Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

bmw.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 207 posts

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#191

Post by yholio »

specialist wrote: post #182
yholio wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 le…

Never: http://plasmakinetics.com Double or nothing?

There is nothing in your link about "pellets". I clearly assumed you were talking about frozen H2 since this is the standard term in the energy industry, see for example fusion research where solid fuel pellets are used.

High absorbency materials have been around for a while, but they failed commercially, they are typically more trouble then the equivalent high pressure COPV tank. Maybe a hype laden Wordpress template website will change it, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#192

Post by HPsquared »

haihwishev wrote: post #102

Given that history often rhymes, is there any energy technology that never went anywhere? I can only really think of successful ones (human power, draught animals, fossile fuels, electricity, etc). I guess nuclear maybe, in that it never reached the potential people thought it would?

Fusion I suppose.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#193

Post by nickik »

jackthezipper wrote: post #162
nickik wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are the outlier of the outlier. And if you plan it well, EV charge actually faster in the lower 50%. So if you really want to optimize you can actually do it with shorter 10 min stops. Check out Kyle from inside EV. And until you can seriously deploy Hydrogen vehicles, it would be a few years down the road. Until then the next generation of battery an charging will be significantly faster already. Practically spe…

>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 have children you need to stop more often period. Even most woman that I have traveled with actually want to stop far more often. Sure, with a bunch of guys driving to Italy we might go 3-4 hours non stop but that is as I pointed the exception.

I have traveled threw Europe all my life and the idea that 15-20min stops every few hours are a major deal-breaker is just nonsense. You want to pie, you want to eat, you want to go to the shop and get some drinks.

Simply stopping, plugging in, going to pie, get a drink in the shop and stretching your legs for 5min already adds enough to drive another couple hours.

And even if you are a case, where you really are driving like that, 1-2 times a year where you do journey like that the extra 30min you spend on the journey are really not the end of the world. I honestly can not describe it any other way then a small detail that wouldn't matter to the waste majority of people.

And even if that is still a problem, a few years from now batteries will be better, charging will be even faster and density will be higher. Hydrogen would not be the right answer.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#195

Post by nickik »

jackthezipper wrote: post #171
theluketaylor wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Again you just keep adding more and more stuff to defend your concept and it applies to fewer and fewer people.

The waste majority, 99.9something people will never drive with a caravan and most don't go threw the mountains.

You simply need to accept that you are representing an expedition, this has been studded. Most cars only very, very rarely do long travel at all. And when they do they don't do it very often. And when they do they stop reasonably often anyway.

You can simply accept that an EV is not for you for the moment because you are apparently a special case. Most people don't stop wanting to pie so they can beat rush hour to a campsite. That is simply not the case for 99.9999% of miles driven.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#196

Post by nickik »

Robotbeat wrote: post #166
nickik wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have the first 8 seater that can go around 400 miles in testing. And that is using pretty conservative battery tech. And there is a significant amount of potential optimization left. Using the batteries as load structures is just one of them, that significantly changes the simplified calculation people do on density. There are many other ideas. The problem is a lot of investment and engineering is needed a…

Yeah, it is possible to do long haul (5000km or more) electric aircraft. Difficult, but possible. 500 miles wouldn’t even be a big challenge. And “number of passengers” doesn’t even appear on the Breguet Range Equation (modified for electric flight).

One thing that matters that people don't consider is that with EV, the operating cost will be lower, so it might actually make sense to switch to somewhat smaller planes flying more different routes.

I think a 30 person plane that can cover the most common routes in populated regions would beat any jet fueled airline in terms of cost.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#198

Post by specialist »

yholio wrote: post #191
specialist wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never: http://plasmakinetics.com Double or nothing?

There is nothing in your link about "pellets". I clearly assumed you were talking about frozen H2 since this is the standard term in the energy industry, see for example fusion research where solid fuel pellets are used. High absorbency materials have been around for a while, but they failed commercially, they are typically more trouble then the equivalent high pressure COPV tank. Maybe a hype laden Wordpress templat…

Ok, good. Upgraded from impossible to impractical. Progress! In two more days, you'll think it was your idea.

What else am I wrong about?

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#199

Post by jackthezipper »

nickik wrote: post #195
jackthezipper wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Again you just keep adding more and more stuff to defend your concept and it applies to fewer and fewer people. The waste majority, 99.9something people will never drive with a caravan and most don't go threw the mountains. You simply need to accept that you are representing an expedition, this has been studded. Most cars only very, very rarely do long travel at all. And when they do they don't do it very often. And…

>Most cars only very, very rarely do long travel at all. And when they do they don't do it very often.

I agree, and this is what I said in my first post. My entire point is that, for most people, a car needs to meet _all_ needs, not 99% of them. Don't get me wrong, EV's are a great step forward, but perhaps hydrogen can solve some problems EV's can not. They might very well introduce more problems than they solve, fair enough. But it seems silly to just brush off possible solutions in favour of an incomplete one. Yet this is what happens every time hydrogen gets mentioned.

>And when they do they stop reasonably often anyway.

You are ignoring the optional vs mandatory difference. Whether it's a problem for you or me personally is irrelevant, the fact is it limits your freedom considerably.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#200

Post by rasz »

clouddrover wrote: post #105
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.

Of course they work. Hyundai's fuel cell trucks are running well: https://www.thedrive.com/news/41389/hyundai-clocks-1-million...

I dont mean the technology, it obviously works as evidenced by prototypes 20 years ago. I mean the concept and energy generation/storage, it doesnt make sense as soon as you take more than cursory glance. Hydrogen embrittlement, electrolysis energy loss, ranges, it all falls apart.
Post reply on HN