5 ms·

I'm still sceptical of batteries being the future of transportation. I believe Hydrogen is a much safer bet. It seems like battery production and materials is n

• pydry 5y ago
  >It seems like battery production and materials is not getting much cheaper It might seem that way but they are.
• dean177 5y ago
  I would take that bet. In 5, 10 or 20 years electric vehicles will still vastly outnumber hydrogen powered vehicles.
  • davrosthedalek 5y ago
    Hydrogen powered cars might be electric ;)
  • aranw 5y ago
    I'm betting for anything bigger than a family vehicle to end up being hydrogen just cause the recharge times, weight restrictions, and other factors such as costs
    • SEJeff 5y ago
      Tesla is going to start shipping their Semi next year. I think you’re gonna lose that bet as I’m pretty sure a Semi is a tad bigger than a family vehicle. Granted, they’re developing a new “mega charger” for it, but still. The higher torque allows them to pull the same loads up higher grades faster. Just because they might not (yet) be the best for longhaul trucking doesn’t mean they won’t be amazing for medium to shorter range heavy freight.
    • rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
      At 300Kw charging speed, EV charge fast enough to drink a coffee after 400 miles and continue the trip with 200+ miles of range. We'll probably upgrade the charger to higher speed (Ionity already support 250+Kw) but what's the point? As for the weight, do you know a Model 3 weight roughly as much as the BMW Series 3 (closest competitor)? https://carbuzz.com/compare/bmw-3-series-vs-tesla-model-3#cars=79768-vs-82466 https://carbuzz.com/compare/bmw-3-series-vs-tesla-model-3#ca... It's cheaper, too: https://insideevs.com/features/517960/tesla-model3-bmw-3series-cost/ https://insideevs.com/features/517960/tesla-model3-bmw-3seri...
    • pfdietz 5y ago
      https://im-mining.com/2021/05/06/belaz-electric-90-t-7558e-prototype-mining-truck-starts-testing-zhodino/ https://im-mining.com/2021/05/06/belaz-electric-90-t-7558e-p...
    • LinuxBender 5y ago
      Perhaps this is off topic, but I am curious about the future of construction equipment. If all the ICE cars are removed from the picture, including ICE freight trucks, will diesel fuel become vastly more expensive or harder to get? I plan to get some construction equipment within a couple of years. I've never seen electric prototypes for this size equipment, nor hydrogen. Maybe this is already being worked on? I've seen mini-EV-excavators, but never seen an EV in the mid to full sized excavators. [Edit] Correcting myself, looks like Komatsu/Proterra are working on a bigger EV excavator. [1] I hope this becomes affordable because the noise reduction of electric would surely make my neighbors happy and I would love to not breath diesel exhaust. [1] - https://www.proterra.com/press-release/komatsu-electric-construction-equipment/ https://www.proterra.com/press-release/komatsu-electric-cons...
      • nickik 5y ago
        In China I have seen some work on methanol construction vehicles. Methanol of course is made from gas usually, like hydrogen, or coal in China.
    • thehappypm 5y ago
      Hydrogen has lost and it's not coming back. Every home and business in America has power lines. Making hydrogen work would either involve new pipelines to homes (a MASSIVE undertaking) or replacing gas stations with hydrogen fill-up stations, which again needs either new pipelines or a fleet of new hydrogen carrying trucks. That infrastructure hurdle is huge compared to electric cars -- everyone has a plug at home, and adding chargers to places like gas stations is not some hard thing.
• MobileVet 5y ago
  Over the last decade, the price of cells has dropped 85%. UBS predicts it will drop another ~60% over the coming decade. See chart at the bottom of the link. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/30/battery-developments-in-the-last-decade-created-a-seismic-shift-that-will-play-out-in-the-next-10-years.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/30/battery-developments-in-the-...
• DennisP 5y ago
  The cost of lithium-ion batteries has dropped 97% over the past three decades. It's been a steady improvement and the trend is expected to continue. https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/batteries-storage/chart-behind-the-three-decade-collapse-of-lithium-ion-battery-costs https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/batteries-storage/chart-beh... It looks like cost parity with ICEs will happen around 2023. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a34992832/battery-price-drop-2023/ https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a34992832/battery-price-dr... Hydrogen is likely to be better for some applications though, like long-haul jets.
• pjc50 5y ago
  Battery production is definitely getting cheaper per unit capacity? I haven't seen any evidence in the other direction. The hydrogen storage solution remains inadequate and does not seem to be improving at the same rate. There's also the "unclean hydrogen" problem: at the moment, if you go out and buy it, there's a very good chance it will have been made from natural gas with the CO2 dumped into the atmosphere. At that point you might as well use existing LNG/CNG cars.
