Why did we abandon hydrogen cars so quickly?

[Chrispy_]

Looks like the EV bubble is finally popping.... It won't be long before hydrogen takes over.

There are massive insurmountable challenges to mass EV adoption.

Hydrogen fuel can be produced off peak with renewable and nuclear energy.

Existing fuel stations can be converted to use it. In time.

Not here in the UK, that's for sure; There are several hundred thousand electric charging points. There are barely a hundred hydrogen stations.

We're talking three-orders-of-magnitude's worth of irrelevance.

Don't get me wrong, hydrogen electrolysis making fuel at fuel stations is both viable and awesome, but infrastructure sells vehicles and there's close to zero infrastructure for hydrogen refuelling in the overwhelming majority of countries. Hydrogen car owners fund hydrogen fuel stations, and there are none, to the nearest three decimal places.

People can plug an EV into just about anything. Their house, one of half a million public charging points, a hotel, supermarket, or car-park's private charging point, or go to a fuel station where they can top up with petrol/gas because 70% of the EV's are PHEVs.

 

[LabRat 891]

Not here in the UK, that's for sure; There are several hundred thousand electric charging points. There are barely a hundred hydrogen stations.

We're talking three-orders-of-magnitude's worth of irrelevance.

Don't get me wrong, hydrogen electrolysis making fuel at fuel stations is both viable and awesome, but infrastructure sells vehicles and there's close to zero infrastructure for hydrogen refuelling in the overwhelming majority of countries. Hydrogen car owners fund hydrogen fuel stations, and there are none, to the nearest three decimal places.

People can plug an EV into just about anything. Their house, one of half a million public charging points, a hotel, supermarket, or car-park's private charging point, or go to a fuel station where they can top up with petrol/gas because 70% of the EV's are PHEVs.

TBF, that's the UK.
The US has magnitudes more roads, and long commutes are common here. We even used to have a leisure culture around driving...
Australia or Canada would be the next-closest points of comparison (as far as commonly-traveled distances). I'm not sure about car ownership per capita, though; which is contextually important.

 

[Chrispy_]

TBF, that's the UK.
The US has magnitudes more roads, and long commutes are common here. We even used to have a leisure culture around driving...
Australia or Canada would be the next-closest points of comparison (as far as commonly-traveled distances). I'm not sure about car ownership per capita, though; which is contextually important.

So wait, it's even worse for hydrogen in US?
I wasn't exactly painting a positive picture for Hydrogen over here in the UK, and spreading population out over even longer distances with even lower EV ownership per capita in the US can't be good...

Edit:
OMG It's horrific. I'd heard there were dozens of Hydrogen stations in the UK. I didn't realise it was just 1.1 dozen:

If you live in the West half of the country, there are no hydrogen fuel stations in range. If you live in the East half near a major city and want to drive to another major city, there's a 5% chance that you can do it on Hydrogen because the two cities you need have stations.

 

[dragontamer5788]

Honestly, Hydrogen only makes sense for trucks right now, as there's not a lot of public infrastructure yet for H2. So you'll have to fill up at your own private locations.

Truckers have enough routes where this is feasible. There was a consumer-car test plan out in California a decade ago, but IIRC it shut down so consumer-vehicles are fully infeasible right now.

 

[LabRat 891]

So wait, it's even worse for hydrogen in US?
I wasn't exactly painting a positive picture for Hydrogen over here in the UK, and spreading population out over even longer distances with even lower EV ownership per capita in the US can't be good...

A boon for hydrogen is the potential for Petrol-like refueling times, and ease of mass-infrastructural deployment. In an ideal world, every small fuel station store could purchase or lease equipment for on-site generation. Meaning, eased parallel rapid adoption.

Your points for EVs are all valid for any metroplex-like area, and places with limited regular commutes.

 

[Mussels]

The only caveat is range, which will fix itself in due time.

