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Hydrogen is a junk technology. What is the easiest place to get hydrogen? Petrol and other hydrocarbons. Extracting it from water would take more energy than us
by djsumdog 7y ago
Hydrogen is a junk technology. What is the easiest place to get hydrogen? Petrol and other hydrocarbons. Extracting it from water would take more energy than using existing fossil fuel. The tech was expensive, would probably stay expensive, and was pretty bad environmentally. Hydrogen is also really difficult to transport in the amounts needed to fuel fleets of cars. It died because it sucked.
- eb0la 7y agoElectric is simpler and less risky. For automakers, the worst problem of electric vehicles is that maintainance/service is easy and they make more money servicing vehicles that from selling... but it can be fixed: 1- renting batteries (and still charging annual service fee). 2- renting whole cars by the minute using a mobile app. The problem with Hydrogen is that's still an _explosion_ motor with a different fuel, and you have to develop a new kind of motor for it plus a way to store and consume the hydrogen cells safely.
- aj7 7y agoFuel cell
- fyfy18 7y agoMost of the work done during servicing of modern cars is simply inspecting and testing mechanical parts for damage. EVs still have mechanical parts (brakes, suspension and drive train) that can wear out and fail. EVs still have brake fluid, coolant and oil which needs to be checked and replaced, but not as often. If anything, I see it will be more profitable for automakers as they will continue to charge the same service prices as they do now for less and simpler work. Plus they can make up new maintenance like Toyota have done with their 'hybrid battery health check', which is a paid optional extra, but extends the battery warranty for one year.
- 8bitsrule 7y agoYep. Many people know that Hydrogen and Hindenburg start with the same letter. There are no hydrogen wells. So you'd have to use a lot of energy to make hydrogen fuel in the needed quantities. And then (because it's such a light gas) highly-pressurized containers (collision-survivable) are needed. Instead, use that energy more directly.
- lechemin 7y agoQuestion - what about using solar panels to fund the energy? i.e. a large solar farm
- lechemin 7y agoYou sound like you work for the oil companies.
- dang 7y agoWe've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. Would you mind reading them and sticking to the rules when posting here? That would include not posting personal attacks, not insinuating shillage, and not creating accounts for every few comments you post. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html