  • aranw 5y ago
    Right now a Vauxhall Corsa starts at £17k the exact same car but powered by batteries costs £26k. So will the batteries become cheap enough that the battery powered cars match the same as combustion engine car?
    • sokoloff 5y ago
      If you tax the ICE car enough, it could happen today.
    • _ph_ 5y ago
      Short answer: yes Long answer: on the one side, the price for combustion engined cars is going to raise, emission limits are harder to hit. Electric cars are going to get cheaper on several levels. First, batteries are getting cheaper all the time. Then, the production of electric cars is in the process of ramping up, with volume comes cost savings. Even just optimizing how batteries are being built has lots of cost saving potential. Then, the Corsa is an interesting example. It is a platform both for electric and combustion engined cars. That is not as efficient as a pure electric platform, so more cost savings here. Finally, most car manufacturers are in the process of transitioning to electric, which costs a whole lot of money. They are trying to get these costs back by pricing them into the price of the electric cars. This is going to go down over time too.
    • nickik 5y ago
      Calculate the Lifetime difference in energy cost and compare the required cost of maintenance. Its much closer already then you think. Not to mention the EV version will give you a much better driving experience and not be unhealthy to people, specially in cities. We are just at the start of the S curve adoption, and most cars sold are not sold for £17k but rather £30-40k. For that cost EV are already better.
• rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
  More than 95% of the hydrogen produced comes from coal and gas[0]. If we manage to switch to hydrolysis, we'll have to generate at least twice the energy we'd need for Li-Ion batteries to due energy loss in weel-to-wheels measurements[1]. Also, there's no lack of materials for battery (NB: Tesla only uses LFP cells in China now, and achieve similar specs as their NMC chemistry used in the US).[2] There's no shortage of materials in sight and it's far cheaper than hydrogen. Hydrogen has very few use cases were it's more efficient than batteries (industry, agriculture and aviation, mostly)[3]. [0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production) [1](https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2019/08/hydrogen-or-battery--that-is-the-question.html https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2019/08/hydroge...) [2](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-china-idUSKBN26L26S https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-china-idUSKBN26L26S) [3](https://twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/1397267000196534283 https://twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/1397267000196534283)
  • robbiep 5y ago
    Just because hydrogen is mostly produced from carbon sources right now doesn’t mean it would be with significant scaling of hydrogen as a fuel source, it could be easily produced from electrolysis of water from renewable sources if the investment was there, but you still have the energy costs to produce it
    • ecpottinger 5y ago
      But still cost 2-3 times more energy, and energy costs money.
      • robbiep 5y ago
        We’re talking about a situation where big investments in lithium batteries have lead to a possible massive increase in the cost of lithium production, and you’re assuming we wouldn’t see similar enhancements in hydrogen production - electrolysis is one route but some of the catalytic pathways are showing some outrageous experimental efficiencies. Dream a little, that’s the subthread I started and the thread you’re necessitated to respond to if you want to have a productive discussion
• wongarsu 5y ago
  It seems like we are set for much slower price decline, only halfling the battery price every ten years or so. But honestly that's fine, today's EVs have batteries that are large enough for most people in most places. Better charging infrastructure, and maybe faster charge times are what's missing most. Hydrogen fuel cells are a fine technology, but it has no momentum. It has a chance to win long-distance trucking, but I doubt it will be the future of personal transportation.
  • aranw 5y ago
    > Hydrogen fuel cells are a fine technology, but it has no momentum. It has a chance to win long-distance trucking, but I doubt it will be the future of personal transportation. Yeah I'm betting on anything bigger than van will become hydrogen, anything that needs long distance or perhaps remote environments will be hydrogen based. Smaller city based vehicles likely to be battery based
    • nickik 5y ago
      That is a extreme minority of cases. And btw, if you actually use your batteries in a structural way, its not even clear that hydrogen cars will be so much lighter and longer range. There are very, very few cases where BEV will not work. BEV is also much, much, cheaper to operate, so even if its not optimal BEV will still be used over FCV. In those few remote location that you mention (likely a lot less then 1% of the market), gasoline will simply be used. The investment in hydrogen for such a minimal case makes no sense.
