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Hyundai has already racked up a million miles on hydrogen trucks in service, and there are on the order of 100,000 fuel cell forklifts being used every day. I'm

Hyundai has already racked up a million miles on hydrogen trucks in service, and there are on the order of 100,000 fuel cell forklifts being used every day. I'm not really sure what there is to be skeptical about. The US has 330GWh of hydrogen storage operating today, and the technology is 40 years old at this point. It's also a solved problem at vehicle scale. The missing piece was always cheap excess electricity, which we only have recently thanks to renewables.

jacquesm 5y ago
A million miles is absolutely nothing on this level to prove a technology, it needs to work everywhere where diesel works today to make it viable for long haul. In NL there are only a few places where Hydrogen is available and the number of hydrogen vehicles can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Forklifts do not operate on highway distances, but instead they operate in very limited areas around where they can be immediately serviced. Toyota is also still on the hydrogen-for-vehicular use bandwagon but it looks as though all electric has the future, and I really don't see how fuel cell tech has an edge over battery tech, especially not with the new battery chemistries that are becoming available for large scale use.
- coderenegade 5y ago
  The point is more that your skepticism seems to be based in what you want to believe, rather than reality, which is that extensive testing of fuel cells and associated technologies has already taken place across various industries, in various use cases. What we're seeing now is a scaling up of the infrastructure necessary to take the knowledge gained from those pilot projects, and translate it to industry. There are already fuel cell trucks, buses, drones, boats, and even military assets in operation every day. As industry moves applications over -- where it makes sense to do so -- the necessary infrastructure will be expanded. If there's a market for it, it'll be made available to the public as well. Expecting it to progress any other way is unrealistic. As for hydrogen usage in vehicles, it's hard to imagine that it won't be used in some capacity. Battery electric cars aren't a one-to-one replacement for an ICE car, and there are genuine drawbacks to the recharge time. Crucially, this isn't a problem that can be fixed through battery technology -- it has to be fixed at the grid level, because electricity has to be consumed when it's produced. Fuel cell tech is already cheaper than battery electric for use cases where the cost of overlay is taken into consideration, and it's hard to see new battery chemistries fixing this without somehow being dramatically cheaper than existing chemistries. Not to mention, fuel cells aren't exactly standing still either; future battery chemistries will have to compete with next generation fuel cells, not current ones. The reality is that there's almost certainly a market for people who want vehicles that refuel using a traditional model, and that's okay. The idea that there has to be a winner in the automotive industry is asinine, because different vehicles fulfill different needs, and it's unlikely that someone who relies on on-street parking, or goes on frequent long roadtrips, is going to want the same solution as someone who owns a home with a garage, and mainly drives around the city.

jacquesm 5y ago

A million miles is absolutely nothing on this level to prove a technology, it needs to work everywhere where diesel works today to make it viable for long haul. In NL there are only a few places where Hydrogen is available and the number of hydrogen vehicles can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Forklifts do not operate on highway distances, but instead they operate in very limited areas around where they can be immediately serviced. Toyota is also still on the hydrogen-for-vehicular use bandwagon but it looks as though all electric has the future, and I really don't see how fuel cell tech has an edge over battery tech, especially not with the new battery chemistries that are becoming available for large scale use.

coderenegade 5y ago
The point is more that your skepticism seems to be based in what you want to believe, rather than reality, which is that extensive testing of fuel cells and associated technologies has already taken place across various industries, in various use cases. What we're seeing now is a scaling up of the infrastructure necessary to take the knowledge gained from those pilot projects, and translate it to industry. There are already fuel cell trucks, buses, drones, boats, and even military assets in operation every day. As industry moves applications over -- where it makes sense to do so -- the necessary infrastructure will be expanded. If there's a market for it, it'll be made available to the public as well. Expecting it to progress any other way is unrealistic. As for hydrogen usage in vehicles, it's hard to imagine that it won't be used in some capacity. Battery electric cars aren't a one-to-one replacement for an ICE car, and there are genuine drawbacks to the recharge time. Crucially, this isn't a problem that can be fixed through battery technology -- it has to be fixed at the grid level, because electricity has to be consumed when it's produced. Fuel cell tech is already cheaper than battery electric for use cases where the cost of overlay is taken into consideration, and it's hard to see new battery chemistries fixing this without somehow being dramatically cheaper than existing chemistries. Not to mention, fuel cells aren't exactly standing still either; future battery chemistries will have to compete with next generation fuel cells, not current ones. The reality is that there's almost certainly a market for people who want vehicles that refuel using a traditional model, and that's okay. The idea that there has to be a winner in the automotive industry is asinine, because different vehicles fulfill different needs, and it's unlikely that someone who relies on on-street parking, or goes on frequent long roadtrips, is going to want the same solution as someone who owns a home with a garage, and mainly drives around the city.