mspohr
Well-Known Member
Leaking methane doesn't cost them anything. It costs to fix leaks.
Perhaps they should be charged for leaks.
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Hydrogen vs. Battery
- Thread starter siry
- Start date
Perhaps they should be charged for leaks.
Watts_Up
Well-Known Member
I would recommend watching this very objective and informative Youtube video:
Replacing fossil fuel with hydrogen seems like an ideal solution
to make transportation environmentally friendly and to provide
a backup for intermittent energy sources like solar and wind.
But how environmentally friendly is hydrogen really?
And how sustainable is it, given that hydrogen fuel cells rely
on supply of rare metals like platinum and iridium?
In this video, we have collected all the relevant numbers for you.
ZEVs accounted for 18.8% of all new cars sold in California in 2022; 3 counties account for almost half
California announced that 18.8% (345,818 units) of all new cars sold last year in California were ZEVs. A small number of those ZEV sales (3.89%, or 3,303 units) were made to out-of-state buyers. 40% of ZEVs sold in the US are sold in California. Snapshot of CEC’s ZEV Sales dashboard....
www.greencarcongress.com
Direct electro-oxidation method for lithium leaching from spent ternary Li-ion batteries
Researchers from Nanchang Hangkong University in China have developed a direct electro-oxidation method for lithium leaching from spent ternary lithium-ion batteries (T-LIBs) (Li0.8Ni0.6Co0.2Mn0.2O2). In a paper in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology they report that 95.02% of Li...
www.greencarcongress.com
More progress on recycling efficiency. Good thing, as the landfill are full of old EV batteries. (sarc)
New efficient one-pot process for recycling metals from spent Li-ion batteries
A team from the Korean government-funded research institute The Institute for Basic Science has developed a one-pot liquid extraction process that uses rotating, concentric-liquid reactors to stir, separate, and capture metal ions from spent lithium-ion batteries. A paper on their work appears...
www.greencarcongress.com
Yet another idea. Liquify it and spin to separate, like we do with blood and plasma.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
That $15,000 fuel card is worthless if you can't find a hydrogen fueling station. Or if the station is out of service, as they so often are. In fact, the whole car is worthless if you don't have easy access to a working hydrogen fueling station.
Meanwhile, if you have an EV and PV panels on your house, all your "fuel" is free, other than extended road trips. (And forget road trips in the Marai, as there are no hydrogen fueling stations outside the very limited areas where the cars are sold.)
Meanwhile, if you have an EV and PV panels on your house, all your "fuel" is free, other than extended road trips. (And forget road trips in the Marai, as there are no hydrogen fueling stations outside the very limited areas where the cars are sold.)
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
It's a local commuter
Google says that hydrogen is up to $25 a Kg in CA, or about 50¢ a mile. The gift card is thus good for about 30k miles, not terrible for a $13k car. Unless a repair is needed. I cannot even begin to guess what that might cost, presuming a mechanic can be found. Blank check time. Or more likely land-fill time
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Repair is what kills this deal.It's a local commuter
Google says that hydrogen is up to $25 a Kg in CA, or about 50¢ a mile. The gift card is thus good for about 30k miles, not terrible for a $13k car. Unless a repair is needed. I cannot even begin to guess what that might cost, presuming a mechanic can be found. Blank check time. Or more likely land-fill time
I could consider free commuting but an unknown $$$ repair would make this a nonstarter.
It's a local commuter
Google says that hydrogen is up to $25 a Kg in CA, or about 50¢ a mile. The gift card is thus good for about 30k miles, not terrible for a $13k car. Unless a repair is needed. I cannot even begin to guess what that might cost, presuming a mechanic can be found. Blank check time. Or more likely land-fill time
EVERY SINGLE PERSON who has ever told me they could not use an electric car, over the approximately 18 years I've been driving electric, has told me that the single reason an EV would not work for them was that the limited range and long charging time meant that they would be unable to take a road trip in it. So now people are promoting a car that they tell you up front you CANNOT use for road trips? HA!
As for repairs, I'd presume that repairs would be covered under the warranty.
But it's still a lousy choice: An EV is free to fuel at home if you have solar. The Mirai has to be driven to a fueling station to refuel, and unless you happen to live very near one of the VERY FEW hydrogen fueling stations, or pass one regularly on your commute, it will be a pain in the keister.
And what promises are they making that they'll continue to service the car after the warranty, or that they'll keep your one fueling station open and functioning? And while H2 CAN be made from green energy, it's not being made that way today!
