It’s also a kind of electric car. It runs on a motor powered by electricity. What makes it different from a battery-electric vehicle (or BEV) is where the electricity comes from. Instead of a battery, a hydrogen fuel cell car has, well, a hydrogen fuel cell. This is a device that takes hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, and generates electricity from it while the car is running. In effect, a hydrogen fuel cell is a kind of battery that makes electricity on the fly.