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Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is starting to test its new Xbox Game Pass Standard tier with Xbox Insiders today. The new Game Pass Standard subscription includes the usual Game Pass library for Xbox but with online console multiplayer, too. Crucially, it doesn’t include immediate access to day-one game releases, though.
During the test period, Xbox Insiders will be able to access Xbox Game Pass Standard for just $1. “Any renewals during the preview period will also be $1 per month,” says Megan Spurr, senior community lead for Xbox Game Pass. Once this Standard tier launches fully, it will be priced at $14.99 per month.

Image: Microsoft
The new Game Pass lineup.

Microsoft is also providing some clarity on when day-one games and other titles will be available in the Standard tier. “Some games coming to Game Pass Ultimate (day one games or other game entries) will not be immediately available with Game Pass Standard and may be added to the library at a future date (can be up to 12 months or more and will vary by title),” says Spurr.
Microsoft first revealed its new Xbox Game Pass Standard tier in July, alongside price increases for Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers. Microsoft has promised to launch Xbox Game Pass Standard in the “coming months.” The existing Xbox Game Pass for Console subscription will continue for current subscribers, but new Game Pass subscribers are no longer able to select the console option until the new Game Pass Standard subscription is available more broadly.

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is starting to test its new Xbox Game Pass Standard tier with Xbox Insiders today. The new Game Pass Standard subscription includes the usual Game Pass library for Xbox but with online console multiplayer, too. Crucially, it doesn’t include immediate access to day-one game releases, though.

During the test period, Xbox Insiders will be able to access Xbox Game Pass Standard for just $1. “Any renewals during the preview period will also be $1 per month,” says Megan Spurr, senior community lead for Xbox Game Pass. Once this Standard tier launches fully, it will be priced at $14.99 per month.

Image: Microsoft
The new Game Pass lineup.

Microsoft is also providing some clarity on when day-one games and other titles will be available in the Standard tier. “Some games coming to Game Pass Ultimate (day one games or other game entries) will not be immediately available with Game Pass Standard and may be added to the library at a future date (can be up to 12 months or more and will vary by title),” says Spurr.

Microsoft first revealed its new Xbox Game Pass Standard tier in July, alongside price increases for Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers. Microsoft has promised to launch Xbox Game Pass Standard in the “coming months.” The existing Xbox Game Pass for Console subscription will continue for current subscribers, but new Game Pass subscribers are no longer able to select the console option until the new Game Pass Standard subscription is available more broadly.

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Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images

Iran is behind attempts to hack into Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns and has already succeeded in compromising Donald Trump’s campaign, intelligence officials said in a statement issued Monday.
The joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) says:

We have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle, specifically involving influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations targeting presidential campaigns.
This includes the recently reported activities to compromise former President Trump’s campaign, which the [Intelligence Community (IC)] attributes to Iran. The IC is confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties. Such activity, including thefts and disclosures, are intended to influence the U.S. election process. It is important to note that this approach is not new. Iran and Russia have employed these tactics not only in the United States during this and prior federal election cycles but also in other countries around the world.
Protecting the integrity of our elections from foreign influence or interference is our priority. As the lead for threat response, the FBI has been tracking this activity, has been in contact with the victims, and will continue to investigate and gather information in order to pursue and disrupt the threat actors responsible.

In a statement, Iran’s Mission to the United Nations called the allegations “unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing.”

Last week, with Donald Trump already publicly pointing fingers at Iran, the New York Times reported that Trump advisor Roger Stone said he was contacted by Microsoft “a few months ago” about hackers that managed to get into his Hotmail account. He also said the FBI had informed him about unauthorized access to his Gmail that they believed had been used to get access to communications of other people in the Trump operation.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran harbors neither the intention nor the motive to interfere with the U.S. presidential election. Should the U.S. government genuinely believe in the validity of its claims, it should furnish us with the pertinent evidence—if any—to which we will respond accordingly,” the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations said in a statement emailed to The Verge.

Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Images

Iran is behind attempts to hack into Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns and has already succeeded in compromising Donald Trump’s campaign, intelligence officials said in a statement issued Monday.

The joint statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) says:

We have observed increasingly aggressive Iranian activity during this election cycle, specifically involving influence operations targeting the American public and cyber operations targeting presidential campaigns.

This includes the recently reported activities to compromise former President Trump’s campaign, which the [Intelligence Community (IC)] attributes to Iran. The IC is confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the presidential campaigns of both political parties. Such activity, including thefts and disclosures, are intended to influence the U.S. election process. It is important to note that this approach is not new. Iran and Russia have employed these tactics not only in the United States during this and prior federal election cycles but also in other countries around the world.

Protecting the integrity of our elections from foreign influence or interference is our priority. As the lead for threat response, the FBI has been tracking this activity, has been in contact with the victims, and will continue to investigate and gather information in order to pursue and disrupt the threat actors responsible.

In a statement, Iran’s Mission to the United Nations called the allegations “unsubstantiated and devoid of any standing.”

Last week, with Donald Trump already publicly pointing fingers at Iran, the New York Times reported that Trump advisor Roger Stone said he was contacted by Microsoft “a few months ago” about hackers that managed to get into his Hotmail account. He also said the FBI had informed him about unauthorized access to his Gmail that they believed had been used to get access to communications of other people in the Trump operation.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran harbors neither the intention nor the motive to interfere with the U.S. presidential election. Should the U.S. government genuinely believe in the validity of its claims, it should furnish us with the pertinent evidence—if any—to which we will respond accordingly,” the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations said in a statement emailed to The Verge.

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The Echo Hub is a smart home controller that’s simple to use and set up and is currently $35 off at multiple retailers. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

If you’re looking for a simple and intuitive smart home controller even the most tech-averse family members or roommates can use, Amazon’s Echo Hub is an excellent solution. And right now, it’s down to an all-time low price of $144.99 ($35 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and B&H Photo.

The Echo Hub lets you control a wide range of smart home devices like smart lights, security devices, thermostats, and more by simply tapping its eight-inch touchscreen. It’s also mountable, so you can hang it up in the kitchen or some other place for the whole household to access. Naturally, as an Amazon gadget, the Echo Hub integrates best with Alexa, making it a particularly great buy if your smart home runs on a bunch of Alexa-enabled devices. However, the Echo Hub also supports Matter and Thread, so you can connect it to other smart home platforms if you need to.
As a nice extra, you can also use the Echo Hub like an ad-free Echo Show to play music and stream videos. It doesn’t sound as good as the Echo Show 8 and lacks a camera, but given the Echo Hub is primarily a smart home dashboard, those tradeoffs are forgivable.

Read our Amazon Echo Hub review.

More ways to save today

You can buy the Sonos Ace for $399 ($50 off) from Amazon, Best Buy, and B&H Photo, which is the best price we’ve seen on the wireless headphones. The Ace headphones deliver top-notch noise cancellation and sound, but what makes them really stand out is how well they integrate with the Sonos home audio ecosystem. If you own a Sonos soundbar like the Arc, Beam, or Ray, you can connect them so you can listen to the TV privately via your headphones.

Amazon’s Echo Spot is on sale for $54.99 ($25 off) from Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, which is $10 shy of its all-time low price. The Alexa-enabled smart speaker and alarm clock hybrid is semispherical like the Echo Pop while delivering good sound. However, unlike the Echo Pop, it offers a small smart display for showing the time, weather, and music playback but without the camera found in larger Echo Show displays for an extra sense of privacy.
Best Buy is currently running a buy two, get one free deal on select Nintendo Switch titles. The sale includes some highly anticipated games like The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and the first new Mario & Luigi game in nine years, Mario & Luigi: Brothership. It also includes beloved older games, ranging from Super Mario Odyssey and Mario Kart 8 to Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

The Echo Hub is a smart home controller that’s simple to use and set up and is currently $35 off at multiple retailers. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

If you’re looking for a simple and intuitive smart home controller even the most tech-averse family members or roommates can use, Amazon’s Echo Hub is an excellent solution. And right now, it’s down to an all-time low price of $144.99 ($35 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and B&H Photo.

