[HN Gopher] Hyundai Nexo sets new world record 887.5 km travelle... ___________________________________________________________________ Hyundai Nexo sets new world record 887.5 km travelled on single tank of hydrogen Author : teleforce Score : 267 points Date : 2021-05-18 12:19 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.h2-view.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.h2-view.com) | wglb wrote: | Keep this in mind when thinking about hydrogen: | https://www.tinaja.com/h2gas01w.shtml | p1mrx wrote: | I'm curious whether https://proton.energy/ will pan out. They | claim to be developing a process to extract hydrogen from | natural gas wells, leaving the CO2 underground. If that's | possible, it would basically make hydrogen a fuel. | wglb wrote: | Possibly. | | I do worry about | | >Natural gas pipelines can transport large volumes of | hydrogen without any hardware changes. | | as hydrogen exposure makes metal brittle. | | There are other moderately serious problems--hydrogen flame, | unlike that of almost any hydrocarbon, is invisible. | KMnO4 wrote: | Since "tank" isn't a unit of measure, I suppose anyone could | trivially break the record with a larger tank. | | From the article: | | > The Nexo consumed 6.27kg of H2 | | For comparison with the other production H2 cars: | | Toyota Mirai: 5.6kg | | Honda Clarity: 5.0kg | | Seems like a promising technology. My understanding is that the | current blocker is infrastructure. It's hard to pressurize up to | 10,000 PSI, so many facilities are only able to refill to 60-80% | capacity. | contriban wrote: | > anyone could trivially break the record | | "Make it bigger" doesn't really work in cars, otherwise range | anxiety wouldn't exist as a concept. | | The record still makes sense because the Hyundai Nexo is | commercially available and it's not a prototype with a | comically-large _just for the record_ tank. | 542458 wrote: | "Make it bigger" does work, but it increasingly stops | resembling a car. Check out the range this one can get on a | single tank of hydrogen! | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas-Centaur | | I don't know what you'd consider the max range here to be, | but it's definitely better than 887km. | beckingz wrote: | I think the space shuttle may win for most kilometers | traveled on a single hydrogen tank. | 542458 wrote: | I would have citied that, but they use solid boosters | which makes the number messier... I could get a lot of | range on a Tesla if I was allowed to use solid fuel | boosters! | 0x64 wrote: | Shuttle had solid-fuel boosters and hypergolic thrusters | for on-orbit maneuvering. The Delta IV Heavy, on the | other hand, is a fully hydrogen-powered rocket: three | common cores, with an RL10-powered upper stage. It also | launched the Parker Solar Probe, which has been doing | rounds around the sun for a while now. | [deleted] | dweekly wrote: | Excellent range. And to the point of the comment, said | linked vehicle is a production vehicle where the tank was | not added for the sole purpose of breaking a record, so... | -\\_(tsu)_/- | hwillis wrote: | While it's true that you _could_ add probably double the H2 | storage to most HFC vehicles, I think this is the correct | take. The Mirai 's fuel tank is 37.25 gallons/141 liters vs | 12-15 gallons/45-55 liters of gasoline for most cars. | | Tank capacity only helps so much. You may have to fill up | half as often, but having to go out of your way for a special | station is annoying. ICE vehicles could easily have 40 gallon | tanks, and eventually FCVs won't have these incredibly high | ranges. | donkeyd wrote: | > but having to go out of your way for a special station is | annoying | | I went back from a Tesla to a diesel car. I hate going out | of my way to special stations to fill up my car with | diesel. I much preferred unplugging in the morning and | plugging back in in the evening. | toast0 wrote: | > ICE vehicles could easily have 40 gallon tanks | | My first vehicle had a 33 gallon tank. Not much room for | anything bigger; of course mileage was awful. My most | efficient car can do about 600 miles on a 14 gallon tank; | if it had room for a 33 gallon tank, it could go halfway | across the country on one tank. | cptskippy wrote: | > "Make it bigger" doesn't really work in cars, otherwise | range anxiety wouldn't exist as a concept. | | Sure it does. Just look at Tesla, at the time EVs had 24kwh | or smaller batteries and they more than doubled that to give | reasonable ranges. | contriban wrote: | My point is that there's a limit to it. Teslas still don't | have the same range as a gas car in the same | category/price. They could increase it but then I don't | think they can sell a lot of $150k Model Ss. | | At some point you'll have more drawbacks than it's worth it | (size, price, weight, efficiency, safety). | _ph_ wrote: | Beyond the missing expensive infrastructure, the big problem is | energy efficiency. Moving forward, we have to switch every | energy production to renewables. But for the same amount of | electric energy produced, an electric car gets about 3x the | mileage than producing "green" hydrogen and powering fuel cell | cars with it. Hydrogen means at least 3x the electricity cost | and for many years to come, we are going to struggle producing | enough clean electricity in the first place. | | Also the infrastructure for electricity basically is there, | mostly needed are plain outlets at all long-term parking spots. | And of course, one can charge an electric car from your own | solar. | grogenaut wrote: | I enjoy how you are taking all of the arguments people used | against BEVs in favor of gas and using them against HV. The | irony is strong in these threads. | _ph_ wrote: | Sorry, I don't get what you mean. Which arguments are you | referring to and what is ironic? | DeRock wrote: | BEVs are much more energy efficient than ICE. When was the | argument that they are not ever used? | JPKab wrote: | The key to a hydrogen economy will rely on creation of | hydrogen in locations with extremely abundant electricity | like Iceland. The next step is shipping it like it's LNG. | | Not a small order. | _ph_ wrote: | Yes, those locations will play a huge role in securing the | global energy supply. However, the hydrogen will be | desperately needed in the industry (e.g. steel production) | and for supporting the electric grid in times of both low | wind and solar. No good reason to waste it around the year | driving cars. | olivermarks wrote: | My understanding is that hydrogen may be most useful for | heavy good vehicles rather than cars. EVs could be great | for short range urban delivery vans etc but long haul | infrastructure may be built around hydrogen if the supply | chain is viable. | _ph_ wrote: | Might, but if the Tesla Semi becomes a reality, the | potential market for hydrogen in trucks becomes much | smaller too. | olivermarks wrote: | The dynamics of moving heavy loads long distances has | never favored electric power. Diesel currently powers | tractor semis because it produces more energy than | gasoline and creates much more low speed continuous load | torque. | | EVs are well suited to light loads and short distances, | rapid acceleration and altitude change but are not well | suited to long range hauling of heavy loads due to the | enormous energy required. | grogenaut wrote: | Do you mean similar to how we do the same with LNG or oil | from Alaska? | danogentili wrote: | > The key to a hydrogen economy will rely on wasting energy | on creation of hydrogen in locations with extremely | abundant electricity. | | Honestly, this sounds just as bad as setting up bitcoin | mines in places with high rates of renewables, to avoid | directly throwing tons of CO2 in the atmosphere. Even if | you have loads of clean energy, that's no reason to waste | it when there are more efficient ways of using it (lithium | batteries, PoS). | | Not to mention the fact that every watt of wasted green | energy can't used to replace a watt of coal energy. | mminer237 wrote: | I don't think you can feasibly ship all your electric | batteries to be charged up in Iceland. | kwhitefoot wrote: | > don't think you can feasibly ship all your electric | batteries to be charged up in Iceland. | | No need if the Icelink DC link gets built. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelink | JPKab wrote: | I don't think there's a scarcity issue with electricity | in places like Iceland where volcanic activity provides | massive areas of land where electricity can be freely and | easily generated. The issue is the ability to transport | said electricity without massive losses. | konschubert wrote: | The bottleneck is not kwh of electricity produced, but | storage. Hydrogen cards do well on that bottleneck. | _ph_ wrote: | No, the do worse than electric cars in that respect. The | hydrogen production facilities are very expensive, so they | have to run 24/7 at the same load. This is exactly what | mixed badly with the varying supply of renewables. With | electric cars, you just plug them in at home/at work and | they charge whenever there is an oversupply of electricity. | Offering special remote controlled charging outlets is | going to be a game changer for the grid. | donkeyd wrote: | If I were to store solar in my electric car as a form of | temporary storage, I get probably between 80 and 90% of | what was generated by my cells delivered back to my house. | All I need to do this are some slight alterations to my | electrical system. | | If I wanted to do this with my hydrogen car, I would need | to get some expensive electrolysis station next to my house | and I would get maybe 50% of stored energy back after | electrolysis. I would also need to get the compressor etc | maintained regularly. | | Also, if you mean storage for actual driving, as in | possible range, there's hardly a need for more range than a | Tesla can already deliver... For most people. The biggest | change to make it more feasible for pretty much all people | is charging speed and that keeps improving too. | eloff wrote: | Tesla doesn't allow this because of the wear on the | batteries, but it seems like a killer application for EVs | and rooftop solar to be able to combine them like that. | Mvandenbergh wrote: | The question is not whether you pay a massive efficiency | penalty for storing electricity as hydrogen (obviously, yes) | but whether there are applications where you are effectively | buying a set of useful properties for the losses you are | "spending". | | For displacing existing grey hydrogen from the chemical | industry, a possible reducing agent in steel making, and | other high temperature industrial processes it's pretty clear | that the answer will be yes. | | I happen to think that it is really unlikely that the answer | for cars and vans will ever be yes, even if hydrogen could be | made cheaply. | | Whether it will have a role in other applications depends on | a few things: | | First, the structure of the future electricity mix. In order | to ensure that there is enough electricity at every moment, | we have to do a mix of things: -"over" build variable output | renewables so that the troughs in production are higher | -Intra-day demand side response -Intra-day storage (almost | certainly batteries) -Dispatchable renewables like hydro | -Dispatchable sort-of renewables based on biomass | -Dispatchable fossil fuels (with CCS) -Load-following nuclear | | The reason why people think about hydrogen and other exotic | technologies is that many of the technologies on that list | either have limited available scope (hydro, biomass), are | probably not really carbon-neutral (biomass, CCS), rely on | unproven tech at scale (CCS, new nuclear designs), or have | exceptionally high capital costs (any new nuclear but | especially when at low load factors, CCS especially at low | load factors). | | So what most simulations show you're left with as a low-cost | mix for most days is a combination of the first five. That | still leaves you with two problems: -What do you do if the | average output net of load is very different between seasons? | -How do you provision for a 1:20 yr weather system without | making your system vastly more expensive? | | and one opportunity (which is also a challenge): -variable | renewables are cheap and getting cheaper so cost-optimal | generation mixes build a lot more than needed for the average | day in order to keep use of expensive biomass and limited | hydro capacity to a minimum. As a result, electricity has | low/no marginal value a lot of the time. | | Second, the future cost of electrolysers. At current capex | levels, they need to be run at max load all the time and | still produce expensive hydrogen. Genuinely low costs like | what BNEF thinks might be possible ($100/kW) allow you to run | for only 20% or less of the hours in the year and scoop all | the excess electricity up. | | Third, the cost of alternative solutions in the areas where | hydrogen is currently being considered as this reduces the | value of any hydrogen produced. | | I do agree that for passenger cars it's just not going to | happen. | judge2020 wrote: | The amount actually traveled on a single tank is indeed | meaningless - Teslas can go a thousand miles if you go up a | mountain, end up at 10% battery, then charge to & past 100% on | the way down the mountain via regen. Improving overall | efficiency should be what is strived for. | Widdershin wrote: | Assuming you're starting with a significant amount of | altitude, otherwise the laws of thermodynamics would like a | word | margalabargala wrote: | They could be grabbing a bunch of rocks at the top and | putting them in the car for the ride down. | | That worked for this one: | https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1124478_world-s- | largest... | metalliqaz wrote: | Sounds like you're talking about distribution infrastructure, | which is true but in my mind the biggest issue is efficiency. | Storing and using H2 isn't very efficient, and current | production techniques for H2 emit as much or more carbon as | Diesel. | nobleach wrote: | This is true. The current production techniques are basically | using water. This is producing a ton of CO2 - the very | opposite of what we're hoping to attain by running Hydrogen- | powered vehicles. The hope is that we're able to leverage | methane from animal droppings in the near future. Toyota is | leading the research on this I believe. | epistasis wrote: | Current production methods use natural gas, specifically | methane. Animal droppings will never supply enough methane | to be a significant source of energy. | | The goal is to eventually produce hydrogen from water, | through electrolysis. We have tech for this, but it's very | expensive compared to our methane methods. Current | electrolyzers are used for industrial applications. Spain | is currently planning a huge deployment of electrolyzers to | make ammonia, mostly for fertilizer. | | And honestly, electrolyzed hydrogen will mostly be used in | industry, and maybe some long-haul transport, but almost | certainly will never make sense for cars. We will probably | see hydrogen converted to methanol or ammonia or something | else that's easier to handle than hydrogen. Though I do | hear that hydrogen could be used with current ocean | freighters with only a 10% loss of capacity, so there's | some potential there. | Skunkleton wrote: | Animal droppings are not our primary source of methane. | Not sure if that was meant to be sarcastic. | | Electrolysis is expensive and energy inefficient. It is | unlikely to be a primary source of hydrogen unless there | is some breakthrough. | | If the limiting factor is clean electricity production, | it makes sense to use it more efficiently with a BEV than | it does to use it inefficiently with a HFCV. | bildung wrote: | All true, though to be fair CO2 savings with electric cars | also only range, depending on car and country (i.e. local | infrastructure and means of electricity production), from 0% | to 35% of lifetime CO2 emissions of an equivalent ICE car). | https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EV- | life... | devmor wrote: | I wouldn't consider up to 35% to be worth of the | disqualifier "only" - that's a pretty huge reduction, even | if we'd like it to be much more. | bildung wrote: | Absolutely, I meant that the gains made by electric cars | aren't that huge that the inefficiency of h2 production | automatically disqualifies that approach. | | (I do feel the need to point out that public transport | saves much more though, 85% for Hamburg, Germany, so | again this heavily depends on the local situation.) | canadianfella wrote: | Only? | NikolaNovak wrote: | Gack... one of my pet peeves: 90% of my friends compare car | millage in terms of "how much money I spend to refuel", | completely ignoring: | | 1. Significantly