Hydrogen vs. Battery

[Curious George]

Exactly! The station maps show how fast they run out of hydrogen. I guess that means no one is driving these cars. (/s).
It shows why more money is well spent to expand and enlarge these first gen stations that were low capacity starter stations.
Next gen stations will be 3-5x bigger and even 3 dozen of them will be plenty for a while. They come with 4 nozzles now vs. 1 in the firts gen stations.
Of course, anyone can build more stations when there is more demand. I also don't know if the grants fund 100% of the station cost, or part of the cost. Partial funding means more stations can use the funding.

The stations can be up just 40% of the time, and people can go fill up at that time. Just remember, it doesn't take 30-60 mins to fill up.
The tank doesn't shrink over time and it doesn't take longer to fill as the tank gets older.

Cost: Larger stations should lower the cost. The new Oakland station is already 20% lower price. Hopefully the trend will continue.

You know what's funny? In my office parking lot, there are as many model 3's as fuel cell cars. But folks who act as blind bats can't see them of course. Watch out for the trains though. They are coming to California too.

Activity is picking up fast in the H2 field. Trains, semi-trucks, buses, cars, drones. You name it.
Heavy-Duty Hydrogen: Fuel Cell Trains And Trucks Power Up For The 2020s

 

[nwdiver]

I guess that means no one is driving these cars. (/s).

Depends on whether the H2 is being stored as a liquid or a gas. Have you ever worked with a cryogenic liquid?

Boil-off losses along H2 pathway

I'd love to see stats on the percentage of H2 that is sold vs the percentage that literally disappears into thin air

 

[FutureShock]

H2 runs about $14/kg near me so it costs about $70 to fill up a Mirai to get about 325 miles of range.

Same range in my Model 3 costs $11.25 and my car cost me $15,000 less.

Toyota sold 66 Mirais last month and three year old used examples are going for just over $10,000. Tesla sold 15,000 Model 3s in the US in the same month and used examples are going for near MSRP.

There is no market for these [H2] things as passenger vehicles as far as I can see. Unreliable and expensive cars and infrastructure with very expensive fuel largely derived from fossil feedstock. Total boondoggle.

^ Sums it up. And well said. H2 for passenger vehicles just doesn’t make sense... unless you’re an automaker who bet on the wrong horse (Toyota) and is afraid of losing billions in stranded assets (fuel cell tech R&D).

In which case, you’ll beat that dying horse until it expires and starts to smell funny.
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[ZsoZso]

I'm just Curious @george: how do you intend to power HFC vehicles at your stated location of Mars ?
Having no Fossil Fuels available there for steam reforming and precious little H2O for electrolysis...
Are you planning to siphon H2 from Jupiter and transport to Mars ? That ought to be rather expensive!

 

[FutureShock]

I'm just Curious @george: how do you intend to power HFC vehicles at your stated location of Mars ?
Having no Fossil Fuels available there for steam reforming and precious little H2O for electrolysis...
Are you planning to siphon H2 from Jupiter and transport to Mars ? That ought to be rather expensive!

I propose that CG go to Jupiter to check on that.
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[nwdiver]

So long Audi H-Tron. We barely knew thee. I honestly didn't even know you existed...

VW cuts fool cell FUD funding to accelerate BEVs

 

[nwdiver]

Broad-spectrum solar breakthrough could efficiently produce hydrogen

That's exciting; Can't wait until we start using a 20% H2 blend to reduce CH4 use for home heating, then we can use less CH4 to make H2 for oil refining and fertilizer production, then we can synthesize CH4 for aviation and marine fuel... then we can finally have 'solar powered' rockets via CH4 and we'll H2 for seasonal storage.

Then... maybe in ~40-50 years we'll have enough surplus H2 that @Curious George can have his FCEV Though it seems increasingly unlikely that Toyota will still be around

 

[FutureShock]

So long Audi H-Tron. We barely knew thee. I honestly didn't even know you existed...

VW cuts fool cell FUD funding to accelerate BEVs

LOL, bears more emphasis, especially considering VW is the world's largest automaker. Poor CG must be kicking the wall.

Volkswagen has one of the industry’s most ambitious EV plans. The company is targeting cumulative production and sales of 22 million electric vehicles by 2028. By that time, the group said it could offer as many as 70 electric models. That’s still not soon enough, according to CEO Herbert Diess. To accelerate its electric-car and self-driving programs, VW will cut resources devoted to fuel cells. Will it be enough?

