Hydrogen almost certainly won't go anywhere, in my opinion.<p>* The efficiency compared to battery tech is horrendous.<p>* Hydrogen is effectively a storage technology -- we have to generate it and compress it. Which combined with the above means that charging a hydrogen car will always be more expensive than putting the same amount of usable energy into a battery powered car.<p>* Let's not forget that the cheapest way of generating hydrogen is from fossil fuels. Electrolysis is very inefficient.<p>* Any concern there might exist for the effect on the electrical grid coming battery powered cars multiplies for hydrogen due to the inefficiency.<p>* You need a large infrastructure to produce and distribute it.<p>* It's a huge chicken and egg problem -- a hydrogen car needs hydrogen, and there's nowhere convenient right now to get it from.<p>* In the end, a hydrogen car is ultimately electric. What is more convenient, having a car that can be plugged into an outlet, or a car that needs an extremely specialized hydrogen station?<p>IMO the only excitement from hydrogen is for fossil fuel companies, because that's what the vast majority of it is made from, and because it'd be a fairly natural fit into their existing infrastructure.<p>There may be some niches where hydrogen could be the better solution -- hydrogen trucks might be viable because there you can have well defined routes, and trucks have a weight limit which may not play well with batteries. But for normal cars I don't really see it.
The train has left that station 10 years ago, and it's all electric. No point staying in the trenches like the apocryphal Japanese soldier, fighting for the resurgence of Hydrogen. It's less efficient, more expensive for vehicles and infrastructure and more expensive to fuel, has lower range, it's more dangerous. The range record for a Hydrogen vehicle is less than the range of mass-produced commercial cars available today for purchase.<p>As an inferior technology, Hydrogen stood a chance if it was able to quickly deploy a network of charging stations, locking in customers with a strong network effect. The opposite is true now, electric charging points are popping up everywhere, because it's so damn easy to do, every shopping mall can accommodate at least a handful using its existing electric cabling. Most everybody has a 3.7KW power outlet at home that delivers significant range for an overnight or over-weekend charge.<p>Meanwhile, Hydrogen needs a completely new pipeline distribution system, using special metals and seals because it's so agile and leaky. There is no point in investing in such a system, because battery electric has already won the race. And without this network, Hydrogen remains an oddity fuel relegated to specialty applications.<p>It was a dead-end anyway. You either get Hydrogen form natural gas, which is an environmental killer, or you get it from green energy with a 20-30% whole cycle efficiency. Why not use the energy directly with a 80-90% efficiency, and use that vehicle fleet to regulate the whole electric grid?
My understanding from the article is that Hydrogen vehicles will not be competitive with BEVs in terms of cost per mile for the next 10-20 years. The article states:<p>"An FCEV can drive about 28 miles (45 km) on 1 lb (0.45 kg) of hydrogen"<p>and<p>"If the demand for hydrogen increases, the price could drop to around USD 2.50/lb (USD 5.60/kg) by 2030"<p>Therefore 28 miles will cost 2.5 USD.<p>However, according to ev-database.uk the most efficient Model 3 uses 235 Wh/mile. If we assume that most EVs will be charged using a cheap EV tariff by 2030 (see <a href="https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/0v0-dr1v3-fl3x-3n3rgy-pl4n-tr14l" rel="nofollow">https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/0v0-dr1v3-fl3x-3n3rg...</a>) with a cost per kWh of 0.06 GBP, it will cost 0.39 GBP to drive 28 miles. Even if the most expensive average UK electricity cost for today is used (15.60p - <a href="https://www.ukpower.co.uk/home_energy/tariffs-per-unit-kwh" rel="nofollow">https://www.ukpower.co.uk/home_energy/tariffs-per-unit-kwh</a>), it's still on 1.06 GBP, meaning the price per mile for a BEV today in the UK, is cheaper than a FCEV in 2030.<p>Have I miscalculated or am I missing something?
Car maker's attraction for fuel cells is that they neatly replace the internal combustion engine with another large, heavy, hot mechanism that continues to require about the same amount of ongoing maintenance. So the automaker's balance sheet remains about the same but now it's green.<p>As Musk pointed out some years ago, hydrogen is not so much a fuel as it is an energy storage medium. Right out of the gate creating the hydrogen reduces the system efficiency by about 50% because of the electricity required.<p>In essence then hydrogen fuel cells are just a less efficient form of electricity that require a complex and expensive mechanism to turn into motive force. Possibly useful for shipping or trains but not the way to bet for cars.
