Why did we abandon hydrogen cars so quickly?

[Bomby569]

I mainly was just showing that the interest is growing anyway, regardless of what type. Hence the title of my thread here... perhaps the hydrogen movement is not done after all, I think for the masses it won't happen, but in targeted areas within certain targeted countries, like Japan and Germany are moving pretty strong on it.

I already said a bit back, i think it's the best (current) solution for plains and boats, as it is impractical for them to use batteries, the weight in plains and the massive amount required for boats. I think this 2 big sectors may in my opinion make it commercially viable for more sectors a bit like a spillover.
And it's not just making the shift to be green, ports ans airports are usually near cities, and are great contributors for polution and the countries co2 numbers.

Sure other solutions may come about, but i don't think any of them is possible for the time frame this 2 need to do the shift.

 

[Shrek]

I was surprised to learn

* Computers consume as much energy as air transport
* Kerosene lamps consume as much as air transport

All those people who still use kerosene lamps

Carrying high pressure tanks may not be an issue for boats, but it is for planes.

 

[Bomby569]

i think we are in a loop, we already discussed the "wing" and "tank" problems in plains a couple of post back.

 

[dragontamer5788]

I already said a bit back, i think it's the best (current) solution for plains and boats, as it is impractical for them to use batteries, the weight in plains and the massive amount required for boats. I think this 2 big sectors may in my opinion make it commercially viable for more sectors a bit like a spillover.
And it's not just making the shift to be green, ports ans airports are usually near cities, and are great contributors for polution and the countries co2 numbers.

Sure other solutions may come about, but i don't think any of them is possible for the time frame this 2 need to do the shift.

Trucks seem to be the #1 use case actually of practical Hydrogen right now.

Planes might work, but there's some compression issues to be discussed still.

Boats are really weird and I don't understand them at all.

Trains have the option of an electrified 3rd rail, meaning we don't actually need to have trains carry fuel in the first place. Electrifying our rail network makes more sense (yo Japan/Europe, stop laughing at us...). EDIT: To be fair: our diesel trains here in the USA can pull bigger trains than European engines IIRC. USA has a very efficient freight network, while electrification is much better for passenger traffic. Hydrogen fuel could theoretically replace Diesel fuel on our non-electric rail system. Still though, electric rail probably would be my preference.

 

[Shrek]

Weight is a BIG issue for planes, less so for boats and trains

 

[Bomby569]

Trucks seem to be the #1 use case actually of practical Hydrogen right now.

Planes might work, but there's some compression issues to be discussed still.

Boats are really weird and I don't understand them at all.

Trains have the option of an electrified 3rd rail, meaning we don't actually need to have trains carry fuel in the first place. Electrifying our rail network makes more sense (yo Japan/Europe, stop laughing at us...). EDIT: To be fair: our diesel trains here in the USA can pull bigger trains than European engines IIRC. USA has a very efficient freight network, while electrification is much better for passenger traffic. Hydrogen fuel could theoretically replace Diesel fuel on our non-electric rail system. Still though, electric rail probably would be my preference.

Hydrogen cars/trucks (not much difference really) are most toyota dream i think. But i think batteries have an edge there, because hydrogen is not avaiable, and you can charge a car at home

Boats are big things that float on water.

Trains can easilly use electricity like they always have done, less load and a already established network. Maybe for some lines where it doesn't make sense to electrify they can be a thing to replace the dieses locomotives for sure.
I really don't know about that pulling competition, but freight cargo by train in the US is a joke, lots of accidents, no maintenance. Europe railway network like in most places were replaced by the road, only a few countries maintain a good network.

 

[Shrek]

Rail is still good for the really heavy stuff like coal.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Hydrogen cars/trucks (not much difference really) are most toyota dream i think. But i think batteries have an edge there, because hydrogen is not avaiable, and you can charge a car at home

Hyundai XCIENT is about to be deployed. Furthermore, China's Winter Olympics 2022 will be run on Hydrogen busses.

