Featured Hydrogen Fuel Cell's Dark Side(s)

A typical FCEV would need 250 of those bottles, and it would take 52 days to fill them if there was only one hydrogen generator available. Also need 13.2 gallons of purified water. Equivalent BEVs take 3 to 4 days to charge at Level 1.

Honda, Gogoro, and I'm sure others have battery swapping kiosks for scooters and the like. Seems the scooters are cheaper than that hydrogen bicycle.

Get the costs down, and hydrogen might work for bikes. Works for forklifts, and they use the same operating principles; swappable fuel tanks.

This is the system developed with GM, and the General is sticking with commercial trucks.

The cargo area.

Reminds me of the late C-max Energi's hatch area. Guessing no spare.
Honda's hydrogen fuel cell-powered CR-V isn't as dumb as you think | TechCrunch Honda hydrogen fuel cell-powered CR-V e:FCEV test drive

It does have a plug with 29 miles of EV range. Some you can stretch out getting a >$120 refill of hydrogen. If the fuel cell efficiency is like the Nexo, the hydrogen range is 250 miles or so.

 

The hits keep coming...these innovators just aren't listening to the naysayers and pessimist of the world!

Researchers make unexpected discovery that could have profound impact on hydrogen fuel production: 'We need a way to bridge the gap' (msn.com)
"The new process from the Riken researchers aims to solve that secondary issue. The scientists found that by replacing some of the very rare and expensive iridium used in the hydrogen fuel-making process with the more common manganese, they could bring the costs way down."

"Nakamura also said the new iridium-manganese catalyst has a high potential for immediate usefulness, which is good news for the clean hydrogen industry and our planet."

"The team aims to continue studying the chemical interaction between iridium and manganese to further reduce the amount of iridium required. It's already teamed up with industry partners who have enhanced the catalyst, which shows promise for the future.

If the industry can produce clean hydrogen fuel affordably and at scale, it could soon be used to power the most heavily polluting types of vehicles in the world — including airplanes and cargo ships (both of which have already been successfully tested with hydrogen fuel) — cutting down massively on emissions of planet-overheating gases and creating a cleaner, safer world for humans."

What's the next innovation/breakthrough?

How about a small electric van that gets 150 miles on an incredibly quick charge and cost less than $15,000- ridiculous, preposterous, fool's gold, a fairy tale .... except it's here right now in Japan - somebody didn't listen to the naysayers yet again....
Honda is launching its new electric N-VAN starting at $15,500 (electrek.co)

 

John, you seem to be ignoring the point that the criticism of hydrogen is focused at its use for passenger cars.

Hydrogen works fine, great even, for some uses.
Cargo carriers, such as you listed above, is one of those great use cases.

Hydrogen for cars is a boondoggle, as is ICE.
Hydrogen transport, storage, and pumping is expensive and inefficient. It is slightly more efficient than gasoline, But pales compared to batteries.

 

Where are the breakthroughs for storing and transporting hydrogen? We can get the price of green hydrogen down to the price of fossil, and a gasoline car would still be cheaper to run due to the costs for of getting hydrogen into the car.

Trucks and trains have more free space to hold tanks. Their general use means far less infrastructure to keep them fueled. The amount of hydrogen they'll need will be fill times with gaseous will be around that of charging a BEV version. Liquid gets around that, but losses from venting will need to be factored into the cost.

What does a BEV kei van have to do with hydrogen?

A fuel cell version won't need as much hydrogen as a full size model, but the hydrogen tank will still take away from the utility and charm of the N-Van.

 

My observations and post on the Hydrogen Technology would be for me, an exercise in positivity as well as affirmation of technology, innovation and the human spirit

I see a glass 1/2 full and am attracted to the endless possibilities that technology will/may bring.

Am well aware of Hydrogen's current limitations due to technology for passenger cars. I own a PHEV and love it.

Would hope to be a yang of positivity- instead of the ying of negativity surrounding Hydrogen post here.

