Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#171

Post by jackthezipper » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

theluketaylor wrote: post #168

jackthezipper wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You are the outlier of the outlier. I don't think I am. Camping vacations in Europe are very common. 1500 km in two days really isn't as uncommon as you might think. For clarity, I'm not saying it can't be done with an EV, I'm just saying the relatively many, long, mandatory breaks aren't nearly as convenient as the relatively few short ones that regular cars, and perhaps in the future, hydrogen cars, offer. And aga…

If you're taking a family camping vacation every time you stop the car it's going to be a 15-20 minute minimum stop by the time everyone climbs out, goes to the bathroom, and gets loaded back in. I don't believe you can transport 3 or more people without needing to stop at least once every 3-4 hours. Here in Canada things are way, way further apart than Europe and car travel to vacation is often many hours or days ap…

> I don't believe you can transport 3 or more people without needing to stop at least once every 3-4 hours.

Okay. I can, and do so a few times a year. Also, the 3/4 hours people keep referring to, is that in a fully loaded car pulling a caravan while occasionally driving through mountain ranges with an average speed of 100 km/h?

And for the last time, wanting to take a 20 minute break is different from having to. We often postpone/skip planned breaks in order to stay ahead of rush hour, or to reach the campsite before closing time, just to name two common reasons. Mandatory 20 minute breaks greatly reduce your freedom while traveling. No matter how little of a problem this is for you personally.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#172

Post by ortusdux » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

jackthezipper wrote: post #79

dale_glass wrote: post #38

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…

While inefficiency is indeed a problem, I feel like a lot of people overlook the one huge pro hydrogen has over batteries, namely charging time. Of course this might not be important for the daily commute, or 99% of the vehicles' use. But for that remaining 1% it _is_ a huge deal. And most people buy cars to fulfill a 100% of their needs, not 99%. Now I should say, I know basically nothing about battery tech. But unl…

Tesla did have quick (90s) battery swap capabilities, but it has been abandoned. I would imagine the logistics of managing the batteries would be a headache considering they degrade with use and represent ~1/3rd of the value of car. My best guess is that it was a precaution in case battery longevity was worse than expected. That, or it was solely a way to get several hundred million in tax credits from California.

If production ever hits a point where it is not battery supply constrained, I could see tesla offering a battery insurance pool system with swapping capabilities, were they pull any pack under ~85% capacity and turn it into a power wall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0-sHtlCZ7M

https://insideevs.com/news/329836/tesla-battery-swap-locatio...

https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2015/0312/Tesla-b...

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#173

Post by k4lk » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

rasz wrote: post #69

reality: They dont work. Honda has been trying to make it happen for 20 years now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX its all a huge failure https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a36751587/honda-cla... Whats fascinating is the realization Honda toyed with EVs even longer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_EV_Plus and still managed to fail miserably.

Here is James May driving a Toyota Mirari which is available today: https://youtu.be/v99AthjW78U

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#174

Post by akomtu » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 7:10 PM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #82

Musk calls them "fool cells" for a reason.

These hydrogen cells is just the oil and gas industry trying to stay relevant: they can modify their processes to produce hydrogen, but they can't produce lithium.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#175

Post by giobox » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 7:46 PM UTC

jackthezipper wrote: post #79

dale_glass wrote: post #38

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…

While inefficiency is indeed a problem, I feel like a lot of people overlook the one huge pro hydrogen has over batteries, namely charging time. Of course this might not be important for the daily commute, or 99% of the vehicles' use. But for that remaining 1% it _is_ a huge deal. And most people buy cars to fulfill a 100% of their needs, not 99%. Now I should say, I know basically nothing about battery tech. But unl…

Have you seen a hydrogen pump in real life? While yes, it can be faster than a 20 minute fast charge, it is a significantly more complex process than gasoline - it doesn’t just pour out the end of a hose as a stable liquid.

I actually think a lot of people will prefer a 10-20 min fast charge on a BEV (I certainly do). Due to the volatile nature of hydrogen I can’t imagine many places will let you run to the toilet or get a coffee while pumping either; these are all just fine to do with fast charging.

For me the choice between BEV and the alternates is more about availability of home charging - if you can wake up each day with reliably ~250 miles of range already in the car, you virtually never need to fill up/charge on the road anyway!

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#176

Post by effie » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

Transrapid wrote: post #74

effie wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is cleaning air from pollution, but it is also removing lots of oxygen. You don't want to breathe hydrogen car exhaust.