The Echo Hub lets you control a wide range of smart home devices like smart lights, security devices, thermostats, and more by simply tapping its eight-inch touchscreen. It’s also mountable, so you can hang it up in the kitchen or some other place for the whole household to access. Naturally, as an Amazon gadget, the Echo Hub integrates best with Alexa, making it a particularly great buy if your smart home runs on a bunch of Alexa-enabled devices. However, the Echo Hub also supports Matter and Thread, so you can connect it to other smart home platforms if you need to.

As a nice extra, you can also use the Echo Hub like an ad-free Echo Show to play music and stream videos. It doesn’t sound as good as the Echo Show 8 and lacks a camera, but given the Echo Hub is primarily a smart home dashboard, those tradeoffs are forgivable.

Read our Amazon Echo Hub review.

More ways to save today

You can buy the Sonos Ace for $399 ($50 off) from Amazon, Best Buy, and B&H Photo, which is the best price we’ve seen on the wireless headphones. The Ace headphones deliver top-notch noise cancellation and sound, but what makes them really stand out is how well they integrate with the Sonos home audio ecosystem. If you own a Sonos soundbar like the Arc, Beam, or Ray, you can connect them so you can listen to the TV privately via your headphones.

Amazon’s Echo Spot is on sale for $54.99 ($25 off) from Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, which is $10 shy of its all-time low price. The Alexa-enabled smart speaker and alarm clock hybrid is semispherical like the Echo Pop while delivering good sound. However, unlike the Echo Pop, it offers a small smart display for showing the time, weather, and music playback but without the camera found in larger Echo Show displays for an extra sense of privacy.
Best Buy is currently running a buy two, get one free deal on select Nintendo Switch titles. The sale includes some highly anticipated games like The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and the first new Mario & Luigi game in nine years, Mario & Luigi: Brothership. It also includes beloved older games, ranging from Super Mario Odyssey and Mario Kart 8 to Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

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Mecha Break lets you ask for advice from in-game characters. | Screenshot: YouTube

Nvidia ACE, the company’s AI-powered system for giving voices and conversation skills to in-game characters, is set to debut in Mecha Break, a new multiplayer mech battle game coming to PC, Xbox X / S, and PlayStation 5 in 2025.
In Mecha Break, players can choose from a variety of mechs across categories like assault, melee, and sniper for online matches where they’ll fight both on the ground and in the air. It looks similar to something like the Armored Core series, just without a single-player mode.
Nvidia writes that players will be able to “interact via natural language with game characters” and that the characters can “see” and identify you or objects around you through your webcam, using GPT-4o. It’ll also use a combination of on-device Nvidia models and cloud-based AI to generate NPCs’ voices.

In the demonstration above, the player asked an in-game character for details about their mission and mechs, then changed their mech’s paint job by talking to it. The AI NPC’s responses were flatly delivered and bland. Maybe that’s fine when NPCs are just glorified in-game wikis.

But it might not be ideal for much beyond that. When The Verge’s Sean Hollister demoed Nvidia ACE in January, he pointed out that the characters “didn’t feel like real people,” the dialog wasn’t particularly inspiring, and that there were frequent delays before NPCs replied. Mecha Break doesn’t look like it’s any better so far, but we’ll see where things stand when it releases next year.

Mecha Break lets you ask for advice from in-game characters. | Screenshot: YouTube

Nvidia ACE, the company’s AI-powered system for giving voices and conversation skills to in-game characters, is set to debut in Mecha Break, a new multiplayer mech battle game coming to PC, Xbox X / S, and PlayStation 5 in 2025.

In Mecha Break, players can choose from a variety of mechs across categories like assault, melee, and sniper for online matches where they’ll fight both on the ground and in the air. It looks similar to something like the Armored Core series, just without a single-player mode.

Nvidia writes that players will be able to “interact via natural language with game characters” and that the characters can “see” and identify you or objects around you through your webcam, using GPT-4o. It’ll also use a combination of on-device Nvidia models and cloud-based AI to generate NPCs’ voices.

In the demonstration above, the player asked an in-game character for details about their mission and mechs, then changed their mech’s paint job by talking to it. The AI NPC’s responses were flatly delivered and bland. Maybe that’s fine when NPCs are just glorified in-game wikis.

But it might not be ideal for much beyond that. When The Verge’s Sean Hollister demoed Nvidia ACE in January, he pointed out that the characters “didn’t feel like real people,” the dialog wasn’t particularly inspiring, and that there were frequent delays before NPCs replied. Mecha Break doesn’t look like it’s any better so far, but we’ll see where things stand when it releases next year.

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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

The Olympics weren’t just good for streaming — they boosted traditional TV viewership, too. Even though the Games in Paris accounted for just three days of Nielsen’s July 2024 report, they led to a 2.3 percent boost in overall TV viewing compared to June and a 3.5 percent increase compared to the same time last year.
During the month, broadcast TV captured 20.3 percent of all viewership, marking a slight increase from last month. It also accounted for more than 22 percent of TV viewing when the Olympics kicked off in the last week of July. As pointed out by The Hollywood Reporter, it’s rare to see an increase in traditional TV viewership in July, as it’s typically one of the slowest months for broadcast and cable TV.

Image: Nielsen

Streaming similarly drew in more eyeballs, making up 41.4 percent of all TV viewing for the month. According to Nielsen, that allowed streaming to increase its share of TV by over one point, breaking the record set in June. Peacock, which exclusively streamed the Olympic Games, saw a 33 percent jump in viewing — the biggest increase Nielsen has seen since it started publishing its streaming reports in 2020.
Despite this increase, YouTube remained the top-performing streaming platform and became the first service to capture more than 10 percent of all TV viewing. Max, Disney Plus, and Prime Video also had notable boosts in viewing thanks to series like House of the Dragon, Bluey, and The Boys.
If both cable and streaming are seeing such big increases based on just three days of the Olympic Games, we’ll likely see an even bigger jump when Nielsen releases its report for the month of August.

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

The Olympics weren’t just good for streaming — they boosted traditional TV viewership, too. Even though the Games in Paris accounted for just three days of Nielsen’s July 2024 report, they led to a 2.3 percent boost in overall TV viewing compared to June and a 3.5 percent increase compared to the same time last year.

During the month, broadcast TV captured 20.3 percent of all viewership, marking a slight increase from last month. It also accounted for more than 22 percent of TV viewing when the Olympics kicked off in the last week of July. As pointed out by The Hollywood Reporter, it’s rare to see an increase in traditional TV viewership in July, as it’s typically one of the slowest months for broadcast and cable TV.

Image: Nielsen

Streaming similarly drew in more eyeballs, making up 41.4 percent of all TV viewing for the month. According to Nielsen, that allowed streaming to increase its share of TV by over one point, breaking the record set in June. Peacock, which exclusively streamed the Olympic Games, saw a 33 percent jump in viewing — the biggest increase Nielsen has seen since it started publishing its streaming reports in 2020.

Despite this increase, YouTube remained the top-performing streaming platform and became the first service to capture more than 10 percent of all TV viewing. Max, Disney Plus, and Prime Video also had notable boosts in viewing thanks to series like House of the Dragon, Bluey, and The Boys.

If both cable and streaming are seeing such big increases based on just three days of the Olympic Games, we’ll likely see an even bigger jump when Nielsen releases its report for the month of August.

