing stories reshaping hydrogen’s future in energy, industry, and mobility.

🔍 Here’s what we cover:

• 📉 Air Products & Chemicals — $1.7B quarterly loss, major U.S. project exits, and a leaner, risk-managed hydrogen strategy.
• 💸 Plug Power — ongoing losses, cash burn concerns, and a plan to hit profitability by 2026 through cost cuts and global electrolyzer deals.
• 🚚 GM & Hyundai Partnership — $2.4B investment in next-gen electric and hydrogen vehicles, including a U.S.-built BrightDrop van and four Latin American platforms.

💡 From financial pivots to bold collaborations, these stories reveal the hard economics driving hydrogen adoption—where strategic discipline, technological integration, and partnerships decide who thrives.

Whether it’s industrial gas giants, high-risk innovators, or automakers retooling for a hydrogen future, the lesson is clear: scale, cost control, and market fit are everything.

Transcript

Today, we’re examining three pivotal industry stories: the major financial pivots and global ambitions of Air Products and Chemicals, the profit and growth challenges facing Plug Power after yet another earnings swing, and GM & Hyundai’s massive cross-continental partnership aimed at retooling the mobility sector for next-generation electrification and hydrogen adoption. Let’s dig in and pack in the latest market data, financials, and technological context. All of this on todays hydrogen podcast.

Air Products and Chemicals, a $55 billion market cap global leader in industrial gases and hydrogen supply, delivered Q2 2025 results that mark a dramatic shift in approach. The company reported a significant GAAP net loss of $1.7 billion, equating to -$7.77 per share, which alarmed investors and analysts alike. The loss stems from a $2.3 billion after-tax impairment as the company exited three flagship U.S. clean energy projects: the World Energy Sustainable Aviation Fuel expansion in California, a green liquid hydrogen plant in New York, and a large carbon monoxide plant in Texas.

Revenue dropped 3% to $2.92 billion—falling short of consensus estimates—and operating income declined 9% to $631 million, decreasing margins from 23.4% last year to 21.6% this quarter. Adjusted EPS fell to $2.69, down 6% year-over-year, evidencing the sector’s inflationary pressures and ongoing supply chain volatility.

Air Products’ financial guidance for the year was trimmed, with full-year EPS now expected at $11.85–$12.15, versus an earlier forecast well above $12.80. To conserve cash and maintain long-term dividend growth (the company boasts 43 consecutive years of dividend increases), the board is launching a cost-reduction drive that will see 2,400 positions cut globally and potentially hundreds of millions saved in operating costs.

For context: Air Products spent over $3 billion on capex last year alone, much of it targeting clean hydrogen infrastructure. The pivot away from high-profile green hydrogen projects reduces near-term risk, improving balance sheet flexibility even if it slows the company’s expansion into next-gen renewables.

Despite the loss, Air Products maintains strong credit metrics, with over $4.5 billion in free cash flow forecast for 2025 and a liquidity position buttressed by $7.2 billion in available capital. Investors responded to the news with a nearly 5% share price drop but kept faith in the company’s dividend, now yielding over 2.6%, and its position as a stable cash generator in the industrial gas space. This strategic reset highlights how project economics, not green ambitions alone, will drive hydrogen investments for years to come.

Plug Power, the $2.5 billion market cap hydrogen and fuel cell specialist, encapsulates both the promise and pain in hydrogen’s commercialization. As of August 2025, Plug Power’s Q2 financial results are expected to show a quarterly net loss of $0.15 per share—a 58% jump in losses versus a year ago. Revenues are predicted near $158 million, up just 5.5% year-on-year, signaling sluggish topline momentum.

Gross margin remains negative at -55%, unlikely but improved from 2024’s catastrophic -132%. Plug Power’s huge cash burn remains unsettling: last year, the company used almost $1.2 billion in operating cash flow and spent $470 million in capex, including ramping up its flagship Louisiana green hydrogen plant to 15 tons per day.

The company’s Project Quantum Leap aims to cut $150–$200 million in annual costs through workforce reductions, consolidation, supply chain reengineering, and stricter capex discipline. If successful, Plug forecasts positive net income and free cash flow by late 2026, banking on accelerated adoption in material handling (Walmart, Amazon, and Home Depot fleets), distributed power (PEM electrolyzers for small-scale production), and global network expansion.

Plug’s share price demonstrated its notorious volatility: it has dropped 53% since January, and a further 31% after August’s earnings preview, counter to an S&P500 gain of nearly 8%. Historically, Plug Power’s stock has slid after earnings in 61% of quarters over five years, with a median one-day post-report drop of 5.9%.

Internationally, Plug has signed more than $340 million in new contracts for PEM electrolyzer units in Europe and the Middle East. The company predicts that global hydrogen demand could grow from 90 million tons in 2024 to over 140 million tons by 2030, driven by industrial decarbonization and fuel switching. Plug aims to capture at least 10% of the U.S. green hydrogen supply market by 2027, scaling production to 200 tons per day at network facilities across the Gulf Coast, Midwest, and Eastern Seaboard.

For investors, Plug Power remains a high-risk/high-upside stock. Institutional holders like BlackRock and Vanguard retain positions, betting on a global market for green hydrogen and fuel cells set to reach over $150 billion in annual spend by 2030. However, the pressure to control costs and prove a profitable business model is only intensifying as sector funding tightens.

A major industry move came on August 7, 2025, as General Motors and Hyundai announced a joint plan to develop five new vehicle platforms for the Americas, including a U.S.-built commercial electric van and four additional models for Latin America—compact SUVs, sedans, and pickups.

Economically, the alliance anticipates annual sales volume of over 800,000 units, with joint investments and supply chain sharing expected to cut costs by $200 million per year. The North American electric van, a new addition to GM’s BrightDrop family, targets the urban delivery and mobility logistics sector—a space projected to reach $32.6 billion globally by 2028. Hyundai will lead compact vehicle and van development, while GM takes charge of the pickup platforms.

The two OEMs will collaborate in batteries (targeting $90/kWh pack cost by 2027), hydrogen mobility (with Hyundai’s expertise in fuel cell stacks), new materials, and high-volume parts procurement. Their combined R&D spend will top $2.4 billion over the next three years, with a focus on flexible, modular architectures that allow for both battery and hydrogen drive trains.

This partnership is also expected to shield GM and Hyundai from Chinese competition, which has captured over 25% of Latin America’s EV sales at aggressive price points. By leveraging shared technology but independent branding and sales, both companies can respond quickly to volatile raw material prices, regulatory shifts, and evolving market demand.

Plug Power, meanwhile, is positioned to provide hydrogen supply chains and fuel cell modules for GM’s and Hyundai’s new platforms—should the regulatory environment and infrastructure prove supportive. It’s a glimpse of the increasingly integrated and competitive landscape for mobility as companies pursue both economic scale and decarbonization.

The hydrogen sector is being shaped and reshaped, not just by technology but by hard economic choices. Air Products and Chemicals’ pivot demonstrates that pragmatic strategy trumps hype; Plug Power’s journey is all about cost, scale, and profitability; and the GM–Hyundai alliance shows that only through creative partnership and relentless cost control can new energy mobility platforms thrive in a turbulent global market.

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