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Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

bmw.com

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Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#31

Post by polar »

chanux wrote: post #8
tut-urut-utut wrote: post #3

There's a lot of discussion about hydrogen as an energy source for cars in Germany. 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. However, it looks like that outside of Germany, electric cars just won, and Germany itself will not be able to reverse th…

According to James May, Only Japan and Germany can support Hydrogen Fuel Cell decently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XytYTxQEq_Y

Pity he didn't get to drive it properly that day. Follow-up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v99AthjW78U

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#32

Post by kieranmaine »

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:

"An FCEV can drive about 28 miles (45 km) on 1 lb (0.45 kg) of hydrogen"

and

"If the demand for hydrogen increases, the price could drop to around USD 2.50/lb (USD 5.60/kg) by 2030"

Therefore 28 miles will cost 2.5 USD.

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 https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/0v0-dr1v3-fl3x-3n3rg...) 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 - https://www.ukpower.co.uk/home_energy/tariffs-per-unit-kwh), 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.

Have I miscalculated or am I missing something?

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#33

Post by reader_mode »

Datagenerator wrote: post #7
tut-urut-utut wrote: post #3

There's a lot of discussion about hydrogen as an energy source for cars in Germany. 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. However, it looks like that outside of Germany, electric cars just won, and Germany itself will not be able to reverse th…

Smaller batteries, faster cars. In Germany one can really use all the available power in stark contrast to neighboring countries. Lighter cars and fast refueling for long distance travelling are very beneficial, not only to Germany.

Let's say Germany has a decent hydrogen infrastructure. You go on vacation in say Croatia or Spain, you suddenly can't use your car. Every country has electric sockets everywhere so you can charge over night and building fast chargers is trivial compared to storing hydrogen.

Hydrogen sounds useful for commercial vehicles where you can plan routes and stay close to pumps (eg. delivery, bus, etc.) Sounds horrible for personal vehicles.

I can see Japan investing in it - you are unlikely to travel out of country with your car.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#34

Post by polar »

marvin wrote: post #22
LightG wrote: post #5

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. 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 t…

As for 3: BMW, like most of the transportation industry, is unwilling to make the massive investment in battery production required to profitably be able to switch their production from fossil to renewable. This reluctance obviously extends to hydrogen-electric drivetrains as well, if that option was even competitive. Since they're stuck in a classic Innovator's Dilemma situation, they vainly hope that the rest of th…

> keeps profitably producing mass-market vehicles

For certain definitions of mass-market.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#36

Post by larshen »

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.

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.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#38

Post by dale_glass »

Hydrogen almost certainly won't go anywhere, in my opinion.

* The efficiency compared to battery tech is horrendous.

* 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.

* Let's not forget that the cheapest way of generating hydrogen is from fossil fuels. Electrolysis is very inefficient.

* Any concern there might exist for the effect on the electrical grid coming battery powered cars multiplies for hydrogen due to the inefficiency.

* You need a large infrastructure to produce and distribute it.

* It's a huge chicken and egg problem -- a hydrogen car needs hydrogen, and there's nowhere convenient right now to get it from.

* 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?

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.

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.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#39

Post by the8472 »

LightG wrote: post #5

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. 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 t…

My impression is that BEVs are much easier to improve incrementally on many fronts while hydrogen faces a lot steeper hurdles.

With hydrogen the fuel cell stack, tank, refueling mechanism and distribution are all things you need to solve. With BEVs some of those points collapse into just one component (the battery), we already have a distribution network and at low charging rates any wall plug will do. The technology baseline for electric cars is so low that they're about as old gasoline ones. The same can't be said about hydrogen.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#40

Post by Daniel_sk »

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #3

There's a lot of discussion about hydrogen as an energy source for cars in Germany. 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. However, it looks like that outside of Germany, electric cars just won, and Germany itself will not be able to reverse th…

There is a lot of talk about hydrogen in Slovakia - it's promoted by the head of Mistry of Trade and Industry (Richard Sulik), but not many actual steps towards hydrogen cars are being done so far.
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