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The HyperX QuadCast 2 S features 100 RGB lights that can be controlled through its Ngenuity software. | Image: HyperX

HyperX announced new versions of its QuadCast USB gaming microphones today. The QuadCast 2 and QuadCast 2 S now include a streamlined multifunction control dial and welcome upgrades to their recording quality.
The original versions of the HyperX QuadCast mics delivered a lot of functionality at a sub-$200 price point, including multiple pickup patterns and programmable LED lighting. But recording quality maxed out at 16-bit/48kHz. The new QuadCast 2 boosts recording quality up to 24-bit/96 kHz, while the QuadCast 2 S goes even higher, maxing out at 32-bit/192kHz.
The new versions are still priced under $200, although each has received a price bump. The QuadCast 2 is now $149.99 instead of $139.99, while the QuadCast 2 S is $199.99, up from $159.99.

Image: HyperX
The QuadCast 2 is still limited to just red LEDs that turn off when the mic is muted.

Both mics now feature USB-C ports (the original QuadCast was microUSB), and while the previous versions featured separate knobs for changing pickup patterns and adjusting gain, the QuadCast 2 and QuadCast 2 S have a single multifunction dial on the front that handles “gain adjustment, volume control, mic monitoring, and polar pattern selection.”
HyperX has also redesigned the shock mounts on the new models, making the microphones easier to remove without having to unscrew or disassemble anything.
The new mics carry over the LED lighting of their predecessors. The QuadCast 2 is still limited to red LEDs that turn off when the mic is muted, while the QuadCast 2 S features 100 multicolor addressable LEDs that can be controlled using HyperX’s Ngenuity desktop software to match a gaming room’s aesthetic.
The QuadCast S is due to become available today, but the more capable QuadCast S 2 is expected to be released sometime in November.

The HyperX QuadCast 2 S features 100 RGB lights that can be controlled through its Ngenuity software. | Image: HyperX

HyperX announced new versions of its QuadCast USB gaming microphones today. The QuadCast 2 and QuadCast 2 S now include a streamlined multifunction control dial and welcome upgrades to their recording quality.

The original versions of the HyperX QuadCast mics delivered a lot of functionality at a sub-$200 price point, including multiple pickup patterns and programmable LED lighting. But recording quality maxed out at 16-bit/48kHz. The new QuadCast 2 boosts recording quality up to 24-bit/96 kHz, while the QuadCast 2 S goes even higher, maxing out at 32-bit/192kHz.

The new versions are still priced under $200, although each has received a price bump. The QuadCast 2 is now $149.99 instead of $139.99, while the QuadCast 2 S is $199.99, up from $159.99.

Image: HyperX
The QuadCast 2 is still limited to just red LEDs that turn off when the mic is muted.

Both mics now feature USB-C ports (the original QuadCast was microUSB), and while the previous versions featured separate knobs for changing pickup patterns and adjusting gain, the QuadCast 2 and QuadCast 2 S have a single multifunction dial on the front that handles “gain adjustment, volume control, mic monitoring, and polar pattern selection.”

HyperX has also redesigned the shock mounts on the new models, making the microphones easier to remove without having to unscrew or disassemble anything.

The new mics carry over the LED lighting of their predecessors. The QuadCast 2 is still limited to red LEDs that turn off when the mic is muted, while the QuadCast 2 S features 100 multicolor addressable LEDs that can be controlled using HyperX’s Ngenuity desktop software to match a gaming room’s aesthetic.

The QuadCast S is due to become available today, but the more capable QuadCast S 2 is expected to be released sometime in November.

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Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

Having your Windows PC start up is something that’s normally taken for granted — until it pauses mid-boot. You may be faced with a serious problem that needs some serious troubleshooting.
Here are some key steps for dealing with problems that may come up when you’re booting a Windows PC. With loads of possible hardware and software combinations out there, it’s hard to be definitive about what might have gone wrong or how to fix it, but this should at least get you pointed in the right direction.

A reminder: sometimes you’re going to need to replace or reformat your main Windows drive when this happens, and that’s why it’s essential that you always have all your files and folders safely backed up.
One more note: if you’ve got an Arm-based Windows PC, try the three-boot method described below. If that doesn’t work, you may have to ask the manufacturer for a recovery image that you can put on a bootable flash drive.
Windows won’t load
First up is where your computer appears to start up as normal and gets past the basic system checks (usually displaying the motherboard or manufacturer logo on the screen) but then won’t load Windows. The problem could be hardware-based, like a defective storage drive, but you might be able to fix it with tools built into Windows itself.
First up, try turning your PC on and off again, a fix that works surprisingly often:

Power down the PC by pressing and holding the power button.
Remove all peripherals (except the keyboard, mouse, and monitor on a desktop).
Wait five minutes.
Boot up the PC by pressing the power button again.

You might be back in business. If not, you might get sent to the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), which has a pale blue backdrop and simple interface and offers some troubleshooting options under the Troubleshoot heading.
If the WinRE screen doesn’t show up after a failed boot, you can launch it with the three-boot method:

Start up your computer, and when the boot process begins, press and hold the power button for about 10 seconds to turn the PC off.
Repeat the process twice.
In the third boot, you should be in the WinRE.

Black Screen of Death
This strategy can also be useful if you get what is popularly known as the “Black Screen of Death” — in other words, your PC turns on but doesn’t show anything on the screen. In that case, relaunching it three times could put you in WinRE. You can also try restarting the video driver by pressing the Windows + Ctrl + Shift + B keys.
But first, try adjusting the brightness settings or checking your connections. Sometimes it’s the simplest solutions that work.
Safe Mode

Screenshot: Microsoft
The WinRE feature (which is similar for Windows 10 and 11) gives you access to some basic troubleshooting tools.

It’s possible that you can launch Windows in Safe Mode: pick Advanced options > Startup Settings > Restart, then tap 5 for Safe Mode with networking. This starts Windows with just the basics in terms of settings and drivers, and if this works, you can try rolling back recent app updates or uninstalling tools you’ve recently added.
If you can’t get into Safe Mode, another option from the WinRE Troubleshoot menu is Startup Repair. This does exactly what it sounds like: Windows will attempt to reset settings and configurations related to the boot-up process that may have become corrupted.
Also on the Troubleshoot screen, you’ve got Uninstall Updates. If you think a recent Windows update may have caused your boot-up woes, then you can roll back the latest update.
Should you still not be able to get into Windows and you’re returned to WinRE, after Troubleshoot, choose Command Prompt. This gives you access to a text interface where you can run some basic disk checks and fixes: Microsoft has a list of commands you can try.
More WinRE and BIOS / UEFI troubleshooting options
If you’re getting no joy from WinRE, head to the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) screen, now called the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) on newer computers. This is the software running on the motherboard, which kicks into action before Windows is loaded from disk.
If Windows isn’t starting, you may get dumped into the BIOS / UEFI automatically, or you may need to tap a key while the system is loading to get there. The key will typically be something like F2 or Del, but you should see a message on the screen that tells you more.
There’s not a whole lot you can do from the BIOS / UEFI, but you can at least run some diagnostic checks and look under the storage section to see if your system drives are actually being recognized at the motherboard level. There should also be an option to reset the BIOS / UEFI back to the defaults — this is worth trying, too, to put the boot-up process back to its factory state.

Screenshot: Microsoft
You may need to install Windows again from a USB drive.