different tank sizes - 53L to 70L on regular | cars. | | 2. Different prices of gas (suburbs vs downtown, 87 vs 91 | octane, etc) | | 3. Different habits - some refuel at 1/3 left, 1/4 left, 50km | left, yellow light on, needle at the end of the gauge, etc | | It drives me absolutely bonkers banana berserk, but... nothing | I've been able to do so far :-/ | hydrogtehd wrote: | You might have poor friends who have cash flow problems. When | I was a kid my parents wouldn't fill up the tank, they'd put | L20 000 in it ($15). About half way up. They couldn't afford | more. | | For people like this, how much the car costs per stop is | important. Especially if a re-fueling typically occurs after | the next pay period. | bombcar wrote: | It's not scientific at all, but for most people gas mileage | comes down to "how often do I have to go to the gas station". | | Which is why once electric cars passed a certain point they | become effectively infinite mileage as far as people are | concerned (as they never have to think about charging as it's | always charged overnight). | | Similar for how for most people there are only two speeds of | computers - I have to wait for it vs I don't have to wait for | it. | LaserToy wrote: | I kind of agree. The only thing that matters for me is a cost | of ownership in $$$ over some period of time. | NikolaeVarius wrote: | I have never heard of anyone judging fuel cost outside of | miles/kilometers per gallon/liters. | | Where the hell do you live | NikolaNovak wrote: | Hmm, slightly different measurement. They're not talking | about "sticker price of fuel at the gas station", so not | "fuel cost". | | Rather, if you ask them casually in an informal setting | "Does your car get good milleage", they'll say things like | "Yeah, it only costs me $50 to fill it up!" or my personal | favourite, "Yeah, I only have to fill it once per week" --> | the amount of unspoken variables in that one just boggles | the mind, but goes to another commenter's point of | "practical perspective". "How often I need to fill it up" | is probably a sane, pragmatical way to think of milleage. | It may in fact cut to the point faster than saying "it does | 11L / 100km", because while it answers some questions in | abstract, it doesn't actually answer the practical | considerations of how often I need to refuel / how far can | I get on a tank. | | As mentioned in my another reply, for me at least, it | hasn't been a factor of where I live but variety of company | I keep -- on average I'd say my Comsci/Sci-major friends | don't do it. | | But I'm currently in Canada, where we do indeed as per | stereotype, measure distance in units of time ("How far is | your work?" "About 20 minutes" ComSciMajor response: | "GAAACK!") | kolinko wrote: | amazing... I literally never heard of anyone using that | metric. Everyone I've ever known uses liters/100km... | Closi wrote: | I hate to tell you this but 90% of your friends are silly, | all mine talk about miles per gallon. | NikolaNovak wrote: | >>I hate to tell you this but 90% of your friends are | silly, | | Quoted out of context like that, that's probably the best | compliment on living life right that I've had in a long | time! :-> | NikolaNovak wrote: | ... It's fascinating reading the comments here and other | places that go between "that's crazy never heard of it | couldn't imagine you're making it up" and "yup seen it / do | it too" :-D | | But basically for many of my non-science-major friends, it's | money per tank or at best kilometers per refueling. Re | another (for some reason dead?) comment, there may indeed be | a correlation between cash flow and tendency to use "money | per tank", haven't thought about it that extensively. And | then whether education is a confounding or causal variable to | either of those axis, it gets complex. | | Location wise: Toronto Canada, Winnipeg Canada, and Fairmont | Minnesota is where I've observed it, FWIW. | Tarsul wrote: | he, this reminds me of a recent interview with Daniel | Kahneman (of behavioral science nobel fame) where he closes | with saying he works on the "how the inability to solve the | famous "bat and ball problem" [bat and ball cost 1,10 | together, the bat costs 1 dollar more than the ball, how | much do they cost each?] correlates with belief in God and | that 9/11 was a conspiracy." | https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/may/16/daniel- | kahnema... | giantg2 wrote: | Hydride tanks don't require those high pressures. Other than | nuclear arms treaties, is there a technical reason they don't | use those instead? | WJW wrote: | That's a hell of a "Other than" you have there. | tyingq wrote: | Long fill times? This commercially available one says 48 | hours to re-charge it. | | https://www.fuelcellstore.com/hydrogen-equipment/hydrogen- | st... | giantg2 wrote: | Yeah, but ideally they'd be swappable. Similar to propane | tank exchanges. Or even how some EVs were thinking about | battery swap stations. | jandrese wrote: | Aren't they really heavy? This is also why swappable | batteries in EVs never got off of the ground. You need a | crane to do it and that's too much effort for a top-up. | giantg2 wrote: | I thought the tanks were much lighter than the batteries. | I think they use multiple smaller tanks due to the rate | of release of the hydrogen. | | I don't know. I haven't done a lot of research since it | will be at least another decade until a decent vehicle | suiting my criteria comes out (electric or hydrogen). No | point in me even looking at it now. | csharptwdec19 wrote: | Ehh, I feel like there's some challenges there. | | In the Toyota Mirai, for example, the tank is located | under the passenger's seats, in a nice little 'braced' | area. Likely chosen because it's the least likely | location for the tank to get damaged in a collision. Also | the challenge of either having to 'choose' between a | 'swap' tank and a 'fill' tank, or a more complex tank | that does both. | tyingq wrote: | The tank I linked to says it stores at 400psi, and the | material data sheet indicates it doesn't vent the | hydrogen in a way that creates a significant fire hazard. | So I don't think these need the same kind of protection | as a high-psi tank. Though I'm sure there are challenges, | or we would have heard about them being proposed. | toast0 wrote: | Feels like the infrastructure and on car issues are going to be | similar to CNG, but worse. Need new fuel stations, high | pressure storage, no existing delivery network (worse than CNG; | although CNG pipelines are much lower pressure than vehicles | need, so you needed a compressor at the fueling point); and the | killer --- the vehicle tanks expire and replacement may not be | economically feasible, in which case your car's value | evaporates when the tank expires (generally 15 years after tank | manufacture); this is what happened to most CNG cars. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | 10,000PSI hydraulics are rapidly becoming cookie cutter | commodity parts. Once you have the supply chain for all the | little crap that nickles and dimes you the rest is a lot | cheaper. Having industry expertise at working at those | pressures really has a huge multiplier effect on everything | else. | | Building a system to plumb stuff from A to B at a pressure | nobody uses is expensive. Calling up a sales rep and asking for | slightly modifications on an existing product line so it can be | used with your product is pennies by comparison. | snypher wrote: | I can picture how the conversation would go. There's some | pretty big differences between hydrogen and hydraulic fluid, | probably to the point of whole component redesign. The little | crap here (springs and o-rings) would be completely | different. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | You're not wrong but "can you make hose X with material Y" | or "can I get valve body P with spring rate Q" is a hell of | a lot better than "we need custom hoses" or "is this | casting good to 10kpsi?". | simcop2387 wrote: | The big problem with hydrogen is just how small it is. It | likes to leach through stuff hold just about everything | else. You very well might need custom hoses, custom | seals, and custom materials for the castings just to | safely store it at 10kpsi. It'll leak through solid steel | containers that will otherwise hold helium fine. | HPsquared wrote: | Even worse than simply leaking, hydrogen can diffuse into | the crystal structure of metals and cause havoc with the | material properties. It's definitely not as friendly as | hydraulic oil. | jacquesm wrote: | Exactly. This is a major problem with anything hydrogen | related, especially if it has an expected lifespan of a | decade+. | m4rtink wrote: | And once it gets the thing all brittle and it starts | leaking, you won't see it burn as it produces a lot of IR | but almost no visible light. | baybal2 wrote: | How many people would be ready to drive a hydrogen bomb? | hydrogtehd wrote: | "Hydrogen bomb" is a little exaggerated. But to your | detractors: | | "More than a gasoline bomb, hopefully. Gasoline is more | dangerous." | | Citation needed. How is gasoline more dangerous? While | gasoline is very dangerous, gasoline is a liquid and will | not burn until vaporized; Gasoline is dangerous because it | vaporizes quickly. H2 is already a gas and has a | ridiculously low spark energy. Furthermore H2 is under | pressure. | | Gas does have a lower auto-ignition T than H2, that's no | fun, but overall H2 scores worse than gasoline. | | "Do you ride on a CNG city bus?" | | CNG stands for Compressed Natural Gas; i.e. methane. | Methane is a lot easier and safer to use than H2 because | it: | | - Packs a lot more energy vs. P so the tanks don't have to | be as strong - Doesn't embrittle the container - Much | higher spark energy (in fact, CH4 is kinda hard to light) - | Smaller flammability range (i.e. mixture with air that will | ignite) - lower auto-ignition T | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flammability_limit | wglb wrote: | And you can't see a hydrogen flame. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | Do you ride on a CNG city bus? | jacquesm wrote: | Much higher activation energy, not to be compared. | hydrogtehd wrote: | There's no comparison in the risk of methane vs. H2. The | only thing H2 has going for it, safety wise, is that it | disperses very quickly. | | Otherwise methane is insanely safe, safer in all regards | except pressurization than gasoline. | goodpoint wrote: | More than a gasoline bomb, hopefully. Gasoline is more | dangerous. | baybal2 wrote: | Few kg of hydrogen are surely more dangerous than 50 kg | of gasoline. | jacquesm wrote: | The total amount isn't as much a problem as is the | activation energy. Hydrogen will explode when you look at | it cross eyed. For gasoline you will have to do some | work. | MayeulC wrote: | 120 MJ/kg for H2 vs 46 MJ/kg for gasoline. | | Both are explosive, so I think (I'm no authority on this) | we can compare those values directly, without taking into | account the storage pressure. | | Source: | https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2005/MichelleFung.shtml | https://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/ArthurGolnik.shtml | jandrese wrote: | Gasoline will not explode in normal conditions. Even in | an accident it is pretty safe, although the risk of fire | must always be considered. | | A 10k PSI H2 tank is a straight up bomb. A gasoline tank | can start a nasty fire but nobody is going to be torn | apart by shrapnel or killed by the overpressure wave in | an accident. Gasoline cars don't explode like they do in | the movies. It must also be noted that the large | batteries in EVs are also a fire hazard and in some ways | worse than gasoline. For gasoline to act like a bomb it | has to be aerosolized first and then ignited. In an | accident there's not much that could achieve that. With a | high pressure H2 tank something that cracked it open and | allowed all of the H2 to be released at once would | instantly create the conditions for a massive explosion. | All it would need is a single spark. | adrianN wrote: | I'm relatively sure that a tank of hydrogen at ridiculous | pressure makes a nicer fireball than a tank of gas at no | pressure. | hydrogtehd wrote: | No, it isn't. Gasoline is dangerous, but it's a liquid. | H2 is a gas, under extreme pressure, and with a very low | spark energy. | | The spark (ignition) energy is very important safety | wise. Nothing will light without an ignition source. In | fact hydrogen is more dangerous wrt to gasoline than | gasoline is wrt to flour (yes, flour can explode). That | is: | | Flour:gasoline < gasoline:hydrogen | | Hydrogen is dangerous. And that's fine. | | [1] http://www.explosionsolutions.co.uk/110411020.pdf | ratsmack wrote: | There is a great concern about the safety of Lithium batteries | because of the fire hazard, yet we are pursuing a much more | dangerous technology with Hydrogen with very little gain in | performance. Also, it still takes a significant amount of energy | to produce the hydrogen. | Keyframe wrote: | Isn't driving on a tank full of hydrogen like super dangerous? | Vvector wrote: | Compared to a tank full of gasoline? | MengerSponge wrote: | Yes. Gasoline has a relatively narrow ignition range, it has | much less rigorous sealing requirements, and it burns with a | flame that's visible in daylight. | | The problem is that we can't easily make gasoline with solar | panels and water. | adrian_b wrote: | Actually it is possible to make gasoline with solar panels, | water and carbon dioxide from the air. | | Making synthetic gasoline was already possible before WWII | and that was used a lot by Germany. | | It is true that making hydrogen is easier, because making | gasoline requires additional steps and equipment, but due | to the large disadvantages of storing and handling | hydrogen, making gasoline is nonetheless preferable and it | does not require any infrastructure change. | | While hydrogen is preferred currently for room-temperature | fuel cells, for the moment that seems like a dead end, | because the current catalysts are much too expensive. | | High-temperature fuel cells can use gasoline, so hydrogen | no longer has advantages. | | Even if one would not choose gasoline, there are still | other much better ways to chemically store solar energy | than hydrogen, e.g. ammonia or methanol. | SigmundA wrote: | Or just charge a battery with the solar panels at much | greater efficiency. | adrian_b wrote: | For short-term storage a rechargeable battery is | certainly preferable. | | For long-term storage, the battery auto-discharges, so | the efficiency drops quickly with the storage time, until | it becomes much less than for storing the energy by | synthesizing some appropriate chemical compound. | | For storing solar energy, both short-term storage (e.g. | for a day or a week), like rechargeable batteries, and | long-term storage (e.g. for a year or more), like | synthetic gasoline, are needed. | SigmundA wrote: | Lithium self discharges at 1-2% per month, not an issue | in most circumstances, not sure where it would be an | issue, if it was just have a maintaining solar panel | nearby. | mda wrote: | Driving a car tank full of gasoline or thousands of lithium | batteries is also dangerous, there are ways to reduce risk. | Keyframe wrote: | There's dangerous and then there's super dangerous! | throwaway316943 wrote: | I shouldn't think it's much more dangerous than other | pressurized flammable gases. Those pressure vessels are | designed for safety contrary to what you see in movies. I'd be | about as concerned as I am driving around with a tank of highly | flammable gasoline. | makomk wrote: | Hydrogen forms explosive mixtures with air at a much wider | range of concentrations than typical hydrocarbons and has a | nasty tendency to permeate straight through a lot of | materials. | throwaway316943 wrote: | It's lighter than air though so it won't pool in low areas | and if a pressure vessel won't contain it it probably | diffuses through car interiors / dry wall and vapor barrier | pretty quickly. What's the rate at which it escapes? | Probably pretty slow. | giantg2 wrote: | It can be very safe if using hydride tanks. I think there are | some international arms controls related to hydrogen bombs that | makes hydride tanks difficult to produce. | agumonkey wrote: | Time to watch some of these | https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hydrogen+tank+b... | | (not joking, it's useful to see worst case scenarios) | louthy wrote: | I'd be much more concerned about Lithium batteries, when | they're exposed to air, they reeeeally go up fast. | cesarb wrote: | Probably just as dangerous as driving with a tank of | pressurized natural gas, which is already very common (for | instance, where I live, nearly all taxis are