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Hydrogen is a mature industry used in many ways with extensive long standing regulations which are plausibly overzealous because of the hindenburg and fear of h

Hydrogen is a mature industry used in many ways with extensive long standing regulations which are plausibly overzealous because of the hindenburg and fear of hydrogen. Nobody will want to get their car's hydrogen tanks inspected several times a year. 95% of hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels. So if the intent is to get away from fossil fuels, which we must do regardless of political movements, then you haven't gotten away. It's a total failure path. Furthermore, they have produced hydrogen explosion engines but such vehicles will be of low torque and low range. In most actual cases a hydrogen car is actually an electric car with minimal batteries and hydrogen range extension in a non-explosive fuel cell. Why not just put more batteries in your electric car and remove the hydrogen range extension? If you want to do 'electrolysis' of converting water to hydrogen. It literally has a ceiling efficiency of around 60% depending on how industrial you wish to go. Your at home rig is going to be more like 15% efficient. Batteries are like 95% efficient. Why go hydrogen? There have been claims of being able to use platinum or something to be more efficient but these have all died on the vine. Not unlike the dozens of new better batteries you will hear about. In reality, even if they could produce hydrogen at >95% efficiency without fossil fuels. It's still the wrong solution.

badpun 4y ago
> Why not just put more batteries in your electric car and remove the hydrogen range extension? Presumably, because hydrogen is much quicker to refuel (than a battery charge) and hence can be done at a petrol stations same way we refuel petrol cars - i.e. without requiring the revolution of installing hundreds of millions of electric chargers across the world?
- Retric 4y ago
  Number of locations is irrelevant when each location costs vastly less. Spending ~200+ billion on ~120,000 hydrogen stations plus even more to produce hydrogen in the US is vastly more expensive than millions of cheap charging locations. So, in practice EV’s take less time to refuel than hydrogen. You plug it in somewhere you already want to be and then unplug vs going out of your way to drive to a hydrogen refueling station. And that’s assuming we don’t electrify highways which would kill the last possible justification for hydrogen cars.
- incomingpain 4y ago
  Its definitely a fair point. I'm sure fast charging will eventually become better and better as battery tech improves. Though also being able to deliver that much power to a bank of a dozen chargers will be a challenge I'm sure. But it doesn't really explain why hydrogen can ever be a success.

badpun 4y ago

> Why not just put more batteries in your electric car and remove the hydrogen range extension? Presumably, because hydrogen is much quicker to refuel (than a battery charge) and hence can be done at a petrol stations same way we refuel petrol cars - i.e. without requiring the revolution of installing hundreds of millions of electric chargers across the world?

Retric 4y ago
Number of locations is irrelevant when each location costs vastly less. Spending ~200+ billion on ~120,000 hydrogen stations plus even more to produce hydrogen in the US is vastly more expensive than millions of cheap charging locations. So, in practice EV’s take less time to refuel than hydrogen. You plug it in somewhere you already want to be and then unplug vs going out of your way to drive to a hydrogen refueling station. And that’s assuming we don’t electrify highways which would kill the last possible justification for hydrogen cars.
incomingpain 4y ago
Its definitely a fair point. I'm sure fast charging will eventually become better and better as battery tech improves. Though also being able to deliver that much power to a bank of a dozen chargers will be a challenge I'm sure. But it doesn't really explain why hydrogen can ever be a success.