This reads like fossil fuel conglomerate propaganda. The first sentence posits an unproven alternative with a complex, expensive and almost entirely hypothetical infrastructure. Hydrogen is not addressed further, and fear-uncertainty-doubt tropes concerning battery powered vehicles are liberally applied. Many of the bullet points on this laundry list are disputable. Just take 'batteries take too long to charge' -- I drove a Nissan Leaf as my main vehicle for 8 years. Even given its tiny 24Kw battery pack, I was able to use home charging for 95% of my driving needs. For the last 5 years of service, I even used 120V 'trickle' charging during the evenings and it was sufficient. Now I have an electric vehicle with significantly higher battery capacity and a much faster charging network, as well as a 240V home charger. It is even more flexible and I am freer to take long road trips. When charging the car during such trips, I get out and exercise, play with the dog. It is a small adjustment that occurs infrequently during the life of the car. Most of these bullet points can be addressed in a similar manner. Enough of the propaganda!
It is fully plausible that the poster meant: "hydrogen based technology looks like deserving more attention - especially given that alternatives are imperfect".
Those speaking of a successful experience with home charging describe a very personal experience: many people do not have any "home charging infrastructure" (the car won't do the stairs), nor the same «driving needs». The statement «batteries take too long to charge» deserves referential (and even reverential) noticing of the current standard, which is "I refill within one first minute on the clock".
Charging posts are sprouting up all over the sidewalks of some cities (Paris comes to mind), "home charging infrastructure" isn't insoluble even for apartment dwellers. And they don't have to be fast chargers if the car's going to be sitting there for 12 hours, which means they can be somewhat easier to install.
But a very large percentage of people do live in detached homes, in which case, all it takes is a standard wall socket and a 14/3 extension cord (in the case of a US standard 120v 15 amp circuit).
"Not «insoluble»" does not really define the smiling world of shining white sweaters strolling in the streets (it is not "problem solved"). I doubt that the coverage will be easily doable. There are apartments in remote places in the countryside (at least, it is very normal here). And in streets dense with parking need, which implies many aspects of space management. Moreover, if I had to imagine charging posts every, say, two spots, or basically every spot, in every inhabited street with the possible exception of villas with internal space for cars, I would immediately wonder of the infrastructural costs (which would be rotated to the final individual user as a component of the per-kWh, hopefully, but still worth noticing).
About the «very large percentage of people do live in detached homes»: interesting, I see data around that seems to confirm this (to Statista.com , in North America they should be 85% of the total this makes too little sense in consideration of urbanization: I would believe it more easily if it were 85% /in rural areas/). Other easily accessible data states that in Canada «55.3% of the population lived in single-detached houses [in 2006]», but with swings such as "7.5% in Montreal, 58% in Calgary". It reminds me of those infographics that show how compact and traffic efficient Barcelona is when compared to Atlanta (same population, 1/12 of the urban area, 1/6 of the transport related carbon emissions) - I suppose that a staggering amount of population living in single-family detached homes must entail that cities are affected (instead of being made of mostly buildings for apartments), which must mean "more Atlanta than Barcelona" as a concept.
Those who have this mysterious "85%" as set in their mind should be aware of this piece of info from Eurostat:
> In 2020, 46.2 % of the EU population lived in flats, more than one third (35.8 %) lived in detached houses and close to one fifth (17.0 %) lived in semi-detached or terraced houses
Hydrogen fuel cells are more expensive than batteries, because they either work at room-temperature and they need expensive catalysts using platinum-group metals, or they work at high temperatures and then they have a short lifetime, requiring frequent replacements of most components.
Also the efficiency of a cycle of storing energy into gaseous hydrogen and then recovering it is limited by fundamental reasons to low values.
For cars, it is likely that batteries will remain the best solution, due to the high efficiency of a charge-discharge cycle.
For long term storage of energy, further improvements of fuel cells might make them the best solution for recovering energy stored in chemical form, but not using gaseous hydrogen for storage, but other more appropriate substances, e.g. hydrocarbons, alcohols, ammonia or solid carbon.
There are fuel cells for the other fuels mentioned above and the only advantage of the hydrogen fuel cells is that they currently have the greatest power density, i.e. the speed of reaction of the hydrogen per area of electrode is for now the greatest (leading to the greatest electrical current density), but only either at high temperatures or when using expensive catalysts.
The mitochondria from all the cells of our body are a demonstration that it is possible to make a very high efficiency fuel cell using hydrocarbons as fuel and without using any rare or expensive materials for catalysts.
While the solar cells already exceed the efficiency of plants at capturing solar energy, the artificial fuel cells have a long way until becoming competitive with those used by the living beings.
Much of the fear about battery degradation was from projections and warranty terms at the very beginning of modern EV deployments.
Real world observations have shown the battery packs maintaining >85% of their capacity after 150,000mi/241,000km.
