5 ms·
Man with billions invested in electric cars disparages competing technology? I am shocked. The fact is, you don't need to have a high energy density with hydr
by codex 13y ago
Man with billions invested in electric cars disparages competing technology? I am shocked.
The fact is, you don't need to have a high energy density with hydrogen, as existing gas stations can be used to quick refuel a hydrogen car (with robotic assist, perhaps), without the logistical mess that comes from swapping an extremely heavy, very expensive, potentially user-abused battery with another one. You can even burn hydrogen in an ICE engine, as BMW has demonstrated.
The Honda Clarity FCX, a hydrogen powered car, is the only other car to achieve Type V California ZEV credits besides the Model S. Perhaps that's too much competition for Musk. The range of that car is 240 miles.
- beat 13y agoI'd give Elon Musk more credit than generic CEO spin for this. If he thought hydrogen was viable, he'd be working on it.
- corresation 13y agoIf he thought hydrogen was viable, he'd be working on it. He is one person, and he is not all knowing. He has limited time and potential. He also has a significant ego and financial interest in their current course. He's a smart guy, but I'm not going to write something off because he isn't into it.
- Kylekramer 13y agoI give Musk a bit more credit than most CEOs, but he has also shown himself to be very capable of playing the spin game in the press recently (the funky math on the 'new finance product', declaring that the NYT backed off its Tesla piece when they in no way did).
- magic_haze 13y agoYes, I was hoping the article actually shared some of the research Tesla must undoubtedly have done about the feasibility of fuel cells. Yes, they have limited range, but so do batteries. But while it takes _hours_ to recharge a battery, refueling hydrogen takes a couple of minutes, same as petrol. All his other arguments about infrastructure and safety apply equally well to petrol cars, and yet here we somehow managed to implement that efficiently. I don't see any inherent reason why we can't do the same for Hydrogen.
- jsight 13y agoTeslas do not take hours to charge when Superchargers are taken into account. The Superchargers can charge 50% in 30 minutes (80% in 40 minutes)[1]. [1] http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger http://www.teslamotors.com/supercharger
- thangalin 13y agoTesla plans to create battery-swapping stations that switch battery packs faster than filling an empty petrol tank, which can mitigate recharging.
- toomuchtodo 13y agoAnd how much energy is lost converting energy to hydrogen? Because there are no native hydrogen energy stores. You're either using electricity to crack water, or you're going to crack natural gas. Its more efficient to simply use batteries. EDIT: I'd like to point out, generating hydrogen does make sense if you're using an energy source that is essentially free. Too much hydro and you have to dump the water anyway? Make hydrogen. Too much wind and the transmission operator is shutting down your production? Make hydrogen. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense to use it as an energy transfer medium. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy#Current_production_methods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy#Current_produc...
- soperj 13y agosource? edit: that link doesn't really say that hydrogen is less efficent than batteries, just that it has less energy than the energy content of the original fuel, which is true with charging a battery too because of transmission losses, ect.
- cheald 13y agoNature? Free hydrogen doesn't really exist on earth; atmospheric hydrogen is something like 1 ppm. There's tons of hydrogen on earth, but it's all in water and hydrocarbons, which you have to split to get to the hydrogen itself. The Wikipedia article on water splitting notes that "production of hydrogen from water requires large amounts of energy and is uncompetitive with production from coal or natural gas." If you're capturing it as a byproduct of an existing process, then it probably makes sense, but just applying electricity to water to generate hydrogen to burn isn't very economical right now.
- frezik 13y agoI know, we'll get it from the atmosphere of Jupiter!
- chris_mahan 13y agoWith a fleet of SpaceX Falcon Heavies?
- walshemj 13y agoAnd you can use wind/wave/solar energy that is "spare" to crack hydrogen for storage. The ability to use effectively the same engines and plant is a big plus for hydrogen.
- frezik 13y agoIt's more efficient and simpler to use that spare energy to pump water uphill: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity
- Xylakant 13y agoThat pumped water requires a lot of space up there, so viable spots are fairly limited. It also is fairly difficult to transport compared to hydrogen.
- frezik 13y agoIf we're talking about the US, we have tons of open space. Really, tons. Americans don't appreciate just how much open space is in this country. If it's really a concern, it can be done with water towers rather than a conveniently-placed hill. As for transport, that's what a power grid is for. Transporting hydrogen loses more efficiency than transmission losses. Batteries are way ahead on every objective measure, and getting better every year.
- walshemj 13y agoUm have you seen a pumped storage power plants they are major civil engineering constructions. You could probably add a small hydrogen storage facility to every wind farm in the UK for less than the cost of the public inquiry into a new pumped storage scheme.
- tezza 13y agoI'm afraid the physics just don't work out for Hydro. See the Hydro section of Sustainable Energy - without the hot air by David JC MacKay: http://www.withouthotair.com/c8/page_55.shtml http://www.withouthotair.com/c8/page_55.shtml Even though the land mass of the US is larger than the UK, it's hard to see hydro being more than MacKay's 2kW per day per person... That's two 40W light bulbs left on all day.