TLDR version: World's largest automaker is choosing BEV development over fuel-cell vehicles, confirming what we already knew... fool cells don't make sense for passenger vehicles. Suck it, Toyota.
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[eevee-fan]

Broad-spectrum solar breakthrough could efficiently produce hydrogen

That's exciting; Can't wait until we start using a 20% H2 blend to reduce CH4 use for home heating, then we can use less CH4 to make H2 for oil refining and fertilizer production, then we can synthesize CH4 for aviation and marine fuel... then we can finally have 'solar powered' rockets via CH4 and we'll H2 for seasonal storage.

Then... maybe in ~40-50 years we'll have enough surplus H2 that @Curious George can have his FCEV Though it seems increasingly unlikely that Toyota will still be around

Yawn, easier to just work with electricity instead of making a fluid then having to transport it all over. Is this really about creating jobs? haha

 

[nwdiver]

Yawn, easier to just work with electricity instead of making a fluid then having to transport it all over. Is this really about creating jobs? haha

I don't think the purpose of H2 would be transporting energy so much as storing it. Not many ways to harvest surplus wind in March then use it in August.

 

[eevee-fan]

I don't think the purpose of H2 would be transporting energy so much as storing it. Not many ways to harvest surplus wind in March then use it in August.

In that case, easier just to harvest solar energy in orbit and beam down to earth. Near constant energy 7x24x365. And when energy demand is lower at night, guess what? Charge your EVs.

 

[nwdiver]

In that case, easier just to harvest solar energy in orbit and beam down to earth. Near constant energy 7x24x365. And when energy demand is lower at night, guess what? Charge your EVs.

Hmmm.... not sure about that.... splitting water is cheaper than launching mass into orbit. Splitting water might even be cheaper per kWh than 'beaming' energy from orbit.

 

[ZsoZso]

Broad-spectrum solar breakthrough could efficiently produce hydrogen

That's exciting; Can't wait until we start using a 20% H2 blend to reduce CH4 use for home heating, then we can use less CH4 to make H2 for oil refining and fertilizer production, then we can synthesize CH4 for aviation and marine fuel... then we can finally have 'solar powered' rockets via CH4 and we'll H2 for seasonal storage.

Then... maybe in ~40-50 years we'll have enough surplus H2 that @Curious George can have his FCEV Though it seems increasingly unlikely that Toyota will still be around

It's promising, but not scalable in the current state. The catalyst they use is primarily Rhodium, which is an expensive rare metal, and it only has a turn over frequency of 170 moles H2 produced per mole of catalyst over 24 hours (this is very low). It can probably be improved though.

I do not think this will provide the H2 source generation needed for FCEVs to scale up and become a material competition to BEVs.
On the other hand, there is an application where this could be a very worthy option: for SpaceX to help colonizing Mars! They could send to Mars an automated system that sets up H2 production using this technology and start generating fuel for later return journeys. For that application the energy-efficiency is far more important than speed, cost and scalability.

 

[PrGrPa]

So long Audi H-Tron. We barely knew thee. I honestly didn't even know you existed...

VW cuts fool cell FUD funding to accelerate BEVs

fascinating. I’d heard from a VAG engineer only last year that they were big on hydrogen fuel cell work.

IDK, the whole hydrogen fuel cell idea seems inefficient in several ways to me.

 

[JohnSnowNW]

IDK, the whole hydrogen fuel cell idea seems inefficient in several ways to me.

It's not just you

 

[JRP3]

 

[StealthP3D]

You know what's funny? In my office parking lot, there are as many model 3's as fuel cell cars. But folks who act as blind bats can't see them of course.

So, are you trying to tell us your work parking lot has one Model 3 and one fuel cell car?

Where do you work?

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

So, are you trying to tell us your work parking lot has one Model 3 and one fuel cell car?

Where do you work?

is there a company that touts a flat Earth and flat Mars and pushes that agenda? that would be my guess.
or Toyota Sunnyvale..the FCEV's all looked like crappy Prius'. i could see people overlooking them

 

[nwdiver]

I do not think this will provide the H2 source generation needed for FCEVs to scale up and become a material competition to BEVs.

I agree; My point was even if we did get a viable source of H2 we still need to produce ~10B kg/yr of the stuff just to meet current demand before we should go burning it in fuel cells. Another ~10B kg/yr if we start blending H2 in CH4 to reduce CH4 use. We would need ~500TWh/yr of clean energy to produce ~20B kg/yr of H2. Annual US wind and solar generation is ~350 TWh/yr. It's going to be decades before using H2 in FCEVs makes any sense because math.

Not sure requiring a rare metal as a catalyst will be that big of a barrier. It's happened before with catalytic converters which require platinum.

 

[FutureShock]

So, are you trying to tell us your work parking lot has one Model 3 and one fuel cell car?

Where do you work?

I know, right? Who’s ever seen more than one FCV in an area, ever?

They’re rare as rare can be... and for a reason.
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