Why did we abandon hydrogen cars so quickly?

[dragontamer5788]

I wish it was. Of course, it isn't given the scale of things, especially the size of the economy itself, and the population of over 300 million

Crime is low enough that we can leave most power-lines and power-transformers unguarded.

That's not true in other parts of the world. And the few parts of the USA where this is a problem, the locals know about it. Giant antenna that transmit wireless power sounds like an awful idea to me, but from a crime perspective it'd be roughly on the same level of copper as any power-transformer that's available (and unguarded) in the vast majority of USA neighborhoods.

-------------

Go to I dunno.... the Philippines (which despite being a 3rd world country, its a regional economic power). You've got 24/7 watchguards around Barangays (roughly the size of an HOA / Neighborhood in the USA, though it can be as large as a USA's "ward"). Not even for the "mega rich" but for middle-class families, because crime is so rampant it only makes sense for literal neighborhood watch groups to guard from crime. I'm not quite sure how these watchguards were paid (and I don't think they had police powers, but still were a local organized group to keep watch over areas through the day / night).

I mean, labor is a lot cheaper in the Philippines so night watchmen are much cheaper. But the USA's crime problems just ain't anywhere close to other countries.

 

[KLiKzg]

Ok numbers are incredible for the 918 ... A review of Top Gear talks about 8.8 L / 100 km (and it's already really good !)
For the Prius (3rd gen), my father used to do 3.9 L / 100 kms, certified !
Of course, not the same thing compared to the Porsche and not the same price either ...
In fact, it cannot be compared

Yeah, but if you do a trip in Prius, you will get old by the time you get there.

Which is not the case with 918.

 

[KrazyT]

Yeah, but if you do a trip in Prius, you will get old by the time you get there.

Which is not the case with 918.

Of course, in my country, roads are limited to 80 or 90 km/h and motorways 130 km/h ...
And you ?
Not sure the Porsche will arrive faster

 

[Space Lynx]

I just hope that hydrogen is targeted for cloudier areas, and EV/Solar for sunnier areas, seems logical to me that everything be divided up based on its geographical strengths. @ARF

 

[Shrek]

Yeah, but if you do a trip in Prius, you will get old by the time you get there.

Which is not the case with 918.

Prius has a top speed of 112 mph (180 kph)

 

[dragontamer5788]

Prius has a top speed of 112 mph (180 kph)

New Prius looks pretty dope actually. 7.7 second zero-to-sixty, 194 Horsepower. I mean, its not a muscle car, but that's more than acceptable for a daily driver IMO.

Old Prius was undrivable by my standards. But I can see myself buying a Prius now.

 

[defaultluser]

We have not abandoned the hydrogen cars. Everything will be

Fuel-cell maker expects sales jump as China promotes hydrogen-powered vehicles

Shanghai Sinofuelcell forecasts that its sales of hydrogen fuel cells for vehicles will more than double this year as Beijing promotes the technology as part of its pursuit of carbon neutrality by 2060.

www.scmp.com

China’s largest fuel-cell producer Sinofuelcell expects sales to double as government promotes hydrogen-powered vehicles​

• At least 2,500 vehicles using the company’s fuel cells will hit the road in 2023, company president says
• China has said it aims to have 1 million hydrogen-powered cars on its roads by 2030, served by 1,000 refuelling stations

Shanghai Sinofuelcell, mainland China’s largest producer of hydrogen fuel cells for vehicles, forecasts that its sales will more than double this year as Beijing promotes the technology as part of its pursuit of carbon neutrality by 2060.​

​

View attachment 308826​

2500 vehicles is tiny, compared to the number of bevs registered in china last year:

China: Nearly 6 Million Plug-In Cars Were Sold In 2022

Some 671,450 new passenger plug-in electric cars were registered in China in December, which is 32 percent more than a year ago and the best result ever.

insideevs.com

h2 is dead no matter where you look! even the test train in Germany failed to win any mind-share::

The world's first hydrogen-powered train has made its final stop

But Germany is still focused on getting battery electric trains on track.

www.popsci.com

and while the increasing number of fuel cells sold is still a positive sign,much like h2 produced for steel, you might as well ignore such tiny numbers!

 

[ARF]

I just hope that hydrogen is targeted for cloudier areas, and EV/Solar for sunnier areas, seems logical to me that everything be divided up based on its geographical strengths. @ARF

I am not against solar cars because they are 100% fully autonomous but there are technological hurdles from making them practical and real. The solar energy which can be harvested is too weak, so there is not enough energy to drive a car.

