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And watch thunderf00t’s videos on how stupid lithium ion battery cars are, where he goes off on a tangent about how hydrogen cars may be better in energy densit
by jodrellblank 7y ago
And watch thunderf00t’s videos on how stupid lithium ion battery cars are, where he goes off on a tangent about how hydrogen cars may be better in energy density terms but there’s nothing that would make him go near a pressurised hydrogen car from a safety perspective.
My guess is the first hydrogen car fireball in a city or gas station location will do worse things for hydrogen PR than the first self driving car running someone down did for self-driving cars.
What happens to hydrogen in the used car market? Electric risks you batteries that hold little charge, diesel risk a visible dripping fuel leak that won’t burn if you drop a match on it, hydrogen leak risks you an invisible gas cloud building over your car that turns into the Hindenburg at the static zap of you touching the door handle.
Everywhere already has electric infrastructure, and fancy new batteries like (vanadium redox flow?) can help grid long term storage and balance and electric power can easily be created and transported by solar and wind; nowhere has hydrogen infrastructure and it can’t easily be created or transported and by the time you’ve built that up and compressed enough hydrogen to be useful or chilled enough to a liquid, you’ve spent lots and wrecked its overall energy efficiency.
I’d more expect someone to come out with a fast charge 15mile graphene (or other panacea magic words) “battery” which handles commutes and hybrid with li-ion for longer journeys than hydrogen to get big within 30 years.
Even more compelling, BMW i3 has lithium ion with a petrol generator range extender, and that seems the perfect combination of short range electric with the option of topping up at any gas station for quick refuels, it completely solves the electric range problem - with a smaller simpler cheaper “engine” not coupled to the drive wheels. I don’t know why other makers haven’t offered that, but BMW are dropping it as an option because range is good enough now. But it’s a better fix than hydrogen - fits current infrastructure and driver understanding.
Volkswagen is going to be pumping out the all electric ID3 from 2025 in Volkswagen quantities. Not an electric conversion of a gas model, an all electric design. That’s my marker for “electric cars are mainstream, unquestionably”.
- C1sc0cat 7y agoTo play devils advocate You can get catastrophic battery failures and fires in crashes etc - not very simple to put out.
- jodrellblank 7y agoYou can, but the Lithium Ion can't gather invisibly around your car, it's not at high pressure waiting for a structural weakness to start escaping, it's not known for causing Hydrogen embrittlement in whatever's containing it, and it's not just about the most easily ignited material going like Hydrogen is, it's often water cooled to keep it more stable and electronically monitored in a way that can reduce current draw from possibly weakened cells, and it's easier to reinforce against damage because it's not pressurised, and if you can get away from the fire it's not a gas which can spread out around you. And Li-Ion batteries have less power density than Hydrogen and Hydrogen burning takes half the reaction fuel from oxygen in the air. There's more which can go wrong, needs less to happen for it to go wrong, gives off more energy if it does go wrong, looks more spectacular (scary) if it does go wrong. This image [1] is Toyota's own video of what happens if the Hydrogen tank is safely vented, a five meter high flamethrower. Over time, Li-Ion batteries lose charge capacity, so there's incentives to replace them with new ones. What would happen to Hydrogen tanks in a ten year old car, would you trust one? What would it take for you to trust one? It's not that it can't work, or nobody is trying, but I'm siding against it. I think anything with high pressure is unlikely to become mainstream, and anything with high pressure Hydrogen even more so. [1] http://asj.nolan-law.com/wp-content/themes/flashnews/images/stories/swainh2vgas2.jpg http://asj.nolan-law.com/wp-content/themes/flashnews/images/...
- nradov 7y agoHydrogen gas can't really gather around your car. It disperses even faster than natural gas or gasoline vapors.
- jodrellblank 7y agoI was taking thunderf00t's comments on that as a chemist who claims to have worked with Hydrogen enough to be afraid of it. I don't know how fast natural gas disperses, but gas leaks have blown up houses, and cars are often in indoor garages and parking lots, workshops and occasionally car ferries, shipping containers, Eurostar train carriages, etc. which would contain gas more than the open air.