It was interesting in my time as a supervisor to see different personalities reflected in the way problems/challenges were handled by individuals - those who would give up and bring the problems back to the supervisor to be solved and those who would innovate/solve/work around problems to accomplish the task themselves. There were people who when you saw them approach you, you could not help but think here comes a problem or here we go again and then try as hard as you could to coach them up to handle situations themselves - there were other people who when they approached you, you would think - thank goodness here comes help-solutions - new ideas- a can do attitude an aura of positivity surrounding them.

Every time I see a post stinking of negativity surrounding Hydrogen I hope to chime in with positive reinforcements for what Hydrogen Power/the companies doing the grunt work with dollars/research to move the needle in a positive direction can do to help the world be a better place and with a little innovation like with the Honda minivan who knows what possibilities lie ahead for this technology - the exact opposite of the 1st post of this thread.

 

Left in USA cannot tolerate BigOil and are opposed to H2 because they view H2 as a possible business that could sustain BigOil.

 

All for researching green hydrogen. We'll need it for food. It can decarbonize steel making, and perhaps other industrial sectors. It could be a good storage medium for renewable electricity in some regions. With its adoption for such uses, maybe hydrogen can spread to secondary uses in those regions.

Using it for personal cars is not a good use of hydrogen when there other, more critical, uses. Maybe not even as a secondary use. The required infrastructure will be a major expense without some breakthrough in transportation and storage. A breakthrough that will very likely make current stations and vehicles obsolete. The station in the OP video couldn't refuel the original Clarity.

If Toyota and others weren't so invested in finicky PEM fuel cells, we'd have FCEVs now that could run something easier to work with, maybe even gasoline. Nissan has a solid oxide fuel cell that runs on ethanol. Get the FCEVs out there, the prices drop, then start switching to cleaner fuels. Maybe even hydrogen.

A mini mini mini EV van isn't a positive story for hydrogen. It isn't even a new story for BEVs. Mitsubishi already has one. The Honda might be cheaper, but it's twice what they claimed a few years ago. China probably already has cheaper.
https://www.motor1.com/news/625427/2024-honda-n-van-announced/

It is more proof of how batteries have beaten hydrogen for personal cars. The car companies have been working on fuel cells for longer than on the current era of battery EVs, and they are still limited to just a part of California.

Does that mean California is the Right? They've given hydrogen more incentives and subsidies than plug ins. And Big Oil is on the left cause they did the math, and wanted nothing to do with hydrogen for personal cars. IIRC, Shell was the only oil company to actually build consumer hydrogen stations, and they've closed them.

 

i have no problem with hydrogen research for personal transportation, as long as tax dollars are not involved.
i'm very positive on hydrogen research for personal transportation. positive that it has been a boondoggle, just like ethanol

 

The innovators are well behind schedule and being powered by powerful lobbies around the world that just want to keep taking government money. I wish luck for the innovations but really we still haven't seen real progress in the last 15 years. Keep up the research but all this tax payer cash to subsidize commercialization is likely flushed down the toilet. Worse some of the hydrogen lobby have been using these false promises to slow down adoption of better technologies.

Proof of concept was the electrovan in 1966. First commercialization into end users hands the clarity in 2008. After that things were going to be cheap in only 10 years, if government only helped pay for stations to solve the chicken and egg problem. Costs for stations did not go down, they actually are going up. Metal hydrides or some other advance was going to make the tanks cheap and light, instead they are still heavy, although carbon fiber advances are making them less expensive, but the bulk is the problem as well as the cost.

That phev concept in the honda cr-v is also quite old, but toyota and honda wanted to pretend electricity was dirty and batteries were too heavy. They only plan to make 200 to lease in the next year or so. Honda is just doing it to see if people like it better than the clarity. This is gm/honda partnership just investing enough in case it works after they have each spent billions. To me the rav4 prime will prove to be a much better vehicle without compromising the space for hydrogen tanks. It can also travel the country. That is the type o vehicle that gives lie to the hydrogen hype that you can't do mainly electric and still take long trips.