By "truck", I'm talking about the big stuff. 18-wheelers or class 8 busses. These big vehicles need a lot of power, and would require days of charge before they can move (yes, even on a supercharger). But instead, the Hydrogen concept has been tested by Hyundai, Toyota, and various Chinese companies to refill in just 10 minutes.

Small cars have small enough batteries that you can kinda-sorta maybe decide to charge at home... if you install a high-voltage level 2 charger and/or buy smaller battery packs (such as a PHEV). Its a totally different story for a semi-truck like the Hyundai XCIENT.

I really don't know about that pulling competition, but freight cargo by train in the US is a joke, lots of accidents, no maintenance. Europe railway network like in most places were replaced by the road, only a few countries maintain a good network.

US freight cargo crushes European freight statistics.

But Europe also has the benefit of that Mediterranean Sea to boat things around (so they don't need as many trains, since boats are much more efficient). Still though: US freight rail is probably the highest throughput in the world, even if our rail is a bit older / diesel based still.

In any case, we have a better rail network because we need to have a better rail network. Still, Europeans are experimenting with new technologies that are probably better (ie: electrification). So we can't fall behind.

 

[Bomby569]

Hyundai XCIENT is about to be deployed. Furthermore, China's Winter Olympics 2022 will be run on Hydrogen busses.

By "truck", I'm talking about the big stuff. 18-wheelers or class 8 busses.

nice, i really didn't knew that.
I understood you meant big trucks, but my point is if you can do in a truck you can do in a car, the problem is making, carrying, places to recharge. None of that exist. In most places you can't charge an electric car let alone a hydrogen one. One of the old top gear guys did a great video about it.

James May is selling his Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel cell car

James May has revealed that he is selling his Toyota Mirai, just a week after calling the hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle "the nicest car [he has] ever owned" in a piece for The Sunday Times.

www.driving.co.uk

 

[Space Lynx]

Just finished that video, thank you for sharing that. That Mirai makes a lot of sense for the UK where you don't have a lot of landmass like Japan.

I'd say hydrogen makes more sense for UK and Ireland and Japan then it does say Germany, just due to shear landmass.

 

[dragontamer5788]

I understood you meant big trucks, but my point is if you can do in a truck you can do in a car, the problem is making, carrying, places to recharge. None of that exist.

None of it exists yet, but we all know how to make a Hydrogen fuel station. Its a hunk of steel wrapped in concrete, with a credit-card machine on top. Roughly $2 million buckaroos. Instead of shoving gasoline into the steel tank underground, you shove hydrogen into it. Cars and trucks drive on top of the concrete, their drivers pull out their credit cards and grab the fuel. "Refueling" a fuel station is just an 18-wheeler stopping by every now and then.

In contrast, the electric-car charging network (aka: the Superchargers) require 2,000,000 Watts of charge to be delivered to 8 bays for 30+ minutes before those cars are finished charging. The cost estimates on these things are insane, far more expensive than any gas station. Those "superchargers" use about the same amount of electricity as 1000 home neighborhoods. Its not so easy to think about. Even then, the 30+ minute wait times per car leads to insane lines during peak days (ex: Thanksgiving).

How many hours will you want to wait in line?

----------

In any case, superchargers cost more and have far less customers in the same amount of time. Its an insane model. I wouldn't bet on people putting up with this crap much longer. We're still in the phase where Tesla still hasn't delivered many vehicles yet (only a few hundred thousand per year), and we're already seeing insane lines / queues build up during major road-travel days.

 

[Operandi]

I understood you meant big trucks, but my point is if you can do in a truck you can do in a car, the problem is making, carrying, places to recharge. None of that exist. In most places you can't charge an electric car let alone a hydrogen one. One of the old top gear guys did a great video about it.

There is a lot of drive (pun....) to make it happen. Will it happen? who knows but the Nikola truck is looking like a pretty legit attempt.

