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You can swap out hydrogen tanks a lot more easily than you can swap out batteries. Something to consider. Lol. All the downvotes. It's like I said something ba

You can swap out hydrogen tanks a lot more easily than you can swap out batteries. Something to consider. Lol. All the downvotes. It's like I said something bad about Apple 10 years ago. All hail Elon, dear leader.

theshrike79 5y ago
Theoretically you can swap anything easily. I wouldn't want my container on high pressure explosive gas be swapped from some DIY dudes car.
- Clubber 5y ago
  Like a gas grill I would suspect. The issue with swapping out batteries is they are friggin' heavy when they are that big.
mdorazio 5y ago
No, you really can't. In order to make high-pressure hydrogen tanks in passenger vehicles safe in crashes they are embedded deeply inside the chassis and are much bigger and more difficult to access than you seem to be thinking. There is absolutely no way to swap the tank on a Toyota Mirai, for example, without taking the car mostly apart. Take a look at [1] to see where the tanks are actually placed. [1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/37872/now-with-three-hydrogen-tanks-the-2021-toyota-mirai-gets-a-400-mile-range https://www.thedrive.com/news/37872/now-with-three-hydrogen-...
- Clubber 5y ago
  Why couldn't you put an access panel right next to them, or even a slide out tray? They both seem to be near the outside of the car in that diagram.
  - outworlder 5y ago
    Hydrogen is already terrible enough as it is to contain. So now you want to add a bunch of connect/disconnect cycles to a high pressure tank?!
    - Clubber 5y ago
      I mean we've known how to store flammable gas for quite a while now. Welding tanks, oxygen tanks, propane tanks. Why would it be different from swapping out a propane tank in my gas grill? I mean don't EV's have issues? Lithium is expensive to mine, electricity is usually produced by burning coal, and can our current grid even handle 100% electric vehicles? I mean it's better than gas, but it's not the end of the road of vehicle power is it?
      - com2kid 5y ago
        Pressurized explosive gases are dangerous. Your propane task isn't part of a multi-ton vehicle traveling at high speeds that may be subject to a high speed crash at any random point in time. A hydrogen tank that is part of your car, however, may be subject to a high speed crash coming in at a random angle. BBQ grill propane tanks can explode, but they are typically stored on porches, an environment where they are not often hit by SUVs.
        Clubber 5y ago
        >Pressurized explosive gases are dangerous. So are lithium ion batteries. Here's an article on a recent Tesla burn: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/01/tesla-model-s-plaid-caught-fire-while-being-driven-fire-chief.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/01/tesla-model-s-plaid-caught-f... I wasn't arguing that hydrogen wasn't dangerous, I was arguing that a hydrogen tank was easier to swap than a 1200 lb. battery.
      - outworlder 5y ago
        > Why would it be different from swapping out a propane tank in my gas grill? Because we are not talking about propane. We are talking about a tank storing highly pressurized hydrogen, which is way more difficult to handle than propane. In a moving vehicle, not a grill. > Lithium is expensive to mine Yes. It can be mined once and then reuse countless times, however. Hydrogen is expensive to manufacture too, and it's "burned" so you always need more. Expect prices to go down as more infrastructure to mine and refine is put into place. This is even ignoring technological advancements in extraction - which tend to happen once there's demand. > electricity is usually produced by burning coal This is highly location-dependent. True for some places, not true at all for others. That's also becoming less true by the day. _Even_ in the case where 100% of the grid power worldwide came from coal, EVs would still be a win. The generator on a huge power plant is far more efficient than any car engine. And the pollution is concentrated on a few places - places we can improve. Additionally, there are no emissions on population centers, meaning an enormous improvement on quality of life and a decrease on deaths due to respiratory illnesses. Then, once you upgrade the power plants, the entire vehicle fleet gets an instant upgrade. If it's in your means (essentially, if you own your property) you can generate power from renewables on site and power your vehicle that way. Try doing that with hydrogen. > and can our current grid even handle 100% electric vehicles Yes according to the US Department of Energy. > I mean it's better than gas, but it's not the end of the road of vehicle power is it Just until we find something better, then we'll _easily_ change our vehicles to store electric energy using the new storage device. That's the good thing about electric motors, they don't care where the power comes from.
fossuser 5y ago
Not what you were going for, but the people talking negatively about Apple's strategy ten years ago were similarly extremely wrong.
- partiallypro 5y ago
  Or extremely right, considering we now live in a world of walled gardens and user choice and repair-ability has diminished in large part because of Apple. I think he/she means that Tesla, like Apple, has a cult following in which people can't see the company doing any wrong or facing any criticism when it comes to its products or repercussions for what it will do to the industry down the line.
  - fossuser 5y ago
    Apple's value went up over 10x from ten years ago. You may not like the result, but many others did and do. The people ten years ago talking about why Apple would fail or why what they made wasn't what people wanted were wrong. Similarly pushing hydrogen as a better option is wrong today.
    - Clubber 5y ago
      I mean if stock price is all you judge a company by, Amazon and Activision are angels that can do no wrong. I was referring more to the rabid fanboy-ism. People committing suicide in their plants? Well people commit suicide everywhere. Nets? Great idea! One of the reasons companies do horrid shit is that we let them.
- Clubber 5y ago
  I'm an Apple fanboy, but they certainly aren't beyond reproach.
diordiderot 5y ago
Video from this week on battery swapping tech / companies https://youtu.be/2-xWYScsvts https://youtu.be/2-xWYScsvts
stevenhuang 5y ago
It helps to fully understand the drawbacks of what you're advocating in order to have a coherent argument. That's why people have issue with your statement on "easily" swapping hydrogen tanks, as it's anything but "easy". https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage-challenges https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage-chall...

theshrike79 5y ago

Theoretically you can swap anything easily. I wouldn't want my container on high pressure explosive gas be swapped from some DIY dudes car.