My hope is that with more durable batteries, we can get hotswap cells. That solves a lot of the issues.

Here downunder they LPG gas tank swaps at service stations - you bring in an empty one, pay to swap for a full one. That'd work great with electrics, if the batteries were standardised and you had some sort of guarantee you weren't trading a high quality new battery cell for someone elses shitty worn out one.


About the only way i can think of it working is a secondary 'slow' charger connector inside the boot/trunk of the vehicle where you can store something like that with a DC-DC converter, so you keep your quality internal battery and get a constant power boost at a slower rate until its dry - and if that battery is a 'rental' from charging stations, you just return it to the same branded store at your destination (or the OG store, for a return trip)

Surely something like a 100Ah lithium battery (~12V DC) could boost the internal one, even if it cant run the car directly it could definitely extend the range and slowly charge the internal battery while the car is stopped.

 

[KLiKzg]

H2 will run in an unmodified 'Petrol' ICE.
However, Issues arise:
A. 'flashback' in carburation/air-fuel mix (a 'backfire' becomes a potentially very damaging event)
B. The computerized monstrosities on the road today being inadaptable, due to decades of regulation-reactionary engineering.

MythBusters was far from the first, but is the most public proof of an unmodified gasoline ICE running on Hydrogen.
(of course they purposely did it purely for entertainment, but the concept has been proven many times over)

NO, NO, NO.

H2 can run on an unmodified petrol-ICE. Yes, it can. Up until it explodes in intake.
If you do not believe it, just see how the HHO conversion went for some guy. & yes, there is "a cheat" in that system that enables them to "run lean".

What Toyota is doing is different:

1. It is not using carbonators for quite some time...like 30y.
2. It is using the knowledge from Atkinson cycle engines, which use "direct injection" to achieve their mixture.
3. Injecting H2 directly into cylinder chamber will make the combustion controlled in the parameters needed.
4. It is not the issue with "computerized monstrosities", but the lack of engineering knowledge to get the stuff work within the environmental limits made with directives & regulations.
   Example: Mitsubishi came 1st with GDI which runs in lean mode, but Volkswagen could not get it to work reliably on their FSI engines so all FSI worked on 1 lambda mixture for quite some time.

So, please get some facts right - if you are making a statement.

Honestly, Hydrogen only makes sense for trucks right now, as there's not a lot of public infrastructure yet for H2. So you'll have to fill up at your own private locations.

Truckers have enough routes where this is feasible. There was a consumer-car test plan out in California a decade ago, but IIRC it shut down so consumer-vehicles are fully infeasible right now.

Only until the technology scale down to passenger cars...as hydrogen would be better option then EV in the future. (Mate would kill me, if he see's this)

But still, hydrogen needs to adopt some of the technologies, to get better:

• hybrid battery, as to recuperate energy
• scale down the tank & cell
• made infrastructure for hydrogen filling up stations

It will happen, but Honda FCX abandoned the project some 20y before because of the infrastructure problems in CA.

Surely something like a 100Ah lithium battery (~12V DC) could boost the internal one, even if it cant run the car directly it could definitely extend the range and slowly charge the internal battery while the car is stopped.

That is exactly what Toyota is saying & making statements recently: using hybrids is the way to go. You can have cars which used to have 8~10L per 100km to go down to 3~5L for 100km of gas, only to add battery, EM & CVT transmission.

Yes, I know CVT is not "so fun to drive", but you get yourself a fun car for weekends & a commuter for daily work. All problems solved.

 

[mb194dc]

Not here in the UK, that's for sure; There are several hundred thousand electric charging points. There are barely a hundred hydrogen stations.

We're talking three-orders-of-magnitude's worth of irrelevance.

Don't get me wrong, hydrogen electrolysis making fuel at fuel stations is both viable and awesome, but infrastructure sells vehicles and there's close to zero infrastructure for hydrogen refuelling in the overwhelming majority of countries. Hydrogen car owners fund hydrogen fuel stations, and there are none, to the nearest three decimal places.

