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This is good research for low-pressure hydrogen storage, but I think pursuing hydrogen powered cars is folly. It still has to be mined or generated, refined, an

This is good research for low-pressure hydrogen storage, but I think pursuing hydrogen powered cars is folly. It still has to be mined or generated, refined, and transported to filling stations, whereas with electric cars the transport and filling network is already in place. It's still a middleman to lose efficiency that electric cars don't have.

erik_seaberg 7y ago
Hydrogen could be a win if we can get it into the tank in a couple minutes. Very few apartments or workplaces have EV chargers so far, and it's impractically slow to do anywhere you weren't planning to park for a long time. A Tesla Supercharger station would have to be 10x as big as a gas station to accommodate the general public stopping for a half hour each for a partial charge, assuming they would put up with the wait.
- greglindahl 7y ago
  You could have made the same comment 6 years ago, and behold, lots more people drive EVs today than 6 years ago. There's been a lot of progress in cajoling and requiring apartment complexes and workplaces to install chargers, and Tesla has a lot more superchargers (mostly in mall parking lots) than they used to have. So it sure doesn't seem like there's any insurmountable problem involved that would cause us to stop promoting EVs. Meanwhile, hydrogen fuel cells haven't fallen in price like Toyota predicted, and so their hydrogen car is both expensive and low performance. Not a winning combination, even if it fuels up in 5 minutes.
  - erik_seaberg 7y ago
    It's not impossible, but the network is still far from "already in place". Wikipedia says US plug-in EV ownership is only 3.4%, and those drivers had better all own houses with attached garages.
    - greglindahl 7y ago
      OK, I guess it's a problem with no known solution, even though EV sales are climbing nicely. Me, I've owned an EV for 6 years, and live in an apartment. 6 years ago the pessimistic estimate was that what has actually happened today is impossible.
      - chiefalchemist 7y ago
        Time is the solution. Gas stations weren't everwhere overnight. To this day they require a tanker fuel truck to deliver more inventory. On the other hand, the network for electricity is already in place. Distribution and refilling are "automated." EV needs a bit more time. The stars are there. They will alight soon enough.
        erik_seaberg 7y ago
        This. I was responding to > filling network is already in place when the last mile needs a couple hundred million charging points (with grid to supply them concurrently) and so far building them out has barely started. This is the entire reason I'm still burning gasoline for a couple of years; I can't rely on finding a charger at our next apartment.
        greglindahl 7y ago
        Every HN thread mentioning EVs has at least one person concerned because they personally can't charge a car at home. It rarely leads to good discussion.
        chiefalchemist 7y ago
        Everyone's wants and needs are different. Some more fringe that others. This is part of traction and growth. Eventually, you'll be in the sweet spot. p.s. Prediction: Post-pandemic, lock-down aside, look for Whole Foods to add charging stations. It's not a wait to recharge if you're being productive otherwise. Perhaps WF already does?
  - Taniwha 7y ago
