Featured Fuel Cell Vehicles over take Battery Vehicles in 2040

no talk of refueling infrastructure?

 

Looking at the public information (didn't go behind the pay wall), the assumption is batteries will be more expensive than they are today for tesla is 2040 (this could be true, unless they figure out how to use less cobalt and other expensive materials), but massive abounts of hydrogen will be being sold for $2/kg. They also assume because of these economics somehow infrastructure will be built for hydrogen. To me the first assumption is not bad, but of course we could be cobalt free or even be on a solid state sodium battery by 2040.

The second 2 assumptions just seem really bad given the track record. 2040 is only 22 years away. To get to $2/kg at the pump ($1/kg is simply needed for industrial production if natural gas prices don't go up) seems a fantasy. They are talking about perhaps bringing the price down from over $15/kg today to $7 in highly subsidized stations. How do you build pipelines or truck the hydrogen, build and maintain stations, use electricity to pump it up to 10,000+ psi, collect money, etc for only $1? It would require some bold technical innovations. They do have other projections for higher cost hydrogen, but as price goes up, the volume per station necessarily goes down, and it takes a even bigger government subsidy to build and maintain them.

 

...well, 2040, maybe still be way away in to the future.

FCEV I don't think would give us the needed range as we see in some BEVs. Take for instance, model 3, three hundred and something.... battery range.

It appears to me, that for the hydrogen vehicles, they'd be combining both hydrogen and electric powered applications altogether. That might shoot the price of such vehicles.

This innovation may go the way of CNG powered vehicles. Expensive, and all that.

 

You know these guys have got good marketing gimmicks

 

Since the 1970's the hydrogen lobby has shouted from the roof tops, "in just 10 more years!!" . Then when it didn't happen in the 80's it was 10 more - the 90's .... then the 2000's then the 20 teens ....
Now it's 2040?
Hmmm ... looks like they only prove they're an nice person ever 2 decades now. go hydrogen ..... no, really, GO.

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I liked these comments:
"Predictions are hard to make, especially when they are about the future" - Richard Feynman PhD

What I am hearing a lot of folks saying is we 100% know the future. But we are really saying that we have a strong opinion what we would like future to be, and we want to advocate for that vision.

 

I stupidly clicked the link to see more of the paper. The shadier side is corporate and state lobbyists probably rigged some of the "science" in this paper. The bad assumptions though were freely available if you peered down into the free figures that showed them.

An interesting note from DOE hydrogen from that page. They say today's low volume dispensed hydrogen technology could deliver at $10-$16/gge (that is what California and japan are building with subsidies of $1.4M-$6M / stat). They estimate high volume production at $5-$7.50/kg (you build a a station like that and with current fleet projections it will cost around $100/kg before subsidies ;-)) Their goal is to figure out how to get the high volume down below $4/kg - but as california builds stations from the california reports needed subsidies are much higher than they estimated even in 2015. Those station costs need to contribute to the cost of hydrogen if they are to be built without hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies. The good news is the cost of making 100K run of fuel cells is now low enough - estimated at under $6000 for fuel cells the size in the mirai. Japan may pay for such a run in the early 2020s.

The miracles are needed in fuel costs and tank bulk. The honda clarity is packaged about as well as you can using today's technology, but the tanks take up a lot more room than the batteries in the long range tesla model 3. Despite the clarity 8" longer and 1.4" taller the tesla trunks are 3 cubic feet bigger and head room and front seat leg room is better in the tesla, but that extra clarity length does buy 1.5" of extra rear leg room (something people don't usually care about. Some drones and toys are now using metal hydride storage for hydrogen, and breakthroughs here may allow for smaller, better shaped tanks and lower costs to distribute hydrogen. The tanks in the mirai or clarity are estimated to cost about $4000 in volume and that will go down in a decade with carbon fiber technology, but metal hydride tanks would cost in the tens of thousands today.