People can plug an EV into just about anything. Their house, one of half a million public charging points, a hotel, supermarket, or car-park's private charging point, or go to a fuel station where they can top up with petrol/gas because 70% of the EV's are PHEVs.

What we need is a link between hydrogen EVs and ICE. Or to look at other options like synthetic fuel to bridge the gap.

So we can gradually replace ICE infrastructure with H2 infrastructure. Pure EVs will never be viable for mass adoption.

Rowan Atkinson summed things up nicely:

I love electric vehicles – and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped | Rowan Atkinson

Sadly, keeping your old petrol car may be better than buying an EV, says actor Rowan Atkinson

www.theguardian.com

 

[KLiKzg]

What we need is a link between hydrogen EVs and ICE. Or to look at other options like synthetic fuel to bridge the gap.

So we can gradually replace ICE infrastructure with H2 infrastructure. Pure EVs will never be viable for mass adoption.

Rowan Atkinson summed things up nicely:

I love electric vehicles – and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped | Rowan Atkinson

Sadly, keeping your old petrol car may be better than buying an EV, says actor Rowan Atkinson

www.theguardian.com

Do not sign off the EV...they are quite well with new SSB & Na-ion batteries in development, which arrive before 2030.

 

[Vayra86]

NO, NO, NO.

H2 can run on an unmodified petrol-ICE. Yes, it can. Up until it explodes in intake.
If you do not believe it, just see how the HHO conversion went for some guy. & yes, there is "a cheat" in that system that enables them to "run lean".

What Toyota is doing is different:

1. It is not using carbonators for quite some time...like 30y.
2. It is using the knowledge from Atkinson cycle engines, which use "direct injection" to achieve their mixture.
3. Injecting H2 directly into cylinder chamber will make the combustion controlled in the parameters needed.
4. It is not the issue with "computerized monstrosities", but the lack of engineering knowledge to get the stuff work within the environmental limits made with directives & regulations.
   Example: Mitsubishi came 1st with GDI which runs in lean mode, but Volkswagen could not get it to work reliably on their FSI engines so all FSI worked on 1 lambda mixture for quite some time.

So, please get some facts right - if you are making a statement.


Only until the technology scale down to passenger cars...as hydrogen would be better option then EV in the future. (Mate would kill me, if he see's this)

But still, hydrogen needs to adopt some of the technologies, to get better:

• hybrid battery, as to recuperate energy
• scale down the tank & cell
• made infrastructure for hydrogen filling up stations

It will happen, but Honda FCX abandoned the project some 20y before because of the infrastructure problems in CA.


That is exactly what Toyota is saying & making statements recently: using hybrids is the way to go. You can have cars which used to have 8~10L per 100km to go down to 3~5L for 100km of gas, only to add battery, EM & CVT transmission.

Yes, I know CVT is not "so fun to drive", but you get yourself a fun car for weekends & a commuter for daily work. All problems solved.

CVT not fun? Its pretty horrible if youre inside it. High revving noise, weird acceleration. It works. Thats the best that can be said of it Also, 100km on 5 liters isnt exactly fantastic.Petrol can do that today without H2 especially if kept to WLTP standards on the road. Say you gain 2L/100 on top of that. It wont make a dent...

Ill take an EV though tyvm. No transmission but pure power from 0-150... No noise. Major savings in construction. Space savings in the car. Fewer moving parts. Zero emission. And there is infra for it plus its way easier to deploy.

And the reality check.. the reason I know CVT is because we borrow a Toyota to go on holiday Ev in France... Im not doing it!

 

[KLiKzg]

CVT not fun? Its pretty horrible if youre inside it. High revving noise, weird acceleration. It works. Thats the best that can be said of it Also, 100km on 5 liters isnt exactly fantastic.Petrol can do that today without H2 especially if kept to WLTP standards on the road. Say you gain 2L/100 on top of that. It wont make a dent...