Also, battery components aren't rare. They're called "rare" because they are not found in large centralized deposits but rather spread somewhat uniformly throughout the earth. They are actually some of the more abundant elements on earth. For every two atoms of silicon on earth, there is almost one of lithium, which makes it much more abundant than hydrocarbons. If battery component extraction was subsidized to the degree hydrocarbon extraction is, they would be much less expensive, and more available on the market, than hydrocarbons.
>-if you get into a crash your Battery will most likely be affected - which means you will probably have to spend almost the price of a new vehicle
The battery makes up approximately 1/3rd the price of a new EV. As anyone who has had to pay for auto repair can attest, labor is almost always the main cost. It is inconceivable to me that replacing a battery and motors is more costly than an engine, except due to a shortage of qualified personnel commanding higher hourly rates. There is a video on YouTube of an elderly wheelchair-bound man completely rebuilding a Nissan Leaf battery pack in a workshop so I have no doubts that it is a skill that can be taught to any able-bodied person who is willing to learn.
If in the next five years electric battery vehicles become a very big pain, then I suspect you will hear about fuel cell cars ... or whatever the perceived pragmatic replacement is.
That we don't hear about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles actually suggests to me that they are not a viable option.
I presume, stupidly perhaps, that there are bigger thinkers than me (or certainly people in positions that have a lot more to lose or gain in this field) that have already counted the beans and still see the electric (battery) vehicles as the current future path of least resistance.
At the very least, swapping batteries for fuel cells seems to be a fundamentally simpler step than swapping ICE for electric. Going to electric cars generally, regardless of the source of power is a big move for the auto industry.
How the h... did my simple comment, based on my PERSONAL opinion on the subject got into this witch-hunt?!
Enough with the torches and forks!
This is not propaganda! It's MY PERSONAL conclusion on everything I've read! - the word -PERSONAL- is the key here.
If any of you think I don't like electric vehicles you are wrong! Anything that does not pollute is welcome(to try to undo the shirt we all did)!
But I have to say it: ATM - personal view, again - to me, electric vehicles based on batteries S-U-C-K!!! And they SUCK big time!!!
I don't see them as decent alternative!!!
Sure! Environment-friendly it's the best we have! But they suck!
And hydrogen has much more promise!
Not developed enough? Yeah! It's not. But then again... Let me say it again: electric vehicles based on batteries suck.
And unless they get at least the first 3 points fixed you won't be changing my mind!
50.000 for a car that takes 25 min to charge and that if, for some reason, the battery goes the way of the Dodo I can expand ALMOST another 50.000?
Sorry, I'm not payed enough for that.
You guys must all have big pay checks every month...
But I don't!
>-Batteries are terribly expensive (and prices are not going down as fast as expected)
Not really.
>-Batteries degrade too fast
No, they don't, at least not the well-temperature-controlled ones. Larger EV packs should outlast most ICE cars.
>-Batteries take too long to charge
They really don't, unless you have no way to charge at home - the vast majority of charging happens overnight even on a 120V plug. We only visit chargers when on roadtrips.
>-Electricity prices are already going up terribly fast to take advantage of the boom (and blaming the war, and everything else to justify it's rise)
Not really true, at least in our corner of the US. I think we're sitting at ~$0.14/kwh, which works out to around $0.04-$0.05/mi, or 20-25 miles per $. And any rise in methane prices is going to hit hydrogen harder, given that most H2 is produced by cracking CH4.
>-Batteries pollute a lot more than previously though
Source? What kind of pollution? More than the steel that goes into making a car?
>-recycling Batteries is hard
Not really? Tesla claims a materials yield of 92% on their packs, and 100% of the packs recycled. Recyclers are willing to pay quite a bit for broken packs, which should tell you something.
>-Batteries component materials are rare
Newer chemistries are better about this.
>-if you get into a crash your Battery will most likely be affected - which means you will probably have to spend almost the price of a new vehicle
Yeah, Teslas aren't great on this front, even wrt the bodywork. But battery pack replacements don't cost nearly as much as a new EV.
Gaseous hydrogen has a lot of problems, and you'd need to build a whole distribution network. Which we already have with electricity...
Biggest problem with hydrogen is the lack of refueling infrastructure. With electric, there's an electrical grid to build chargers on top of and worst case you can charge in your garage etc. With hydrogen we would need to create tons of new gas stations designed for hydrogen as well as the delivery vehicles, refineries, etc. to supply them. I've got a relative who works for Toyota (who are making significant investments in hydrogen) and he said most of their current efforts are on semi truck fleets where they only need hydrogen stations at a few locations along a pre-determined route.
Charging in your garage isn't really the worst case scenario. For most drivers, it's actually the best case scenario, because your average commute won't even come close to depleting the battery, and can be trickle charged over the course of a night, extending battery life over fast charging.
The only reason a person should ever need to charge at a station is on a long haul trip, and that problem is getting better all the time.
