3 ms·
Why do you think so? Aren't car batteries in BEVs weighting half a ton? That must have an impact of overall efficiency no?
by julienreszka 4y ago
Why do you think so?
Aren't car batteries in BEVs weighting half a ton? That must have an impact of overall efficiency no?
- Maxion 4y agoYou can produce hydrogen in two main ways. 1) Electrolisys where efficiency is around 70-80 %. 2) Via natural gas which is less efficient and also requires a fossile source. Add now on top of this additional energy losses due to transportation and upkeep of a hydrogen distribution network. Hydrogen powered cars are around 20-30% efficient. That's a lot of energy losses, you end up using only around 20% or less of the original electricity for forward momentum. EV batteries do have weight to them, but as charging infrastructure becomes better you won't need a large battery even for long distances. Mercedes EQXX concept can travel at around 80-90 Wh/km. To take this into context, a liter of gasoline contains around 8.9kWh of electricity. A modern car uses around 5 liters per 100km, or 44.5kWh per 100km, or 445 Wh per km. A normal BEV today uses between 120-250 Wh per kilometer. Combustion cars cannot touch the efficiency of BEVs. Even if you made hydrogen with renewables, BEVs still make more sense. You need fewer renewables to generate the electricity to move the same amount of people the same distance. If you use hydrogen to store energy created from e.g. excess wind power, it's still more efficient to use it to run a turbine to charge EVs rather than to burn it directly in a combustion engine.