Hydrogen vs. Battery

[nwdiver]

One good thing is that these won't need giant supercharger stalls in shopping malls and restaurants.

No... just ~3x as much clean energy, electrolyzers that cost ~10x more than a supercharger and you need ~10x more of them since EVERYONE needs to use them always (no home refueling), a logistics network to transport the H2, cryogenic plants to prepare the H2 for transport and compressors to deliver it,..... but at least you won't need 'supercharger' bays.... although you will still need a place to get H2....

 

[FutureShock]

Huck Fydrogen.
.

 

[Curious George]

No... just ~3x as much clean energy, electrolyzers that cost ~10x more than a supercharger and you need ~10x more of them since EVERYONE needs to use them always (no home refueling), a logistics network to transport the H2, cryogenic plants to prepare the H2 for transport and compressors to deliver it,..... but at least you won't need 'supercharger' bays.... although you will still need a place to get H2....

How exactly do you charge a semi truck in your garage?
Why will a semi driver charge the semi (that is his employer's vehicle in most cases) at his home?
Most residential areas won't even allow you to park such humongous vehicles for a long time.
So, the idea of combining a charging stop with a pit stop just doesn't work for semi trucks, or even smaller commercial vehicles.
I was saying, the current Tesla superchargers stalls are useless for semi trucks. They just won't fit in those tiny spots. Same for other charging stations around the world.

Did you miss the context by any chance?

 

[nwdiver]

How exactly do you charge a semi truck in your garage?
Why will a semi driver charge the semi (that is his employer's vehicle in most cases) at his home?
Most residential areas won't even allow you to park such humongous vehicles for a long time.
So, the idea of combining a charging stop with a pit stop just doesn't work for semi trucks, or even smaller commercial vehicles.
I was saying, the current Tesla superchargers stalls are useless for semi trucks. They just won't fit in those tiny spots.

Did you miss the context by any chance?

What person living in a residential home is going to be driving a semi-truck???

Why on Earth would a semi-truck driver use a semi-truck as a commuter???

If there's a company running semi-trucks it won't be hard to ensure those trucks can charge at their yard.

??? Who is suggesting that semi-trucks are going to be using Superchargers? The only reason the prototypes use them is because it would be silly to spend millions on the MegaChargers to test a few prototypes. Once there's a fleet of trucks that need them there will be 'Mega chargers'

Point to point trucks can charge at their hub and the 'Mega chargers' won't be located at shopping malls or restaurants. Long haul drivers spend ~10hrs/day at truck stops by law. More than enough time to charge-up. Did you use a nonsense comparison by chance?

 

[WannabeOwner]

the idea of combining a charging stop with a pit stop just doesn't work for semi trucks

They are stationary and could charge whilst in loading / unloading bays.

Truckers have to stop and rest ... so they can do that where there is power available. OK none right now ... wasn't long ago when there weren't any Superchargers either. Just get VW, or the next fossil-fuel lying, cheating, barsteward, to pay for them ...

 

[FactsBot]

They are stationary and could charge whilst in loading / unloading bays.

Truckers have to stop and rest ... so they can do that where there is power available. OK none right now ... wasn't long ago when there weren't any Superchargers either. Just get VW, or the next fossil-fuel lying, cheating, barsteward, to pay for them ...

If they need any rest in the future. Waymo is already testing semi trucks. Those vehicles can swallow the cost of a lidar easily and run autonomously on the highways which is the easiest scene for self driving.

 

[ohmman]

We just had a 49 hour outage as part of the PG&E PSPS. I once again was able to take excess solar from my roof and dump it into my cars - enough to top each of them up every other day, which is what we do when on shore power as well.

There was, however, a difference from the last event 17 days prior. There's about 45 minutes less daylight, and the sun is lower, so my house batteries took a little longer in the morning to top up. I would imagine another 3 weeks and I'd have to either cut back on usage (maybe don't run the heat in the morning, don't run the oven or dryer). Fire seasons should be well over by then, but it's another reason to add more solar anyway.

 

[Curious George]

We just had a 49 hour outage as part of the PG&E PSPS. I once again was able to take excess solar from my roof and dump it into my cars - enough to top each of them up every other day, which is what we do when on shore power as well.

