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Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

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Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#21

Post by gtvwill »

deviantbit wrote: post #3

The electric car industry is spinning alternatives. Hydrogen is a much better alternative all around. You'll be able to convert existing cars much easier.

Why would you want to? Existing cars suck to work on compared to an electric. Ice needs too many parts it's inefficient for moving vehicles. Legit ditch all that running gear and give me hub motors on suspension arms. That's it. Don't need anything else.

Ice vehicles gonna get squeezed out by economics. Why pay some Muppet a few k to pull a block out to do gaskets when for little more than removing a Tyre I could replace the entire hub motor. Maybe a few hundred in labor compared to a few thousand. Hell for some car models like my subi I basically have to remove the entire front end or pull the block out just to do the head gaskets.

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#22

Post by tw04 »

gmane wrote: post #5

Anyone who has followed hydrogen as a fuel for a while sees pretty easily that its a solution in search of a problem. It really doesn't make sense to use renewables to make hydrogen fuel to then burn: batteries are better for storage of energy in most cases (I will grant that there are edge cases where a liquid/gas fuel is a better technical solution than batteries, but I think that options like ethanol are probably…

I don't blame you for being skeptical, but it isn't just the oil and gas industry. The Japanese government went all-in on hydrogen.

https://thediplomat.com/2023/07/a-look-at-japans-latest-hydr...

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#23

Post by henearkr »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #9
deviantbit wrote: post #3

The electric car industry is spinning alternatives. Hydrogen is a much better alternative all around. You'll be able to convert existing cars much easier.

unfortunately no one's going to be converting existing cars to anything other than scrap metal no matter which technology proves to be the most promising

Well I agree with your other comment, but about this one, retrofitting (ICE->EV) is a thing. Even if very niche for now.

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#24

Post by Smoosh »

deviantbit wrote: post #3

The electric car industry is spinning alternatives. Hydrogen is a much better alternative all around. You'll be able to convert existing cars much easier.

It seems that the low efficiency when using hydrogen in an internal combustion engine, combined with it's low energy density, makes it unlikely to be viable for mainstream vehicles.

https://evcentral.com.au/why-burning-hydrogen-in-an-ice-is-a...

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#25

Post by jacquesm »

I wish them much good luck, but it's a bit like the dinosaurs complaining about those uppity mammals getting underfoot: their days are numbered. BEVs are here to stay, hydrogen is - as far as I can see - a non-starter except when it comes to heavy traffic and possibly rail or air but even there I have my doubts.

Meanwhile BEVs are rapidly building momentum and coupled with solar and wind make very good sense. Even the last holdout for a passenger hydrogen vehicle (Toyota) has finally seen the light and is making BEVs now, I don't remember ever seeing a Mirai but given how many have been produced that's not so strange.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Mirai

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#26

Post by throwaway5959 »

asdff wrote: post #6
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #2

Not saying the oil sector is powerless by any means, and I guess maybe they're going for regulatory capture, but this is a non-starter from an economic reality perspective so I'm not too worried about it. The train is well out of the station for electric vehicles. I believe every car maker (save 1 that I know about) is fully committed to 100% electrified vehicles in the not-too-distant future. I feel like eventually…

All it takes is a new pump at existing gas stations and what becomes more compelling to the consumer flips overnight. Same cultural process of fueling up at the same place you've always fueled up in about the same amount of time as its always taken. It seems like there's a lot lot less inertia to get consumers over that hurdle than the EV hurdle, where charge times are long and convenient chargers not a guarantee in…

Have you ever read up on what storing hydrogen entails? Both at the station and in the cars? The tanks are totally different beasts than gasoline.

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#27

Post by malchow »

Pxtl wrote: post #20

Yup. It's painfully obvious here in Canada, where the loudest champion of hydrogen-powered vehicles is the Premiere of the oil-and-gas-generating province of Alberta, and she's an ideological-conservative pro-oil leader at that. Seeing people like that rally to hydrogen over EVs is the loudest argument against the tech. Hydrogen technology doesn't exist to save the Earth, it exists to save the natural gas industry. T…

Green hydrogen is developing now, and is very real, and is based on polysilicon solar advancements and PEM electrolyzer advancements, both of which provide ~3 decadal cost-down paths. See these two companies of ours:

[1] https://ohmium.com [2] https://novohydrogen.com

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#28

Post by teaearlgraycold »

gmane wrote: post #5

Anyone who has followed hydrogen as a fuel for a while sees pretty easily that its a solution in search of a problem. It really doesn't make sense to use renewables to make hydrogen fuel to then burn: batteries are better for storage of energy in most cases (I will grant that there are edge cases where a liquid/gas fuel is a better technical solution than batteries, but I think that options like ethanol are probably…

My understanding is liquid hydrogen could be a contender for a green jet fuel alternative. Batteries are too heavy.

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#29

Post by forgetfreeman »

deviantbit wrote: post #3

The electric car industry is spinning alternatives. Hydrogen is a much better alternative all around. You'll be able to convert existing cars much easier.

Not sure who's pocket you're in but you need to get your facts straight. I can convert anything from a Model T to a modern vehicle from ICE to EV with nothing more complex than a conversion kit, and those come in flavors. Want to keep your original transmission and drive train? They make EV kits in a form factor to replace just the motor portion of a power train. Not married to having a stick shift? Toss the entire drive train, drop in a solid rear axle with hub motors. Fact is you can convert a vehicle from ICE to EV in a weekend and most of the work involves removing unnecessary deadweight.

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#30

Post by gmane »

asdff wrote: post #14
gmane wrote: post #5

Anyone who has followed hydrogen as a fuel for a while sees pretty easily that its a solution in search of a problem. It really doesn't make sense to use renewables to make hydrogen fuel to then burn: batteries are better for storage of energy in most cases (I will grant that there are edge cases where a liquid/gas fuel is a better technical solution than batteries, but I think that options like ethanol are probably…

If the case for the battery was objectively better, oil companies would pull a phillip morris and buy out their antithesis to profit on both ends. The fact that they are doubling down on hydrogen itself I think its really interesting. To me, this shows that perhaps there is a true advantage, and also a high enough barrier to entry where only these oil companies at the scale they already exist can reap the most benefi…

Like BP? https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/bp-joins-forces-with-harmony...

or Exxon? https://www.aa.com.tr/en/p/duyurular/1002/exxonmobil-launche...

or Chevron? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/ev-charging-startup-ele...

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