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Fuel Cells
- Thread starter Happymax
- Start date
One can't know exactly what Tesla is and is not working on, but I think it's quite unlikely Tesla would be working on fuel cells.
Fuel cells introduce all sorts of needless complexity, and are much less efficient than batteries.
Fuel cells introduce all sorts of needless complexity, and are much less efficient than batteries.
DirtyT3sla
Member
Elon has mentioned he does not thing fuel cells are worth it. Too expensive and adds unnecessary steps. It's still an electric car even with hydrogen, it just has to turn the hydrogen into electricity first...what's the point?
Hydrogen is a good idea, but very hard to implement. While there is so much hydrogen available, it requires separation and that is a relatively inefficient operation that requires more electricity to create hydrogen than an electric car uses.
Over the past dozen or so years, California has managed to get less than a dozen refueling stations in operation for the two or three cars that support hydrogen.
Over the past dozen or so years, California has managed to get less than a dozen refueling stations in operation for the two or three cars that support hydrogen.
nwdiver
Well-Known Member
Fuel cells are a thermodynamic loser. Best case they use ~2x as much energy per mile compared to BEVs. The only scenario where they make sense is when there's so much surplus wind and solar during parts of the year that there's literally nothing better to do with it than split water. Gonna be a few decades...
Of course, but problem with refueling stations is the same we experiences years ago with EV. Now what about recycling of batteries ?
Hydrogen needs a lot of power to be made, but the power we use to charge our Teslas is also coming from poluting fuels...If China is moving on hydrogen it's probably not just for fun...
The thing is that if you use grid average electricity, a BEV will pollute maybe 50% as much as a comparable ICE vehicle. (Varies from place to place, but 50% isn't very wrong.) When you produce hydrogen from that same electricity, you need something like 3.5 times more electricity per mile, so those 50% of an ICE vehicle turn into 175% of an ICE vehicle. So basically, every hydrogen vehicle is almost twice as bad as a comparable ICE vehicle.
Why go for a technology that will never be as good as battery electric? Battery electric is here, it works, it's convenient, it's environmentally friendly. We just need to scale it up.
Why go for a technology that will never be as good as battery electric? Battery electric is here, it works, it's convenient, it's environmentally friendly. We just need to scale it up.
mtndrew1
Active Member
Sorry, I searched for fuel cell threads and this is the one that came up on the first page. Didn’t mean to step on your toes.
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