Clubber 5y ago
Like a gas grill I would suspect. The issue with swapping out batteries is they are friggin' heavy when they are that big.

mdorazio 5y ago

No, you really can't. In order to make high-pressure hydrogen tanks in passenger vehicles safe in crashes they are embedded deeply inside the chassis and are much bigger and more difficult to access than you seem to be thinking. There is absolutely no way to swap the tank on a Toyota Mirai, for example, without taking the car mostly apart. Take a look at [1] to see where the tanks are actually placed. [1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/37872/now-with-three-hydrogen-tanks-the-2021-toyota-mirai-gets-a-400-mile-range https://www.thedrive.com/news/37872/now-with-three-hydrogen-...

Clubber 5y ago
Why couldn't you put an access panel right next to them, or even a slide out tray? They both seem to be near the outside of the car in that diagram.
- outworlder 5y ago
  Hydrogen is already terrible enough as it is to contain. So now you want to add a bunch of connect/disconnect cycles to a high pressure tank?!
  - Clubber 5y ago
    I mean we've known how to store flammable gas for quite a while now. Welding tanks, oxygen tanks, propane tanks. Why would it be different from swapping out a propane tank in my gas grill? I mean don't EV's have issues? Lithium is expensive to mine, electricity is usually produced by burning coal, and can our current grid even handle 100% electric vehicles? I mean it's better than gas, but it's not the end of the road of vehicle power is it?
    - com2kid 5y ago
      Pressurized explosive gases are dangerous. Your propane task isn't part of a multi-ton vehicle traveling at high speeds that may be subject to a high speed crash at any random point in time. A hydrogen tank that is part of your car, however, may be subject to a high speed crash coming in at a random angle. BBQ grill propane tanks can explode, but they are typically stored on porches, an environment where they are not often hit by SUVs.
      - Clubber 5y ago
        >Pressurized explosive gases are dangerous. So are lithium ion batteries. Here's an article on a recent Tesla burn: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/01/tesla-model-s-plaid-caught-fire-while-being-driven-fire-chief.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/01/tesla-model-s-plaid-caught-f... I wasn't arguing that hydrogen wasn't dangerous, I was arguing that a hydrogen tank was easier to swap than a 1200 lb. battery.
    - outworlder 5y ago
      > Why would it be different from swapping out a propane tank in my gas grill? Because we are not talking about propane. We are talking about a tank storing highly pressurized hydrogen, which is way more difficult to handle than propane. In a moving vehicle, not a grill. > Lithium is expensive to mine Yes. It can be mined once and then reuse countless times, however. Hydrogen is expensive to manufacture too, and it's "burned" so you always need more. Expect prices to go down as more infrastructure to mine and refine is put into place. This is even ignoring technological advancements in extraction - which tend to happen once there's demand. > electricity is usually produced by burning coal This is highly location-dependent. True for some places, not true at all for others. That's also becoming less true by the day. _Even_ in the case where 100% of the grid power worldwide came from coal, EVs would still be a win. The generator on a huge power plant is far more efficient than any car engine. And the pollution is concentrated on a few places - places we can improve. Additionally, there are no emissions on population centers, meaning an enormous improvement on quality of life and a decrease on deaths due to respiratory illnesses. Then, once you upgrade the power plants, the entire vehicle fleet gets an instant upgrade. If it's in your means (essentially, if you own your property) you can generate power from renewables on site and power your vehicle that way. Try doing that with hydrogen. > and can our current grid even handle 100% electric vehicles Yes according to the US Department of Energy. > I mean it's better than gas, but it's not the end of the road of vehicle power is it Just until we find something better, then we'll _easily_ change our vehicles to store electric energy using the new storage device. That's the good thing about electric motors, they don't care where the power comes from.

fossuser 5y ago

Not what you were going for, but the people talking negatively about Apple's strategy ten years ago were similarly extremely wrong.

partiallypro 5y ago
Or extremely right, considering we now live in a world of walled gardens and user choice and repair-ability has diminished in large part because of Apple. I think he/she means that Tesla, like Apple, has a cult following in which people can't see the company doing any wrong or facing any criticism when it comes to its products or repercussions for what it will do to the industry down the line.
- fossuser 5y ago
  Apple's value went up over 10x from ten years ago. You may not like the result, but many others did and do. The people ten years ago talking about why Apple would fail or why what they made wasn't what people wanted were wrong. Similarly pushing hydrogen as a better option is wrong today.
  - Clubber 5y ago
    I mean if stock price is all you judge a company by, Amazon and Activision are angels that can do no wrong. I was referring more to the rabid fanboy-ism. People committing suicide in their plants? Well people commit suicide everywhere. Nets? Great idea! One of the reasons companies do horrid shit is that we let them.
Clubber 5y ago
I'm an Apple fanboy, but they certainly aren't beyond reproach.

diordiderot 5y ago

Video from this week on battery swapping tech / companies https://youtu.be/2-xWYScsvts https://youtu.be/2-xWYScsvts

stevenhuang 5y ago

It helps to fully understand the drawbacks of what you're advocating in order to have a coherent argument. That's why people have issue with your statement on "easily" swapping hydrogen tanks, as it's anything but "easy". https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage-challenges https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage-chall...