I think this has been discussed to death, the TL;DR is that H2 is fundamentally really difficult to store safely and efficiently at reasonable densities and temperatures. This is not something that is likely to improve with technology or scale (it's not like it's an underfunded area), they literally squeeze past other atoms and nothing is smaller than hydrogen.
I do however agree that existing battery technology is _still_ severely disadvantaged, not only in terms of efficiency and density but the rare materials they need to manufacture (same for H2 solutions).
It's annoying because ICE engines are not great (big, heavy, complicated with related reliability issues), yet they consume an easy to transfer high density liquid fuel; Electric engines are fantastic (small, light, simple, highly efficient, powerful, great torque), but they consume electricity which is hard to efficiently transfer with no where near the energy density per unit weight or space storage solutions.
However! ICE exists, all of it's issues are mitigated by mass adoption, and in the short term it's not environmentally responsible to ditch 1 billion cars. I think the best plan I've seen so far is to scale up synthesising hydrocarbons from solar... electric cars can continue to be developed and we can find more reasonable electric storage solutions without undermining the purpose of switching to electric by forcing the world into an immature solution and throwing away 1 billion ICE vehicles and all related infrastructure (manufacturing EVEs has an environmental cost).
We like simple to understand solutions, but the solution that minimises environmental impact must not underscope itself - the whole picture has to be considered, costs of manufacturing and switching are not external to planet Earth, which means there is some ideal conversion rate that must be determined.
One small nit: Nobody is advocating "throwing away 1 billion ICE vehicles".
If you have a car that works, the environmentally responsible decision is -- unless it's an absurdly inefficient vehicle -- to keep using that car instead of purchasing a newly-manufactured EV. Even EV advocates acknowledge and proclaim this.
The point of the EV transition is to provide a more environmentally responsible solution for those people who are already in the market for a new car, as an alternative to manufacturing another billion polluting ICE cars.
True yes, i was exaggerating, but there is a pressure to accelerate the transition, and a perception by the general public and policy makers that the faster the better.
Even with the ideal EVE battery solution the environmentally optimal solution may actually be to prolong ICE use with synthetic fuels to minimise manufacturing impact while eliminating green house gas emission. I don't think as many people realise this as you may think. Minimising manufacturing and consumption is also anti-capitalistic which is an extra complication making it unpopular.
Actually the current state of the art of H2 is fundamentally safe so to say, e.g. it's wrapped into some sort of oxide. But the most important cars on the market (of which there aren't many types) still use the 1st gen approach which is a bit unsafer.
I think there are solutions to the show stoppers of H2. But the package isn't very appealing, at least not for individual transport.
Also what makes EVs appealing, they've reached a state of convenience that makes them feasible for most use cases. And for the rest it seems some hacky solutions are possible.
Of course the waste of switching from ICEs to non-ICEs will be incredible. But well, hard to see any alternative..
The current world of electric cars is sort of like every smart phone before the iPhone came out. Then iPhone/Android hit, and the world was off to the races.
> Can we bet a little more on the most abundante substance on the universe?
One of those problems is there is no abundant source of hydrogen in isolated form here on earth. You have to use a catalytic agent or an energy-intensive process like electrolysis to get usable hydrogen for your fuel cell.
I'm not particularly knowledgeable, but my impression is that hydrogen might work for specific applications, but we don't have a very efficient of generating it. It still takes substantially more energy than if we just store the energy in batteries.
Steam reforming of methane from natural gas to product hydrogen is in fact very efficient (up to ~85% iirc). It is not, however, carbon-neutral. At a system level, the weak point is the fuel cell and they can be about 50% efficient. So you have an overall efficiency of a little over 40%.
Batteries can be very efficient but that is not an apples-to-apples comparison. You have to get the energy somewhere. Good solar systems are about 30% efficient. Turbines are about 30% efficient.
Energy efficiency isn't the problem with hydrogen and fuel cells. They have other problems.
The cost of storing energy in batteries is truly enormous when talking about large amounts (for example two weeks of U.S. total energy usage); this would probably costs trillions of dollars. But instead if you stored this in caverns or convert it to ammonia or another fuel... the storage cost will be a small fraction of this.
Because, unless we get a tremendous breakthrough in the next 5 years, electric battery vehicles will be a very big pain.
-Batteries are terribly expensive (and prices are not going down as fast as expected)
-Batteries degrade too fast
-Batteries take too long to charge
-Electricity prices are already going up terribly fast to take advantage of the boom (and blaming the war, and everything else to justify it's rise)
-Batteries pollute a lot more than previously though
-recycling Batteries is hard
-Batteries component materials are rare
-if you get into a crash your Battery will most likely be affected - which means you will probably have to spend almost the price of a new vehicle
Can we bet a little more on the most abundante substance on the universe?
I know it also has it's problems... But they do seen less...