    We bought a house recently, one of our requirements was "somewhere to plug in the Leaf", it wasn't hard, about half the places we found met that requirement (we didn't require actual power points to be in place - note at 240v a Leaf fast charge isn't required, it happily charges overnight during the cheap off-peak period)
  - Hypx 7y ago
    I’d say you just aren’t paying attention to the gains being made in fuel cell technology. A lot of people on this website are really oblivious to this, so you’re not alone. The 2021 Mirai using only 10 grams of platinum. Although they haven’t spoken much about pricing, it’s pretty obvious this is going to be a cost effective car to manufacture. Certainly, it’s going to be a lot cheaper to produce than a car with 600kg of batteries. The upcoming BMW X5 Hydrogen is going to have 370 hp. I’d say that’s plenty.
    - greglindahl 7y ago
      Uh, OK. We're N years into the Hydrogen Revolution and the only problem is that people are ignorant? It was the 2017 Mirai that was supposed to be powerful and cheap. Now it's 2021. The old model had 151 hp. The new one has... ? neither a price nor a performance? The low end gas X5 has 335-456hp. So far the BEVs that have sold well have much higher performance than the minimum.
      - Hypx 7y ago
        It's not a function of time but rather progress. Since there has been significant progress (mostly ignored by the tech community), the commonly used arguments against hydrogen are now wrong. They haven't announced those numbers yet. We know BMW is building an X5 with 368hp using Toyota's fuel cell stack: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/bmws-hydrogen-x5-will-produce-368bhp https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/bmws-hydrogen-x5-w... So we should be reasonably sure the new Mirai is going to be much faster than the first. It's also going to have around 400 miles of range and will be much bigger and more luxurious. We haven't heard about pricing yet, but from a production standpoint Toyota has talked extensively about how much cheaper it is to make.
- m463 7y ago
  Investing in electrical infrastructure aligns with the way the world is going -- higher consumption (not only EVs but growth in general) + higher local generation (local PV) I expect it will just happen anyway. Meanwhile hydrogen will require all new single-use infrastructure.
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    Yeah for charging you have a 'last 25 feet problem'. Meaning the need to run 25 feet of 10g romex from the breaker box to the charging plug. That's not a big problem.
  - Hypx 7y ago
    Hydrogen is anything but “single-use.” We will need it for long-haul trucking, large ships, trains, airplanes, construction and work equipment, farm equipment, etc. Not to mention solving grid intermittency, making steel, concrete, ammonia, providing industrial heat, etc. If you think the problem through, the hydrogen infrastructure we need is going to dwarf the battery and electricity infrastructure. This is all before we consider hydrogen powered cars.
    - bkor 7y ago
      Why would trains need hydrogen? Almost all are electric. If they aren't in your region, why not convert it to electric? Large ships, why hydrogen? Seems again not a good solution.
      - Hypx 7y ago
        Trains are diesel-electric. In practical terms, they're still internal combustion powered. Switching everything over to fuel cells is way simpler than setting up tens of thousands of miles of overhead power lines. There's no path to powering a large ship with batteries. I'm not sure if you understand the physics behind it, but it pretty much has to be a hydrogen based fuel. Either liquid H2, or a derivative like methanol or ammonia.