 

[Bomby569]

There is a lot of drive (pun....) to make it happen. Will it happen? who knows but the Nikola truck is looking like a pretty legit attempt.

i'm sorry mate but i have bad news for you, Nikola was a scam, never had a functioning truck and showed a video of on on the road, but (and this is true) got it up a hill on a tow truck and then just let it roll down for the video.

 

[Operandi]

i'm sorry mate but i have bad news for you, Nikola was a scam, never had a functioning truck and showed a video of on on the road, but (and this is true) got it up a hill on a tow truck and then just let it roll down for the video.

I've seen enough of his video's to not put much of any stock in what he says on anything so I'll have to do my own research, I am admittedly not super familiar with Nikola the company.

Sandy (who is an industry expert) gets a pretty though walk through of one of their alpha trucks and gets to drive it so its clearly a thing that works. Working prototypes and production vaiblity and scale are different things however of course.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Boats are big things that float on water.

The issue with boats is how lopsided their energy / propulsion things are. Its like, boats are so freaking efficient, we could use coal for boats and the coal-based boats probably would still be more efficient than electrified rail or other forms of energy.

When something is like 90% more efficient than other means of travel, it doesn't matter if it uses wind (sailboats), coal, diesel, or hydrogen. We pretty much can ignore boats because of how little fuel they use in practice.

-----

We should work on making our inefficient-things more efficient first.

I've seen enough of his video's to not put much of any stock in what he says on anything so I'll have to do my own research.

I happen to agree with Bomby569 here. Nikola is probably a scam, taking advantage of the currently over-exuberant stock market to take money from investors. Tesla, Uber, WeWork, Roblox, and other companies are similarly scam-like. They make real products but their long-term prospects are very fishy.

Revolutionary New Driverless Car Requires Zero Functional Technology To Generate Profit

AUSTIN, TX—In what many are calling the future of the automotive industry, a revolutionary driverless car unveiled Tuesday requires zero functional technology to generate profit. “While many companies in the autonomous vehicle sector have unveiled models to generate funding with little feasible...

www.theonion.com

This satire by "The Onion" captures my feelings with the current stock market. So much bullshit exists that people have begun to fund bullshit. Its in part because of Softbank: a $100 Billion fund giving money out to bullshit companies does in fact mean that you can make good money from bullshit these days. But that doesn't mean that a long-term prospect or long-term viability is proven.

 

[Bomby569]

I've seen enough of his video's to not put much of any stock in what he says on anything so I'll have to do my own research, I am admittedly not super familiar with Nikola the company.

Sandy (who is an industry expert) gets a pretty though walk through of one of their alpha trucks and gets to drive it so its clearly a thing that works. Working prototypes and production vaiblity and scale are different things however of course.

you may not like the video, but that is reported all over, even by big publications, you can do a quick search

 

[Operandi]

I happen to agree with Bomby569 here. Nikola is probably a scam, taking advantage of the currently over-exuberant stock market to take money from investors. Tesla, Uber, WeWork, Roblox, and other companies are similarly scam-like. They make real products but their long-term prospects are very fishy.

I have to read up more on Nikola but Tesla is no scam. You don't get the capital to scale the way Tesla has based on the premise of a scam no matter how over reved the market is or loud the hype machine is. People have been shorting Tesla stock for years now and getting wrecked in the process. They are light years ahead of everyone in terms of EV platform manufacturing and battery tech, only Ford and VW are even on the radar.

 

[dragontamer5788]

You don't get the capital to scale the way Tesla

Nikola literally just got the capital to scale the way Tesla has. Like, Nikola literally IPO'd just a few months ago, and the stock market rewarded NIkola with like $5 billion buckaroos.

That's the situation we're in. Incredibly shitty companies can ask the stock market for money, and the stock market gives it to them, no questions asked. Now I'm hoping those NKLA investors do make money here, but I don't expect it. I don't actually wish for anyone to lose money on their investments, but... sheesh. Some companies just don't have any profits worth talking about, or models, or even a freaking product. And yet the market continues to award them billions and billions of dollars.