I think they are doing the $15K ‘fuel’ card now since previously full was free, and many owners did 40-50K miles a year or more. Out here and in LA area there are many that are in the ride hailing fleets, or sales person fleets where the mileage was often huge.. But, that is exactly what these OEM who brought these models into the market, with a fixed three year lease, no purchase options to the market, wanted
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True, you can always charge the tiny battery on AC. With a 1.6 kWh battery, that should give you at least three or four miles of range — maybe even five!It's a local commuter
Except that after 30,000 miles, nobody can afford to drive it any longer. A Mirai is about the size of a Camry (about 4 inches longer and 2 inches wider and taller). A Camry hybrid gets 42 MPG. So 50 cents per mile is roughly equivalent to gasoline costing $21 per gallon, making it 4.3x as expensive as driving a normal car even at California's exorbitant gasoline prices.
At 30,000 miles, it seems almost guaranteed to get sent directly to a landfill. After all, the actual value of a used Mirai is apparently -$2,000. Presumably if you trade it in, you'll have to pay *them*.
I'm betting somebody builds a hydrogen fuel cell to battery conversion kit for these things eventually, assuming there are enough of the ~15k cars still left on the road to be worth the effort. And for -$2,000, I'd almost be tempted to buy two of them, drive them both for 30,000 miles, then rip out the hydrogen guts, buy a natural-gas-to-hydrogen reformer, use the fuel cells to take my house off the grid, and put battery packs in where the fuel tanks used to be.
Or not.
SalisburySam
Active Member
“Or not” sounds like the better path.True, you can always charge the tiny battery on AC. With a 1.6 kWh battery, that should give you at least three or four miles of range — maybe even five!
Except that after 30,000 miles, nobody can afford to drive it any longer. A Mirai is about the size of a Camry (about 4 inches longer and 2 inches wider and taller). A Camry hybrid gets 42 MPG. So 50 cents per mile is roughly equivalent to gasoline costing $21 per gallon, making it 4.3x as expensive as driving a normal car even at California's exorbitant gasoline prices.
At 30,000 miles, it seems almost guaranteed to get sent directly to a landfill. After all, the actual value of a used Mirai is apparently -$2,000. Presumably if you trade it in, you'll have to pay *them*.
I'm betting somebody builds a hydrogen fuel cell to battery conversion kit for these things eventually, assuming there are enough of the ~15k cars still left on the road to be worth the effort. And for -$2,000, I'd almost be tempted to buy two of them, drive them both for 30,000 miles, then rip out the hydrogen guts, buy a natural-gas-to-hydrogen reformer, use the fuel cells to take my house off the grid, and put battery packs in where the fuel tanks used to be.
Hydrogen is pretty much the only known option for clean-air long-haul trucks. My guess is that the trucking industry will be leading the charge in transitioning to hydrogen fuel. The refuel infrastructure that gets developed for trucks will then enable passenger vehicles to have a legitimate refueling option.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Even an extensive fueling network doesn't solve all the other inherent problems with hydrogen which have been thoroughly covered in this thread.
No, it is entirely possible for the long-haul industry to adapt. Some possibilities include:
- Trucks with range that exceeds the maximum number of hours that a single person can drive in one day, coupled with truck stops that have enough parking for people to plug in and charge up while they do their mandatory rest stop.
- Use of automated hitching to switch tractors every few hundred miles.
- Battery swapping (for routes that have two drivers trading off).
- Long-haul trailers with expansion batteries built into the floor.
- Replacing long-haul trucking with trains.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
Hydrogen is a clean-air alternative ONLY if the hydrogen is produced cleanly, with renewables. Otherwise it's just moving the pollution from the highways to the H2 plants. Cars do most of their driving in the city, and there are good reasons to move pollution from the city to a rural power plant. But long-haul trucks do most of their driving on rural highways, so there's no advantage in shifting the pollution to a hydrogen production facility.
Further, the long-haul trucking industry is extremely competitive. It will not adopt any new technology unless it saves money. Hydrogen does not do that.
Whether or not electric trucks, such as the Tesla Semi, can lower overall operating costs, remains to be seen. It will probably take significant improvements in batteries for the Tesla Semi, or other similar trucks, to become practical for long-haul trucking.
Electric trains, of course, would be ideal, but America lacks the infrastructure and would require MASSIVE investment to get there. Existing rail is in poor condition and there are far too few lines. We'd need to rebuilt from scratch, with far more lines. Of course, we should be doing that regardless of all other considerations: Any reasonable transportation policy would include a comprehensive electric rail system. Maybe that would eliminate the need for long-haul trucks, and electric short-haul trucks could fill the gaps.
In the long run, hydrogen, with its heavy fuel tanks, corrosive nature, and difficulty of handling, is not a solution for any transportation scenario. What we need are synthetic liquid fuels made from renewable resources, for vehicles that cannot carry enough batteries and cannot be connected to electrical lines. This means cargo ships and airplanes other than puddle-jumpers.
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