This is an old assumption about how heavy batteries are, how big they are, and how little you can put in a car. I believe the original assumptions were made in the 1990s, assuming battery progress would not continue. It is a sure thing that a long range BEV will be heavier than an equivalent short range one, and weight does increase rolling resistance which reduces fuel efficiency. How much can easily be seen ;-)
Compare Side-by-Side


The 900 lb heavier model S 100d gets 101 mpge in the city while the long range model 3 gets 136 (and a dual motor model 3 with the smaller 50 kwh pack will do even better). On the highway though that added weight doesn't make nearly the difference. Here aerodynamics are important and that heavier pack doesn't make much of a difference. The cells in a model 3 are 70 millimeters long, and I will guess doubling the pack would add about 85 millimeters in height to the car or 3.4" that will slightly hurt aerodynamics adding about 6% to drag all things being equal. In today's tech it might add 1000 lbs, or increase rolling resistance by 25%. In my guestimates this would drop mpge from 130 to about 104, and give about 500 miles in range. Wait 10 years, and that 161 kwh would probably only be 300 lbs heavier than today's long range pack ;-) For reference the mirai is 240 heavier than a tesla model 3.

The bolt does slightly worse at 128 mpge in the city despite being lighter, but really that is not a difference many will notice. All things are not equal here ;-) The model 3 is much more aerodynamic so it is 12% more efficient on the highway.

 

This kinda reminds me of a George Carlin routine, the big bands are back, but there's no place for them to play.

 

2040 is only 22 years out, so we do know a lot of things about a future that close. We know that certain assumptions made in the 1970s-1990s are false.

1) We will not hit peak oil by 2020 because technology will not be able to find more. We may be at peak oil today, because efficiency and alternatives (like plug-ins, non-petroleum plastics, and biofuels) may counter higher oil consumption.

2) 100 mile bevs are not good enough, and 300 mile bevs are not impossible or too expensive.

3) Nuclear power will not become extremely cheap and provide nearly free energy to produce hydrogen.

This makes certain assumptions like the willingness for large car markets (china is number 1, north america is number 2) to subsidize hundreds of billions of dollars of the development of hydrogen fueling infrastructure. Japan and Hawaii being islands with shorter fueling requirements may do this. The government of texas and US have not been able to actually fix I35 through austin in the last 35 years (highway runs from mexico through Minnesota). The odds of government across north america and china to build a much more elaborate hydrogen fueling system in 22 years with no plans today is an easy one. It simply won't happen. California passed a law in 2004 to build a 100 station hydrogen highway with lots of federal and state money. They added more money 4 years ago. in these 17 years they have only built 31 retail fueling locations. What are the odds in 17 more years there are 10,000 hydrogen stations in the US enough for people to feel comfortable to be able to fill up for a nationwide rollout. I would say odds are far less than 1%. For china its even worse.

 

I'm still waiting on the promised ubiquitous practical/affordable jet pack . . . . .
& my favorite "in just 10 years" ..... the flying car;












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One of those flying cars would have done great in a densely populated place like Lagos.

Ambulance services would ha e being OK with this.

Can you image how many people die daily or so, because ambulance services or vehicles have to stay in gridlocks for hours?

 

This is why locally we have helicopters to rush people to the hospital. Helicopters don't need runway to land to pick people up. Flying cars help with long range in less congested areas. Too many and you have air traffic issues.

For hill - this american start up has been purchased by geely - the chinese multinational that owns lotus and volvo.
TF-X
That means pockets and automotive knowledge are probably good enough to build luxury flying cars ;-) This has folding wings so that it will fit in a garage or city parking space. It also has incredible STOL (short take off and landing capabilities) as the electricly driven propellers can be pointed like a helicopter, then rotated to be in a plane like configuration.

I could see a zipcar like rideshare company having a fleet of these if the faa allows. LA/bay area/vegas/tahoe. It would be much more convenient than flying commercial then renting a car ;-)

 

Move away from hydrogen to a liquid hydrocarbon for the fuel, and FCEVs become easier to sell.
Nissan's FCEV uses ethanol.

The Bolt is a boxy hatchback that is likely heavier than the Ioniq Electric because of the bigger battery with liquid cooling.