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I think hydrogen cars is a technology that kills itself. Since pure battery electrics will always have lower operating costs (if the hydrogen is produced from
by audunw 9y ago
I think hydrogen cars is a technology that kills itself.
Since pure battery electrics will always have lower operating costs (if the hydrogen is produced from electricity and not oil/gas), and that a BEV is cheaper to assemble (less parts, less piping), the market for hydrogen cars is completely dependent on the price of batteries.
As batteries get cheaper, and rapid chargers get faster, the niche that hydrogen can occupy gets smaller.
The thing is, hydrogen cars are electric cars. It's possible some of them will even include a larger battery and become plug-in. So every hydrogen car sold will also benefit the development of better BEVs.
To me, this is a clear feedback loop that benefits pure BEVs. And where will BEVs be when hydrogen cars actually hit the market with significant numbers and models? What if 150kWh batteries are standard? What if 400kW charging is standard? What if the price is not much higher? These are all within reach. It's just a matter of time, and the hydrogen economy does not seem to be moving fast enough that its got time to spare.
But I fully support all subsidies and financial support for development of hydrogen fuel cells. Maybe it won't be success in cars, but it could be in other fields.
- jk2323 9y ago> Since pure battery electrics will always have lower operating costs (if the hydrogen is produced from electricity and not oil/gas) There are other options. You can producte H2 directly from sunlight. https://setis.ec.europa.eu/setis-reports/setis-magazine/fuel-cells-and-hydrogen/mimicking-nature-producing-hydrogen-sunlight https://setis.ec.europa.eu/setis-reports/setis-magazine/fuel... And we might run out of Lithium. Or Cobalt. Or Vanadium. I doubt that we run out of Hydrogen.
- audunw 9y agoYeah, thats an interesting option. Still remains to be seen if that’ll actually be cheaper. Sounds like something that is harder to decentralize than electrolysis, which can be a downside. With electrolysis you can make the hydrogen on-site. Lithium-cobalt is not the only chemistry. I’m optimistic about alternate chemistries in the long term. Especially now that the battery market is growing so rapidly. There are massive investments in research. I doubt we’ll run out though. They’re not that rare. Besides, it’s a renewable resource, not a combustible one.
- imeron 9y agoCurrent hydrogen fuel cells contain platinum. The tech inside the Toyota Mirai contains about 30g if I remember correctly. So, which earth element do you prefer to run out of? :)
- stephengillie 9y agoWe can literally sweep platinum off our highways, as Cody'sLab demonstrates[0]. Platinum is a catalyst in auto mufflers to change NOx molecules back to N2 and CO2. And a tiny amount flakes off as a gas-car drives. Sweeping a 10-foot section of heavily-used freeway shoulder netted them $0.55 of platinum. At this rate, there should be $1000 of platinum per mile of freeway shoulder. [0] https://youtu.be/v5GPWJPLcHg https://youtu.be/v5GPWJPLcHg
- endymi0n 9y agoThe point is - it's neither one nor the other: Combining working fuel cell technology with batteries really gives the best of both worlds: - Batteries are the most efficient in the long run and very dynamic at power release, but they are heavy (more than half the weight of Tesla's truck is the batteries), use lots of rare resources and take pretty long to recharge. It's getting better, but if you really want to drive a few thousand miles with short fuel breaks in an emergency, you can't. - Hydrogen fuel cells suck at dynamic release, they really want to have a constant power draw. They're less efficient than batteries, but you can refuel quickly and don't have to carry the fuel weight with you all the time. Taking all the technical challenges of storing hydrogen and making efficient fuel cells aside for the moment, combining the two technologies is really awesome in a way. You can get rid of two thirds of the batteries — and suddenly you have a car that's all of: easy to instantly refill, still dynamic to accelerate and overtake on the highway due to the batteries, but you also just have to dimension the fuel cell for average, not for peak power draw. Considered the hydrogen is CO2 neutrally generated, it's really the optimum solution.
- danans 9y ago> if you really want to drive a few thousand miles with short fuel breaks in an emergency, you can't. What kind of emergency would involve driving a few thousand miles quickly? I can only see a few hundred (hurricane evacuation). At those distances, why wouldn't you fly?
- pbhjpbhj 9y agohttp://periodictable.com/Properties/A/CrustAbundance.al.html http://periodictable.com/Properties/A/CrustAbundance.al.html From that link platinum is 3.7E-6, others [Li, V, Co] are O(2E-3), or more, by percentage of Earth's crust.
- jcranmer 9y agoThe prevalence in crust doesn't really matter, what matters is how much is actually in recoverable ores. Rare earth elements, despite their names, are actually reasonably common: about as common as tin or cadmium. Hell, cerium is more common than copper. They're called rare earth elements in part because it's hard to find a high enough concentration to extract and in part because they're so hard to separate from each other.
- madez 9y ago> The thing is, hydrogen cars are electric cars. There are internal combustion engines that use hydrogen as fuel. A hydrogen powered car does not need to be electric.
- solarkraft 9y agoThis is true, but unlikely to matter, because they're even less efficient.
- pitaj 9y agoStill had common emissions problems like NOx etc, unless they also run off pure oxygen.