erik_seaberg 7y ago

Hydrogen could be a win if we can get it into the tank in a couple minutes. Very few apartments or workplaces have EV chargers so far, and it's impractically slow to do anywhere you weren't planning to park for a long time. A Tesla Supercharger station would have to be 10x as big as a gas station to accommodate the general public stopping for a half hour each for a partial charge, assuming they would put up with the wait.

greglindahl 7y ago
You could have made the same comment 6 years ago, and behold, lots more people drive EVs today than 6 years ago. There's been a lot of progress in cajoling and requiring apartment complexes and workplaces to install chargers, and Tesla has a lot more superchargers (mostly in mall parking lots) than they used to have. So it sure doesn't seem like there's any insurmountable problem involved that would cause us to stop promoting EVs. Meanwhile, hydrogen fuel cells haven't fallen in price like Toyota predicted, and so their hydrogen car is both expensive and low performance. Not a winning combination, even if it fuels up in 5 minutes.
- erik_seaberg 7y ago
  It's not impossible, but the network is still far from "already in place". Wikipedia says US plug-in EV ownership is only 3.4%, and those drivers had better all own houses with attached garages.
  - greglindahl 7y ago
    OK, I guess it's a problem with no known solution, even though EV sales are climbing nicely. Me, I've owned an EV for 6 years, and live in an apartment. 6 years ago the pessimistic estimate was that what has actually happened today is impossible.
    - chiefalchemist 7y ago
      Time is the solution. Gas stations weren't everwhere overnight. To this day they require a tanker fuel truck to deliver more inventory. On the other hand, the network for electricity is already in place. Distribution and refilling are "automated." EV needs a bit more time. The stars are there. They will alight soon enough.
      - erik_seaberg 7y ago
        This. I was responding to > filling network is already in place when the last mile needs a couple hundred million charging points (with grid to supply them concurrently) and so far building them out has barely started. This is the entire reason I'm still burning gasoline for a couple of years; I can't rely on finding a charger at our next apartment.
        greglindahl 7y ago
        Every HN thread mentioning EVs has at least one person concerned because they personally can't charge a car at home. It rarely leads to good discussion.
        chiefalchemist 7y ago
        Everyone's wants and needs are different. Some more fringe that others. This is part of traction and growth. Eventually, you'll be in the sweet spot. p.s. Prediction: Post-pandemic, lock-down aside, look for Whole Foods to add charging stations. It's not a wait to recharge if you're being productive otherwise. Perhaps WF already does?
- Taniwha 7y ago
  We bought a house recently, one of our requirements was "somewhere to plug in the Leaf", it wasn't hard, about half the places we found met that requirement (we didn't require actual power points to be in place - note at 240v a Leaf fast charge isn't required, it happily charges overnight during the cheap off-peak period)
- Hypx 7y ago
  I’d say you just aren’t paying attention to the gains being made in fuel cell technology. A lot of people on this website are really oblivious to this, so you’re not alone. The 2021 Mirai using only 10 grams of platinum. Although they haven’t spoken much about pricing, it’s pretty obvious this is going to be a cost effective car to manufacture. Certainly, it’s going to be a lot cheaper to produce than a car with 600kg of batteries. The upcoming BMW X5 Hydrogen is going to have 370 hp. I’d say that’s plenty.
  - greglindahl 7y ago
    Uh, OK. We're N years into the Hydrogen Revolution and the only problem is that people are ignorant? It was the 2017 Mirai that was supposed to be powerful and cheap. Now it's 2021. The old model had 151 hp. The new one has... ? neither a price nor a performance? The low end gas X5 has 335-456hp. So far the BEVs that have sold well have much higher performance than the minimum.
    - Hypx 7y ago
      It's not a function of time but rather progress. Since there has been significant progress (mostly ignored by the tech community), the commonly used arguments against hydrogen are now wrong. They haven't announced those numbers yet. We know BMW is building an X5 with 368hp using Toyota's fuel cell stack: https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/bmws-hydrogen-x5-will-produce-368bhp https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/bmws-hydrogen-x5-w... So we should be reasonably sure the new Mirai is going to be much faster than the first. It's also going to have around 400 miles of range and will be much bigger and more luxurious. We haven't heard about pricing yet, but from a production standpoint Toyota has talked extensively about how much cheaper it is to make.
m463 7y ago
Investing in electrical infrastructure aligns with the way the world is going -- higher consumption (not only EVs but growth in general) + higher local generation (local PV) I expect it will just happen anyway. Meanwhile hydrogen will require all new single-use infrastructure.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  Yeah for charging you have a 'last 25 feet problem'. Meaning the need to run 25 feet of 10g romex from the breaker box to the charging plug. That's not a big problem.
- Hypx 7y ago
  Hydrogen is anything but “single-use.” We will need it for long-haul trucking, large ships, trains, airplanes, construction and work equipment, farm equipment, etc. Not to mention solving grid intermittency, making steel, concrete, ammonia, providing industrial heat, etc. If you think the problem through, the hydrogen infrastructure we need is going to dwarf the battery and electricity infrastructure. This is all before we consider hydrogen powered cars.
  - bkor 7y ago
    Why would trains need hydrogen? Almost all are electric. If they aren't in your region, why not convert it to electric? Large ships, why hydrogen? Seems again not a good solution.
    - Hypx 7y ago
      Trains are diesel-electric. In practical terms, they're still internal combustion powered. Switching everything over to fuel cells is way simpler than setting up tens of thousands of miles of overhead power lines. There's no path to powering a large ship with batteries. I'm not sure if you understand the physics behind it, but it pretty much has to be a hydrogen based fuel. Either liquid H2, or a derivative like methanol or ammonia.