Ill take an EV though tyvm. No transmission but pure power from 0-150... No noise. Major savings in construction. Space savings in the car. Fewer moving parts. Zero emission. And there is infra for it plus its way easier to deploy.

And the reality check.. the reason I know CVT is because we borrow a Toyota to go on holiday Ev in France... Im not doing it!

Well, to anybody saying that CVT works like that...it is not, at least in hybrids...as hybrids are pretty well insulated, compared to other ICE cars.
Maybe you get your data from scooters?
3~5L for 1.700kg SUV is not fantastic. OK, what is fantastic for SUV with 1.700kg?

Every car, even electric has gears...even only single speed. So check your facts, again!
Space saving is OK, but actually it isn't. Problem is how to make a car & where & how to put all cells / modules in. Again, wrong.
Zero emission. Again, this is "mass media" false. Where do you get your facts in?

So you borrow a Toyota hybrid to go on holiday...in other words your EV just won't cut it. Ah, that is so much to find out.
Also, now I know why you "whine about engine noise"...& that you don't know much about cars, or you would not get a hybrid for a highway (rent-a-car) drive.

 

[DOA]

Quite a long read to get through most of the messages here. Long term thread.

Many posting here are not living this transition. I am in CA and we have FCV/BEV data. Mirai's and Honda Clarity's are occasionally seen, dealers have them on the lot. Tons of BEVs available.

In the final analysis BEVs are the correct answer. FCVs have more maintenance, have the same range and price while being unable to fill at home. Off peak BEV charging is more convenient and MUCH cheaper. Currently BEVs charge at home at $0.20/KWH and green H2 is $30/Kg (1Kg nets about 30 KWH).

The answer to this thread now is we did not abandon FCVs quickly, They have been on the road for almost a decade as cars and 5 years as trucks (Project Portal, Long Beach). Durability has been solved, performance is acceptable (but not good) and the data is in. Hydrogen costs too much as a fuel, nothing wrong with the FCV idea other that.

For further discussion be sure to remember FCVs are EVs and use their battery for a large part of their acceleration. Project Portal found that the battery did not last on the long up hill grade to Bakersfield so the truck was on the fuel cell alone. This made their 400 HP truck a 200 HP truck so a VERY slow climb, going down the other side the battery quickly filled from regen and the brakes got quite a work out.

 

[Vayra86]

Well, to anybody saying that CVT works like that...it is not, at least in hybrids...as hybrids are pretty well insulated, compared to other ICE cars.
Maybe you get your data from scooters?
3~5L for 1.700kg SUV is not fantastic. OK, what is fantastic for SUV with 1.700kg?

Every car, even electric has gears...even only single speed. So check your facts, again!
Space saving is OK, but actually it isn't. Problem is how to make a car & where & how to put all cells / modules in. Again, wrong.
Zero emission. Again, this is "mass media" false. Where do you get your facts in?

So you borrow a Toyota hybrid to go on holiday...in other words your EV just won't cut it. Ah, that is so much to find out.
Also, now I know why you "whine about engine noise"...& that you don't know much about cars, or you would not get a hybrid for a highway (rent-a-car) drive.

Its clear you like your own ideas best. Lets leave it there

 

[Shrek]

I'm a stick shift kinda guy (for the ecomomy), so I was most annoyed that CVT is more economical than manual.

 

[KLiKzg]

Its clear you like your own ideas best. Lets leave it there

With one small difference - I actually work in automotive industry on EV project. Do the math yourself.

 

[Shrek]

One clarrification I would request; is a hydrogen car

• One with an internal combustion engine that usese hydrogen as a fuel
• One that uses a fuel cell

for me the two are totally different and which is being discussed here?

 

[shoskunk]

Apart from, and because of the overwhelming market pressure to stick with gasoline (etc), hydrogen technology is young.