With the stock market acting this dumb, you can't just assume that all of the investments of the stock market are going to work out.

-----

Tesla has 4 models and the ability to make like 300,000 cars / year. Yes, this is more than Nikola. But really think about the current prices and valuations...

The Toyota / Lexus conglomerate has the ability to make 2-million Prius's a year, and there are more than 4 models of Prius. Literally: the Prius alone beats the entire productive capacity of the entirety of the Tesla company. But no, the stock market awards Tesla with a trillion dollar valuation, currently worth more than the rest of the car industry combined.

 

[80-watt Hamster]

I have to read up more on Nikola but Tesla is no scam. You don't get the capital to scale the way Tesla has based on the premise of a scam no matter how over reved the market is or loud the hype machine is. People have been shorting Tesla stock for years now and getting wrecked in the process. They are light years ahead of everyone in terms of EV platform manufacturing and battery tech, only Ford and VW are even on the radar.

Tesla might not be a scam, but still REALLY looks like a bubble, which is presumably why people keep shorting it. They're just wrong about when the bubble will burst. Now, it's possible that Tesla's manufacturing output and market share will catch up to its valuation at some point, but the ratio is still very skewed right now.

 

[dragontamer5788]

which is presumably why people keep shorting it.

Don't short things in this market.

The famous example from the 90s is the timing of when to short Enron. You would have had your shorts blown off. Sure, the shorts were eventually correct with Enron, but these sorts of things take a decade to work out. Especially when the market is insanely jubilant.

Just sit back, relax, and find other companies to invest into. There's well over 3000+ publicly traded companies on the stock market. Find one that you like and buy it. There's some nice startups out there, I think Backblaze is a fun one if you want some risk (Obviously its a small company that can go bankrupt at any time... and in the tough market of cloud-provider / hard drive space. But they've recently IPO'd, they got some hype going, and their price is fair)

and battery tech

You mean Panasonic is years ahead of everyone else in Li-ion tech, and Panasonic is working with like, everyone.

Remember: Panasonic owns half of the Nevada Gigafactory. That's not Tesla tech making those Li-ion cells, that's Japan / Panasonic. Not even the vaunted "4680 cells" are owned by Tesla. That's once again, a Panasonic invention.

Like, what "moat" does Tesla have? Panasonic is already working with Toyota on a number of electric car designs (Panasonic supplies the cells used in the Prius). Its not like Panasonic has an exclusivity agreement with Tesla.

Sure, Ford / GM have decided to ally with LG Chem for their cells. But some future car could very well come out, and Panasonic could very well decide to make an agreement with Ford / GM / Toyota / anyone else instead. Tesla holds no actual competitive edge on this technology, just an agreement with Panasonic to buy some cells at slightly cheaper prices.

 

[Operandi]

Don't short things in this market.

The famous example from the 90s is the timing of when to short Enron. You would have had your shorts blown off. Sure, the shorts were eventually correct with Enron, but these sorts of things take a decade to work out. Especially when the market is insanely jubilant.

Just sit back, relax, and find other companies to invest into. There's well over 3000+ publicly traded companies on the stock market. Find one that you like and buy it. There's some nice startups out there, I think Backblaze is a fun one if you want some risk (Obviously its a small company that can go bankrupt at any time... and in the tough market of cloud-provider / hard drive space. But they've recently IPO'd, they got some hype going, and their price is fair)



You mean Panasonic is years ahead of everyone else in Li-ion tech, and Panasonic is working with like, everyone.

Remember: Panasonic owns half of the Nevada Gigafactory. That's not Tesla tech making those Li-ion cells, that's Japan / Panasonic. Not even the vaunted "4680 cells" are owned by Tesla. That's once again, a Panasonic invention.

Like, what "moat" does Tesla have? Panasonic is already working with Toyota on a number of electric car designs (Panasonic supplies the cells used in the Prius). Its not like Panasonic has an exclusivity agreement with Tesla.