Hydrogen will always leak from any container.<p>Clean hydrogen is difficult to make, giving an opportunity to the oil industry to easily make cheap hydrogen from refineries, which is not carbon neutral.<p>I'm not sure there is enough platinum in the world to make all those cars. Mining platinum might cause additional carbon emissions.<p>Hydrogen is very dangerous because it's highly explosive. Gas is safer in that regard.
There's a lot of discussion about hydrogen as an energy source for cars in Germany.<p>It is generally considered more ecological than electric, because of much lesser environmental footprint than required for producing batteries.<p>Another advantage would be bigger driving range and faster refuelling.<p>However, it looks like that outside of Germany, electric cars just won, and Germany itself will not be able to reverse the trend.
>However, one disadvantage of producing hydrogen is the losses during electrolysis. The overall efficiency in the “power to vehicle drive” energy chain is therefore only half the level of a BEV<p>That seems to be more optimistic that what I've heard in the past. What's the efficiency of electrolysis+compression (or whatever step is necessary from bubbles to fuel in a tank)? Isn't that already well below 50%? How efficient are fuel cells in converting Hydrogen back to electricity? I thought I remembered that this too was a bit worse than batteries.
HFCs are a scam designed to make oil investors think that Shell and Exxon will have a role in the electric transportation future. The notion that we are better off turning 3x the CNG into hydrogen fuel than burning 1x the CNG to charge a battery is absurd.
At this stage - I don't see wide spread adoption happening outside of Japan or somewhere where a country really pushes for it.<p>Battery/recharging tech is improving year on year. For their latest model S plaid they've claimed: Tesla says that 15 minutes should be enough to replenish 187 miles (301 km) of range.[1]<p>In 2-3 years when the rest of the worlds car companies/ fast chargers have caught on I just don't see how Hydrogen can compete with all the downsides it has.<p>1. <a href="https://insideevs.com/news/515641/tesla-models-plaid-charging-analysis/" rel="nofollow">https://insideevs.com/news/515641/tesla-models-plaid-chargin...</a>
Sandy Munro thinks Plasma Kinetics has a breakthrough technology that will, at some point in the future, allow hydrogen powered cars to dominate the auto industry.<p><a href="https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/e0f655f1-c51d-4fe6-9383-1ffe36baf462/Plasma%20Kinetics%20Mkt%20Apps_3_%20Intro%201Y%20dt%20(003)_.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/e0f655f1-c51d-4fe6-9383-1ff...</a><p>Here's where Sandy Munro mentions Plasma Kinetics:<p><a href="https://youtu.be/06AhaQXhuwQ?t=226" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/06AhaQXhuwQ?t=226</a>
Electric cars has an advantage now, but there is more energy consumption than passenger cars.
Planes will never fly on batteries, Paris Airports are preparing for hydrogen planes delivered by Airbus.
Trains already run on hydrogen.
Ships will use ammonium.
Steel plants plan to convert to hydrogen.<p>Energy storage is a big issue to reach the goal line. In Nordic countries there is very little solar power in the winter.
Energy can be stored in hydrogen. An extra bonus is that excessive heat from hydrolysis can be used in district heating.
> electrical energy is used to break water down into its constituent elements, hydrogen and oxygen, via the process of electrolysis<p>is this actually the process to get hydrogen on industrial scale?<p>from wiki: As of 2020, the majority of hydrogen (∼95%) is produced from fossil fuels by steam reforming of natural gas, partial oxidation of methane, and coal gasification. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production</a>
<i>Yet experts believe that hydrogen fuel cell cars will catch up in the future</i><p>This is the same shtick they've been feeding us for thirty years. Fuel cell cars as a realistic choice for consumers has been five years away for decades now. At this point I'm tired of hearing about it. Battery electric vehicles have been making steady gains in terms of innovation and energy density for long time now. Battery electric has an enormous lead as well as fundamental efficiency advantages.<p><a href="https://i.imgur.com/SZFM97f.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/SZFM97f.jpg</a><p>Until someone comes up with groundbreaking new ways to do electrolysis and hydrogen storage, the fuel cell economy is dead in the water.
Given that history often rhymes, is there any energy technology that never went anywhere?<p>I can only really think of successful ones (human power, draught animals, fossile fuels, electricity, etc).<p>I guess nuclear maybe, in that it never reached the potential people thought it would?
In Denmark we could split water through hydrolyse whenever there is over-production from windmills. This over-production is something that we currently pay our neighbours to receive. In addition the heat produced can be used as district heating, making it less of an issue that it is less efficient to produce hydrogen.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the cost as a major downside of hydrogen fuel cell cars. The Honda clarity was set to be priced at roughly $350,000 for something that looks very much like a civic.