Fission is common in nuclear power but fusion is looking more like a near-term solution.

Hydrogen needs to advance to the point where electrolysis happens on the fly rather than at a plant. Like..an electrolysis carburetor. Then you're just carrying around a tank of water..

In terms of adapting existing machinery, hydrogen is similar to propane with more bang! Like it or not, electric is not the future for everything. Fusion and hydrogen primarily (trains, ships, trucks, cities, etc).

 

[Shrek]

Hydrogen needs to advance to the point where electrolysis happens on the fly rather than at a plant. Like..an electrolysis carburetor. Then you're just carrying around a tank of water..

Electrolysis at the fuel station?

 

[shoskunk]

Electrolysis at the fuel station?

The answer is already in my earlier statement. *In the vehicle*. I can buy a scaled down electrolysis machine on Flamazon to run a current through hair and zap it away.

The technology already exists but dealing with the volatile corporate/political world we live in demands privacy and patience.

 

[Shrek]

So you sit at the charging station for how long taking electricity? and the car has its own compressor?

 

[mb194dc]

One clarrification I would request; is a hydrogen car

• One with an internal combustion engine that usese hydrogen as a fuel
• One that uses a fuel cell

for me the two are totally different and which is being discussed here?

Both, the former should lead to the latter.

Need to be able to adapt ICE to either hydrogen, synthetic or other whilst infrastructure is deployed for h2 fuel cell electric.

The main point is that ss batteries etc are vapowware for mass production at reasonable costs. EVs as we know them now are limited use case and totally unsuitable for mass adoption...

 

[LabRat 891]

NO, NO, NO.

H2 can run on an unmodified petrol-ICE. Yes, it can. Up until it explodes in intake.

Apparently, you do not understand terminology like 'flashback' or 'backfire' (or 'inadaptable') Every thing you claim I ignored, I mention.

I see you're not from an English-speaking country, so I'm going to assume 'language barrier' rather than malicious reinterpretation.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

Hydrogen needs to advance to the point where electrolysis happens on the fly

I am amazed at this technical thought of double wasting energy.

 

[LabRat 891]

I am amazed at this technical thought of double wasting energy.

It makes sense, if overunity space magic electrolysis were real, or eventually developed.
However, in the same vein of magical thinking, why not just onboard Microfusion?
(inefficient) production of hydrogen by electrolysis could still be useful for grid load management and energy storage. Maybe, worked-into a near-future synthetic-fuels feedstock source?

Realistically though,
whether one's pro-BEV or pro-H2 (ICE or FCV) any movement forward demands vast improvements in Power Generating Capacity and Grid Capacity.

Come to think of it, there's the answer to the mixed-correct title of the thread: Power Generating Capacity and Grid Capacity.

 

[Vayra86]

What we need is a link between hydrogen EVs and ICE. Or to look at other options like synthetic fuel to bridge the gap.

So we can gradually replace ICE infrastructure with H2 infrastructure. Pure EVs will never be viable for mass adoption.

Rowan Atkinson summed things up nicely:

I love electric vehicles – and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped | Rowan Atkinson

Sadly, keeping your old petrol car may be better than buying an EV, says actor Rowan Atkinson

www.theguardian.com

Love the footnote. It shows you the agenda

This article was amended on 5 June 2023 to describe lithium-ion batteries as lasting “upwards of 10 years”, rather than “about 10 years”; and to clarify that the figures released by Volvo claimed that greenhouse gas emissions during production of an electric car are “nearly 70% higher”, not “70% higher”. It was further amended on 7 June 2023 to remove an incorrect reference to the production of lithium-ion batteries needing “many rare earth metals”; to clarify that a reference to “trucks” should instead have been to “heavy trucks for long distance haulage”; and to more accurately refer to the use of such batteries in these trucks as being a “concern”, due to weight issues, rather than a “non-starter”.

• Rowan Atkinson is an actor, comedian and writer