Sure, Ford / GM have decided to ally with LG Chem for their cells. But some future car could very well come out, and Panasonic could very well decide to make an agreement with Ford / GM / Toyota / anyone else instead. Tesla holds no actual competitive edge on this technology, just an agreement with Panasonic to buy some cells at slightly cheaper prices.

Panasonic's involvement with Tesla is in current Lithium Ion cell technology. To my knowledge they are doing the 4680 cell completely on their own.

The battery is the biggest part of the equation but its not the only part. They are far, far ahead in terms of platform, motor, and packaging and lessons learned from ICE tech don't really apply. That and they are building the dedicated factories in the EU and China.

VW and Ford are doing some of work to be in comparative place (GM is completely clueless, Toyota is just as bad) but Tesla is obviously all in and they are far ahead. If you follow this trajectory out they are going to be place of huge competitive advantage.

 

[Space Lynx]

Don't short things in this market.

The famous example from the 90s is the timing of when to short Enron. You would have had your shorts blown off. Sure, the shorts were eventually correct with Enron, but these sorts of things take a decade to work out. Especially when the market is insanely jubilant.

Just sit back, relax, and find other companies to invest into. There's well over 3000+ publicly traded companies on the stock market. Find one that you like and buy it. There's some nice startups out there, I think Backblaze is a fun one if you want some risk (Obviously its a small company that can go bankrupt at any time... and in the tough market of cloud-provider / hard drive space. But they've recently IPO'd, they got some hype going, and their price is fair)



You mean Panasonic is years ahead of everyone else in Li-ion tech, and Panasonic is working with like, everyone.

Remember: Panasonic owns half of the Nevada Gigafactory. That's not Tesla tech making those Li-ion cells, that's Japan / Panasonic. Not even the vaunted "4680 cells" are owned by Tesla. That's once again, a Panasonic invention.

Like, what "moat" does Tesla have? Panasonic is already working with Toyota on a number of electric car designs (Panasonic supplies the cells used in the Prius). Its not like Panasonic has an exclusivity agreement with Tesla.

Sure, Ford / GM have decided to ally with LG Chem for their cells. But some future car could very well come out, and Panasonic could very well decide to make an agreement with Ford / GM / Toyota / anyone else instead. Tesla holds no actual competitive edge on this technology, just an agreement with Panasonic to buy some cells at slightly cheaper prices.

Panasonic has always been underrated, even in the 1990's with their tube televisions, they had the best picture in tube tv's hands down. I know because I owned two, and compared them all the time to other peoples. Good ******* times, thanks for all the great memories you gave me Panasonic tuber and Sony Console. World may be insane now, but you sure as **** can't take those memories away. Hell, I might drink to those memories tonight!

 

[Caring1]

What miracle of Hydrogen Storage is going to be solved by Trains, but will somehow be magically-applicable to planes?

A diesel-electric train is already a giant Gas Tank (easily converted to H2), but planes have to store the fuel in the wings (and make the tanks load-bearing).

I'ts a lot hader to get over these design defficiencies when you put multiple H2 tank on a plane.

Planes don't "have to" store the fuel in the wings.
Hydrogen cells will be built into the main fuselage.

 

[Shrek]

Still, they add weight to the fuel.

 

[dragontamer5788]

To my knowledge they are doing the 4680 cell completely on their own.

Panasonic Will Power Future Teslas with Way Larger, Higher-Capacity Cylindrical Battery Cells

The Japanese battery maker revealed the 4680 battery that Tesla promises will allow for five times the storage capacity while being cheaper to build.

www.caranddriver.com

Battery technology is constantly evolving, and the latest advancement comes from Panasonic, which revealed a prototype of its new 4680 battery cell. Automotive News reports that the advanced-technology battery is due to power future Teslas, saying the 4680 batteries will have five times the storage capacity of current Tesla battery packs and will cost 50 percent less to build.

Nope. 4680 is Panasonic.