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Can anyone here speak to the practical aspects of making fuel cells work at this scale? What exactly needs to change to gets the costs more in line with ICE ve

Can anyone here speak to the practical aspects of making fuel cells work at this scale? What exactly needs to change to gets the costs more in line with ICE vehicles?

p_l 4y ago
From memory, so it might be wrong and probably outdated: - the cells themselves weren't exactly cheap (lots of platinum) but that was IIRC non-recurring cost - storage is non-trivial due to hydrogen embrittlement and the like, while methods that are safe from it have other issues. Toyota has, AFAIK, this year or last year presented a serious improvement in that area with removable, rechargeable hydrogen cartridges - even if they break, less expenditure to replace, plus they make off grid operation much easier - hydrogen has a chicken and egg situation where vehicles need a robust network of charging stations but to build such network you need customers - a circular dependency. According to NIST studies on the topic, charging stations with in-situ electrolysis equipment and only a buffer tank are best option, so you effectively have same requirement as for BEV chargers plus source of clean water Note that BEVs made a run around the problem by having early adopters depend on home chargers that offered enough range for city driving - essentially validating the need for charging network by having cars already on the road. (subsidies helped of course) That said, energy density of hydrogen is orders of magnitude better than batteries, so unlike with electric cars the question is not "we need unknown new technologies to get effective long range truck" but just a matter of money to actually turn prototypes into operational model.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Hydrogen and BEV trucks will probably both need to follow the model of picking a specific route and converting that, by adding infrastructure, and getting multiple companies to spread the costs. Shipping is doing something similar with Green Shipping Lanes. https://supplychaindigital.com/logistics/green-shipping-lanes-solution-net-zero-challenge https://supplychaindigital.com/logistics/green-shipping-lane... But many trucks and heavy duty vehicles have already experimented with alternative fuels like CNG fueled from their own depot, so it's probably only needed as a second step as use widens.
- alexose 4y ago
  The Toyota Mirai platform is impressive, although it is still heavily subsidized. I guess my question was about the cells themselves, though, and less about H2 production / storage. I’m reading that the newer fuel cells have much less platinum— on the same order as a catalytic converter. If I try to buy a hydrogen fuel cell on the open market, they seem to cost around $10k per kW. Which makes Mirai that much more amazing given that it’s 114kW! I wonder how that’s even possible…
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
I think the use of platinum catalysts is a current driver of costs for the fuel cell. There's similar issues on the electrolyzer side but I think cheaper alternatives are entering the mass production stage. Presumably people are looking for similar breakthroughs on the fuel cell side. Plus the subsidies for using polluting fossil fuels cramping the market, though they are, very slowly, being reduced. Worth remembering that FCEVs were in fact better than ICE for various reasons, but still not as good as BEVs, which is the main challenge for trucking as well, but better BEV trucks also improves FCEV trucks as they reuse a lot of the same tech stack after the hydrogen becomes electricity.

Can anyone here speak to the practical aspects of making fuel cells work at this scale? What exactly needs to change to gets the costs more in line with ICE vehicles?

p_l 4y ago

From memory, so it might be wrong and probably outdated: - the cells themselves weren't exactly cheap (lots of platinum) but that was IIRC non-recurring cost - storage is non-trivial due to hydrogen embrittlement and the like, while methods that are safe from it have other issues. Toyota has, AFAIK, this year or last year presented a serious improvement in that area with removable, rechargeable hydrogen cartridges - even if they break, less expenditure to replace, plus they make off grid operation much easier - hydrogen has a chicken and egg situation where vehicles need a robust network of charging stations but to build such network you need customers - a circular dependency. According to NIST studies on the topic, charging stations with in-situ electrolysis equipment and only a buffer tank are best option, so you effectively have same requirement as for BEV chargers plus source of clean water Note that BEVs made a run around the problem by having early adopters depend on home chargers that offered enough range for city driving - essentially validating the need for charging network by having cars already on the road. (subsidies helped of course) That said, energy density of hydrogen is orders of magnitude better than batteries, so unlike with electric cars the question is not "we need unknown new technologies to get effective long range truck" but just a matter of money to actually turn prototypes into operational model.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Hydrogen and BEV trucks will probably both need to follow the model of picking a specific route and converting that, by adding infrastructure, and getting multiple companies to spread the costs. Shipping is doing something similar with Green Shipping Lanes. https://supplychaindigital.com/logistics/green-shipping-lanes-solution-net-zero-challenge https://supplychaindigital.com/logistics/green-shipping-lane... But many trucks and heavy duty vehicles have already experimented with alternative fuels like CNG fueled from their own depot, so it's probably only needed as a second step as use widens.
alexose 4y ago
The Toyota Mirai platform is impressive, although it is still heavily subsidized. I guess my question was about the cells themselves, though, and less about H2 production / storage. I’m reading that the newer fuel cells have much less platinum— on the same order as a catalytic converter. If I try to buy a hydrogen fuel cell on the open market, they seem to cost around $10k per kW. Which makes Mirai that much more amazing given that it’s 114kW! I wonder how that’s even possible…

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

I think the use of platinum catalysts is a current driver of costs for the fuel cell. There's similar issues on the electrolyzer side but I think cheaper alternatives are entering the mass production stage. Presumably people are looking for similar breakthroughs on the fuel cell side. Plus the subsidies for using polluting fossil fuels cramping the market, though they are, very slowly, being reduced. Worth remembering that FCEVs were in fact better than ICE for various reasons, but still not as good as BEVs, which is the main challenge for trucking as well, but better BEV trucks also improves FCEV trucks as they reuse a lot of the same tech stack after the hydrogen becomes electricity.