There were around 50,000 fuel cell fork lifts running around, and sales are growing fast. Its still small compared to the millions of electric fork lifts, but that seems like a promising endevor that doesn't require a national wide network of refueling stations, nor does the cost of the hydrogen really change the economics as it is a tiny portion of the cost when you include the operators salery and benefits.

Fuel cell delevery vehicles that have stable routes also make some sense. Subsidized fuel can prove whether they work.

Right now personal vehicles are a failure, and look to be for at least the next decade. Maybe they will work on small islands like hawaii. or iceland, or areas that have restricted travel. That is far out their. Let them prove themselves before we spend more on a failing infrastructure. Price of the fuel and availablity is too high. The vehicles don't really compete well with bevs or phevs that are similar without big subsidies. That wouldn't stop it if there were actual breakthroughs in tanks and production costs but those haven't materialized.

For me hydrogen fuel cell personal light vehicles are a glass that is empty. That may change if hydrogen can prove itself over time and get some real breakthroughs, but anouncements of breakthroughs that won't help them compete aren't breakthroughs at all.

Green hydrogen could be used to replace the brown stuff the country is using now. It can also be as a limited percent in the natural gas lines to offset fracked methane. But most damaging for the hydrogen lobby, green hydrogen can be turned into methanol quite easily and provide liquid fuel more cheaply. Methanol can be upgraded to any of the synthetic liquid fuels like porsche is doing for green synthetic gasoline in chili.

 

The thing is, for personal cars I don't even see a hydrogen glass, much less with anything in it. Period.
The cost of just the refueling infrastructure and the per mile cost of the fuel for consumers would be enormous just to match the EV fast charging we already have in the US (and we need 10x what we have, at least)

Yes, do research because something useful might be discovered. For example, fleet delivery vehicles or trains ...all these things need just a known and limited amount of infrastructure that can be highly utilized increasing the practicality, rather than building out lots of stations that rarely get used by random consumers.

Mike

 

I do recommend hydrogen fuel cell cars . . . to my enemies.

Bob Wilson

 

It seems all cars have pros and cons. I'm tempted to go get my 1985 VW diesel back out and keep driving it: much cheaper than hydrogen, electric and even hybrid, at least for now. Also doesn't have all this irritating junk like touchscreens and power windows and it actually fits in compact car parking spots. It's also actually fun to drive, and the radio actually works too.

Hydrogen fuel cell tech is interesting, but not at the point I would buy a hyrogen car any time soon.

 

Just to correct these stations are being used but are unreliable and expensive. California's Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars Lose Traction Against Battery Models - Bloomberg

 

Hydrogen is a technology that is still evolving and making progress - personal vehicles will probably be one of the last applications of this exciting technology.

Car manufacturers that are working on or producing Hydrogen Vehicles, pushing the technology and exploring options for this technology:
KIA FK
Hyundai FK
KIA Carnival FCEV
Land Rover Defender
Range Rover FCEV
Toyota Hilux Hydrogen Unit
BMW iX5
Rolls-Royce Hydrogen Car
Honda FCEV
Ineos Grenadier Hydrogen FCEV
Hyundai NEXO
Hyundai Staria Fuel Cell
Hyundai n Vision 74

Maybe this technology will eventually work out for personal transportation as Hydrogen continues to become a major player in Energy Solutions - maybe not.

It's impact on large transportation manufactures such as shipping, rail and trucking is already being felt and holds great promise.

Kudos to those keeping their nose to the technology grindstone looking for solutions- not excuses.
13 upcoming hydrogen FCEVs with up to 500 miles of range (topelectricsuv.com)

Hopefully the scientist and innovators working on technology will have deaf ears to naysayers, pessimist and negative people and continue their work towards helping to solve our worlds pollution/energy issues making the world a better place for all of us.