converted to run | on pressurized natural gas, since it's cheaper than gasoline). | fyhhvff wrote: | Just to put this into context, my 2003 diesel car with a 68 litre | tank can drive ~7-800km. | xdrosenheim wrote: | More context: My Hyundai i20 can go almost 700km on a 40L tank. | (I don't drive efficiently) | MattRix wrote: | What is the appeal of a hydrogen car vs an eletric car? The range | appears to be similar, but being able to charge at home is so | much more convenient. | roel_v wrote: | I live in a city center, no driveway. My neighbour with an | electric i3 runs a charging cord across the sidewalk, I'm not | going to do that, ever. I'd much prefer a hydrogen car I can | fill up someplace else over requiring plugging in my car every | day. | GuB-42 wrote: | Hydrogen has a great energy density, that's why it is used in | rockets. It may have similar range as battery electric cars but | it can scale better. | | It can be refueled in minutes, like gas cars. | | And the economy is based on using "waste" renewable energy. The | problem is that solar panels and wind turbines don't produce | energy when we need it the most (see: duck curve). The idea is | to store that energy as hydrogen and use it in vehicles. | | For commuters with a garage and a charging spot, batteries are | more convenient but I think big trucks can benefit more from | hydrogen. | | Now the big question is, can we modify these hydrogen trucks to | "roll steam" at these pesky Teslas. | bkor wrote: | > And the economy is based on using "waste" renewable energy. | The problem is that solar panels and wind turbines don't | produce energy when we need it the most (see: duck curve). | The idea is to store that energy as hydrogen and use it in | vehicles. | | I've seem this statement loads of times before. But actually, | Hydrogen production is not economical if you do not produce | it continuously. Meaning, it does not make economical sense | to only use excess energy capacity. Further, Hydrogen for | cars is highly inefficient if you take all of the steps into | account. | | For the foreseeable future the common expectation is that | Hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels (e.g. read forecasts | from analysts or companies such as Shell). This while at the | same time they pretend it'll make this more green. | | Hydrogen is already produced in huge quantities btw, but it's | somewhat hidden as it's used by industry. Meaning, most | people wouldn't even notice it. Unlike e.g. seeing a new | hydrogen gas station. | bryanlarsen wrote: | > Hydrogen has a great energy density, that's why it is used | in rockets. | | Per kg, but its energy density per litre is very poor. Every | modern rocket uses RP1 (kerosene) or Methane (natural gas) | for their first stages now. | | > It can be refueled in minutes, like gas cars. | | If your hydrogen station has 10,000 PSI hydrogen available. A | typical station can fill 3 cars per hour quickly. More than | that and you have to wait for it to get back up to 10,000 | PSI. | | > And the economy is based on using "waste" renewable energy. | The problem is that solar panels and wind turbines don't | produce energy when we need it the most (see: duck curve). | The idea is to store that energy as hydrogen and use it in | vehicles. | | You can also store "waste" renewable energy in EV batteries. | GuB-42 wrote: | > You can also store "waste" renewable energy in EV | batteries | | Yes you can, but the time when solar energy is the most | abundant is in the the middle of the day, typically when | people are away from home and not charging their cars. | | Hydrogen can be stored for years in huge tanks so it is | really "on demand". Unlike batteries, tank benefit from the | square cube law and therefore makes large scale storage | cheaper. | | And BTW, personally, I am not convinced by hydrogen cars, | but it doesn't look completely stupid either. | thehappypm wrote: | Hydrogen isn't used in rockets much. It's actually not energy | dense enough compared to more exotic fuels. | GuB-42 wrote: | You are right, but considering that many people think it is | too dangerous to put hydrogen tanks in cars, I wonder what | they are going to say about "exotic rocket fuels" :) | | For reference, here is a quote from the Ignition! book | about Chlorine trifluoride. It is an oxidizer, not a fuel | but you get the idea. | | > It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least | of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and | so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been | measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, | wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, | and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept | in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, | aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of | insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the | metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium | keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, | this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to | reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of | coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this | situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running | shoes. | SigmundA wrote: | Electrons are more energy dense than hydrogen unfortunately | you need a heavy battery to store and use them properly. | | However hydrogen needs high pressure tanks and fuels cells to | store and use it properly so there is basically no energy | density advantage right now in a car, both fuel cells and | batteries are increasing in energy density due to R&D not | sure which will win out it the end. My current opinion is | batteries are simpler in every way and have good enough | energy density. | | All the current cars also need a lithium buffer battery | because the fuel cell can not put out enough burst power nor | do regenerative braking. | timthorn wrote: | Hydrogen cars usually are electric cars. The main advantage to | the owner is being able to fill the tank in minutes, and to | society as a whole is being able to manage the H2 generation | process to align with supply and demand on the grid. | _ph_ wrote: | Hydrogen production is not well suited to be run depending on | the power supply in the grid due to the high prices of the | production facilities. If you keep electric cars plugged in, | they are far better suited to absorb high supply situations | at a much higher efficiency. | cbolton wrote: | If we're going to store energy by generating H2, is it more | efficient to consume it in small cars rather than in big | plants that convert it back to electrical power on demand? | Cthulhu_ wrote: | I don't think the previous commenter meant converting it | back; just that if there is an excess of power, e.g. on a | sunny and windy day, that can be captured into H2 which is | much easier to store than electricity. It wouldn't be | converted back to electricity for the grid. | cbolton wrote: | That's also what I understood, but I'm asking if that's | really an argument in favor of H2 vehicles: with | electrical vehicles we can also store excess power as H2. | | Of course we then need to burn it in power plants to | convert back to electricity. But which is more efficient? | | Electricity -> H2 -> electricity -> electrical motor with | 80% efficiency | | vs | | Electricity -> H2 -> hydrogen motor with 30% efficiency | | My guess is that "H2 -> electricity" is a bit more | efficient than "H2 -> hydrogen motor". So using H2 as | excess power storage for hydrogen engines is only | marginally better than doing the same for electrical | engines. | | And that's for excess power storage. For "normal" | production/consumption the electrical engine is way more | efficient. | [deleted] | bildung wrote: | Most people can't charge at home (because most people live in | multi-story houses in a bigger cities and don't have a garage | to charge in), so refueling in 2min at a gas station still has | appeal. | colinmhayes wrote: | I can charge at work and the grocery store. Still much nicer | than going to the gas station, especially in the winter. | rplnt wrote: | You can now, but it doesn't scale that well if electric car | usage increases 10-fold for example (which is still a very | little fraction of total). | dagw wrote: | The number of charging poles I see in public and store | parking lots has literally increased 10-fold over the | past 3 years. To the point where I always see several | free charging points every time I bother to look. I'm | reasonably convinced that this scaling can continue at | the rate of electric car adoption. | rplnt wrote: | I've seen that too. 20 instead of 2. Can it go to 200? | Not really. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | It scales better than green production of hydrogen does | rplnt wrote: | Do you know what is even less green? Building tens of | thousands of charging ports that are not being utilized | because they are used for day parking. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | Care to show your math? | | This is 'batteries pollute the environment too" FUD all | over again. | rplnt wrote: | Care to stop pretending I'm arguing against EVs? | | I'm very much for EVs instead of fossil cars, but the | argument that you don't need fast charging because you | can charge it while at work or while shopping doesn't | stand. | | Increasing cost of a parking space 1000 times for extra | convenience is not economically feasible. The | environmental implications are obious, it simply can't | scale, no need to show any math (you made up your numbers | first, I don't have anything to compare it to). | jsight wrote: | At least 75% of Americans live in houses. A garage isn't | necessary, just a driveway with access to an outlet. | malinens wrote: | Yeah, forget those 25% (I assume it is something like | roughly 100 million people in USA). In other parts of the | world it is even smaller percentage... | jsight wrote: | Forget? No, but that's ultimately up to the property | owner to fix it. It is certainly no more onerous than a | lot of amenities that they already provide. We have | several here that have pretty good charging setups, and | that will only improve. | | But ultimately you can't please everyone. Hydrogen would | have similar issues as you can't deploy it everywhere at | once, it would take years. | dagw wrote: | I personally think we'll see charging poles next to most | public parking spaces before we see a sufficiently built out | network of H2 'gas stations'. | bildung wrote: | I think this underestimates the massive infrastructure | investments those charging poles would need to work. I live | in a medium density European town (about 1000 | inhabitants/km2, think 4-5 story buildings on average). In | residential areas the whole street is lined with parked | cars on both sides. To charge these, one would need | something like 1MW charging per every 4 cars, which means | every 20m of the road, on both sides. So 1km of inner city | street would have new electricity demands of about 100MW | for fast charging. | | Even overnight charging at say 10MW per km of road would | mean the complete energy infrastructure of the complete | town would have to be changed. | | Edit: Inserted a line break before the last sentence | because apparantly almost every replier overread that one | :) | dagw wrote: | I also live in a medium density European city and | charging poles have been popping next to parking spaces | an impressive rate over the past year or so. 2 years ago | I might have agreed with you, but today it would | absolutely be possible to own an electric car if I lived | back in my old apartment without its own parking space. | [deleted] | pedrocr wrote: | > To charge these, one would need something like 1MW | charging per every 4 cars | | This is massively overestimated. 250kW per car is great | for fast charging on road trips but for overnight | charging it would be enough to charge a car 30+ times in | a single night. 3 to 7kW is more than enough. The grid | for that is already there and the chargers can even | coordinate to not exceed maximum power if everyone plugs | in at the same time and draws the maximum. Almost no | infrastructure in the town will need to be changed, the | existing grid that supplies all the houses will be | enough. After all those cars are owned by people that | have electricity at home and are practically not using it | while they sleep. | ableal wrote: | > one would need something like 1MW charging per every 4 | cars, | | 10 kW per 4 cars is plenty enough. | | I charge overnight a 24 kWh Nissan Leaf (< 10 hours a | couple of times a week), and just use a 2.1 kW EVSE to | charge at a standard socket on a 16 A circuit breaker. | | If those were available at all parking spots in the city | (say from city lamps), everybody could have electric | cars. | [deleted] | thatfrenchguy wrote: | No, you'd need around 6-7kw per car. | bob33212 wrote: | Autonomy and ride sharing is the only answer to this | problem. Most people who live a dense European town are | not driving long distances every day. SO the should just | rent a car on the days they need one or take an | autonomous or non-autonomous taxi. Those cars do not need | to be parked on those specific streets at night. | vardump wrote: | > To charge these, one would need something like 1MW | charging per every 4 cars, which means every 20m of the | road, on both sides. | | I think your numbers are off by at least two orders of | magnitude. | | Let's say an average BEV travels 20000 miles per year and | that it consumes 400 Wh/mile. Traveling 20k miles per | year takes about 21 days assuming 40 mph average speed. | | If we assume the car is charging the rest of the time, | average power required is (400 Wh/mile * 20000 miles) / | (1 year - 21 days) = 0.968 kW average charging power! | | That's quite a bit less than 250 kW per car (well, 1 MW | per 4 cars) you suggested! It'd still be below 2 kW, even | if the car is charging just 50% of the time it's not in | use. | | Other way to think about is charging from empty to full | battery with 11 kW of power: (80 kWh) / (11 kW) = 7.27 | hours. | | Please also remember charging the battery full would be a | rather rare scenario. I'd be surprised if you need even | 10 kW power allocation for each 4 cars being charged -- | 1% of what you suggested. Simply because the batteries in | most of the cars are full most of the time! | labcomputer wrote: | The plural of anecdote isn't data and all that, but: | | My personal experience of driving electric cars for many | years is that home charging from a Level-1 (120V, 8A ~= | 1kW) plug is completely sufficient for all of my in-town | driving needs. | EwanToo wrote: | If your home has the appropriate electric supply, then yes, but | there's lots of places in the world with poor electricity | distribution. | | The future of transportation seems likely to be a mix of | electric, hydrogen, and diesel, depending on the use case for a | long time to come. | prennert wrote: | I don't know if there is data to support this, but k have | heard hydrogen proponents say that even in London it would be | difficult to charge all cars, because the grid could not | handle it. | | So fully electric cars for everybody might not be practical | in high density environments. | dagw wrote: | _What is the appeal of a hydrogen car vs an eletric car?