Solar energy should be harvested to produce large quantites of green hydrogen from sea water.

This Is Why We Don't Have Solar-Powered Cars

The idea of buzzing about on pure sunlight sounds compelling. The sun certainly gives off enough energy, but math reveals that it's less practical than it sounds.

www.roadandtrack.com

Even the electric cars have relatively low ranges which makes them quite inconvenient, especially in countries with larger areas and longer trips.

Top 10 longest-range electric cars on sale 2025 | Auto Express

Racking up the miles? These are the EVs with the longest battery ranges that you can buy in the UK

www.autoexpress.co.uk

452 miles is only 728 kilometres, while the ordinary petrol/diesel car can easily have a 1000 kilometres range.

Actually, the Chinese electric car Neta Sedan S is the current record holder - as much as 1160 kilometres.

New Neta S electric sedan has 1,075 km cruising range with CATL's Qilin battery

Its coefficient of drag is as low as 0.216Cd.

carnewschina.com

 

[Waldorf]

@dragontamer5788
of course you can do it easy and cheap.
see how many things get stolen, once they have a 240V surface charge
since its behind fences with warning signs (electricity), you cant even sue anyone if you get hurt.

@KrazyT
having a speed limit, and obeying it, are two different things.

doubt many countries outside germany/italy have cars fast enough to actually catch you.

travelling at 120mph/200kmph you doing another 1km, before a chase car would just reach the same speed,
while you would accelerate yourself, hitting 300kmh by the time the police car is just doing 200, ignoring they wont even reach 300kmh..

and i havent seen any patrol/undercover cop try to follow us, when going +230kmh on german hwys (even at 3am with cops seeing you "coming" from a distance)..

 

[defaultluser]

I am not against solar cars because they are 100% fully autonomous but there are technological hurdles from making them practical and real. The solar energy which can be harvested is too weak, so there is not enough energy to drive a car.

Solar energy should be harvested to produce large quantites of green hydrogen from sea water.

This Is Why We Don't Have Solar-Powered Cars

The idea of buzzing about on pure sunlight sounds compelling. The sun certainly gives off enough energy, but math reveals that it's less practical than it sounds.

www.roadandtrack.com

Even the electric cars have relatively low ranges which makes them quite inconvenient, especially in countries with larger areas and longer trips.

Top 10 longest-range electric cars on sale 2025 | Auto Express

Racking up the miles? These are the EVs with the longest battery ranges that you can buy in the UK

www.autoexpress.co.uk

452 miles is only 728 kilometres, while the ordinary petrol/diesel car can easily have a 1000 kilometres range.

Actually, the Chinese electric car Neta Sedan S is the current record holder - as much as 1160 kilometres.

New Neta S electric sedan has 1,075 km cruising range with CATL's Qilin battery

Its coefficient of drag is as low as 0.216Cd.

carnewschina.com

Yeah man, this is why we don't solely target solar cells - the best combination for each region will be some percentage of : solar, hydro, nuke, wind, and pumped or battery storage.

if you just make all the cars solar-electric, it makes it way easier than building your grid up, but on the flip-side, you have very limited solar-only resources in most areas (or they are highly-seasonal) plus it will take multiple days to recharge!

 

[dragontamer5788]

@dragontamer5788
of course you can do it easy and cheap.
see how many things get stolen, once they have a 240V surface charge
since its behind fences with warning signs (electricity), you cant even sue anyone if you get hurt.

Copper thief gangs regularly steal power-transformers with a rating of 1000V to 69000V. They don't give a crap about 240V home power, and have enough electrical know-how to disable the power before stealing the copper.

Power-transformers require hundreds-of-pounds of copper to convert the medium-power lines into home-power for a neighborhood. So if someone's going to steal a bunch of copper, might as well do it all at once from a single location, rather than just a few lbs at a time.

--------

Unguarded fences can be broken through in seconds with wire-cutters. Its really not that hard to pull up a pickup truck, cut the fence, disable the power, steal the transformer and GTFO before anyone calls the police. The fact that this isn't happening regularly is proof that we have a reasonably well functioning society (other societies cannot accumulate enough trust in each other to reach a state to put $10,000s+ equipment unguarded like this all over the country).

