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I found the last paragraph particularly interesting. I have a friend who is a real car enthusiast; he owns several classic cars which he maintains himself and t

I found the last paragraph particularly interesting. I have a friend who is a real car enthusiast; he owns several classic cars which he maintains himself and takes to car shows. A few weeks ago he said that he believed that hydrogen fuel cells were the future, not electric cars. I don't know enough about hfc's to have an opinion but I followed the link they gave and it looks like they could still be a way off in terms of practicality. Anyone here have an informed opinion they'd be willing to share?

protomyth 7y ago
Have they overcome the problems that Honda was having in colder climates?
clouddrover 7y ago
Fuel cell cars exist and you can buy them. Examples: - Hyundai Nexo: https://www.hyundaiusa.com/nexo/index.aspx https://www.hyundaiusa.com/nexo/index.aspx - Toyota Mirai: https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html - Honda Clarity: https://automobiles.honda.com/clarity-fuel-cell https://automobiles.honda.com/clarity-fuel-cell - Lexus LS next year: https://www.motor1.com/news/362598/lexus-ls-fuel-cell-spied/ https://www.motor1.com/news/362598/lexus-ls-fuel-cell-spied/ They're practical realities today. They have fast fueling with good range.
- eigenloss 7y ago
  In California. They are completely unfuelable elsewhere!
  - clouddrover 7y ago
    They can be refueled in - South Korea: http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/south-korea/ http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/south-korea/ - Japan: http://hydrogen-navi.jp/en/index.html http://hydrogen-navi.jp/en/index.html - China: https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-06-07/chinas-largest-hydrogen-fueling-station-opens-in-shanghai-101424532.html https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-06-07/chinas-largest-hydro... - Europe: https://h2.live/en https://h2.live/en
mensetmanusman 7y ago
They are the future if you believe the institutional/inertial/lobbying power of the century old ICE will be insurmountable. As storage and solar/wind $/kW costs continue to fall, hydrogen is looking less promising. Interesting note, hydrogen motion is governed more by quantum tunneling than by Fickian diffusion which makes it materially challenging to effectively store at high energy densities. From an infrastructure standpoint, it is much lower in costs to store and transmit electrons than it is atoms (which is intuitive from a simple mass balance argument).
glogla 7y ago
As far as I know, currently the hydrogen technology is vastly worse than battery cars (BEV) and could only win because of corruption. Which might still happen of course. The issue is that hydrogen cars are about as expensive as battery electric cars (i.e. twice to tree times the cost of similarly sized and equipped ICE car) but BEV is much cheaper to run, while H2EV costs about as much per km as ICE car, so you get the worse of both world. Also the car is more complex - it also has to have a battery because you can't recuperate into hydrogen cell. You can create hydrogen using electricity, but a lot of energy is lost, so it will probably always be more expensive than just using electricity. The tech only makes sense in uses where weight is extremely limiting, like in airplanes or maybe ships? Spaceships?

protomyth 7y ago

Have they overcome the problems that Honda was having in colder climates?

clouddrover 7y ago

Fuel cell cars exist and you can buy them. Examples: - Hyundai Nexo: https://www.hyundaiusa.com/nexo/index.aspx https://www.hyundaiusa.com/nexo/index.aspx - Toyota Mirai: https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html https://ssl.toyota.com/mirai/fcv.html - Honda Clarity: https://automobiles.honda.com/clarity-fuel-cell https://automobiles.honda.com/clarity-fuel-cell - Lexus LS next year: https://www.motor1.com/news/362598/lexus-ls-fuel-cell-spied/ https://www.motor1.com/news/362598/lexus-ls-fuel-cell-spied/ They're practical realities today. They have fast fueling with good range.

eigenloss 7y ago
In California. They are completely unfuelable elsewhere!
- clouddrover 7y ago
  They can be refueled in - South Korea: http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/south-korea/ http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/south-korea/ - Japan: http://hydrogen-navi.jp/en/index.html http://hydrogen-navi.jp/en/index.html - China: https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-06-07/chinas-largest-hydrogen-fueling-station-opens-in-shanghai-101424532.html https://www.caixinglobal.com/2019-06-07/chinas-largest-hydro... - Europe: https://h2.live/en https://h2.live/en

mensetmanusman 7y ago

They are the future if you believe the institutional/inertial/lobbying power of the century old ICE will be insurmountable. As storage and solar/wind $/kW costs continue to fall, hydrogen is looking less promising. Interesting note, hydrogen motion is governed more by quantum tunneling than by Fickian diffusion which makes it materially challenging to effectively store at high energy densities. From an infrastructure standpoint, it is much lower in costs to store and transmit electrons than it is atoms (which is intuitive from a simple mass balance argument).

glogla 7y ago

As far as I know, currently the hydrogen technology is vastly worse than battery cars (BEV) and could only win because of corruption. Which might still happen of course. The issue is that hydrogen cars are about as expensive as battery electric cars (i.e. twice to tree times the cost of similarly sized and equipped ICE car) but BEV is much cheaper to run, while H2EV costs about as much per km as ICE car, so you get the worse of both world. Also the car is more complex - it also has to have a battery because you can't recuperate into hydrogen cell. You can create hydrogen using electricity, but a lot of energy is lost, so it will probably always be more expensive than just using electricity. The tech only makes sense in uses where weight is extremely limiting, like in airplanes or maybe ships? Spaceships?