If you’ve come all this way and still can’t get Windows to load, the most logical next step is reinstalling Windows. The reinstall option may appear as Reset this PC under Troubleshoot in WinRE, but not always — it depends on your system and what’s gone wrong. If it is there, you’ll be able to choose Keep my files (which will repair Windows without touching your data) or Remove everything (which wipes the drive and then puts a clean install of Windows on top).
If WinRE isn’t offering you these options, you can borrow a Windows PC from a friend or family member and create a USB drive or DVD you can install the operating system from. Microsoft has full instructions for how to do this. This will wipe and reset everything, and it should restore Windows to its original state.
Once the USB or DVD has been created, you’ll need to boot from it on the faulty PC: this requires another trip to the BIOS / UEFI, where there will be an option to boot from the installation media you’ve just created, rather than the system drive.
Hardware failure problems
If all else fails, there may be a hardware failure, which limits what you can do yourself to fix it.
If you press the power switch on your Windows PC and nothing happens — no lights, no whirring, no nothing — the fault could have something to do with the motherboard or with the power coming into the computer.
If the power supply or battery appears to be working but you’re not seeing anything onscreen and none of the Black Screen of Death solutions work, there’s a chance the motherboard might have died. You may get a beep or two — these are error codes and you can try looking up the beep combination and your motherboard model on the web. After that, it depends how confident you feel replacing components yourself. If you want to give it a try, iFixit is a good place to start.

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

Having your Windows PC start up is something that’s normally taken for granted — until it pauses mid-boot. You may be faced with a serious problem that needs some serious troubleshooting.

Here are some key steps for dealing with problems that may come up when you’re booting a Windows PC. With loads of possible hardware and software combinations out there, it’s hard to be definitive about what might have gone wrong or how to fix it, but this should at least get you pointed in the right direction.

A reminder: sometimes you’re going to need to replace or reformat your main Windows drive when this happens, and that’s why it’s essential that you always have all your files and folders safely backed up.

One more note: if you’ve got an Arm-based Windows PC, try the three-boot method described below. If that doesn’t work, you may have to ask the manufacturer for a recovery image that you can put on a bootable flash drive.

Windows won’t load

First up is where your computer appears to start up as normal and gets past the basic system checks (usually displaying the motherboard or manufacturer logo on the screen) but then won’t load Windows. The problem could be hardware-based, like a defective storage drive, but you might be able to fix it with tools built into Windows itself.

First up, try turning your PC on and off again, a fix that works surprisingly often:

Power down the PC by pressing and holding the power button.
Remove all peripherals (except the keyboard, mouse, and monitor on a desktop).
Wait five minutes.
Boot up the PC by pressing the power button again.

You might be back in business. If not, you might get sent to the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), which has a pale blue backdrop and simple interface and offers some troubleshooting options under the Troubleshoot heading.

If the WinRE screen doesn’t show up after a failed boot, you can launch it with the three-boot method:

Start up your computer, and when the boot process begins, press and hold the power button for about 10 seconds to turn the PC off.
Repeat the process twice.
In the third boot, you should be in the WinRE.

Black Screen of Death

This strategy can also be useful if you get what is popularly known as the “Black Screen of Death” — in other words, your PC turns on but doesn’t show anything on the screen. In that case, relaunching it three times could put you in WinRE. You can also try restarting the video driver by pressing the Windows + Ctrl + Shift + B keys.

But first, try adjusting the brightness settings or checking your connections. Sometimes it’s the simplest solutions that work.

Safe Mode

Screenshot: Microsoft
The WinRE feature (which is similar for Windows 10 and 11) gives you access to some basic troubleshooting tools.

It’s possible that you can launch Windows in Safe Mode: pick Advanced options > Startup Settings > Restart, then tap 5 for Safe Mode with networking. This starts Windows with just the basics in terms of settings and drivers, and if this works, you can try rolling back recent app updates or uninstalling tools you’ve recently added.

If you can’t get into Safe Mode, another option from the WinRE Troubleshoot menu is Startup Repair. This does exactly what it sounds like: Windows will attempt to reset settings and configurations related to the boot-up process that may have become corrupted.

Also on the Troubleshoot screen, you’ve got Uninstall Updates. If you think a recent Windows update may have caused your boot-up woes, then you can roll back the latest update.

Should you still not be able to get into Windows and you’re returned to WinRE, after Troubleshoot, choose Command Prompt. This gives you access to a text interface where you can run some basic disk checks and fixes: Microsoft has a list of commands you can try.

More WinRE and BIOS / UEFI troubleshooting options

If you’re getting no joy from WinRE, head to the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) screen, now called the UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) on newer computers. This is the software running on the motherboard, which kicks into action before Windows is loaded from disk.

If Windows isn’t starting, you may get dumped into the BIOS / UEFI automatically, or you may need to tap a key while the system is loading to get there. The key will typically be something like F2 or Del, but you should see a message on the screen that tells you more.

There’s not a whole lot you can do from the BIOS / UEFI, but you can at least run some diagnostic checks and look under the storage section to see if your system drives are actually being recognized at the motherboard level. There should also be an option to reset the BIOS / UEFI back to the defaults — this is worth trying, too, to put the boot-up process back to its factory state.

Screenshot: Microsoft
You may need to install Windows again from a USB drive.

If you’ve come all this way and still can’t get Windows to load, the most logical next step is reinstalling Windows. The reinstall option may appear as Reset this PC under Troubleshoot in WinRE, but not always — it depends on your system and what’s gone wrong. If it is there, you’ll be able to choose Keep my files (which will repair Windows without touching your data) or Remove everything (which wipes the drive and then puts a clean install of Windows on top).

If WinRE isn’t offering you these options, you can borrow a Windows PC from a friend or family member and create a USB drive or DVD you can install the operating system from. Microsoft has full instructions for how to do this. This will wipe and reset everything, and it should restore Windows to its original state.

Once the USB or DVD has been created, you’ll need to boot from it on the faulty PC: this requires another trip to the BIOS / UEFI, where there will be an option to boot from the installation media you’ve just created, rather than the system drive.

Hardware failure problems

If all else fails, there may be a hardware failure, which limits what you can do yourself to fix it.

If you press the power switch on your Windows PC and nothing happens — no lights, no whirring, no nothing — the fault could have something to do with the motherboard or with the power coming into the computer.

If the power supply or battery appears to be working but you’re not seeing anything onscreen and none of the Black Screen of Death solutions work, there’s a chance the motherboard might have died. You may get a beep or two — these are error codes and you can try looking up the beep combination and your motherboard model on the web. After that, it depends how confident you feel replacing components yourself. If you want to give it a try, iFixit is a good place to start.

Read More 

The Energy Observer, a boat powered by hydrogen and other renewable energy sources, sailing in the Gulf of Thailand in 2022. | Photo by Pitcha Dangprasith / AFP via Getty Images

Mining trucks, cement mixers, and terminal tractors all seem like the perfect use of hydrogen fuel cells. But they run into the same challenges around price and fueling. Twenty years ago, it seemed like hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would have a bright future.
The cars were cool — luxury sedans with sleek interiors and futuristic-looking touchscreens. They were environmentally friendly, with water vapor as their only byproduct. Regulators were on board, promising big investments for the fueling infrastructure. A bet on the most abundant element in the universe in the fight against air pollution, and eventually climate change, seemed like a sure thing.
But despite tens of thousands of vehicles sold and billions of dollars spent on fueling, that bet has yet to pay off. California remains the only state in the country with any sort of hydrogen fueling infrastructure, with fewer than 50 stations currently in operation. Vehicle sales have essentially collapsed: only 322 fuel cell vehicles were sold in the first half of 2024, 82 percent lower than a year ago.
The fueling infrastructure also seems on the brink of collapse. Stations are shutting down, and the ones that are still in operation are routinely offline due to tech problems and fuel shortages. The price of hydrogen continues to climb, as production problems and supply shortages roil the market.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk called hydrogen fuel cell vehicles “mind-bogglingly stupid”
Critics have panned hydrogen as an inefficient and illogical way to decarbonize transportation. After all, battery-electric vehicles already exist. Tesla CEO Elon Musk called hydrogen fuel cell vehicles “mind-bogglingly stupid.”
But hydrogen still has the potential to be a game changer in the fight against climate change, if we can find a better solution. Despite their early failures, major companies are still pouring billions of dollars into the technology. Governments are drawing up infrastructure plans and passing tax credits in the hopes that they can provide a helping hand.
If hydrogen fuel cells are to hang on, it’s time to think bigger.

