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Volkswagen develops hydrogen car that can travel 2k kilometers on one tank

ruetir.com

41–50 of 126 posts

Re: Volkswagen develops hydrogen car that can travel 2k kilometers on one tank

#41
post #36

I've gotten used to the idea that it seems like if I get a solar roof and power system that I can charge my electric car during the zombie apocalypse, where as AFAIK, I can't easily create gasoline or enough hydrogen for a hydrogen powered car. Right?

Hydrogen is simple to produce if you have access to water and electricity. Gasoline is much harder to do, though.

Re: Volkswagen develops hydrogen car that can travel 2k kilometers on one tank

#42
post #21

Hmms. 2k km isn't bad, but i don't consider this amazing either: my 12-year old big and heavy car can do 1300 km on a full tank. Sure, that's in ideal conditions, but so is this. And there is plenty of simple improvements that would make my car more efficient (weight & aerodynamics mainly). 2k isn't bad, but it's something that ought to be almost achievable with a modern and optimized ICE car as well nowadays.

A Toyota Prius in good conditions gets better than 4 liters/100km mileage - so you only need an 80 liter, or 20 gallon, tank to make it a 2000km vehicle.

Re: Volkswagen develops hydrogen car that can travel 2k kilometers on one tank

#43
post #36

I've gotten used to the idea that it seems like if I get a solar roof and power system that I can charge my electric car during the zombie apocalypse, where as AFAIK, I can't easily create gasoline or enough hydrogen for a hydrogen powered car. Right?

Hydrogen can be created using electricity and water. Who will create a new battery once yours dies out?

That battery will last longer than the catalysts in your hydrogen production system.

Re: Volkswagen develops hydrogen car that can travel 2k kilometers on one tank

#44
I'm midway through a deep dive on PEM fuel cells. My first takeaway is, damn, so many researchers have tried to crack this nut over the years. We've been working on this technology since the 1960s.

A cheaper and more durable membrane would be a huge improvement on paper. In practice, of course, there are a million variables that make fuel cells difficult to use as a general-purpose tool. From all the issues with fuel storage, cost, mechanical durability, degradation, to problems with pollutants and fouling, and so on...

As a side note: The Toyota Mirai is absolutely fascinating to me. A 1kW hydrogen fuel cell on the open market goes for around $5k, and yet somehow Toyota has managed to put a 136kW stack on the road for under 50 grand!

You can even find one on the used market for around 12 grand. It's almost worth buying them up to use as mobile hydrogen power plants.

Re: Volkswagen develops hydrogen car that can travel 2k kilometers on one tank

#45

What the hell is this weird "news" site? Next article is about MotoGP bikes switching from 2-strokes to 4. That was 20 years ago! And a poor translation at that.. https://www.ruetir.com/2022/10/30/motomondiale-2002-yamaha-y...

Seriously. I should probably enable an adblock or reader mode, but couldn't even be bothered to read the article it was so trashed with ads.

Re: Volkswagen develops hydrogen car that can travel 2k kilometers on one tank

#46
post #41
post #36

I've gotten used to the idea that it seems like if I get a solar roof and power system that I can charge my electric car during the zombie apocalypse, where as AFAIK, I can't easily create gasoline or enough hydrogen for a hydrogen powered car. Right?

Hydrogen is simple to produce if you have access to water and electricity. Gasoline is much harder to do, though.

Yes but in quantities I can use the drive my car?

Re: Volkswagen develops hydrogen car that can travel 2k kilometers on one tank

#47
post #23
post #21

Hmms. 2k km isn't bad, but i don't consider this amazing either: my 12-year old big and heavy car can do 1300 km on a full tank. Sure, that's in ideal conditions, but so is this. And there is plenty of simple improvements that would make my car more efficient (weight & aerodynamics mainly). 2k isn't bad, but it's something that ought to be almost achievable with a modern and optimized ICE car as well nowadays.

Hydrogen combustion doesn't produce co2, optimize a petrol-fueled ICE all you want and it's still a problem WRT emissions. I think the assumption is that hydrogen fuel would be produced via "green" electricity sources like wind/solar/nuclear.

There is that subtle issue of how do you get hydrogen.... Takes energy to make it.

Re: Volkswagen develops hydrogen car that can travel 2k kilometers on one tank

#48
post #41
post #36

I've gotten used to the idea that it seems like if I get a solar roof and power system that I can charge my electric car during the zombie apocalypse, where as AFAIK, I can't easily create gasoline or enough hydrogen for a hydrogen powered car. Right?

Hydrogen is simple to produce if you have access to water and electricity. Gasoline is much harder to do, though.

You also have to compress it to very high pressures to be able to store a useful amount of it.

Re: Volkswagen develops hydrogen car that can travel 2k kilometers on one tank

#49
post #25
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On top of that it’s way more difficult to install a hydrogen charging station than an ev-charging station. On the other hand, in Poland at least, natural gas charging stations managed to get enough traction - every gas station ofers LPG here.

To add, LPG stations are pretty much everywhere in both Canada and the UK as well.

I found it interesting how Canada uses LPG even though the winters get cold enough that LPG isn't usable. I lived in Alberta for a year and they had a warning that when it got below -40 the buses would not run. School was not cancelled when this happened, you had to find an alternate way to get there. They did helpfully remind you that exposed skin would freeze in about 5 minutes.
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