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Hyundai Nexo sets new world record 887.5 km travelled on single tank of hydrogen

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Re: Hyundai Nexo sets new world record 887.5 km travelled on single tank of hydrogen

#161

Post by hwillis »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #49
jdblair wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on how you define convenient. Hydrogen can be refilled quickly, in minutes, like a conventional liquid fueled car. If there were a network of hydrogen filling stations then driving, especially long distances, would be similar to driving a liquid fueled car.

More like an electric car, if it's a hydrogen fuel cell car (I'm not sure if all hydrogen cars are that or if there's another variant that combusts the hydrogen)

There is! Here's what it sounds like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dgzKW8EKMc

Hydrogen is more energy-dense than gasoline, but it's much more of a pain in the ass. Gasoline is far denser than air but hydrogen is far less dense, so normal injection displaces a ton (30%) of oxygen from the cylinders. You need to use direct injection to get any kind of power out of hydrogen, and a very high-flow fuel pump.

Combustion is also much hotter than normal, so you produce a ton of NOx compounds; that's why there's a huge catalytic converter on the back of the Toyota.

Without the efficiency of a fuel cell there's quite a lot of loss of range. The potential for increased power+lower weight in high performance vehicles could do a lot to combat the halo effect of gasoline... or at least I hope so.

Re: Hyundai Nexo sets new world record 887.5 km travelled on single tank of hydrogen

#162

Post by rad_gruchalski »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #134
rad_gruchalski wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to fill up the tank in 2 minutes is the value proposition. When driving a lot or long distances, it matters. Also, not everybody has the possibility to charge at home.

An electric charger costs less than the fuel cell does, so it makes very little sence unless this is being used in industrial equipment

Sure. News from 15 years ago: diesel powered car is 10 times cheaper than an electric car.

Re: Hyundai Nexo sets new world record 887.5 km travelled on single tank of hydrogen

#163

Post by Synaesthesia »

kaladin_1 wrote: post #153

Off by a magnitude, but can you see any future where entry level car manufacturers like Hyundai and Toyota will snatch the market from the German auto makers?

They're not entry level anymore, they're huge companies, some of the biggest in the world. And yeah they have already, people used to laugh at Hyundai, now they're renowned for their quality.

I think all the car manufacturers have moved to the more premium sector. They all make good cars.

Re: Hyundai Nexo sets new world record 887.5 km travelled on single tank of hydrogen

#164

Post by bildung »

devmor wrote: post #74
bildung wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All true, though to be fair CO2 savings with electric cars also only range, depending on car and country (i.e. local infrastructure and means of electricity production), from 0% to 35% of lifetime CO2 emissions of an equivalent ICE car). https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EV-life...

I wouldn't consider up to 35% to be worth of the disqualifier "only" - that's a pretty huge reduction, even if we'd like it to be much more.

Absolutely, I meant that the gains made by electric cars aren't that huge that the inefficiency of h2 production automatically disqualifies that approach.

(I do feel the need to point out that public transport saves much more though, 85% for Hamburg, Germany, so again this heavily depends on the local situation.)

Re: Hyundai Nexo sets new world record 887.5 km travelled on single tank of hydrogen

#165

Post by margalabargala »

Widdershin wrote: post #123
judge2020 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount actually traveled on a single tank is indeed meaningless - Teslas can go a thousand miles if you go up a mountain, end up at 10% battery, then charge to & past 100% on the way down the mountain via regen. Improving overall efficiency should be what is strived for.

Assuming you’re starting with a significant amount of altitude, otherwise the laws of thermodynamics would like a word

They could be grabbing a bunch of rocks at the top and putting them in the car for the ride down.

That worked for this one: https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1124478_world-s-largest...

Re: Hyundai Nexo sets new world record 887.5 km travelled on single tank of hydrogen

#166

Post by baybal2 »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #47
KMnO4 wrote: post #12

Since “tank” isn’t a unit of measure, I suppose anyone could trivially break the record with a larger tank. From the article: > The Nexo consumed 6.27kg of H2 For comparison with the other production H2 cars: Toyota Mirai: 5.6kg Honda Clarity: 5.0kg Seems like a promising technology. My understanding is that the current blocker is infrastructure. It’s hard to pressurize up to 10,000 PSI, so many facilities are only a…

10,000PSI hydraulics are rapidly becoming cookie cutter commodity parts. Once you have the supply chain for all the little crap that nickles and dimes you the rest is a lot cheaper. Having industry expertise at working at those pressures really has a huge multiplier effect on everything else. Building a system to plumb stuff from A to B at a pressure nobody uses is expensive. Calling up a sales rep and asking for sli…

How many people would be ready to drive a hydrogen bomb?