_ | | Fast 'charging' seems to be the big one. Also for larger | engines (like trucks) you should get lower total weight | compared to batteries. | cowmix wrote: | I'm begging to doubt this. Right now all hydrogen car are | about 15% heavier than their BEV equivalents yet are SLOWER | and make worse use of available internal space. | | When the 4860 cells are used in the structural battery pack, | I recken electric semis will have a good power to weight | ratio too. | bsdetector wrote: | Often overlooked is when you turn a hydrogen car off, it's | off. Come back days or even months later and it should be | exactly as you left it. | | On the other hand a Tesla Model 3 requires a _lot_ of energy | to stay warm in the winter - some reports from the dead of | winter of it taking 2000 watts just to stay warm. Under | extreme conditions you can 't leave it unplugged for a week | or possibly even a weekend without concern over the battery | charge and health. | | There's better ways to insulate the battery of course, but | there's always going to be some tradeoffs to maintain a safe | battery temperature at rest and in use. | kwhitefoot wrote: | > a Tesla Model 3 requires a lot of energy to stay warm in | the winter - some reports from the dead of winter of it | taking 2000 watts just to stay warm. Under extreme | conditions you can't leave it unplugged for a week or | possibly even a weekend without concern over the battery | charge and health. | | If that were the case there would be a lot of dead Teslas | here in Norway. And even more dead Nissan Leafs which do | not have active battery temperature management. | | I often leave my Model S disconnected over the weekend or | longer in -15C in the winter without any noticeable effect | on the battery health. | | It has an effect on range of course because as you say the | car does prevent the battery getting too cold. Perhaps I'll | try to measure how much energy is required next winter. | | Here is a first hand anecdote about using a Model S in the | Arctic: https://electrek.co/2020/02/11/tesla- | model-3-arctic-circle-w... | bsdetector wrote: | Model 3 uses the wheel motors to generate heat and has | some kind of single nexus for all coolant, very much | different from Model S. The story you posted doesn't say | anything about how much energy was lost over just 4 days, | and it being noteworthy that the car can be left for 4 | days without incident at presumably a high state of | charge is telling on its own. | | In any case, the only difference between the two models | is the amount of time it takes before the car exhausts | itself maintaining the battery. | teddyh wrote: | I think it's precisely that; with electric, there's no special | product to sell you. With hydrogen, or ethanol, the old oil and | gas companies can more easily pivot into simply selling another | chemical product. With electric cars, the oil and gas companies | are like cable TV in the age of the internet; their days are | numbered, and they fear it like nothing else. | | (Also, governments have nothing to levy special taxes on if | cars run on your wall plug.) | | Of course, this is all conspiracy theories and speculation. I | have nothing to back this up. | nojito wrote: | 100% electric cars isn't feasible for countries like Japan | | https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/toyotas-chief-says- | electric... | bkor wrote: | > 100% electric cars isn't feasible for countries like | Japan | | Japan heavily subsidises research into Hydrogen. This over | anything else, e.g. electric. Quoting a Japanese car | manufacturer is therefore a bit biased. Japan has two | different energy grids btw, one runs at 50 Hz, the other at | 60 Hz. Japan made some really strange decisions regarding | their electric grid. That makes Japan unique, it isn't | common to have such problems. | | For most countries the additional electric requirements | aren't that significant. Though there will need to be some | behavioural change (possibly helped by some technology). | E.g. don't charge everything immediately at once, but align | the supply and demand. Meaning, don't charge everything at | once, charge more when there's an over supply (e.g. windy | day/hour). | JohnJamesRambo wrote: | I disagree with what he says about co2 and the old "you | have to make electricity with something" argument. It | wasn't until I bought a Tesla and did the math myself that | I realized how inefficient gas cars are compared to an | electricity generating power plant. My equivalent mpg with | my electricity rate is something on the order of 150-180 | mpg. For trips where we can charge at home (most of our | miles) it is a 1/3 of the cost of our Prius to drive. | | http://chooseev.com/savings-calculator/ | mustafa_pasi wrote: | Asian countries like Japan, Korea and China are the ones who | are still pushing hydrogen tech. None of these are big oil | producing nations so the conspiracy theory does not make | sense. | bkor wrote: | > None of these are big oil producing nations so the | conspiracy theory does not make sense. | | Big companies such as Shell are pushing Hydrogen via | something called the "EU green deal". This while Shell (and | similar) do not expect hydrogen to be produced via green | methods for 15+ years. They push the EU to "subsidize" | hydrogen (and other things), to basically get loads of | money from people in an indirect way. | | This was e.g. reported via the journalists at ftm.nl. | They're probably unknown to most people here, but loads of | their findings resulted in loads of issues for the | government (scandals, fraud, etc). | numpad0 wrote: | There is supposedly a huge gas deposit under the sea | between those three countries so it's supposedly just a | matter of negotiating and setting up a fair mining | operations and start extracting it to theoretically become | big oils overnight. | | That isn't how things work but that's the logic behind | pushing Hydrogen. | whatever1 wrote: | Plus the folks here probably forget what poverty looks | like. In areas with no infrastructure the only way of | getting energy is to literally carry it home for your stove | or motorcycle. Gas is ideal for these cases. Hydrogen | cylinders maybe? Batteries are definitely a no go to | transport energy. | bryanlarsen wrote: | Those cars have 10,000 PSI tanks, and Hydrogen is | notorious for leaking through everything. It's not an | option for places with no infrastructure. | | Trickle charging a battery with a small solar panel is | what no-infrastructure places are moving towards for | charging phones and other electronics. That's not enough | energy for cooking or transportation, yet, but I can see | it moving towards that. | | Another option is synthetic fuel. Currently horribly | expensive because it is energy intensive and still | experimental, it may become viable if solar energy prices | continue to drop. It's much less efficient than an EV, | but it works with existing gas/diesel/kerosene | infrastructure. | whatever1 wrote: | You don't have to have 10,000psi tanks. A regular | 3,000psi industrial gas cylinder would do the job and it | would store energy equivalent of around 8gallons of | gasoline. The gas cylinder would weigh ~ 100 pounds. So | totally feasible. | | Now, do we have cheap appliances that consume hydrogen | and produce work/heat ? Not yet. | jdblair wrote: | It depends on how you define convenient. Hydrogen can be | refilled quickly, in minutes, like a conventional liquid fueled | car. If there were a network of hydrogen filling stations then | driving, especially long distances, would be similar to driving | a liquid fueled car. | Cthulhu_ wrote: | More like an electric car, if it's a hydrogen fuel cell car | (I'm not sure if all hydrogen cars are that or if there's | another variant that combusts the hydrogen) | jdblair wrote: | Drives like an electric, refuels like a liquid fuel car (it | uses a compressor, not electric charge). | bryanlarsen wrote: | If by "electric" you mean "Prius", you're right. | | Tesla's and similar cars have great acceleration because | they support massive currents at high voltages. They need | this to support fast charging, the incremental cost of | adding a high torque motor is small. | | Hydrogen cars have tiny batteries that don't need to | support fast charging. Like a Prius. | hwillis wrote: | > Hydrogen cars have tiny batteries that don't need to | support fast charging. | | Because that's what they think consumers want, not | because of technological limitations. Size is not a | requirement for high power batteries. The Porsche 918 has | a 6.8 kWh battery that can do 210 kW. That's ~31 kW per | kWh, compared to a top-end Model S at ~6 kW/kWh. | bryanlarsen wrote: | Yes, a $800K Hydrogen car would probably have a small but | high power battery. But Nexo's and Mirai's don't. | hwillis wrote: | There is! Here's what it sounds like: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dgzKW8EKMc | | Hydrogen is more energy-dense than gasoline, but it's much | more of a pain in the ass. Gasoline is far denser than air | but hydrogen is far less dense, so normal injection | displaces a ton (30%) of oxygen from the cylinders. You | need to use direct injection to get any kind of power out | of hydrogen, and a very high-flow fuel pump. | | Combustion is also much hotter than normal, so you produce | a ton of NOx compounds; that's why there's a huge catalytic | converter on the back of the Toyota. | | Without the efficiency of a fuel cell there's quite a lot | of loss of range. The potential for increased power+lower | weight in high performance vehicles could do a lot to | combat the halo effect of gasoline... or at least I hope | so. | Robotbeat wrote: | Right. Similar to a liquid fueled car, but worse than an | electric car in most circumstances. | | But the problem is there will never be an equivalent hydrogen | network as there is gasoline network because hydrogen fueling | stations are far more expensive to install and maintain. | Either the station overhead ends up much higher than gasoline | or hydrogen is used much more rarely. | | Electric car distance records as of 2018 are 1178km in a | Model S and 1001km in a Model 3. | https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-s-model-3-hypermile- | wo... | | Model S Plaid+ next year is supposed to have ~50% greater | range than the Model S used in that 2018 record. And has a | nationwide charging network (and access to other EV charging | networks, which themselves are becoming impressive... Lucid | Air's offering is also impressive). | | I just don't see the attraction of hydrogen any more besides | niche applications. | | The vehicles are much more expensive (Model 3 way cheaper | than equivalent range Toyota Mirai), the charging is far less | convenient and totally unavailable outside California, | they're slower, and the fuel is vastly more expensive, and | they're fundamentally less energy efficient. Heck, the Model | 3 LR actually weighs less and has more range than the Toyota | Mirai. | | Hydrogen cars are a bonfire of money. | | Conventional carmakers insistent on fast fueling capability | ought to do plug-in hybrid. Even if you use synthesized fuel | for the few trips that go beyond the electric range, the cost | per mile (and cost per vehicle) would be way lower than | hydrogen and you could use existing gas stations (although | we'd need a lot fewer of them), and you still get the | logistical benefit of home/work charging for commutes. | | You could switch everyone's car for a plug in hybrid version | today and they wouldn't even know except it'd sound | different. We could ban new vehicles without a plug and it | wouldn't ruin anyone's corner case commute and a lot of | people wouldn't even realize it at first (just like many | don't realize they drive a mild hybrid). This is a far better | argument than hydrogen cars' "liquid fueling like experience! | But only in a handful of stations in California at enormous | expense..." | nobleach wrote: | I think the two biggest sellers of Hydrogen electric over | battery electric, are the fact that batteries have a useful | life. That life degrades over time. Hydrogen doesn't have | this characteristic. Secondly, cold weather doesn't affect | Hydrogen electric vehicles the way that it does with | battery electric. If one lives in a cold weather climate, | owning a Tesla isn't as advantageous. | audunw wrote: | > Hydrogen doesn't have this characteristic. | | Hydrogen itself doesn't. But the fuel cells do. I can | imagine there will be problems with the plumbing as well, | as hydrogen has a tendency to make materials it comes | into contact with brittle. | | > If one lives in a cold weather climate, owning a Tesla | isn't as advantageous. | | Eh, it's fine. Norway is the EV capital of the world. | Range is decreased, but it's not really a problem in day- | to-day driving. We have an older 30kWh EV, with less than | 100km range in winter. It's almost never an issue. Even | driving 2 hours to a cabin is fine with a fast-charge | that takes less time than buying groceries next to the | fast charge station. | | In colder climates, it's more common for people to have | garages where they can charge at home. There are even | colder areas, and remote areas where the range really is | a big issue, but then we're talking about areas with very | small populations. If all of them continue to drive | diesel cars, it'll be a microscopic blip in terms of | global CO2 emissions. | _ph_ wrote: | Both the pressure tanks as well as the fuel cells | themselves degrade over time and need to be maintained | and replaced. | Robotbeat wrote: | absolutely wrong. Hydrogen fuel cells absolutely degrade | over time (they are batteries! Just with more maintenance | required due to needing fluids pumped through them). | Their lifetime for automotive applications is about 5000 | hours, or 150,000-200,000 miles, which is less than what | a Model 3's battery will last. | | https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/progress18/tahi_lohs | e-b... | | Cold weather isn't a major problem, either, you just will | want to get a heat pump option. Electric cars are | insanely popular in Norway, and it doesn't seem to be a | significant problem. | merb wrote: | they even need a battery aswell which will wear. since | the cell is too sluggish to be fed directly to the | electric motor. | jdblair wrote: | Just for the record, I agree H2 fueled cars make terrible | sense. On top of the points you make, hydrogen is simply | too hard to store. | bkor wrote: | > Hydrogen can be refilled quickly, in minutes | | Only if the gas station has enough hydrogen at the right | pressure. After a few cars it'll need 45+min to build up | pressure again. The gas stations are really expensive due to | the problems, plus there are more restrictions on where they | can be placed. | | Hydrogen for cars is great for companies such as Shell. For | the foreseeable future they expect most of the Hydrogen to be | created using non-green methods. Even if it's green, you'll | need way more green energy (e.g. wind / solar). Way more | profit to be had. | jeffbee wrote: | What are the restrictions? There's a hydrogen station in | Berkeley in University Avenue across the street from a | school and with houses on two sides. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | I think he meant fire safety of hydrogen requires more | consideration than an electric charger. | bkor wrote: | In NL a hydrogen station needs to follow loads of safety | requirements. So not just fire safety, safety in general. | This was raised as an issue around hydrogen gas/fuel | stations. | | Note that due to increase of EVs the safety requirements | for garages have been increased (in NL). E.g. more | monitoring is needed, automatic link to fire department, | plus changes in construction requirements. Construction | bit is due to an EV burning for longer. They basically | demand thicker concrete walls and so on. This from memory | and it's only what I've been reading (interested in | safety; I don't work in construction). | Retric wrote: | Hydrogen is likely a much better fit for semi trucks, aircraft, | boats, and remote rail lines than electric cars. The advantage | is twofold, first you can produce and then cheaply store it for | weeks and it very quickly refills a car. | | However the downsides and required infrastructure is massive. | Overall it's simply a poor fit vs modern EV's but just close | enough to viable to get significant investments. | rad_gruchalski wrote: | Being able to fill up the tank in 2 minutes is the value | proposition. When driving a lot or long distances, it matters. | Also, not everybody has the possibility to charge at home. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | An electric charger costs less than the fuel cell does, so it | makes very little sence unless this is being used in | industrial equipment | rad_gruchalski wrote: | Sure. News from 15 years ago: diesel powered car is 10 | times cheaper than an electric car. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | Thats like saying a second-hand Nespresso machine is | cheaper than abrand new DeLonghi. | | Much smarter to compare total cost of ownership, and then | the ociture is very different | rad_gruchalski wrote: | Tell me more, please, about the TCO. | bdamm wrote: | It isn't that much of a value proposition. Modern EVs do fast | charging pretty well. Given that it takes on the order of 10 | minutes to pull off a freeway, navigate a traffic light or | two, select a pump, pay, use the restroom, grab a snack from | the store, and then navigate another intersection to get back | on the freeway, adding 5 more minutes to that time to make it | a fast charging stop is not really a big deal. | dagw wrote: | Can modern EVs really fast charge in only 8-10 minutes? I | thought we where still talking on the order of 30+ minutes. | bryanlarsen wrote: | A Tesla with under half a charge charges at a rate of | 1000km of range per hour at a Supercharger. So 10 minutes | of charging is definitely not a full charge but it is | often a useful charge. | labcomputer wrote: | Put in your favorite road trip, vehicle and any advanced | settings you'd like to adjust: | https://abetterrouteplanner.com | | (No affiliation, just a happy user) | | Taking a Tesla Model 3 for example, I typically get a | 15-20 minute stop every 2-3 hours (standard or long range | trim). | rad_gruchalski wrote: | Right. Assuming that: there is a fast charger available, | there is no queue, the charger is not broken. When I drive | from Aachen to Berlin, if I have to stop, I stop at the | pump, pay - takes 5 minutes, use the bathroom maybe, get in | the car and leave. When I arrive in Berlin, I don't have to | look for a parking space where there is a charger, I just | park wherever it is legal to park. I leave the meeting, get | in the car, stop at the pump if it needs to be and off I | go. Roundtrip takes 16 hours. I can do 1000km+ on 65 litres | of diesel when driving reasonably or 750km when driving | flat out where there is no speed limit. I can use aircon, | indicators, satnav, charge stuff in the car and when the | gas runs out, I am not forced to have a snack... how often | can one snack. | | There was a test done in Germany. Driving from Hamburg to | Munich. Instead of 8 hours, it took over 11. Either a queue | at the charger, or you have to adapt the route to get to | the charger, or the app says fast charge available but no | fast charge was available, or the charger is broken... | | Sorry, I don't believe in electric cars but I hold my | fingers crossed for h2. Fortunately the hydrogen port built | in Antwerpen gives some hope. | | It's quite funny looking at all these people in their | expensive Taycans on the Autobahn. Either limping 110kph or | standing on the hard shoulder with hazards on waiting for | adac to turn up. | bdamm wrote: | It is true that the DC fast charging (DCFC) | infrastructure is still being built out. The number of | endpoints is ramping up. | | DCFC infra today is way better than the H2 | infrastructure, and by quite a lot. Good luck holding | your fingers. | asciimov wrote: | For me the biggest appeal is you could convert a petrol powered | car to run off of hydrogen. While they are not as efficient as | fuel cell, running a regular engine off of hydrogen would allow | us to create demand for fueling stations faster than waiting on | fuel cell cars to gradually enter the market. | trutannus wrote: | Same question from me also. Also, hydrogen is highly explosive, | so how can that be safely used in cars without detonating a la | Hindenburg whenever there's a collision? | gnull wrote: | It is explosive only when mixed with enough oxygen, much like | gasoline or propane. Hindenburg did not explode, it burned | (quite fast, I should add). | | As I understand, If you make a hole in hydrogen tank and set | it on fire, it will just burn (don't try to do this at home). | trutannus wrote: | > If you make a hole in hydrogen tank and set it on fire | | Right, the issue is though that in a collision you won't | always just have a nice small controlled hole and burn. | | I've worked around Hydrogen before, and storage was always | a tricky issue. I remember the regulations stating | something like needing to store the tank with either Argon | or Nitrogen beside it. Not really something I'd want in the | back, or any part for that matter, of my car. | gnull wrote: | Sorry, my bad, I misunderstood what you meant. | _gtly wrote: | The danger of using hydrogen gas in a vehicle may be on the | same order as compressed natural gas (CNG) which is used for | e.g.: some busses. Hydrogen is stored under very high | pressure in tanks, which if ruptured in an accident can cause | a physical explosion. | | A study on CNG in busses says: "One can therefore conclude | that CNG buses are more prone to fire fatality risk by 2.5 | times that of diesel buses, with the bus passengers being | more at risk by over two orders of magnitude." | | source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15876211/#:~:text=One | %20can%.... | trutannus wrote: | > 2.5 times that of diesel buses | | These are not compelling numbers. Ideally you'd want | something safer, not a few times more dangerous. | cbmuser wrote: | Great. Now you just need to find an economic and clean way to | make large amounts of hydrogen. Nuclear power is probably the | best option given that you can use it as a source high process | heat source. | tomhoward wrote: | Archive link if it goes down again (seems OK right now, but | seemed to be swamped just before): | | https://archive.md/iUFAL | alex_young wrote: | Hydrogen fuel is still a fossil fuel byproduct right? I'm not | sure what the point of this is. It sure doesn't seem like a green | technology at this point. | boringg wrote: | 3 main sources. 1- Natural Gas 2- Renewable Natural Gas | (capping waste emissions from waste water treatment or | municipal solid waste and coverting to Hydrogen). Net negative | CO2 but smaller supply 3- Electrolysis (electricity + water). | Source of electricity determines the cleanliness of the H2. | Still requires water which is not ideal (especially in | california) | onychomys wrote: | Presumably it'll eventually be made by splitting water using | electricity from renewable sources. | batmenace wrote: | There are already early stage projects in France (and I | assume other places as well) where Siemens Gamesa is using | prototype turbines that does exactly this at an offshore wind | farm | SigmundA wrote: | Splitting water with electricity then recombining in the fuel | cell back to electricity is extremely inefficient compared to | just charging a battery with eletricity. | jandrese wrote: | It may make sense in cases where batteries aren't practical | like ocean going container ships. | | There was a time a couple of decades ago when it might have | made sense for cars when battery power wasn't good enough | but that time has passed. | sandworm101 wrote: | It is, but it doesn't have to be. It is possible to make H2 | from H20 and sunlight. At the moment there is little market for | such "green" hydrogen but the hope is that hydrogen-based | transportation will create that market. | | Imho I cannot afford to be a market leaders in this field. | Until H2 is available everywhere, including at remote locations | during Canadian winters, I'll have to stick to gas stations. (I | have yet to see any electric car that can handle -50*c.) | bdamm wrote: | While technically true, the conversion is inefficient. It | takes a lot of power to extract H2 from H2O. You could just | use that power directly. | | The problem with electrics in -50 is keeping them plugged in | when not in use. -50 is very extreme though, you're talking | far north or Edmonton. | darksaints wrote: | The conversion using current SOEC technology isn't | particularly inefficient. 88% efficient when using LHV | values, 105% efficient when using HHV. | | http://www.helmeth.eu/index.php/technologies/high- | temperatur... | labcomputer wrote: | That analysis ignores the heat used to raise the reactant | (water) temperature to 800C. | | On its face, the claim doesn't make much sense anyway. If | you could convert water to 2 H2 + O2 at zero energy cost, | you could make a perpetual motion machine by taking | advantage of the exothermic reaction 2 H2 + O2 -> 2 H2O. | darksaints wrote: | That's the difference between LHV and HHV. It is possible | to exceed 100% efficiency when using HHV because it is an | inherently more conservative convention for energy | content due to practical concerns. LHV, by contrast, is | bounded by the laws of physics. | labcomputer wrote: | Well, no, that's still wrong. The >100% efficiency comes | from using two slights of hand: | | 1. Counting only the _electrical_ energy input. But you | also need to supply heat at the same time. That 's the | whole point of this product--use heat ~~instead of~~ | (edit: in addition to) electricity to split water. | | Critically, they are assuming you get "free" (as in beer) | waste heat at 800C... which is _fairly silly._ 800C heat | is high-grade energy, not waste heat. Exhaust gas from a | combined-cycle NG power plant, for example, is more like | 250-300C. Thermal steam plants operate with a Th of ~550C | (so the waste heat is much, much cooler). | | 2. Ignoring the fact that you need to heat the reactant | (water) to 800C before you can have the discussion in #1. | Now, the problem is that the heat capacity of water is | much higher than an equal mass of H2 and O2. So, you | can't even use the hot as-produced gas to heat the | incoming water to anywhere near the operating temperature | of the electrolyzer. | | The efficiency in a practical application is probably | half to two-thirds of what they are claiming. | fouric wrote: | > the conversion is inefficient. It takes a lot of power to | extract H2 from H2O. | | _How_ inefficient? That number matters. If it takes 500 | kWh to make a tank that stores 100 kWh, you 'd be a fool to | use that energy directly, as that tank is going to store | hundreds of times that much (at least) over its lifetime. | Black101 wrote: | But it is much faster to fill-up an hydrogen tank then it | is to charge a battery. | labcomputer wrote: | Really? It takes me about 5 seconds to charge my car | every day, and I don't even need to leave my house to do | it. | bdamm wrote: | I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. It takes me | about 5 seconds too. I plug in, I walk away. When I'm | ready to drive, I unplug and get in. Not complicated, | adds up to about 5 seconds. All the work is being done | when I'm not around. In sum, since ditching gas, I have | in aggregate spent much less time tending to my car's | energy needs. | jogjayr wrote: | > I have yet to see any electric car that can handle -50*c. | | The car can use battery power to heat itself and its battery | when it's that cold, right? It'll consume more energy but | it'll still work. | sandworm101 wrote: | Maybe, but cars like Tesla have minimum operating/storage | temperatures, usually on the order of -30c. With modern | telemetry systems I don't want a warranty repair to be | rejected because I had to park it overnight at -40. It hit | -46 one night last winter, staying below -40 for several | days in a row. | | https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/how-cold-is-too- | cold... | | "Do not expose Model S to ambient temperatures above 140deg | F (60deg C) or below -22deg F (-30deg C) for more than 24 | hours at a time." | jogjayr wrote: | Does it get that cold in a garage? I assume you'd always | want to park a $100k automobile in a closed garage. | sandworm101 wrote: | Lots of pickup trucks in that price range are parked | outside. Garages are not a norm outside of detached | homes. Diesels don't handle it well, but it doesn't | actually damage them. The northern 2/3rds of Canada may | be an edge case ... unless you actually live there. | jogjayr wrote: | Understood thanks. | londons_explore wrote: | Handling very low temperatures isn't very hard if the car is | designed with that in mind. | | It would simply have a small heater and insulation around the | battery. A 3 inch thick layer of insulation around the | battery should keep the heating power to 10 watts or so to | keep the battery at -10*c. A 70kwh battery will last 7000 | hours supplying 10 watts, or about a year. Longer if it isn't | -50 every day. | hannob wrote: | It's not a fossil fuel byproduct. It's a fossil fuel product. | | You take natural gas, split it in a process called steam | reforming, you get hydrogen and CO2 emissions. | | Green hydrogen only exists in very small quantities these days | and for many years to come it'll be needed to first replace | existing natural gas based hydrogen and to decarbonize | industries like steel. There's basically a consensus among | energy experts these days that hydrogen in cars is a dead end. | exitb wrote: | It has a similar relationship to fossil fuels as electric cars. | bdamm wrote: | Operating electric cars on coal generation produces more | miles driven for the same carbon emissions than gasoline | does. | epistasis wrote: | Sort of, on some qualitative descriptions. But on the | quantitative level they are quite different, enough to change | the entire quality of the relationship to carbon. The | cheapest source of electrical power are renewables, and for | more than a decade renewables have been at cost parity. | Additionally, electrical vehicles are the perfect complement | to the weakness of renewables: intermittency. | | In contrast, the most optimistic estimates I have seen say | that we are at least a decade from electrolyzed hydrogen that | is as cheap as carbon-spewing current steam methane | reformation. And in the interim, hydrogen boosters are | pushing a nonexistent large-scale carbon capture and | sequestration of steam methane reformation, something that | doesn't exist on an industrial scale, with several failed | projects over the past decade. | | So I would say that hydrogen cars today are like EVs in the | mid 90s. The tech chain has a long ways to go. | arcticbull wrote: | Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the issue with hydrogen the | supply chain? I believe the overwhelming majority of hydrogen is | currently produced from fossil fuels. | | > As of 2020, the majority of hydrogen (~95%) is produced from | fossil fuels by steam reforming of natural gas, partial oxidation | of methane, and coal gasification. [1] | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production | daniellarusso wrote: | How viable is it to extract from water via solar power? | arcticbull wrote: | Yeah, you can do electrolysis, but I don't think it's | particularly efficient. I'd love to know more myself. | yonaguska wrote: | > "I was constantly checking the Nexo's efficiency readout to | maximise the distance I was getting per kilogram of hydrogen. I | found that by using techniques from rally driving, such as | looking as far down the road as possible, as well as tips I have | learned from my dad for driving a truck efficiently over long | distances, it's actually possible to go way beyond Nexo's | official range." | | Anyone have some insights on this? The efficient driving tips | that is? | bdamm wrote: | Hypermiling is almost a sport at this point. | | https://electrek.co/2018/07/16/tesla-model-3-autopilot-unman... | jedimastert wrote: | If there's one thing I've learned on the internet, it's that | if there's a measurable number, people will turn it into a | hobby and then a sport to maximize or minimize it. | mclightning wrote: | Yeah, nowadays it is part of the course when getting driving | license (here in Sweden). | | Economical driving is an important factor when taking the test | eventually after the courses too. It is one of the 5 big | factors you need to pass. | | As it is mentioned above, you need to look far and plan ahead, | do engine braking, let it roll on its own if it is redlights | etc etc. | ne0flex wrote: | Would be good to have this implemented in the curriculum in | Canada & US. The amount of times I've been honked at because | I was approaching a red light without hitting the gas, only | to have the person behind me speed up and overtake me then | slamming the brakes as they approached the light is | ridiculous. | marvin wrote: | It generally breaks down to don't brake unless you have to, and | know & use the performance characteristics of whatever you're | driving. | | This might mean slowing down while anticipating stoplight | changes, curves or congestion behavior so you can just keep | rolling, not accelerating over the top of a hill or entering a | decline with excess speed, leaving a good distance to the car | in front and so on. | | Also knowing the efficiency characteristics of your vehicle. | For ICE cars, generally running in high gear/low RPM. Not going | fast. Engine braking is also braking, clutch in or shift to | neutral while rolling downhill might help. But obviously use | engine braking on very long declines, so you don't burn out | your brakes. Prefer regenerative braking rather than mechanical | braking in battery vehicles with this feature. This is | generally done by changing speed slowly, which requires that | you think a few seconds ahead. Don't accelerate hard if your | engine/motor burns more energy than if accelerating slowly. | jbarberu wrote: | When you go in neutral downhill your engine idles, vs if you | leave it in gear the ECU cuts fuel supply completely. It's | generally better to stay in gear except when you're at a | standstill. (This assumes a modern vehicle with fuel- | injectors) | marvin wrote: | Do automatic gearboxes compression brake when going | downhill? That's what I was trying to avoid. My point was | to conserve your kinetic energy, not optimizing the fuel | flow during the times when you don't want the engine to | produce power. | jbarberu wrote: | Can't speak for all of them, but many will engine brake | if you use cruise control downhill. | [deleted] | jchook wrote: | Get an OBD2 Bluetooth adapter and an app on your smart phone to | display the real time fuel efficiency of your driving. | | That feedback can help a lot. | Dumblydorr wrote: | I drive a Prius, it's a skill to drive efficiently. The main | tip: do not use the gas pedal if you're going to brake soon | anyway. Think of the brakes as wasting gas, then you'll use the | brakes sparingly, and the safe way to do that is by not | accelerating unnecessarily. | | Just think of this. You see some kid in a red sports car at a | stop sign. They blast off quickly, then after one block they | brake hard for the next stop sign. That's wasting gas, brake | pads, and creating more emissions in that area too. | | Other than that, accelerate slowly, watch your RPMs, stay | around 60 mph, take it easy on hills, there's a lot to it, even | without a Prius Regen style battery. | pjerem wrote: | Yes, it's a skill you learn with hybrid cars because they | reward you with silence when you are efficient, and they | punish you with noise when you run out of battery. | InitialLastName wrote: | I feel like a lesson lots of people (including some recent | rideshare drivers I've had) could learn is that the pedals in | your car can be operated with more subtlety than an on/off | switch. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | >Anyone have some insights on this? The efficient driving tips | that is? | | Basically drive like you have no brakes. | narrator wrote: | I remember back during the 2008 oil crisis, I was on a forum | where we were talking about energy and the alternatives to oil | and the consensus was that hydrogen was a lot less efficient than | batteries. You had to store the hydrogen in compressed cylinders, | it's flammable, you need expensive catalysts in fuel cells to | transform it, though hydrogen is light, it takes a lot of volume | to store it because it doesn't compress very well, refueling is | complicated. There are also losses at every step of the energy | pipeline: electrolysis, pipelining, compressing, decompressing, | running it through fuel cells ,etc. It's much more efficient and | less complicated to just use electricity and batteries. | abakus wrote: | Is hydrogen escaping into space something we should be | legitimately concerned about if it became mainstream? | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion-limited_escape | SigmundA wrote: | This is at 66.9 km/h (40 mph) in order to greatly increase its | range due to lower drag compared to normal highway speeds. | | As a comparison a Tesla Model 3 got 975km (606 miles) at 40 km/h | (25 mph) [1]. I can't seem to find any range tests at a similar | speed as the Nexo. | | I found an EPA dyno test for the Model 3 at 77 km/h (48mph) for | 708 km (440 miles). | | The Nexo and Model 3 have similar dimension and weight and price, | while the Nexo advertises 380 miles vs 353 miles. | | It doesn't seem like current fuels cell have much of a energy | density / range advantage even though hydrogen itself is much | more energy dense, the fuel cell weight and efficiency and high | pressure liquid hydrogen tanks must be accounted for. | | Also fuel cell cars seem to use a buffer battery and have lower | power output than BEV's as current fuel cells can't output as | much burst power and can't store power from regenerative braking | with out a battery somewhere. | | Pretty skeptical about hydrogen fuel cells compared to the | continued advancement in battery tech. | | 1.https://electrek.co/2018/05/27/tesla-model-3-range-new-hyper... | | Edit: very good efficiency comparison of hydrogen vs batteries by | Volkswagen, which to me shows the biggest issue with using | hydrogen in cars the "well to wheel" efficiency: | | https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2019/08/hydroge... | bjourne wrote: | > This is at 66.9 km/h (40 mph) in order to greatly increase | its range due to lower drag compared to normal highway speeds. | | > As a comparison a Tesla Model 3 got 975km (606 miles) at 40 | km/h (25 mph) [1]. I can't seem to find any range tests at a | similar speed as the Nexo. | | > It doesn't seem like current fuels cell have much of a energy | density / range advantage even though hydrogen itself is much | more energy dense, the fuel cell weight and efficiency and high | pressure liquid hydrogen tanks must be accounted for. | | I'm curious to know how you come to this conclusion? I don't | know much about aerodynamics other than at, as a first order | approximation, drag is proportional to the SQUARE of the | velocity. Driving 887.5 km at an average speed of 66.9 km/h is, | afaict, much more impressive than driving 975 km at 40 km/h. | SigmundA wrote: | Drag isn't the only thing in play. They both are driving | below highway speeds, one more so than the other, I wish | there was some data for a Tesla at 40 mph vs 25 or 48 to | compare more directly the difference. The Tesla will have | between 975 and 708km range at 40 mph the NEXO is 887km, I | will make an assumption the Tesla is less, but how much less, | is it "much" different? | | What is the energy density delta between a HFCV and BEV | currently? | donaldcuckman wrote: | drag really is just about the only thing at play | [deleted] | [deleted] | thatfrenchguy wrote: | And a Hyundai Kona Electric did 1000km as well, probably at | ridiculously low speeds as well :) ( | https://thedriven.io/2020/08/14/three-unmodified-kona-electr... | ) | jvanderbot wrote: | The one thing H has going is quicker fills at the pump, right? | | Being low on joules is a pain when you're going to work in the | morning, but it's a royal pain if you have to wait a half hour | to charge. | elihu wrote: | On the other hand, if we ever build out electrified road | infrastructure, one might be able to recharge a battery | electric vehicle without even stopping just by pulling power | from rails embedded in the road or overhead power lines. | oh_sigh wrote: | 30 mins at a supercharger is hundreds of miles of | range...that's quite the commute. But if you're at home - | yes, I guess not having any charge is an inconvenience in the | morning, but so is not having any gas or hydrogen. Neither | should happen if you are even remotely responsible and on top | of your life. | SigmundA wrote: | Yep if you have a hydrogen pump nearby it will probably fill | faster than a charger. Not sure if they need attendants like | a propane fill. | | If you have a plug at home though thats much more convient at | least to me when going to work. | barney54 wrote: | You do not need an attendant the hydrogen stations I've | been to. | jfengel wrote: | At least you get a half hour to think about how you should | have plugged it in last night. | Mvandenbergh wrote: | >It doesn't seem like current fuels cell have much of a energy | density / range advantage even though hydrogen itself is much | more energy dense, the fuel cell weight and efficiency and high | pressure liquid hydrogen tanks must be accounted for. | | Hydrogen has a better gravimetric scaling than batteries - as | stored energy increases, the fixed weight of the fuel cell is | amortised over more energy and the weight of high pressure | tanks goes up with their surface area while the energy stores | goes up with volume. | | So for applications where you want to store a lot of energy and | are weight but not volume limited, hydrogen might make enough | sense to pay the efficiency penalty required to turn | electricity into hydrogen and back again. | | That's why it makes more sense for big trucks than it does for | passenger cars where volume limitations matter a lot more and | where total energy is less. | robertlagrant wrote: | > So for applications where you want to store a lot of energy | and are weight but not volume limited, hydrogen might make | enough sense to pay the efficiency penalty required to turn | electricity into hydrogen and back again. | | It's also not inconceivable that if we have more base load | power generation (e.g. through more nuclear) then we could | generate hydrogen at night with the excess. | semi-extrinsic wrote: | For trucks and other heavy duty applications, liquid hydrogen | starts to win out over pressurized. In LH2 tanks, the scaling | becomes advantageous as you are optimizing against heat | ingress, which goes down as 1/R when you increase the radius | R. | SigmundA wrote: | Double walled high vacuum tanks that vent hydrogen gas if | left unused for less than day and empty themselves after 10 | days. | | Liquid hydrogen at -253c that is more energy intensive to | make than high pressure. | | Not sure I see that being practical. | SigmundA wrote: | Lithium batteries still seem to have a way to go in energy | density currently at around 250-300 wh/kg and going up year | over year with a theoretical maximum (Sulfur cathode) of | above 2500 wh/kg. | | At around 2000 wh/kg you are equivalent to diesel drivetrain | energy density both size and weight based on my rough math. | | Expensive large hydrogen tanks in a trailer with high | pressure lines to tractor seems like it would cause safety | and cost issues offsetting much of the benefit. | emptyfile wrote: | I have no clue about batteries or hydrogen tanks. | | But I'm always amused to think that posters on HN give more | credence to their back-of-the-napkin calculations over | opinions of, say, folks at Toshiba, Volvo or Daimler. | SigmundA wrote: | Yes I always like to do my own math it has sniffed out | the BS many a time from the likes of Tesla, Nikola and so | on. Not always right, but amazing how many times theirs | is wrong especially if marketing something. | | You should alway try to understand the math / science and | make your own judgements rather to falling for arguments | from authority. This isn't always feasible but I think | most people can do enough to weed out the snake oil to a | much better degree than we seem to be doing as a society | now. | | Note this will also make you a better engineer / | programmer in my experience. | nick_kline wrote: | Do you see Tesla as a snakeoil company today when it | comes to their batteries, drivetrain, range, reliability? | I wouldn't put Nikola and Tesla in the same categories. | Tesla has one serious issue imho that they can only fix | with refunds of the cost, that their auto-driving cars | probably won't get there in the next 5+ years, so all the | people that paid up to 10k for that will have to get some | compensation. | SigmundA wrote: | No I don't however I was much more skeptical of them in | the past and also the math still lets me know Elon's | timelines are lets say "optimistic", however the math | also told me they where not completely full of it vs | Nikola which is a complete sham. | | For instance the Semi being announced in 2017 I said no | way, but their range numbers where not outlandish, they | just conveniently left off weight numbers for the tractor | and cost of the battery seemed to high at the time. What | I missed was how quickly battery cost are coming down and | energy density going up, however they still haven't | delivered a tractor yet so... | | Tesla has a real tech lead, not sure if they can keep it | and they are way over valued stock wise. | | Nikola complete BS. | TheSpiceIsLife wrote: | Math, physics, and chemistry, don't discriminate. | | The Emperor and the downtrodden, the Ivey League and the | community college, you'll find the same mathematics | wherever you go. | | Some may have an advantage in innovation or inspiration, | but it should he fair trivial for any sufficiently | motivated individual to _check the numbers_. | colordrops wrote: | The people on HN are the same people that work at | Toshiba, Volvo and Daimler. Many of them are more | accomplished and you'll find sub-par engineers making bad | decisions at any company. | valuearb wrote: | Smart engineers chose Hydrogen as the first stage fuel | fuel the Space Shuttle, and it turned out to be a | terrible choice. | | H2 offered the highest ISP, ie energy per fuel mass, and | originally they wanted the Shuttle to be a single stage | to orbit vehicle. But Hydrogen also added larger, much | heavier tanks and engines didn't have enough thrust for | that. So they had to add large Solid Rocket Boosters to | get off the pad. And all they additional dry mass meant | the higher ISP of H2 was wasted. | | And now the SLS is repeating those mistakes, not because | engineers didn't learn those lessons, but because | politicians require them to repeat them. | | Engineers recommending Hydrogen for cars are influenced | by regulatory requirements and benefits, and politically | by company objectives. If your CEO says Hydrogen is | important to use because our government and regulators | say it is, you as an engineer will find a way to make the | best of a bad choice. | bombcar wrote: | The companies are not entirely worried about the total | results as they have other aspects to deal with (in fact, | you'll sometimes find companies doing things they | personally think are silly because "everyone" in the | industry is doing it, and they need to be able to check | off the box for the Board - example: "Why aren't we doing | anything with this blockchain stuff"). | | They also have large resources and are willing to | experiment in things (especially if there are incentives | around it from government, etc) - and even if it fails | entirely they'll likely get useful and actionable data | and results that still can help the company. | daniellarusso wrote: | Are these humans mutually exclusive? | eternauta3k wrote: | > the weight of high pressure tanks goes up with their | surface area while the energy stores goes up with volume. | | Nope, tank mass scales with volume because bigger tanks need | thicker walls: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure_vessel#Scaling | abakker wrote: | With hydrogen this is especially problematic due to | hydrogen embrittlement. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement | semi-extrinsic wrote: | Nope, because you don't make hydrogen tanks out of | materials that are susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement. | | In particular, pressurized automotive-size hydrogen tanks | aren't made from metal at all, they are typically | epoxy/kevlar/carbon fiber composites. | xiphias2 wrote: | Hydrogen makes much more sense for container ships, where | electric batteries can't be made practical, but hydrogen | storage can be scaled easily. | toomuchtodo wrote: | Ammonia is a better fit for marine applications, as it | doesn't require high pressure or cryo storage. It can also be | produced using renewable energy, and is cheaper to transport. | | One of the largest producers in the world (CF Industries in | Louisiana) has committed to producing it using offshore wind, | and renewables in general (and their terminals are located in | geographic areas where there is already high penetration of | renewables on the local grid). | | https://www.cfindustries.com/globalassets/cf- | industries/medi... | darksaints wrote: | Cryo/pressurized storage isn't technically necessary for | ships either. Liquid hydrogen with insulated storage works | well enough. The key is evaporation rates. As long as the | ship consumes fuel faster than it evaporates, there is no | need to maintain pressurization. | | In practice, some buffering pressurization may be | necessary, but the scale of pressurization needs will be a | lot lower than is required to store hydrogen long term. | wiz21c wrote: | And if the ship sinks I guess hydrogen pollutes less than oil | ? | ivalm wrote: | Maybe ever so slightly acidifies water + escapes | atmosphere; I don't think there is real hydrogen spill | pollution. | scatters wrote: | The hydrogen goes up. Most of it will be in space in an | hour or two. Any that doesn't will react with atmospheric | oxygen to produce water vapor. | eloff wrote: | Sure, but it's not a big concern as it's not that common. | eloff wrote: | To the person who disagrees - compared to climate change, | it's the least of our worries. | | No oil spills beats a few oil spills - but these are not | an Exxon Valdez sized event, and they don't really matter | in the grand scheme of things. | WorldMaker wrote: | By a lot, mostly. The liquid hydrogen eventually doesn't | have enough pressure/cold enough temperature to stay liquid | so it turns back to gas and most bubbles out of the water | (with some of it reacting with Oxygen and becoming more | water). It's possible if it were a "big enough" and | "concentrated enough" spill it might briefly create anoxic | zones where fish will die. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoxic_waters (But humans and | dumb algae accidentally do that "all the time" and the | ocean does have recovery methods from anoxic waters. It's | not great for the climate or the ocean, but it is mostly | survivable and much more "temporary" problem than the long | term effects of oil pollution.) | wglb wrote: | It is also a greenhouse gas | http://agage.mit.edu/publications/global-environmental- | impac... | SigmundA wrote: | I agree also perhaps for grid scale storage | himlion wrote: | Or aluminium smelters. | AtlasBarfed wrote: | Hydrogen needs to be a game changer to command a redirection of | investment and effort for consumer transportation. | | Even if it offers 20% better range and some allegedly better | refuel experience (H2 people keep handwaving that as "solved"), | that wouldn't justify the gigantic infrastructure switchover | cost. | | Electric vehicles can use the grid. That's a massive advantage | for infrastructure readiness and scalability, even if the | current grid isn't ready for full EV consumer transportation. | | EVs can use home solar as well. Easily scalable, adds | redundancy and alleviates load to the grid. | | H2 would need a huge buildout of hydrogen generators, | transporters, refuelling. EVs are so far ahead of all of that. | | By the time any significant H2 infrastructure was out there, | it'd be 10 years even if they secured 100s of billions in | financing yesterday. | | In 10 years, the alternative energy / solar / home solar / grid | / battery / storage economic proposition is likely to be 50% | cheaper in real dollars, and possibly even better. | | It's the same problem nuclear faces. | | Sure, throw some money at places like aviation or maritime | shipping. | | But it's just distraction, because I think the oil industry | knows that the hydrogen will come from natural gas for the | foreseeable (10-40 years) with some "future switchover" to | "green hydrogen". | | Green hydrogen smacks of "clean coal". Granted the | physics/engineering for it are a lot more realizable. | | But everyone should see that for the shell game it is. | taneq wrote: | > But it's just distraction, because I think the oil industry | knows that the hydrogen will come from natural gas for the | foreseeable (10-40 years) with some "future switchover" to | "green hydrogen". | | Hydrogen was always a distraction. Fuel cells have been 10 | years away from practicality since the 80s, and hydrogen | production was only ever non-fossil-fuel-based in theory. | It's 100% a smokescreen to protect fossil fuels. | WorldMaker wrote: | Plus, unlike gas, the hydrogen is never directly burnt "in | the engine", it's always converted to electricity first. A | hydrogen car is _always_ going to use EV motors (and | batteries, because while denser, H2 doesn 't yet have | anything near the ability to supply power at high demand that | current battery tech has) and have all the complexity of an | EV, often without the convenience of grid charging (home | charging) given much smaller batteries to compensate for the | weight of the fuel cell and fuel. | | Even the greatest H2 car is always just going to be a second | class EV with "weird fuel needs". | seryoiupfurds wrote: | Maybe that's where current hydrogen R&D is going, but it | isn't inherently true. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_internal_combustion_ | e... | isoprophlex wrote: | But now you're again limited by the low efficiency of | ICE, the theoretical limits imposed by the carnot | cycle... | new_realist wrote: | The Nexo is much less aerodynamic than the Model 3. One is an | SUV/CUV, the other is a low sedan which looks like wet poop. | The Nexo has more frontal area and a higher CD. And the Tesla | is known for rigging its EPA tests for higher, but illusory, | numbers. | JPKab wrote: | I own a model 3 and I laughed pretty hard at your comment | regarding it looking like wet poop. | vardump wrote: | > And the Tesla is known for rigging its EPA tests for | higher, but illusory, numbers. | | By that you must mean Tesla bothers to do the full suite of | EPA tests instead of accepting a somewhat penalizing | multiplier, like how other manufacturers do? | | There's no rigging whatsoever and the same option is | available for other manufacturers as well. If they bother to | do the longer and more demanding test cycle, that is. | sfblah wrote: | Nobody cares exactly how a company gets unrealistically | high numbers. What matters is as a consumer your experience | won't match the company's claims. Best would be for | companies just to tell the truth. C.f. the "full self | driving" falsehood. | vkou wrote: | Anyone who has bought a car in the last 50 years is | already well aware of how much EPA mileage differs from | actual mileage. | | My old 2010 Prius was EPA-rated for 50 MPG. If I drove it | with kid gloves over flat terrain, I could hit that | mileage. If I drove it in a way that doesn't piss other | road users off, I would get closer to 46 MPG. | | If I was doing 80+ MPH over the Rockies on the Trans- | Canada, I'd be getting a cool 35 MPG, because air | resistance is very high at those speeds, and because most | of my braking was exceeding the regenerative capacity of | the car. | SigmundA wrote: | Ok so go to the Model Y which is slightly heavier (Actually | closer to the Nexo) and the worse aerodynamics than the Model | 3 should have minimal effect if hypermiling at low speed, | which also helps the Nexo vs Model 3. | | Model Y will blow the doors off the Nexo in performance due | to much larger electric motors. | [deleted] | usrusr wrote: | Pretty much everything is aerodynamic at 25mph when comparing | to something else at 40mph... | ajross wrote: | > Tesla is known for rigging its EPA tests for higher, but | illusory, numbers. | | The Tesla numbers are correct and verifiable, actually. The | problem is that the EPA "highway" test is designed to capture | the "average highway mile" driven by a US vehicle (which | makes sense, it was designed to inform purchasers of | aggregate fuel use). Here's the driving schedule: | | https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-10/hwfetdds.. | .. | | Note that it never goes above 60mph, and spends most of its | time between 40 and 50. This isn't wrong, but it corresponds | to an urban highway commute (again, which is pretty much the | "average highway mile"). | | The problem is that this does NOT match what typical | consumers think of as "highway driving", meaning blasting | 75mph+ down an open road. So people get in their Model 3's | and measure their consumption at those speeds and it doesn't | match. | | And it's true that other EV manufacturers (Ford, especially | -- the Mach E actually does somewhat better than sticker | consumption on the highway) chose not to run the full test | and used other methods that put a higher number on their | stickers. And in context that's probably more informative. | | But nothing was "rigged". In fact Teslas in stop-and-go urban | commute traffic really do get close to their sticker mileage. | It's just that no one cares because one's battery doesn't run | out on an urban commute before you get home to charge it. | Ironically, EV owners in this case care _LESS_ about | efficiency than gas owners. | rootusrootus wrote: | > The Tesla numbers are correct and verifiable | | There are caveats. The lower end Model 3s hit their | estimates pretty reliably. The Performance trim usually | misses by a pretty big margin for most people. There are | exceptions to every rule, but I owned a P3D and hung out | with other P3D owners as well, and this was a commonly | shared experience. | kaladin_1 wrote: | Off by a magnitude, but can you see any future where entry level | car manufacturers like Hyundai and Toyota will snatch the market | from the German auto makers? | Synaesthesia wrote: | They're not entry level anymore, they're huge companies, some | of the biggest in the world. And yeah they have already, people | used to laugh at Hyundai, now they're renowned for their | quality. | | I think all the car manufacturers have moved to the more | premium sector. They all make good cars. | cookiengineer wrote: | Didn't the Gumpert Nathalie [1] already break the range record | beyond 1000km? | | Granted, their cars use methanol "fuel" to bind hydrogen, but the | car is all electric and uses fuel cells to produce electricity. | | For anyone asking whether this is legit: Gumpert was the inventor | of AWD/quattro and a long time the Audi Sport engineering lead. | | [1] https://www.rolandgumpert.com/en/ | effie wrote: | Hydrogen car is much less comfortable and more expensive to use | than electric car - few refueling stations, much lower energy | efficiency. | | Maybe for long distance transport hydrogen makes sense, because | you can have a big tank and CO2 impact is lower than | gasoline/diesel, but this will require incentives/subsidies from | the state to make economic sense. | TedShiller wrote: | Teslas run on coal power if you're charging from your outlet | beyondcompute wrote: | Hydrogen is the future of electric transportation! | | Imagine you are driving and you have several cartridges of | magnesium hydride and when you pass by a refueling station a | drone catches up with you and swaps nearly-depleted cartridges | one by one all while you continue going! How cool is that! B-) | | And then you can refuel by stuff that you produce yourself using | photo catalyst solar panels in your back yard. | ajmurmann wrote: | Why couldn't you do that with batteries? | daedalus2027 wrote: | how do you convert oil into hydrogen? | brickmort wrote: | 887.5km = ~551.46 miles | neom wrote: | Tangentially- Korean taxi driver talking about using a hydrogen | Nexo around Seoul: | http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210405000819 | natch wrote: | In hydrogen versus electric, it would seem that hydrogen offers | way more to the auto and fuel industries in terms of ability to | extract ongoing payments out of consumers for parts, single | source or limited / controlled source fuel, and maintenance of a | large complex system of high tech components. | | It also ties the consumer to that fuel system with no other | options. You can't, in other words, fill up at home in your | parking spot. | | The potential for auto parts profits is high because hydrogen, | being the smallest molecule, is notoriously corrosive as it is | able to leak through almost any material. And able to bond with | many molecules, causing corrosion. So I would expect a lot of | degradation over time. | | So I guess that's why Toyota loves this: ongoing parts sales. As | a former Toyota owner, I loved the reliability at first, but it | was not absolute, and the parts cost for repairs started | approaching the cost of car payments as the car got older. | asciimov wrote: | I've always hoped hydrogen would have taken off. Since you can | convert gas engines to run off of hydrogen it would be easier to | move the market to hydrogen than electric. Allowing us to build | out the infrastructure first, then transition vehicles over to | fuel cell. | rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: | By the time you can build the infra, we'll have replaced all | the ICE cars to EV. And the cost to build the infra far exceeds | the cost to replace all ICE to EV and install electric chargers | everywhere, too. | HPsquared wrote: | Burning hydrogen in an ICE is a very expensive and inefficient | process. It's a bit like electric heating, you need to first | make the hydrogen which is itself a lossy process. In both | cases, the "high-quality" energy source that is produced, can | be efficiently used by a specific process (fuel cells for | hydrogen, heat pumps for electricity) or squandered in an | inefficient conversion process (internal combustion engine for | hydrogen, resistive heating for electricity). | jdlyga wrote: | 551.47 miles | spuz wrote: | It's not quite clear from the article, but is this a stock | Hyundai Nexo or was it modified to add more fuel tanks? The stock | range of the car is 413 miles or 664km, so how exactly was this | new record achieved? | andy_ppp wrote: | Down hill with a trailing wind going very slowly without | breaking? Still 664km is impressive! | csunbird wrote: | The factory recommendations are not always the maximum | theoretical distance you can get from your cars, those | recommendations are based on real world usage, e.g. 120 km/h on | a highway or 30km/h average with stops in the city center. | | It is called "hypermiling", you can do that with gas cars as | well, by driving on a level road, minimal breaking and | accelerating, plus driving in the engine's optimal RPM period | in the highest gear possible. In short, the ideal conditions | for the car. | OriginalNebula wrote: | Maybe a good driver who drove economically | MattRix wrote: | The arricle says it was a production spec Nexo, it was just | being driven for maximum efficiency. As the driver says "it's | actually possible to go way beyond Nexo's official range". | erk__ wrote: | It says in the article that it consumed 6.27 kg of hydrogen and | the standard tank is 6.3 so I would say that it was not | modified. | Thlom wrote: | Tesla record is over 1000 km, so at this point I'm not sure why | anyone is interested in hydrogen for personal vehicles over | electric. | alecmg wrote: | We were getting 1000km between fill ups (60L tank) on a | family road trip in a bog standard 1.8L gasoline (!) Ford | Mondeo, seating 2 adults 2 kids and with trunk loaded to the | brim and A/C running on full. | | Really difficult to be excited or impressed by these | "records". Both Tesla and H2 | pjerem wrote: | Filling my Mondeo tank costs me about 70+EUR. Recharging a | Tesla at home costs 1 or 2EUR. | | The record is not the autonomy by itself, but is about | getting the same autonomy for 35-70x less money and | potentially 0Co2e emission. | xutopia wrote: | A full charge for 15$ versus how much for fuel? And do you | pollute? | tppiotrowski wrote: | The storage problem: | | You can make hydrogen from solar panels and store it until | you need a refill vs. to charge your Tesla with solar, you'll | need to surrender it in the middle of the day and wait for a | full charge. | manquer wrote: | Let's appreciate the achievement rather than comparing instantly | with electric or Tesla. | | Would be interested to know what makes nexo different to be able | to break the record. | mrweasel wrote: | It doesn't say anything about the size of the tank, which seems a | little weird. Technically you could break that record by adding a | bigger tank. | | Does anyone know what this means: "It purified 449,100 litres of | air on the journey - enough for 33 adults to breathe in a day." | | Why is the car purifying air while driving? Is this a side effect | of hydrogen powered cars? | liquidforce wrote: | I was curious about this too, basically they're just filtering | air as they go and counting it as negative emissions: | | https://www.altenergymag.com/story/2021/03/can-fuel-cell-tec... | Gravityloss wrote: | You don't want your fuel cell chemistry to be contaminated. The | fuel cell needs oxygen from the air. | | That's also why it's so light, since in H2O, 90% of the weight | is the oxygen. | merb wrote: | > That's also why it's so light, since in H2O, 90% of the | weight is the oxygen. | | which also makes it unsuitable for moon cars. | effie wrote: | The car has an HEPA filter which removes dust from the air | which is nice but that's not the whole story, as can be | expected from marketing. | | 6.3kg of hydrogen consumed means 50 kg of atmospheric oxygen | consumed, which is 170 000 liters of air. So it purified 450 | 000 liters but it also removed oxygen from that same air, | around 38% of it. I would not breathe that exhaust air, it may | not be CO2 rich, but it sure is oxygen depleted. | IgorPartola wrote: | I guess that's marketing speak for an F150 doing the same | journey would have produced that much impure air. | lnsp wrote: | To make a fuel cell work, you need an external oxygen supply | for the chemical reaction. A cleaner oxygen supply with fewer | particles make the fuel cell work longer, therefore Hyundai | added an air filter which filters out fine particles before | passing it on to the fuel cell. | | (I'm not an expert, but this is how I understood the process.) | jacquesm wrote: | FWIW: the material challenges for hydrogen are such that I do not | think that it will ever be a mainstream storage medium for | vehicular use (it's not a fuel, it is a battery). | | - hydrogen embrittlement | | - leakage from whatever container you plan to use | | - very low activation energy -> always danger of explosion | | So it's a great thing in the lab and to get subsidy for but it | sucks for large scale deployment, and deploying it in devices | that have a long projected lifespan has its own special class of | problems. | | Plenty of manufacturers have already had hydrogen test fleets and | as far as I'm aware all but a few have been abandoned. | foxyv wrote: | I think if you are going to go with a highly energy inefficient | storage medium then methane makes more sense. It's a lot more | practical to transport and store. It can be carbon neutral as | well if you use sabatier generators or bio reactors instead of | fossil fuels. You can convert existing ICE engines to use it | too. | | It's definitely not ideal, but it's still a fair bit better | than the hydrogen options which generally just kind of suck. | (3000PSI vs 5000PSI for CNG vs H2) If you can source something | to dissolve it in you can also store it as LNG. Busses have | been using it for ages now. Although I've seen what happens | when an CNG tank goes on those busses and it is scary as heck. | I can't imagine a similar issue with hydrogen. That stuff is | scary. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHf2o9oVY24 | AAA_Rating wrote: | Hydrogen is not dead, all the hate it has been getting from Musk | made people leave the space. If somebody bets on it right now it | seems like a better bet compared to say 5 years ago. | | The whole promotional attitude towards EV will cause an EV winter | when the rubber meets the road and things aren't as rosy as | advertised. Mark my words. It's already happening . | bdamm wrote: | Can you be specific? Looks pretty good to me. | kazoomonger wrote: | I doubt that. I've got a Leaf that I've had for almost 2 years | (i.e. lots of rubber on the road), and I'm not going back. | Judging by the number of Teslas I see driving on the road every | time I'm out, I don't think other people are going back either. | | This is in Minnesota too, with very icy and cold winters. I've | seen that commonly brought up as an anti-EV talking point, but | it's empirically wrong. | bkor wrote: | > I've got a Leaf that I've had for almost 2 years | | Isn't the Leaf known for poor battery temperature management? | This causes the battery perform way worse over time than | other EVs. A battery performing way poorer over time is a | common fear that I've noticed. If someone notices this and | doesn't know it's unique (caused by manufacturer not doing | enough) then I'd expect some Leaf-owning people to dislike | EVs. | | The huge price difference between charging an EV at home vs | anywhere else is why I dislike an EV. Though I actually do | not dislike EVs, I dislike the price difference. | kazoomonger wrote: | The Leaf doesn't have active cooling. From what I | understand, charging up to 80% instead of full except on | long trips prevents any thermal issues. I've got a 230 mile | range, so 80% is not an issue for me for daily driving. I | will say that the max capacity meter hasn't yet gone below | 1.0 after nearly 2 years. | | Every Nissan dealership around me has free Leaf-only | supercharging, and there's also a few superchargers around | the Twin Cities that just cost the price of parking (e.g. | ~$1/h). Other than that, every Goodwill has a supercharger | that costs some actually metered amount of money. | AAA_Rating wrote: | Hydrogen has the same infrastructure as gasoline. A | "recharge" takes as much as 40 seconds. EVs have a negative | impact in the quality of life of those who buy them because | they cost more and have the problem of recharging time. It's | simply an own goal you are doing to your team which in this | case is your family because of woke ideals. | | Lower mantainence costs is also a legend unless we are | talking about Toyotas and Benz build quality. Teslas have | lots of issues, don't know about the Leaf. | kazoomonger wrote: | I really just fucking love plugging in at home to charge | (and so does my family, and no I'm not just saying that). I | don't want "infrastructure". I would take even slower | charging if it meant I got to charge at home. As-is, I'm | very satisfied, and excited to see where EV tech goes. I'm | sure in a few years the charging speed and range I've got | now will be peanuts to what's out there. | | My maintenance costs have been tire rotations. I joked to | the service tech that I'm sorry they're not making more | money off of me. | AAA_Rating wrote: | > I really just fucking love plugging in at home to | charge (and so does my family, and no I'm not just saying | that) | | Why is that? When you purchase a car you buy the 24/7/365 | availibility of said car. | | An EV is not availible to use 24/7/365. Regardless of the | human biorythms you should get a discount because an EV | is less of a car compared to an actual car which is | always ready to go. | | With EVs you are not getting a discount, but you'd have | to pay a premium. This is a subpar outcome for the | consumer in my book. | kazoomonger wrote: | This is honestly a rather bizarre take, but also not | true. I almost never run out of battery at the end of the | day, because I've got 230 miles of range. I plug the car | in overnight, and it's fully charged in the morning, but | if there were an emergency overnight, I'd still have | plenty of range for getting to wherever. So I do have | 24/7/365 availability? I even don't have to remember to | stop by a gas station (or hydrogen station given the | original post). | | The few times I got super low on battery from driving | around all day, I stopped by one of the dealerships near | me and used their free Leaf-only supercharger, went | inside and sat in their nice comfy chairs with free wifi | for a bit. Note that I didn't have to do this and | could've charged at home, but figured it would be nice to | have the quick charge. I've done this less than half a | dozen times in the whole time I've had the car, so this | is not a general concern I have. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | If you'd rather have a car that's twice less efficient (and | twice more expencise to fuel) than wait 20 minutes to | charge, then you are living in a bubble of privilidge that | does not reflect life priorities for 90% of folks out there | kazoomonger wrote: | I wouldn't rather have such a car, it's just the benefits | from charging at home are such that I'd still accept it. | woeirua wrote: | EVs are perfect second cars or city cars. You don't need | to charge them completely all the time. If you want to | take a road trip then get a PHEV, or a Hybrid. | woeirua wrote: | I own a LEAF. The maintenance costs are basically zero: | just tire rotations. It pains me to think about spending | money for oil changes on my other car. | | Also the build quality on a Nissan is as good as a Toyota. | rorykoehler wrote: | I have an acquaintance who has made a substantial fortune from | energy focused startups (including a battery tech one) and is now | working on another hard tech startup and they are very critical | of hydrogen as a fuel. I've had superficial conversations with | them about it but could never get a sense of their fundamental | arguments. Is hydrogen a non starter or are they just protecting | their investments with FUD? | Gravityloss wrote: | They could work for cases where long distances are needed and | charging is inconvenient, like for trucks. | | I do wonder how much the driver needs to rest, if high speed | charging works during the driver's breaks. Could use overhead | chargers. | | Ammonia is another alternative. | fossuser wrote: | The arguments I've seen have specifically been about hydrogen | in the context of EVs (specifically almost always as a way to | dismiss EVs). | | - The trade-offs work in favor of EVs, hydrogen has a similar | distribution problem to gasoline (fueling stations). | | - Hydrogen requires production somehow, electricity we already | have the grid and people can charge at home | | - The things hydrogen is good at (lighter weight than | batteries, faster refueling) are starting to become less | relevant as battery and charging tech improves. | | - The argument that you need an equivalent charging | infrastructure isn't really true since you only need that for | long tail long range trips (and also we have that now). | | The reason I personally dismiss people talking about hydrogen | or supporting it (Japanese automakers) is it ignores the | obvious current success of EVs in addition to the arguments | above and it often feels like a disingenuous argument in bad | faith. Specifically, someone is anti-EV and bringing up | hydrogen as misdirection to make some EV thing harder to | implement. | | The success and market uptake of hydrogen vs. EV seems to be | empirically obvious at this point. I suspect because EVs could | get over the chicken/egg charging infrastructure issue because | early adopters could just charge at home (and most trips are | short range). | bkor wrote: | > - The argument that you need an equivalent charging | infrastructure isn't really true since you only need that for | long tail long range trips (and also we have that now). | | To add: Hydrogen stations are fairly unique. It's really | expensive to build such stations (millions). Plus heavy | restrictions on where they can be placed. Putting up a charge | station is really cheap in comparisons (think it was | something like 10k for on a public street with 2 charge | ports), plus you can place them pretty much anywhere (way | less safety restrictions). | | What I dislike about EVs is how expensive they're to charge | if you're not using your own electricity. At least, that's | the situation in NL. | gorjusborg wrote: | The chicken or egg problem with charging is one of the | reasons I tend to down-weight the opinions of EV owners when | talking about the future of transportation. | | People that own EVs have to deal with the lack of supporting | infrastructure, and have a vested interest in steering public | opinion to go in a direction they have already personally | committed. | | That doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong about the future, | just that they have incentives that could cause them to hang | onto some bad ideas because they adopted early (and want to | save face). | gorjusborg wrote: | In case anyone was wondering where the Overton window was. | cogman10 wrote: | Here a few major issues hydrogen would need to solve. | | * There isn't a fuel distribution system. The reason BEVs work | is because everywhere has power, setting up power distribution | is generally just plugging into the local grid. | | * Hydrogen escapes any container it's placed in. That's a | pretty hard thing to deal with. Most approaches have looked at | chemically binding hydrogen to something in order to keep it | from escaping, but that, as you can imagine, is expensive. The | other option is onsite electrolysis, but that's rather | expensive to pull off. | | * Speaking of electrolysis, while we can get hydrogen from many | sources, the one we are likely to actually use isn't | electrolysis but rather natural gas and oil. Why is that? | Because electrolysis is inefficient (about 20% efficiency IIRC | _edit_ I recalled incorrectly. Electrolysis has a ~70% | effciency). | | So you have a hard to store fuel, without a distribution | network, that may be coming from fossil fuels anyways. -So why | do major companies like Toyota love hydrogen? Because it | doesn't require them to make any major changes to their fleet. | You can get a lot more miles out of the basic combustion engine | design and you don't need to retool all your product lines.- | _edit_ I was wrong, looks like most hydrogen vehicles are fuel | cell based. | | Now, that isn't to say that hydrogen has no place in the | future. I think because of it's energy density hydrogen will | likely play a role in the airline industry. It may even be | possible that hydrogen ends up finding a place in long range | shipping. However, hydrogen in a consumer car is, IMO, DOA. | BEVs already exist as do their charge networks. | effie wrote: | > So why do major companies like Toyota love hydrogen? | Because it doesn't require them to make any major changes to | their fleet. | | Toyota Mirai (their hydrogen powered car) is fuel cell | vehicle, it uses hydrogen to power electric motors. | mastazi wrote: | > You can get a lot more miles out of the basic combustion | engine design | | Why would there be a combustion engine in a hydrogen car? I | expect that there would be a fuel cell powering electric | motors. Are there other ways to use hydrogen in cars, other | than fuel cell? I'm not an expert. | eulers_secret wrote: | You can use hydrogen in a modified combustion engine: https | ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_internal_combustion_e... | | Doesn't look like a great path forward - deep internal | engine parts need to be modified (no "hydrogen kit" for | existing cars), they emit NOx emissions (so not zero- | emission), and you have all the disadvantages of a | combustion engine. | | However, combustion engines have 100 years of development | behind them and a proven track record of reliability | (probably billions of running hours by now). Fuel cells are | still newish - "the devil you know". This would also keep | mechanics employed and keep dealership service bays busy... | kind of a perverse incentive, but it's there for sure. | | It may be a stop-gap, or useful for certain situations | (long haul trucking is mentioned). It could be part of the | tapestry of technologies needed to move to a more | renewable-based future. | Diggsey wrote: | > Because electrolysis is highly inefficient | | Actually it's pretty efficient. According to wikipedia, | efficiency ranges from 70% for the cheaper method, to 80% | with more expensive catalysts. Theoretical efficiency is 94%. | bkor wrote: | > Actually it's pretty efficient. | | Electrolysis is only a small factor. | | It's all of the other required bits that makes Hydrogen so | inefficient. Transportation, building up pressure, etc. | Hydrogen if you compare things simply is more efficient | than gas/diesel. However, gas/diesel is pumped out of the | ground. Meaning, a lot of the energy needs for gas/diesel | are already there. | merb wrote: | well theoretical efficiency can never be achived, also it | might be more efficient than gasoline cars it can never be | more efficient than BEV, because you need to convert power | into hydrogen and back, converting anything always has | losses | ppf wrote: | In this use case, hydrogen forms a fairly inefficient way of | transferring energy from renewable sources to your car. As well | as that, you have severe problems with distribution and storage | - the pressures required are frankly terrifying as an end-user, | and hydrogen embrittlement of any steel in contact with the | hydrogen is also a big problem. | starfallg wrote: | There's a lot of Hydrogen FUD for sure, but the core of the | problem is storage and transport. Hydrogen is just extremely | hard to store and move around pressurised. This makes it | uneconomical in most use cases. There's nothing fundamentally | wrong about it as a technology (if you treat it as a energy | store instead of a fuel), just engineering challenges and cost. | KMnO4 wrote: | There's a ridiculous amount of of FUD from the industry (at | both/all ends). It's a Catch 22. You need infrastructure before | people will invest in infrastructure. You don't want to invest | the millions/billions in the wrong one, so people spread FUD to | protect their investment. For example, Elon Musk had doubled | down on battery tech, so H2 winning out isn't in his best | interest. | danparsonson wrote: | Aside from the other points raised here, presumably there are | safety concerns too - a hydrogen tank is basically a highly | pressurised bomb; I'm not sure how you go about keeping that | safe in a collision except making it heavily-armoured and | hoping for the best. | effie wrote: | It is a bomb alright, but surprisingly that is the least of | its problems. The bomb can be made strong enough to withstand | great majority of accidents. Of course it won't withstand | some very nasty ones, but that rare possibility people could | live with. | | The problem with hydrogen is there is no hydrogen available, | we have to first generate it and distribute it to cars. So | far this process is much more expensive than generating and | distributing electric power. | slobiwan wrote: | > has since taken the Californian market by storm, with | approximately 400-500 units running in the sunshine state right | now. | | Um, "taken by storm" is a bit of an overstatement. 500 out of 14 | million? https://www.statista.com/statistics/196010/total-number- | of-r... | martini333 wrote: | For everyone here comparing Teslas range to this: It takes less | than 10 minutes to fill a tank with hydrogen. It takes 40+ | minutes to fill a Tesla to 80%. | [deleted] | merb wrote: | Superchargers can only take around 25 minutes for a model y, it | heavily depends how many people are on a charging station. of | course not every car can be "filled" with 250kW, it also is a | huge wear on the battery. | | btw. hydrogen energy cells are also subjected to wear, | especially when doing a really really long trip. energy density | of course is still in favor for hydrogen, especially since they | do not need to store oxygen, which means a hydrogen car only | needs to keep half the fuel, but battery technologies are | expanding way faster than hydrogen can keep up. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-05-18 23:01 UTC)