• _ph_ 5y ago
  No, hydrogen isn't a much safer bet, all Hindenburg jokes aside. Quite the contrary, I think hydrogen already has lost out in the car space and might even so in the truck space. Battery costs are still falling a lot. With the changes outlined at the Tesla battery day, production costs for battery electric vehicles might be cheaper than combustion engined cars. If you compare a Tesla with a BMW, the Tesla already might be cheaper, it certainly is if you consider the TCO. Meanwhile, hydrogen cars are much more expensive than battery electric cars, there are only a few models available at all and there are few filling stations - they are really expensive to build. On top of that, distribution of the hydrogen is much more complex than using the power grid for electricity. And you can charge an electric car at basically any outlet, if need requires. But the largest problem is, that for renewable hydrogen, we need about 3x as much as electricity than using a battery electric vehicle. Not counting anything else, this is 3x the cost.
  • cogman10 5y ago
    Because of the distribution problem, my assumption is that hydrogen will be confined to easy to distribute transportation if at all. That's shipping, airlines, maybe trains (though trains really should be made electric)
  • sumtechguy 5y ago
    > If you compare a Tesla with a BMW, the Tesla already might be cheaper, it certainly is if you consider the TCO Having owned a few BMW's I do not doubt that assertion at all. Hydrogen has a storage problem. As in the stuff is wickedly hard to keep from 'evaporating'. Electric has a charge time/range problem. I can fill an ICE car in 10 mins and drive 400 miles. The same thing with electric takes an hour. For 'day to day' use electric is like almost there (up front cost being one of the bigger issues). For long range drivers, not yet.
    • emko7 5y ago
      Plus a semi can haul like 5tons more instead of dead weight. I can see batteries working for regular cars but for trucks no.
• davrosthedalek 5y ago
  Looking at inner cities, where most cars are, I don't see the opportunity to put enough charger stations in for everybody. Most cars are parked on the street. It works now at comparatively low penetration, but I can't imagine it work close when almost every car needs charging. If you have to drive to a dedicated spot to do all your charging, all the time, >30 min for charging is /long/. Filling up a car is what, 5 min? And it lasts longer. Don't see this scaling, and people will not like it. How much power can you realistically get to an European inner-city parking garage without major infrastructure changes? Comparing the timeline for all-electric to the timeline of major construction projects in Germany, I'm not optimistic.... I think we need a "fluid"-refillable e-car. Hydrogen is an option, or maybe build a battery with a replaceable fluid as the energy store. But we might be in a trap: Right now, battery cars are clearly better -- better availability, range, price, choice. And now, charging is not a big problem in most areas, with dedicated spots for charging, it is sometimes easier to park than a gas car! But at some point, these spots will be saturated, and I don't see the capacity ramp up fast up with demand. (Same for green energy production, at least in Germany, without nuclear as an option). Part of that is "not in my neighborhood" initiatives against ugly charging ports running along every street, against construction for more cables, transformer stations etc. So we could end up with many battery cars and a charging infrastructure which doesn't scale fast enough, and no hydrogen cars, where we could retool the gas infrastructure for filling up and scale quickly. Hydrogen has the advantage that it is rather cheap and efficient to transport it over large distances. You could do hydrogen production in Africa, for example, and ship it to Europe. Even less danger than oil-tankers. A ship accident is either a big fire, or nothing. No large oil spill. Production could be local to power/far away from people, so social acceptance is better. In-car storage and safe filling up seems to be the problem.
  • rcMgD2BwE72F 5y ago
    >So we could end up with many battery cars and a charging infrastructure which doesn't scale fast enough, and no hydrogen cars, where we could retool the gas infrastructure for filling up and scale quickly. Do you really believe it's easier/cheaper to retool the gas infrastructure for hydrogen than adding more chargers? All house have electric plugs (enough to charge overnight) and parking lots and most sidewalks too (cf https://thedriven.io/2020/03/24/siemens-converts-all-lamp-posts-on-residential-street-to-electric-car-chargers/ https://thedriven.io/2020/03/24/siemens-converts-all-lamp-po...). Most EV don't need to be charged more than once a week, too.
• yobbo 5y ago
  The lack of smell and explosiveness of hydrogen gas/air mixture is pretty terrifying. Consider an underground garage full of (possibly ageing) cars with hydrogen on board. There might be ways of storing hydrogen more safely than a pressure tube, but I encourage hydrogen enthusiasts to experience what the air/gas mixture smells like and how it burns.
  • thehappypm 5y ago
    They solved this with natural gas pretty easily by adding an odorous gas.
  • emko7 5y ago
    So what did people do when parking in garages with ice engines exhausting gasses? That's why they have have forced air vents to remove all the car exhausts and gass sensors