Re: Hyundai Nexo sets new world record 887.5 km travelled on single tank of hydrogen

#167

Post by hwillis »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #83
jdblair wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drives like an electric, refuels like a liquid fuel car (it uses a compressor, not electric charge).

If by "electric" you mean "Prius", you're right. Tesla's and similar cars have great acceleration because they support massive currents at high voltages. They need this to support fast charging, the incremental cost of adding a high torque motor is small. Hydrogen cars have tiny batteries that don't need to support fast charging. Like a Prius.

> Hydrogen cars have tiny batteries that don't need to support fast charging.

Because that's what they think consumers want, not because of technological limitations. Size is not a requirement for high power batteries. The Porsche 918 has a 6.8 kWh battery that can do 210 kW. That's ~31 kW per kWh, compared to a top-end Model S at ~6 kW/kWh.

Re: Hyundai Nexo sets new world record 887.5 km travelled on single tank of hydrogen

#168

Post by audunw »

nobleach wrote: post #130
Robotbeat wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Similar to a liquid fueled car, but worse than an electric car in most circumstances. But the problem is there will never be an equivalent hydrogen network as there is gasoline network because hydrogen fueling stations are far more expensive to install and maintain. Either the station overhead ends up much higher than gasoline or hydrogen is used much more rarely. Electric car distance records as of 2018 are 1…

I think the two biggest sellers of Hydrogen electric over battery electric, are the fact that batteries have a useful life. That life degrades over time. Hydrogen doesn't have this characteristic. Secondly, cold weather doesn't affect Hydrogen electric vehicles the way that it does with battery electric. If one lives in a cold weather climate, owning a Tesla isn't as advantageous.

> Hydrogen doesn't have this characteristic.

Hydrogen itself doesn't. But the fuel cells do. I can imagine there will be problems with the plumbing as well, as hydrogen has a tendency to make materials it comes into contact with brittle.

> If one lives in a cold weather climate, owning a Tesla isn't as advantageous.

Eh, it's fine. Norway is the EV capital of the world. Range is decreased, but it's not really a problem in day-to-day driving. We have an older 30kWh EV, with less than 100km range in winter. It's almost never an issue. Even driving 2 hours to a cabin is fine with a fast-charge that takes less time than buying groceries next to the fast charge station.

In colder climates, it's more common for people to have garages where they can charge at home. There are even colder areas, and remote areas where the range really is a big issue, but then we're talking about areas with very small populations. If all of them continue to drive diesel cars, it'll be a microscopic blip in terms of global CO2 emissions.

Re: Hyundai Nexo sets new world record 887.5 km travelled on single tank of hydrogen

#169

Post by bryanlarsen »

dagw wrote: post #145
bdamm wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn’t that much of a value proposition. Modern EVs do fast charging pretty well. Given that it takes on the order of 10 minutes to pull off a freeway, navigate a traffic light or two, select a pump, pay, use the restroom, grab a snack from the store, and then navigate another intersection to get back on the freeway, adding 5 more minutes to that time to make it a fast charging stop is not really a big deal.

Can modern EVs really fast charge in only 8-10 minutes? I thought we where still talking on the order of 30+ minutes.

A Tesla with under half a charge charges at a rate of 1000km of range per hour at a Supercharger. So 10 minutes of charging is definitely not a full charge but it is often a useful charge.

Re: Hyundai Nexo sets new world record 887.5 km travelled on single tank of hydrogen

#170

Post by tyingq »

csharptwdec19 wrote: post #156
giantg2 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but ideally they'd be swappable. Similar to propane tank exchanges. Or even how some EVs were thinking about battery swap stations.

Ehh, I feel like there's some challenges there. In the Toyota Mirai, for example, the tank is located under the passenger's seats, in a nice little 'braced' area. Likely chosen because it's the least likely location for the tank to get damaged in a collision. Also the challenge of either having to 'choose' between a 'swap' tank and a 'fill' tank, or a more complex tank that does both.

The tank I linked to says it stores at 400psi, and the material data sheet indicates it doesn't vent the hydrogen in a way that creates a significant fire hazard. So I don't think these need the same kind of protection as a high-psi tank. Though I'm sure there are challenges, or we would have heard about them being proposed.
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