Wrong. have a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibo5fN727Rg

Notice the car is standing still, most probably having minimal consumption of oxygen.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#177

Post by Ma8ee » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 7:55 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #24

Ma8ee wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are betting on them in Japan, and they are using the olympic village as some kind of proof of concepts with both vehicles, but also residential energy production from hydrogen. And of course the Olympic torch will use hydrogen. Toyota are also betting on hydrogen. This is the reason why, even though they were early with hybrids, they still haven't released any purely electric cars.

It feels like Toyota has made a massive miscalculation on this. They should have had a huge lead with all their experience of hybrids but now look like the are scrambling to catch up.

Time will. I think hydrogen has huge advantages for e.g. long haul trucks, for which batteries don’t seem to be reasonable. And they will drive the infrastructure.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#178

Post by GordonS » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 8:38 PM UTC

theluketaylor wrote: post #169

GordonS wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We didn't have to stop more often or stay any longer than we would have with gasoline. A serious question from someone who knows little about electric cars, and who still thought it would take anywhere between 30-240 minutes to charge, depending on charger type - can electric cars really now charge faster than the If so, I think the industry needs to make more noise about this, to make it more know.

I'm talking about total stop time. Pumping gas is an active task you have to be present for whereas charging isn't. I roll into a charger and plug in, then immediately head to the bathroom. Grab food if it's a lunch or snack break. Walk around to stretch my legs. By the time I'm ready to go so is the car. When pumping gas I can't leave the pump unattended, so bathroom time gets added on top of refuel time. With charg…

> The other charge need is daily use. Charging at home...

Within reason, this seems like it would be a good tradeoff for many people.

Say you're on a rare long journey and need to stop and charge - minutes-wise how long are we talking about?

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#179

Post by yholio » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

specialist wrote: post #149

yholio wrote: post #70

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…

The future has always been H2. Li-ion is a bridge to H2, an enabler. H2 fuel pellets will be passed around like hard candy. H2 production will be just as distributed, decentralized as our future energy generation. Li-ion will peak ~2032, hitting yearly (battery) production of ~8T gw/h, and state of the art attaining a large fraction of theoretical max energy density. Assuming H2 today is ~= Li-ion 2006, peak H2 would…

"H2 pellets" could be the name of a street drug that makes people believe absurd things. But, unless you live on Neptune, it is certainly not an effective form of energy distribution.

Hydrogen solidifies at an insanely low 14 Kelvin. Using an ideal Linde liquefaction cycle will waste you 30% of the energy contained in the fuel simply to perform this deep freeze. You get a relatively low density fuel, about 5 times less energy dense than gasoline, that you will need to protect with massive thermal insulation (think Space Shuttle external tank) otherwise it will outgas like crazy and be an imminent explosion risk. When you add the electrolysis and fuel cell loses, you get a bulky but inefficient vehicle.

Sorry, this will never happen, regardless of what some hard SF author converted to futurologist may have led you to believe.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#180

Post by theluketaylor » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

GordonS wrote: post #178

theluketaylor wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about total stop time. Pumping gas is an active task you have to be present for whereas charging isn't. I roll into a charger and plug in, then immediately head to the bathroom. Grab food if it's a lunch or snack break. Walk around to stretch my legs. By the time I'm ready to go so is the car. When pumping gas I can't leave the pump unattended, so bathroom time gets added on top of refuel time. With charg…

> The other charge need is daily use. Charging at home... Within reason, this seems like it would be a good tradeoff for many people. Say you're on a rare long journey and need to stop and charge - minutes-wise how long are we talking about?

Not long. My most common road trip is about 720 km one way and doesn't have a lot of destination charging. I stop 3 times on the way up:

* 5 minutes to get synced up with the distance between chargers (it's a very rural route; on more major routes you have plenty of choice about where to stop)

* 20 minutes

* 15 minutes to make sure I can make it back to the charging network since my destination is super rural.

I have made that same journey to visit family many times in a gas car and we stop in the exact same places for pretty much exactly the same amount of time. The first one is in the town my grandmother lives in, so we'd have stopped to say hello anyway. The 2nd is where we have always stop for a meal. The 3rd stop is where we always take a bathroom break.

https://abetterrouteplanner.com

Select a car and enter a route. It will be a pretty accurate picture of the necessary charging. You can play with things like temperature, arrival and departure charge state, and load.