We attempt to cross California in a car powered entirely by hydrogen gas — a Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV).

Out to sea
The boat bobbing in the waters near Wall Street doesn’t look like the other vessels that typically populate New York’s congested waterways. For one, it isn’t belching diesel smoke like all the shipping containers, oil tankers, and garbage barges. Actually, it isn’t emitting any pollution at all.
The ship, named the Energy Observer, is a sleek, 100-foot-long former French racing catamaran retrofitted with solar panels, slowing sipping sunlight to send to the four lithium-ion batteries sitting below deck. The panels cover almost the entire surface of the boat, so you either have to wear special cloth booties to come on board — or just go barefoot.
On an overcast day last April, it had just completed a seven-year voyage around the world, visiting numerous countries to preach the gospel of renewable energy. Energy Observer is basically a floating laboratory, where its six-person crew can conduct experiments on sustainable energy in order to prove how it can be used to power all types of vessels.

Image: Getty
The guts of the Energy Observer, where a Toyota-made fuel cell generates some of the power.

The boat produces all the energy it needs to sail, and it does that through three different methods. The first is solar, through the aforementioned panels. The second is wind power, which is generated through these massive twin masts that look like two airfoils standing straight up. The crew calls these “Ocean Wings,” and they make about 30 percent of the boat’s propulsion power and can move the boat up to 12 knots without impacting its electricity consumption.
The third is hydrogen, which works like this: Seawater is filtered through the hulls to be desalinated and purified before an electrolyzer splits H20 into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is then converted into electricity courtesy of a Toyota fuel cell, a similar version of the technology that is used in the automaker’s hydrogen-powered sedans, which emit water vapor instead of carbon pollution.
The hydrogen is then converted into electricity courtesy of a Toyota fuel cell
“That’s really the purpose of the ship,” said George Conty, the ship’s affably Swiss boatswain, “producing hydrogen from a mix of renewable energies.”
The Energy Observer isn’t very fast, maxing out at around 11 knots, which is much slower than a typical catamaran. Its racing days are long gone, which makes sense because speed isn’t the ship’s ultimate mission. It’s a demonstration project to prove that hydrogen from renewable sources can be a viable alternative to diesel and other polluting fuels used in maritime.
Shipping accounts for about 3 percent of greenhouse gasses, similar to flying. Transportation on the whole represents over a quarter of all planet-warming emissions. Decarbonizing the sector will be a monumental challenge, and lithium-ion batteries can’t do it alone.
Energy Observer’s team isn’t just banking on a 100-foot-long catamaran to prove its point. A successor, a massive cargo ship called the Energy Observer 2, is still just in the planning phases. And if the companies backing the project can raise enough money to fund its creation — and that’s a big if — it has the potential to demonstrate that liquid hydrogen deserves to be discussed alongside other less carbon-intensive alternatives like biofuels, ammonia, and natural gas.
The Energy Observer 2 will be able to transport 1,100 20-foot-long shipping containers over a distance of 1,800 nautical miles
Once built, the Energy Observer 2 will be able to transport 1,100 20-foot-long shipping containers over a distance of 1,800 nautical miles — not enough for a trans-Atlantic crossing, but enough for intercontinental trips. Like its predecessor, the cargo ship will also run on hydrogen fuel cells provided by car companies like Toyota — just a lot more of them. Over 100 fuel cells, using over 40 tons of liquid hydrogen, generating approximately 4.8 megawatts of power.
“No project in the world has this power,” Victorien Erussard, the ship’s captain, told me. But his venture is already running into familiar problems around cost and refueling infrastructure. It’s not going to be an easy transition. It will require more investors, more supporters, and more true believers in hydrogen to make this work.
“Many, many, many more boats,” Erussard said.

Truck stuff
But also trucks — which General Motors knows a thing or two about. Especially the leviathan-sized ones that are big enough to handle the heaviest loads.
GM was one of the first automakers to stick a hydrogen fuel cell into a vehicle. The company’s 1966 Electrovan, a converted GMC Handi-Bus with hydrogen-oxygen power, could reportedly do 70mph and travel 150 miles.
Today, the company’s fuel cell-powered vehicles look a little different. GM’s Hydrotec division is investing in heavy-duty trucks — think mining equipment, cement mixers, and terminal tractors — as well as a few medium-duty ones. The idea is to use hydrogen to decarbonize heavy industries, which is ill-suited for battery-electric vehicles that are slow to charge.
Even hydrogen’s profound fueling shortcomings could be easily fixed. Heavy-duty trucks typically operate in confined spaces, like construction sites, warehouses, ports, and quarries. Under those circumstances, fueling stations can be centrally located to service a whole fleet of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. No need for a hydrogen fueling station on every residential street corner.
GM was one of the first automakers to stick a hydrogen fuel cell into a vehicle
It’s still “early days,” Hydrotec’s executive director, Charlie Freese, tells me. GM is still testing its technology to see what works and what won’t. In addition to the trucks, there’s also the fuel cells themselves, bundled together into a cube-shaped package, befittingly called Power Cubes. These cubes, developed alongside Honda, can be used to power several different vehicles. They can even be used for stationary power generators for outdoor events, replacing all those dirty diesel generators used today.
Other automakers, like Toyota, rushed too quickly into the passenger vehicle market before the fueling infrastructure was in place, Freese said. The Toyota Mirai, the first mainstream fuel cell vehicle that was first introduced in 2014, may have been a ground-breaking vehicle at the time, but now it’s an albatross for many of the owners.
“It was clear that that wouldn’t be a very rewarding experience,” Freese said. “The technology really lends itself best to the heaviest vehicles, the ones that carry heavy payloads, travel the longest distances, and need very fast refueling.”
GM has not released a fuel cell vehicle for the consumer market, but its joint venture with Honda just started mass-producing fuel cells at its Michigan plant earlier this year. And a medium-duty truck, based on the Chevy Silverado 5500, is on the way. GM thinks it could be the ideal work truck for farmers.
“It’s not going to be perfect right at the immediate outset,” Freese admitted. Most hydrogen in the US is what’s called “gray hydrogen,” meaning it is produced through a process called steam methane reforming, which emits greenhouse gases. The hope is to eventually switch to “green hydrogen,” made by renewable energy sources like solar and wind. But we’re not there yet.
“If I’m using a hydrogen fuel cell, I’m greening my fleet, even if it’s gray hydrogen,” Freese said. “And over time, the gray hydrogen can be replaced with green hydrogen. But that takes more of a build-out of the infrastructure… they got to grow together.”

Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Fueling failures
Jacob Brouwer was one of those early adopters of hydrogen. He drove a Toyota Mirai for over seven years, attracted to its smooth acceleration, boastful range, and luxury interior. The $15,000 prepaid fueling card from Toyota didn’t hurt, either.
But these days, he drives a Tesla. It doesn’t reflect well on hydrogen when the director of UC Irvine’s Clean Energy Institute has decided that a car made by Elon Musk is preferable to one that runs on fuel cells. He blames California’s energy regulators for fumbling the rollout, failing to get to the promised 200 stations and leaving the project incomplete.
“We just didn’t fulfill the plan,” Brouwer says. “I feel very bad for the Mirai owners.”
“I feel very bad for the Mirai owners.”
But despite his firsthand experience with the shortcomings, he’s less pessimistic than most when it comes to the future of hydrogen. In addition to boats and heavy trucks, he sees numerous applications as being perfect for fuel cell technology, including tractors, buses, freight, trains, light-duty hybrid vehicles, and even aviation.
Indeed, there have been some compelling experiments in fuel cell-powered flight. Joby Aviation is developing a hydrogen-powered version of its vertical takeoff and landing aircraft for longer trips between cities. And American Airlines recently agreed to buy 100 hydrogen-electric engines from ZeroAvia, a fuel cell aviation startup, to power its regional jets.
Aviation is especially difficult to decarbonize; aircraft need to be just light enough to achieve flight, and heavy lithium-ion batteries would screw up that ratio. Hydrogen is practically feathery in comparison.
There are uses for hydrogen even beyond transportation, Brouwer said. Cement and steel comprise about 12 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Hydrogen is better suited to decarbonize cement and steel production than batteries. Data centers housing servers powering the AI boom — you could run those with hydrogen, too. The list goes on.
But for an element as abundant as hydrogen, it can be maddeningly hard to find.
“Electricity is available everywhere, but hydrogen isn’t”
For all of these applications to become a reality, to become more than just glorified experiments like the Energy Observer or GM’s Power Cubes, they need the fueling infrastructure to rise up, too. Battery-electric vehicles never quite had it this bad. Sure, the public charging experience for EVs leaves a lot to be desired. But electricity has a big head start.
“Electricity goes to every business,” Brouwer said. “Electricity is available everywhere, but hydrogen isn’t.”
He thinks it can get there. The Biden administration is all in on hydrogen, approving tax credits to support the production of green hydrogen and doling out $7 billion for regional production hubs across the US. Things still look grim for the average Toyota Mirai owner, but the clouds seem to be clearing for everything that’s not a light-duty vehicle.
“We are at the beginning of the beginning,” Brouwer said. It’s a strange way to think about a technology that is decades, if not centuries, old. But it’s finally looking as if hydrogen is ready to pull its own weight.

The Energy Observer, a boat powered by hydrogen and other renewable energy sources, sailing in the Gulf of Thailand in 2022. | Photo by Pitcha Dangprasith / AFP via Getty Images

Mining trucks, cement mixers, and terminal tractors all seem like the perfect use of hydrogen fuel cells. But they run into the same challenges around price and fueling.

Twenty years ago, it seemed like hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would have a bright future.

The cars were cool — luxury sedans with sleek interiors and futuristic-looking touchscreens. They were environmentally friendly, with water vapor as their only byproduct. Regulators were on board, promising big investments for the fueling infrastructure. A bet on the most abundant element in the universe in the fight against air pollution, and eventually climate change, seemed like a sure thing.

But despite tens of thousands of vehicles sold and billions of dollars spent on fueling, that bet has yet to pay off. California remains the only state in the country with any sort of hydrogen fueling infrastructure, with fewer than 50 stations currently in operation. Vehicle sales have essentially collapsed: only 322 fuel cell vehicles were sold in the first half of 2024, 82 percent lower than a year ago.

The fueling infrastructure also seems on the brink of collapse. Stations are shutting down, and the ones that are still in operation are routinely offline due to tech problems and fuel shortages. The price of hydrogen continues to climb, as production problems and supply shortages roil the market.

Critics have panned hydrogen as an inefficient and illogical way to decarbonize transportation. After all, battery-electric vehicles already exist. Tesla CEO Elon Musk called hydrogen fuel cell vehicles “mind-bogglingly stupid.”

But hydrogen still has the potential to be a game changer in the fight against climate change, if we can find a better solution. Despite their early failures, major companies are still pouring billions of dollars into the technology. Governments are drawing up infrastructure plans and passing tax credits in the hopes that they can provide a helping hand.

If hydrogen fuel cells are to hang on, it’s time to think bigger.

Out to sea

The boat bobbing in the waters near Wall Street doesn’t look like the other vessels that typically populate New York’s congested waterways. For one, it isn’t belching diesel smoke like all the shipping containers, oil tankers, and garbage barges. Actually, it isn’t emitting any pollution at all.

The ship, named the Energy Observer, is a sleek, 100-foot-long former French racing catamaran retrofitted with solar panels, slowing sipping sunlight to send to the four lithium-ion batteries sitting below deck. The panels cover almost the entire surface of the boat, so you either have to wear special cloth booties to come on board — or just go barefoot.

On an overcast day last April, it had just completed a seven-year voyage around the world, visiting numerous countries to preach the gospel of renewable energy. Energy Observer is basically a floating laboratory, where its six-person crew can conduct experiments on sustainable energy in order to prove how it can be used to power all types of vessels.

Image: Getty
The guts of the Energy Observer, where a Toyota-made fuel cell generates some of the power.

The boat produces all the energy it needs to sail, and it does that through three different methods. The first is solar, through the aforementioned panels. The second is wind power, which is generated through these massive twin masts that look like two airfoils standing straight up. The crew calls these “Ocean Wings,” and they make about 30 percent of the boat’s propulsion power and can move the boat up to 12 knots without impacting its electricity consumption.

The third is hydrogen, which works like this: Seawater is filtered through the hulls to be desalinated and purified before an electrolyzer splits H20 into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is then converted into electricity courtesy of a Toyota fuel cell, a similar version of the technology that is used in the automaker’s hydrogen-powered sedans, which emit water vapor instead of carbon pollution.

“That’s really the purpose of the ship,” said George Conty, the ship’s affably Swiss boatswain, “producing hydrogen from a mix of renewable energies.”

The Energy Observer isn’t very fast, maxing out at around 11 knots, which is much slower than a typical catamaran. Its racing days are long gone, which makes sense because speed isn’t the ship’s ultimate mission. It’s a demonstration project to prove that hydrogen from renewable sources can be a viable alternative to diesel and other polluting fuels used in maritime.

Shipping accounts for about 3 percent of greenhouse gasses, similar to flying. Transportation on the whole represents over a quarter of all planet-warming emissions. Decarbonizing the sector will be a monumental challenge, and lithium-ion batteries can’t do it alone.

Energy Observer’s team isn’t just banking on a 100-foot-long catamaran to prove its point. A successor, a massive cargo ship called the Energy Observer 2, is still just in the planning phases. And if the companies backing the project can raise enough money to fund its creation — and that’s a big if — it has the potential to demonstrate that liquid hydrogen deserves to be discussed alongside other less carbon-intensive alternatives like biofuels, ammonia, and natural gas.

Once built, the Energy Observer 2 will be able to transport 1,100 20-foot-long shipping containers over a distance of 1,800 nautical miles — not enough for a trans-Atlantic crossing, but enough for intercontinental trips. Like its predecessor, the cargo ship will also run on hydrogen fuel cells provided by car companies like Toyota — just a lot more of them. Over 100 fuel cells, using over 40 tons of liquid hydrogen, generating approximately 4.8 megawatts of power.

“No project in the world has this power,” Victorien Erussard, the ship’s captain, told me. But his venture is already running into familiar problems around cost and refueling infrastructure. It’s not going to be an easy transition. It will require more investors, more supporters, and more true believers in hydrogen to make this work.

“Many, many, many more boats,” Erussard said.

Truck stuff

But also trucks — which General Motors knows a thing or two about. Especially the leviathan-sized ones that are big enough to handle the heaviest loads.

GM was one of the first automakers to stick a hydrogen fuel cell into a vehicle. The company’s 1966 Electrovan, a converted GMC Handi-Bus with hydrogen-oxygen power, could reportedly do 70mph and travel 150 miles.

Today, the company’s fuel cell-powered vehicles look a little different. GM’s Hydrotec division is investing in heavy-duty trucks — think mining equipment, cement mixers, and terminal tractors — as well as a few medium-duty ones. The idea is to use hydrogen to decarbonize heavy industries, which is ill-suited for battery-electric vehicles that are slow to charge.

Even hydrogen’s profound fueling shortcomings could be easily fixed. Heavy-duty trucks typically operate in confined spaces, like construction sites, warehouses, ports, and quarries. Under those circumstances, fueling stations can be centrally located to service a whole fleet of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. No need for a hydrogen fueling station on every residential street corner.