Our only hope may be with the younger generation who with positive attitudes and a complete rejection of the negative can't do attitude of our current generation can push for creative solutions no one would have thought possible.

 

That’s great. The tech definitely needs to progress more.
How many of those are building a delivery infrastructure?

 

Just as no auto manufacturer is in the gasoline supply business - most auto manufacturers are not in the hydrogen supply business with a few notable exceptions: Toyota and a few other forward thinking auto manufacturers would be notable expectations.

Many are leaving that type infrastructure to Forward thinking Companies who already have the infrastructure building expertise in place

Hydrogen | Climate Solutions (exxonmobil.com)

FuelCell Energy and Toyota Announce Completion of World's First "Tri-gen" Production System - Toyota USA
Newsroom

BMW says goodbye to electric cars, hydrogen engines begins a new era | Klean Industries

Shell to start building Europe’s largest renewable hydrogen plant | Shell Global

Top 10: Hydrogen Companies | Energy Magazine (energydigital.com)

I wonder what is so scary about exploring new technology that it has to be shouted down - seems like reactions would be just the opposite!

I wonder how many electric vehicle company shareholders shake in their boots each time Hydrogen is mentioned.

Seems like it might be another type of investment opportunity if that blows your dress up.

I own a PHEV but get excited thinking about another type of technology for vehicles that may be on the horizon. Hopefully someone is already working on another strategy for personal transportation that is even more environmentally friendly than the ones we are discussing now.

 

I get excited just thinking about the possibilities

 

Yet Toyota pushed to commercialize a hydrogen car ten years ago. And used large amounts of public funds to pay for the infrastructure, and larger than EV incentives. The credit system also allowed them to put less ZEV cars onto the car than plug ins.

Tesla wanted to sell BEVs that could replace ICE. They saw the charging standards of the time weren't fast enough, and no one was building a network of chargers to support BEVs on long trips. So they developed NACS, and started building Superchargers. Nobody trying to sell a hydrogen car put money into stations until governments forced them too.

Continue the research and testing. Hydrogen might work out for some roles. Current results show that personal cars don't work, so let's not use public funds to help a company make profits off them. Maybe hydrogen will work out to replace other fuels for range extenders, or maybe fuel cells will 'burn' something else.

The article title is disingenuous. Only the next Nexos could be called a 500 mile car, the rest, if real, are hundreds of miles short. Some on the list are just rumors. Rolls-Royce isn't even working on a hydrogen car, just a statement of making them if hydrogen works out, "If a hydrogen-powered Rolls-Royce does arrive someday, it will be with fuel cells, which “are nothing different from a battery,” the brand boss added."

Several years ago, BMW entered a partnership with Toyota. Toyota got carbon fiber tech, which went into the gen4 Prius Prime hatch among other things. Fuel cell tech was BMW's 'payment'. I'm not expecting them to do anything past the short run of the iX5. BMW supplies Ineos with engines and transmissions. They experimenting with those fuel cells isn't surprising. It will be surprising if many such Grenadiers sell; the gasoline ICE model starts at $73,100.

The N Vision 74 is how I see hydrogen FCEVs cars working out. It's a range extended PHEV. The prototype has a battery about the size of the one in the bZ4X AWD, that's 800V architecture, so charge times down to 15 minutes with the right charger. The fuel cell is relatively tiny. It supplies about 1/6th of the car's total power. The space loss to the tanks won't be a concern for a sports car. That will need improving for anything else.

Many here among us acknowledge that hydrogen could work for these roles. Then several big car companies halted development into cars, while continuing with commercial vehicles.

I just think going the next step, and converting green hydrogen to methanol and other fuels will have a bigger impact in reducing carbon emissions.

Can't do attitude isn't the issue. It's watching the repeated results of the test on the public dime falling short of promises and even goals. I loved the idea of hydrogen powered cars when I first hard about it, 40 years ago.

After decades of hype, it is going to take hydrogen stations on our corners to take notice.