Every now and then, a crime wave pops up but it seems like they are punished in time to prevent the crimes from self-perpetuating. (Ex: one guy steals a transformer, other criminals hear of the mechanism and they go off to steal a transformer themselves, etc etc. )

 

[Waldorf]

sure.
then again, america is fine with a collapsing power grid, while power companies make billons (and fill their pockets),
so not the best example of how stuff is done/dealt with..

 

[KrazyT]

having a speed limit, and obeying it, are two different things.

doubt many countries outside germany/italy have cars fast enough to actually catch you.

travelling at 120mph/200kmph you doing another 1km, before a chase car would just reach the same speed,
while you would accelerate yourself, hitting 300kmh by the time the police car is just doing 200, ignoring they wont even reach 300kmh..

and i havent seen any patrol/undercover cop try to follow us, when going +230kmh on german hwys (even at 3am with cops seeing you "coming" from a distance)..

Ok, i'll stop here !
Being a "outlaw" is not sounding fun to me :/

 

[Space Lynx]

we should probably get back on topic, let's focus on hydrogen only moving forward everyone. I am as much to blame as anyone, just trying to help us get back on track

 

[Shrek]

But how to discuss hydrogen without including its competitors?

 

[Waldorf]

i think it was more about the deviation towards comparing hybrid/tech..

 

[dragontamer5788]

But how to discuss hydrogen without including its competitors?

XCIENT Fuel Cell Truck | Hydrogen Truck | Hyundai Motor Company

XCIENT Fuel Cell is the world's first commercialized hydrogen fuel cell electric truck. Learn more about the power of sustainable mobility forward.

trucknbus.hyundai.com

Like this.

 

[Waldorf]

my main problem with hydrogen is that unless we make 100% of it with solar/wind/water,
its not any greener, as many ignore the ~30-40% loss of efficiency vs combustion.

 

[KLiKzg]

Of course, in my country, roads are limited to 80 or 90 km/h and motorways 130 km/h ...
And you ?
Not sure the Porsche will arrive faster

Well, lets not get ahead of ourselves...& incriminate us, here on forum.
Lets just say, 918 will get faster.

Prius has a top speed of 112 mph (180 kph)

Which is:
A) Poor
B) Slow
C) Miserable
D) All of the above!
Pick your choice wisely.

I just hope that hydrogen is targeted for cloudier areas, and EV/Solar for sunnier areas, seems logical to me that everything be divided up based on its geographical strengths. @ARF

Guys, forget Solar...why?
1. It can barely run fans / climate with the sun on car. Especially as there is almost "no temp. differential"!
2. It is cancerogenic, so people will avoid those cars in wide loops.
Just saying the science facts...do not go Woke on me here, for that!

Ok, i'll stop here !
Being a "outlaw" is not sounding fun to me :/

People here (in EU) are not thrown in a jail, if you do 120mph...that is the problem with US.

If you kill someone, then you get thrown in jail...but it is the same all around the World.

 

[dragontamer5788]

my main problem with hydrogen is that unless we make 100% of it with solar/wind/water,
its not any greener, as many ignore the ~30-40% loss of efficiency vs combustion.

You know that the conversion from fossil-fuels to electricity loses 60% to 70% of its energy to waste heat, right?

Of the 36.6 units of energy we create for USA's electricity, 23.7 of it (aka 64.5% of it) is waste-heat / rejected energy immediately.

---------------

This 30% figure you're showing off... it applies just as much to electric vehicles when it undergoes Coal -> Power Plant (60% loss) -> House (some level of loss due to power-line inefficiencies) -> 10% loss to the battery -> finally moves your car. Waste heat and rejected energy is just... how the world works physically. Its everywhere.

 

[KLiKzg]

i think it was more about the deviation towards comparing hybrid/tech..

Yes, one last thing...I know a guy here in EU, who has done 330kmh in 70kmh. He did not go to jail!

& it was done in electric car...not hydrogen.

 

[defaultluser]

You know that the conversion from fossil-fuels to electricity loses 60% to 70% of its energy to waste heat, right?

View attachment 309008

Of the 36.6 units of energy we create for USA's electricity, 23.7 of it (aka 64.5% of it) is waste-heat / rejected energy immediately.

---------------
This 30% figure you're showing off... it applies just as much to electric vehicles when it undergoes Coal -> Power Plant (60% loss) -> House (some level of loss due to power-line inefficiencies) -> 10% loss to the battery -> finally moves your car. Waste heat and rejected energy is just... how the world works physically. Its everywhere.

obviously, but every year the cheaper renewables portion of our energy keep increasing - currently 20 percent, and within as decade, it should double!

pure bev efficiency will rise yearly, while the efficiency curve for h2 fuel cell's already mostly-maxed(because reforming, plus compression, plus fuel cell is already so bad,the peaks from grid efficiency improvements is much-lower!)