It’s still “early days,” Hydrotec’s executive director, Charlie Freese, tells me. GM is still testing its technology to see what works and what won’t. In addition to the trucks, there’s also the fuel cells themselves, bundled together into a cube-shaped package, befittingly called Power Cubes. These cubes, developed alongside Honda, can be used to power several different vehicles. They can even be used for stationary power generators for outdoor events, replacing all those dirty diesel generators used today.

Other automakers, like Toyota, rushed too quickly into the passenger vehicle market before the fueling infrastructure was in place, Freese said. The Toyota Mirai, the first mainstream fuel cell vehicle that was first introduced in 2014, may have been a ground-breaking vehicle at the time, but now it’s an albatross for many of the owners.

“It was clear that that wouldn’t be a very rewarding experience,” Freese said. “The technology really lends itself best to the heaviest vehicles, the ones that carry heavy payloads, travel the longest distances, and need very fast refueling.”

GM has not released a fuel cell vehicle for the consumer market, but its joint venture with Honda just started mass-producing fuel cells at its Michigan plant earlier this year. And a medium-duty truck, based on the Chevy Silverado 5500, is on the way. GM thinks it could be the ideal work truck for farmers.

“It’s not going to be perfect right at the immediate outset,” Freese admitted. Most hydrogen in the US is what’s called “gray hydrogen,” meaning it is produced through a process called steam methane reforming, which emits greenhouse gases. The hope is to eventually switch to “green hydrogen,” made by renewable energy sources like solar and wind. But we’re not there yet.

“If I’m using a hydrogen fuel cell, I’m greening my fleet, even if it’s gray hydrogen,” Freese said. “And over time, the gray hydrogen can be replaced with green hydrogen. But that takes more of a build-out of the infrastructure… they got to grow together.”

Fueling failures

Jacob Brouwer was one of those early adopters of hydrogen. He drove a Toyota Mirai for over seven years, attracted to its smooth acceleration, boastful range, and luxury interior. The $15,000 prepaid fueling card from Toyota didn’t hurt, either.

But these days, he drives a Tesla. It doesn’t reflect well on hydrogen when the director of UC Irvine’s Clean Energy Institute has decided that a car made by Elon Musk is preferable to one that runs on fuel cells. He blames California’s energy regulators for fumbling the rollout, failing to get to the promised 200 stations and leaving the project incomplete.

“We just didn’t fulfill the plan,” Brouwer says. “I feel very bad for the Mirai owners.”

But despite his firsthand experience with the shortcomings, he’s less pessimistic than most when it comes to the future of hydrogen. In addition to boats and heavy trucks, he sees numerous applications as being perfect for fuel cell technology, including tractors, buses, freight, trains, light-duty hybrid vehicles, and even aviation.

Indeed, there have been some compelling experiments in fuel cell-powered flight. Joby Aviation is developing a hydrogen-powered version of its vertical takeoff and landing aircraft for longer trips between cities. And American Airlines recently agreed to buy 100 hydrogen-electric engines from ZeroAvia, a fuel cell aviation startup, to power its regional jets.

Aviation is especially difficult to decarbonize; aircraft need to be just light enough to achieve flight, and heavy lithium-ion batteries would screw up that ratio. Hydrogen is practically feathery in comparison.

There are uses for hydrogen even beyond transportation, Brouwer said. Cement and steel comprise about 12 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Hydrogen is better suited to decarbonize cement and steel production than batteries. Data centers housing servers powering the AI boom — you could run those with hydrogen, too. The list goes on.

But for an element as abundant as hydrogen, it can be maddeningly hard to find.

For all of these applications to become a reality, to become more than just glorified experiments like the Energy Observer or GM’s Power Cubes, they need the fueling infrastructure to rise up, too. Battery-electric vehicles never quite had it this bad. Sure, the public charging experience for EVs leaves a lot to be desired. But electricity has a big head start.

“Electricity goes to every business,” Brouwer said. “Electricity is available everywhere, but hydrogen isn’t.”

He thinks it can get there. The Biden administration is all in on hydrogen, approving tax credits to support the production of green hydrogen and doling out $7 billion for regional production hubs across the US. Things still look grim for the average Toyota Mirai owner, but the clouds seem to be clearing for everything that’s not a light-duty vehicle.

“We are at the beginning of the beginning,” Brouwer said. It’s a strange way to think about a technology that is decades, if not centuries, old. But it’s finally looking as if hydrogen is ready to pull its own weight.

Read More 

In 2004, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced plans for a “hydrogen highway.” It called for a new kind of fuel station, built to support a new kind of electric vehicle. Cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells could help clean up the air and free the US from foreign oil — and California could lead the way.
That’s not what happened. Twenty years later, the American auto industry is shifting overwhelmingly to electric vehicles… but they run on batteries, not hydrogen. The hydrogen highway is littered with shortages, high prices, and faulty equipment. Thousands of drivers across the state are left wondering whether they bet on the wrong future.
We wanted to find out what happened to California’s hydrogen dream.
So, we hit the road.
Our mission: a roughly 450-mile trip across California in a Toyota Mirai, the most popular hydrogen-powered car on the market today. We planned to drive around the Bay Area, down through Central California, and into Los Angeles, visiting as many stations and meeting as many drivers as possible along the way.
Bay Area
Milpitas
We rented a Mirai on Turo — it was one of only two available hydrogen-powered cars on the platform in the Bay Area. The car’s owner, Salman, told us he was concerned about our itinerary.
Cupertino
Manideep and Rupesh were the first fuel cell drivers we met. They’ve been driving their Mirai for about four months, and while they love the car, the fuel situation is wearing on them. They also had some advice for our road trip.
Sunnyvale
All the hydrogen pumps we saw were co-located at traditional gas stations; the hydrogen distributor leases the space from station owners. At some stations, hydrogen pumps were sandwiched between gas pumps.
Palo Alto
One pump we visited in Palo Alto has been offline for two years. The pump’s operator, FirstElement Fuel, told us that it took the pump over from a different hydrogen supplier but that systems issues have prevented it from bringing the station online.
South San Francisco
Earlier this year, Shell closed nearly all of its hydrogen stations across the state; there are no longer any active stations in the city of San Francisco. It’s put additional strain on the remaining Bay Area stations.
Oakland
Another Mirai driver we met, Rebecca, was committed to her car and more optimistic about the future of hydrogen.
San Jose
We needed to top off the tank before leaving the Bay Area. The final station we visited was online — but actually getting fuel was another story.
Along the I-5 corridor between San Francisco and Los Angeles, there are hundreds of battery EV charging plugs — and one hydrogen pump. It’s at a place called Harris Ranch, a rest stop deep in California’s Central Valley. Since our Mirai wasn’t likely to make it all the way to SoCal on one tank, we stopped at Harris Ranch to refuel and see whether other hydrogen road trippers showed up.
Harris Ranch
Harris Ranch Resort
The Harris Ranch Resort is massive. In addition to a Shell gas station, Tesla Superchargers, and a hydrogen pump, it also boasts a Spanish hacienda-style hotel, multiple restaurants, and a gift shop with its own butcher counter.
Tesla Supercharger
The Harris Ranch Supercharger station is reportedly the largest bank of chargers ever built by Tesla. While waiting for hydrogen cars to show up, we wandered over and asked Tesla drivers about life with their battery-electric cars.
James Sweet Bonsai
James Kim has been selling bonsai trees for 23 years. His van is parked just across the street from the exit to Harris Ranch, and he says he gets customers from all over. His largest trees are more than 30 years old.
Hydrogen Fuel Station
After four hours of waiting, another Mirai finally showed up. Billy Chen has made the trip between LA and San Francisco several times — he’s the only driver we found who has.
Since September of 2023, 13 hydrogen stations in the Los Angeles area have been largely offline due to problems with a regional fuel supplier. The shortage has been a major headache for fuel cell drivers in LA — and there are more here than anywhere else in the state.
Los Angeles
San Fernando
The first station we reached in Southern California had four fuel pumps and was unaffected by the hydrogen shortage. Unsurprisingly, it was the busiest station we visited.
Sherman Oaks
There’s a concentration of hydrogen-powered cars here in LA, but the ecosystem is still exceptionally niche. In the first half of 2024, about 322 fuel cell cars were sold in California. At many stations, Mirai sightings were rare.
Burbank
We heard a similar story from lots of drivers: they were considering a battery-electric car but were talked into a Mirai. Many regretted the choice.
Studio City
Like in the Bay Area, there are very few stations in Southern California outside of Greater Los Angeles. So, road trips farther afield are risky.
Hollywood
As of publication, there is no estimate for when the hydrogen supply shortage in Southern California will be resolved, leaving stations like this one offline indefinitely. The shortage will hit the one-year mark in September.
Even if California’s hydrogen highway falls apart, fuel cell technology may still find its niche in a decarbonizing world. The Verge’s Andrew Hawkins dove into the world of hydrogen-powered trucks, boats, planes, and a lot more.