If an EV charging station has solar or wind generation and has excess power to contain in its battery bank, use the spill over to generate and store hydrogen and oxygen?
A British company is making a Hydrogen powered hypercar.<p><a href="https://www.viritech.co.uk/" rel="nofollow">https://www.viritech.co.uk/</a>
reality: They dont work.<p>Honda has been trying to make it happen for 20 years now <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX</a> its all a huge failure <a href="https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a36751587/honda-clarity-fuel-cell-vehicle-discontinued/" rel="nofollow">https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a36751587/honda-cla...</a><p>Whats fascinating is the realization Honda toyed with EVs even longer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_EV_Plus" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_EV_Plus</a> and still managed to fail miserably.
I'll just leave this take on hydrogen fuel cells by our lord and saviour Mr. Musk here:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPnT-DCBVs" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPnT-DCBVs</a>
TLDR: Li-ion is bridge to H2 future, will settle into niche use cases.<p>--<p>I'm very bullish on hydrogen for transportation. Maybe more. Think forward 10-20 years out.<p>Here's my <i>current</i> and <i>partial</i> and <i>wild guess</i> hot take on ICE vs EV vs H2:<p>EV is great for cars and smaller. EV also good for energy storage, eg homes, utilities.<p>H2 is great for trucks, delivery, heavy gear, buses, etc. Basically cars and bigger, or needing more range.<p>~2032 we'll hit peak yearly Li-ion production at ~8t gw/h. Market saturated, most materials recovered from recycling instead of mining.<p>2022 produces ~40m ICE, ~1m EVs cars per year.<p>I don't know how many ICE vehicles (trucks, vans, etc) are made yearly.<p>Installed base of automobiles is 1.2b to grow to 1.8b by 2030. Average ICE lifespan is ~30 years. Crunch the numbers. We cannot get passenger automobile sector to carbon zero fast enough on our current trend lines. We'd need to retire ICE early and produce enough replacements.<p>I have NO IDEA how many EVs we'll produce yearly. Consider the yearly Li-ion production and kwh used per car. We'll have to make cars smaller. What Horace Dediu calls "micromobility". (eg The battery pack of the popular, cute, functional Chinese EV is 1/10th of a Tesla.)<p>There's still no clear game plan for carbon zero for the other half of transportation, meaning trucks and buses and bigger.<p>H2 today ~= Li-ion 2006. Think of how we might mature H2 even faster than Li-ion matured.<p>H2 will be completely safe. As in solid state storage. Plasma Kinetics and such. <a href="https://plasmakinetics.com" rel="nofollow">https://plasmakinetics.com</a><p>H2 production will be (must be) completely off fossil fuels. In a few years, we'll have excess energy capacity looking for applications. Like producing H2, ammonia, etc.<p>BMW, Toyota, others completely missed (biffed) the Li-ion technology wave. And will suffer for it. I think it's wise of them to look towards the next disruption.<p>--<p>One wild card is ammonia NH3. It may prove a useful transition step. Helping us retire ICE faster, while EV and then H2 ramp up.<p>I'm certain there are other wild cards.
As someone with little knowledge of this domain except a few articles and this link, it appears that hydrogen is better enviromentally, but the electric-car lobby disagree.<p>If there is a chicken and egg problem, as mentioned in the article, where mass adoption of a "better" technology is only held back due to the the number of hydrogen pumps - that seems like an appropriate point for government to step in to bridge the gap.<p>1) Is hydrogen the better solution?<p>2) Why wouldn't government recognise this and bridge the gap?<p>3) As the article is by BMW, what is their agenda? Why wouldn't they just accept and hop on board the prevailing EV trend?<p>(edit: For the Elon cult downvotes, lol, note the word "appears" above, feel free to challenge it).
Yeah Germany, Japan, South Korea, UK, China, Australia, France, India, California and so on seeing it as the future of cars.<p>"It is generally considered more ecological than electric, because of much lesser environmental footprint than required for producing batteries.
Another advantage would be bigger driving range and faster refuelling."<p>And the biggest advantage: you're cleaning the air while driving from particles which harm your health. <- This reason alone is a key factor. Have a look here: <a href="https://youtu.be/ormfLJmWGC8" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/ormfLJmWGC8</a><p>People complained about the emission cheating regarding volkswagen. So everybody who did has to be pro hydrogen car. Because its real emission free. not like a battery car