There was, however, a difference from the last event 17 days prior. There's about 45 minutes less daylight, and the sun is lower, so my house batteries took a little longer in the morning to top up. I would imagine another 3 weeks and I'd have to either cut back on usage (maybe don't run the heat in the morning, don't run the oven or dryer). Fire seasons should be well over by then, but it's another reason to add more solar anyway.

Good for you and good to hear that! I'm assuming you've a Tesla powerwall or two?
Do you have two inverters in the system or just one? Wonder how much extra you paid on top of the solar itself.

I think most folks are just using generators to get through these.

 

[ohmman]

Good for you and good to hear that! I'm assuming you've a Tesla powerwall or two?
Do you have two inverters in the system or just one? Wonder how much extra you paid on top of the solar itself.

I think most folks are just using generators to get through these.

Two Powerwalls, one inverter. The batteries were pretty reasonable since I got them during the original V2 offer and flat rate installation. I'm still likely to add two more. It's been pretty nice having them during these outages, and being able to charge the cars is definitely the icing on the cake.

I've talked at least 5 people into canceling their generator orders and getting Powerwalls instead. These are people who already have rooftop solar (very common in my area), so the economics make a lot more sense than generators do.

 

[Curious George]

Found this today on a forum. Nexo is testes TSP+.
Looks like Hyundai is leap frogging Toyota and Honda in both fuel cell space and electric cars.
https://driving.ca/hyundai/auto-news/news/hyundais-hydrogen-fuel-cell-nexo-earns-top-crash-safety-award

https://newspress-hyundai.s3.amazonaws.com/videos/original/38570-HyundaiNEXOFuelCellSUVIIHSCrashTest.mp4

 

[nwdiver]

Found this today on a forum. Nexo is testes TSP+.
Looks like Hyundai is leap frogging Toyota and Honda in both fuel cell space and electric cars.
https://driving.ca/hyundai/auto-news/news/hyundais-hydrogen-fuel-cell-nexo-earns-top-crash-safety-award

https://newspress-hyundai.s3.amazonaws.com/videos/original/38570-HyundaiNEXOFuelCellSUVIIHSCrashTest.mp4

And Mercedes is light-years ahead of all three since they're the only one with the sense to add a plug....

Building a car that has an electric motor but can't take energy from the most efficient source (the grid) for short trips is beyond idiotic....

 

[FutureShock]

As of early 2019, there were only 6,500 fuel cell passenger vehicles on the road in the US. And most (nearly all?) of those were leases.

That's what?... literally less than 0.01% of the entire US auto fleet? Wheeeee... LOOK OUT WORLD, hydrogen's COMIN'!!!

But, it's understandable. As in, why in the world would anyone buy a hydrogen vehicle right now? So they can wait for years and years for the infrastructure to (maybe) build out, so they can actually drive somewhere? So they can go from 0 to 60 in a blistering 9 seconds? So they can claim to be 'green', even though the H2 is still largely coming from natural gas and is dumping many, many tons of carbon into the air, just like ICEs? Oy.

Yeah, yeah, we know... someday these problems will be solved, or at least lessened. But by then, how much better have BEVs become? Battery EVs are not a stationary target, after all. The costs of batteries keep coming down (markedly!), the energy density and range keeps going up, and things like the V3 superchargers and new battery chemistries will continue to reduce road trip charging times (though most ppl most of the time will be conveniently charging at home). What exactly will hydrogen have to hang its hat on as all this is going down?

Hint: Damn little. Sorry, Toyota. I know you've invested billions in your 'future vision of transport', which was hybrids –> plug-in hybrids –> fuel cells, but sometimes the real word doesn't cooperate. Get on the BEV train or get left behind. The writing's on the wall.

I do feel slightly bad for FCVs, though... it's the 'what if' angle. It's sort of obvious that there's going to be only one big successor to ICE, and if there had been no Elon/Tesla bringing BEVs to the fore on an aggressive timeline, who knows... BEVs might've showed up to the party in force a decade later than they did, and we might be having a different conversation.

But, we're not.