In 2004, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced plans for a “hydrogen highway.” It called for a new kind of fuel station, built to support a new kind of electric vehicle. Cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells could help clean up the air and free the US from foreign oil — and California could lead the way.

That’s not what happened. Twenty years later, the American auto industry is shifting overwhelmingly to electric vehicles… but they run on batteries, not hydrogen. The hydrogen highway is littered with shortages, high prices, and faulty equipment. Thousands of drivers across the state are left wondering whether they bet on the wrong future.

We wanted to find out what happened to California’s hydrogen dream.

So, we hit the road.

Our mission: a roughly 450-mile trip across California in a Toyota Mirai, the most popular hydrogen-powered car on the market today. We planned to drive around the Bay Area, down through Central California, and into Los Angeles, visiting as many stations and meeting as many drivers as possible along the way.

Bay Area

Milpitas

We rented a Mirai on Turo — it was one of only two available hydrogen-powered cars on the platform in the Bay Area. The car’s owner, Salman, told us he was concerned about our itinerary.

Cupertino

Manideep and Rupesh were the first fuel cell drivers we met. They’ve been driving their Mirai for about four months, and while they love the car, the fuel situation is wearing on them. They also had some advice for our road trip.

Sunnyvale

All the hydrogen pumps we saw were co-located at traditional gas stations; the hydrogen distributor leases the space from station owners. At some stations, hydrogen pumps were sandwiched between gas pumps.

Palo Alto

One pump we visited in Palo Alto has been offline for two years. The pump’s operator, FirstElement Fuel, told us that it took the pump over from a different hydrogen supplier but that systems issues have prevented it from bringing the station online.

South San Francisco

Earlier this year, Shell closed nearly all of its hydrogen stations across the state; there are no longer any active stations in the city of San Francisco. It’s put additional strain on the remaining Bay Area stations.

Oakland

Another Mirai driver we met, Rebecca, was committed to her car and more optimistic about the future of hydrogen.

San Jose

We needed to top off the tank before leaving the Bay Area. The final station we visited was online — but actually getting fuel was another story.

Along the I-5 corridor between San Francisco and Los Angeles, there are hundreds of battery EV charging plugs — and one hydrogen pump. It’s at a place called Harris Ranch, a rest stop deep in California’s Central Valley. Since our Mirai wasn’t likely to make it all the way to SoCal on one tank, we stopped at Harris Ranch to refuel and see whether other hydrogen road trippers showed up.

Harris Ranch

Harris Ranch Resort

The Harris Ranch Resort is massive. In addition to a Shell gas station, Tesla Superchargers, and a hydrogen pump, it also boasts a Spanish hacienda-style hotel, multiple restaurants, and a gift shop with its own butcher counter.

Tesla Supercharger

The Harris Ranch Supercharger station is reportedly the largest bank of chargers ever built by Tesla. While waiting for hydrogen cars to show up, we wandered over and asked Tesla drivers about life with their battery-electric cars.

James Sweet Bonsai

James Kim has been selling bonsai trees for 23 years. His van is parked just across the street from the exit to Harris Ranch, and he says he gets customers from all over. His largest trees are more than 30 years old.

Hydrogen Fuel Station

After four hours of waiting, another Mirai finally showed up. Billy Chen has made the trip between LA and San Francisco several times — he’s the only driver we found who has.

Since September of 2023, 13 hydrogen stations in the Los Angeles area have been largely offline due to problems with a regional fuel supplier. The shortage has been a major headache for fuel cell drivers in LA — and there are more here than anywhere else in the state.

Los Angeles

San Fernando

The first station we reached in Southern California had four fuel pumps and was unaffected by the hydrogen shortage. Unsurprisingly, it was the busiest station we visited.

Sherman Oaks

There’s a concentration of hydrogen-powered cars here in LA, but the ecosystem is still exceptionally niche. In the first half of 2024, about 322 fuel cell cars were sold in California. At many stations, Mirai sightings were rare.

Burbank

We heard a similar story from lots of drivers: they were considering a battery-electric car but were talked into a Mirai. Many regretted the choice.

Studio City

Like in the Bay Area, there are very few stations in Southern California outside of Greater Los Angeles. So, road trips farther afield are risky.

Hollywood

As of publication, there is no estimate for when the hydrogen supply shortage in Southern California will be resolved, leaving stations like this one offline indefinitely. The shortage will hit the one-year mark in September.

Even if California’s hydrogen highway falls apart, fuel cell technology may still find its niche in a decarbonizing world. The Verge’s Andrew Hawkins dove into the world of hydrogen-powered trucks, boats, planes, and a lot more.

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A24

People imagined all sorts of global nightmare scenarios were coming in the months building up to January 1st, 2000, but none of them were quite as absurd as the premise of Y2K from director Kyle Mooney, A24’s new disaster comedy.
Set on New Year’s Eve in 1999, Y2K tells the story of how a group of teens set out to celebrate the new millennium by throwing (or at least attending) the party of a lifetime. Though everyone’s heard of the Y2K bug, all Eli (Jaeden Martell), Danny (Julian Dennison), and Laura (Rachel Zegler) can really think about is how they might bump into one another at the rager and how the night could change their lives forever. When the power goes out at the stroke of midnight, the kids are quick to laugh things off and assume that maybe someone’s just playing a prank. But they have no idea what to do when a couple of appliances seemingly come to life and promptly start trying to murder them.
Weirdly, a lot of the madness on display in Y2K’s trailer is reminiscent of the real panic that drove people to buy up toilet paper and water in bulk fearing that a programming error would topple our technological infrastructure. But the film seems like it’s going to lean so far into the absurdity and silliness that it might be a bit of a grating watch when it hits theaters on December 6th.

A24

People imagined all sorts of global nightmare scenarios were coming in the months building up to January 1st, 2000, but none of them were quite as absurd as the premise of Y2K from director Kyle Mooney, A24’s new disaster comedy.

Set on New Year’s Eve in 1999, Y2K tells the story of how a group of teens set out to celebrate the new millennium by throwing (or at least attending) the party of a lifetime. Though everyone’s heard of the Y2K bug, all Eli (Jaeden Martell), Danny (Julian Dennison), and Laura (Rachel Zegler) can really think about is how they might bump into one another at the rager and how the night could change their lives forever. When the power goes out at the stroke of midnight, the kids are quick to laugh things off and assume that maybe someone’s just playing a prank. But they have no idea what to do when a couple of appliances seemingly come to life and promptly start trying to murder them.

Weirdly, a lot of the madness on display in Y2K’s trailer is reminiscent of the real panic that drove people to buy up toilet paper and water in bulk fearing that a programming error would topple our technological infrastructure. But the film seems like it’s going to lean so far into the absurdity and silliness that it might be a bit of a grating watch when it hits theaters on December 6th.

Read More