 

[Waldorf]

@dragontamer5788
not talking about production, but "after" its being used.
similar to a prius hybrid being "greener" when its used, but not when counting production>use>landfill.

its irrelevant if you have 30% better conversion, if using the end product is getting half the "efficiency" (vs burning gasoline),
iirc its something like upper 90% vs mid 50% for hydrogen...

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

wireless charging uses huge embedded electromagnets - by-comparison,wired uses an exposed wire (might be lockable, but still very vulnerable to cutting, if you're collecting massive quantities of copper for the scrapyard!)

see this research program., which should yield way faster highway charging speeds in the next five to ten years, - and if you want it to be a success, just-TIE-It-in to existing Tennessee valley authority law (allows standardization of sources, building the network under interstates, and minimizing rates!)

Hands-free: Wireless charging system advances electric vehicle convenience | ORNL

www.ornl.gov

I...do people really read these types of articles and not immediately do the basic math required to think them through?

Let me logic this out.
Wireless charging (like with phones and such) takes two separate coils , induces a magnetic field in one with an electric flow, and then the proximity of another coil to this magnetic field generates a flow in the opposing direction because of physics. Basically, as long as the fields expand and contract you can create a flow of energy.
Alternatively, a magnet travelling through a copper coil induces an opposing magnetic field to its direction of motion.

This is great...but there's a problem. It's stupidly simple to see. Take a strong magnet in tube form. Create a large number of coils in a tub around the magnet to form a tunnel to travel along, orient vertically with respect to gravity, and release the magnet. Despite the induced counter force from the coil, the magnet still drops in the direction of gravity. Likewise, a magnet in a vehicle and loops of wire in the road can't charge the vehicle faster than it loses charge due to forcing itself forward....so that charging method is stupid.

The alternative works. Two coils inducing a field in one another...but they have to be very close. The problem with a magnetic field is that it's 3d....so the energy loss is insane as distance increases. Think surface area of a sphere...or 4*PI()*r^2... so a doubling of r increases the surface area by 4...and because flux is a surface calculation you obviously lose too much energy.


So...idiotic question. Who's going to install millions of miles of coils...meaning literally billions of miles of wire...meaning trillions of dollars of cost? Let me show you the math there...so you don't think I'm silly. The US has 47,432 miles of just interstate highway. It has 4.09 million miles of navigable highway. If we only installed into interstates, and they have on average 4 lanes (2 in each direction) 47,432*4 = 189,728 miles. If each linear mile of road had a coil about 0.1" wide, at just a 6" diameter, you'd have 189,728 miles * 63360 inches/mile * 10 coils/inch * PI()*6 linear inches/coil = 2,265,936,422,670 linear inches = 35,762,885 miles of wire.
36 million miles of wire with only a 6" diameter...to cover a small fraction of roadways...not to mention the huge amount of iron core to make these into the electromagnets we need...not to mention the huge losses we'd have due to hysteresis in the metal coil...not to mention the installation costs...not to mention the raw costs of the components.
Do you get it yet? If not let me try and offer a similar example. Some idiots decided roads could be made out of solar panels...and somehow they could use the solar energy to melt snow off of the highway. Never mind that the conversion from light to electric is less efficient than the conversion of light to heat on a black surface (like asphault)... and the current asphault didn't melt the snow...somehow the solar panel road would defy physics....because.



Bringing this back to the topic at hand...wireless charging of cars on the roads is stupid. It's inefficient if you're stopping. Hydrogen similarly is a great idea...except when you come the the question of convenience. That's why technologies stagnated...and it's why we can't have nice things. Every couple of years someone snookers idiots investing into green projects...with no possibility of working. Hydrogen, likewise, is a solution waiting on safety and convenience to catch up. Otherwise, it's a rolling bomb that doesn't yet have the materials technology behind it to be viable.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

What is the point of having coils in the roadway as well. A normal high voltage AC tension cable is sufficient. Yes, the rest of the physics is like that, the field decreases according to the formula and if it is too powerful it would fry the rest of the electronics and electrical engineering in the car. Everything has to be protected... I see only problems to implement, except in the heads of some crazy and greedy scientists, corporations and politicians to create another Frankenstein.