Toyota et al will go down swinging on FCVs, but they will go down. FCVs will eventually mitigate most of their problems, but not before BEVs improve to the point where it's moot. The end result is obvious, even if it will take a few years to play out.

So, R.I.P. FCVs. We hardly knew ye.

.

 

[WannabeOwner]

I'm still likely to add two more

Just curious, does your house consume enough to need 4 batteries, or if you would store excess PV to charge car (e.g. overnight), or some other usage?

We have a need for 2x PowerWall here because I work from home and have some people come here to work too, and several servers on 24/7 ... so use far more power than normal residential house, but I thought 2x PowerWalls was excessive and thus curious as to 4x PowerWall deployment scenario.

 

[ohmman]

Just curious, does your house consume enough to need 4 batteries, or if you would store excess PV to charge car (e.g. overnight), or some other usage?

For me, it’s more about winter resiliency. I’m in the process of converting to mini splits for the house and a heat pump water heater. Having the house fully electric will require a good deal of storage to carry us from the time solar isn’t sufficient through the night to when it becomes sufficient again.

These PSPS events are unlikely to continue past mid-November so really two is sufficient for comfort. Ideally, though, we wouldn’t have to change behavior at all and still have plenty of capacity no matter when the outage occurs.

 

[nwdiver]

I’m in the process of converting to mini splits for the house and a heat pump water heater.

The Rheem HPWHs are currently on sale...

My house had gas heating, cooking and a gas water heater when I bought it ~6 years ago. I upgraded to fully electric a few months after I moved in an had gas service disconnected so I haven't had gas at the house in >5 years. I started removing the gas lines this week, it's strangely satisfying ; so even when I sell the house it ain't gonna be cheap for the next owner to go back to gas (hopefully they won't).

Just the savings on the $15/mo service fee alone has almost paid for the upgrade to all electric.

 

[ZsoZso]

I would love if Tesla would allow power to be transferred back from car to home, so we could use our large car batteries as a backup for the home in case of power outage. IIRC, a Powerwall has ~13kWh storage, while my Model S has nominal 85kWh (in reality its a bit less, probably around 82) and my Model 3 has ~75kWh, so my two cars together have more storage than 12 Powerwalls.

Of course, I know this will never happen, because it would ruin the business case for selling Powerwalls.

 

[JRP3]

Elon has said the Tesla Pickup Truck will have 240VAC power onboard, so that could be hooked up to your house.

 

[WannabeOwner]

For me, it’s more about winter resiliency

Thanks

I’m in the process of converting to mini splits

Dunno how it is over your way, but here I would spend $ on insulation & air tightness before spending on other changes; I get the impression that in USA with gas being cheaper insulation is not as cost-viable? Retro fit/upgrade here is hard ... probably over your way too? so mostly we just insulate the loft and attend to air tightness / draughts. I have upgraded my house to Passive House.

UK annual heating is typically 82kWh / sq.m., 7.6 kWh / sq.ft. Our energy efficient house is 5.5 times better with peak heat requirement of 10W / sq.m. (0.9W / sq.ft) and annual of 15 kWh / sq.m. / year (1.4 kWh / sq.ft. / year). Domestic AirCon is uncommon in UK (heatwave last year was 35C / 95F for 3 weeks and, without AirCon, our max house temperature was 25C / 77F), but for Passive House peak cooling is same 10W / sq.m. as peak heating.

 

[FactsBot]

So, R.I.P. FCVs. We hardly knew ye.

.

ACEA, Hydrogen Europe and IRU call on EU to ramp up investments in hydrogen refueling infrastructure


The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), Hydrogen Europe and the International Road Transport Union (IRU) are jointly calling on European policy makers to ramp up investments in EU-wide hydrogen refueling infrastructure for fuel cell electric vehicles.

 

[JohnSnowNW]

ACEA, Hydrogen Europe and IRU call on EU to ramp up investments in hydrogen refueling infrastructure


The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), Hydrogen Europe and the International Road Transport Union (IRU) are jointly calling on European policy makers to ramp up investments in EU-wide hydrogen refueling infrastructure for fuel cell electric vehicles.

There was already an EU mandate for H2 infrastructure...that was dropped several years ago.