I was wondering what the general thoughts on hydrogen cars becoming the future of motoring? My thoughts on this are why would the car companies be chucking bucket loads of cash at developing electric models and why are none of the big forecourt owners investing in hydrogen filling facilities? Is it because the technology is not ready for mass roll outs or is it a financial thing? I can see it serving a use for the commercial sector , but not if you can’t fill up anywhere, the last I heard was there are less than 20 places in the Uk that you can fill up with hydrogen, so what are your thoughts?
Electric versus Hydrogen?
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green hydrogen needs 3 times more eletricity to make, harder to transport, can't make hydrogen at home and so on... also what is more rare platinum or lithium ? 
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Hydrogen is just to inefficient, also an expensive network needs rolling out for it. the cars themselves are complex and contaminated air can destroy the fuel cell. Hydrogen is made from fossil fuels so not clean, if made from waste electric ie idle wind turbines it would be needed for industry. Its really the fossil fuels companies keeping skin in the game
FYI - Shell have removed the hydrogen pumps from the 3 sites they run that had them, like Cobham Services.
There are now only 8 places in the country you can fill a vehicle with it. Of those, 3 are in London and 2 are in Aberdeen (one of which has been broken for ages).
TL;DR = Hydrogen in cars is dead.
There are now only 8 places in the country you can fill a vehicle with it. Of those, 3 are in London and 2 are in Aberdeen (one of which has been broken for ages).
TL;DR = Hydrogen in cars is dead.
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Toyota Mirai customers in the US - all on lease, were demanding release from their contracts at one point.
You have to ask yourself if you are prepared to pay to charge an electric car, or buy hydrogen for x3 times the price. You can think about it another way: three times the generating capacity required, 3 times the windfarms or solar farms required to support EVs.
Even lorry and bus manufacturers have started to drop hydrogen. Transport companies are very cost concious, and they want electric.
Hydrogen has a bright future, but not in road transport.
You have to ask yourself if you are prepared to pay to charge an electric car, or buy hydrogen for x3 times the price. You can think about it another way: three times the generating capacity required, 3 times the windfarms or solar farms required to support EVs.
Even lorry and bus manufacturers have started to drop hydrogen. Transport companies are very cost concious, and they want electric.
Hydrogen has a bright future, but not in road transport.
An alternative to fuel cell is burning hydrogen in a diesel engine. This is the approach being taken by JCB development. But this brings all the disadvantages of hydrogen mentioned above and pairs it with the disadvantages of internal combustion engines to further reduce the overall efficiency. Plus it loses the “just water released” benefit because combustion inevitably produces some NOx emissions, no matter what Bamford claim.
it’s also worth noting filling a hydrogen car can take a long time because everything is VERY cold so the equipment ices up.This can prevent disconnecting the hose for quite a while and the filling station plant can need extended periods, maybe 40 minutes, between fills - that’s probably a worst case scenario but it still shoots a hole* through one of the most significant claimed advantages.
*Don’t shoot a hole through a hydrogen tank
it’s also worth noting filling a hydrogen car can take a long time because everything is VERY cold so the equipment ices up.This can prevent disconnecting the hose for quite a while and the filling station plant can need extended periods, maybe 40 minutes, between fills - that’s probably a worst case scenario but it still shoots a hole* through one of the most significant claimed advantages.
*Don’t shoot a hole through a hydrogen tank
Facebook would say otherwise with the army of informed users all proclaiming that EVs are dead and hydrogen is coming soon on every single EV advert/post.
Oh and various people I know too who like to make the point that they're waiting for Hydrogen cars whenever we happen to talk about cars and it moves to EVs.
I think the discussion (or belief that hydrogen is the magic bullet) is barmy, and it all seems to come down to a percieved issue of range and charging times with BEVs (or really charger availability). I think people genuinely believe that you can just substitute hydrogen for petrol in their existing engines and carry on
It's exactly that, the thinking that it'll just be a lift and shift.
I just don't engage in the conversation anymore, they'll soon find out.
This kind of thread keeps appearing in various social media outlets. Usually because the attraction of a clean steam exhaust pipe, linked to fast filling, resonates with people. People who have done little research before submitting their questions. But a deeper investigation always shows that for use in the domestic car fleet it's a pipe dream that has no financial or logistic basis to support the idea. And this isn't the usual chicken/egg issue either. No serious investment source will consider dropping £shedloads to install even a token network of filling stations after they have done a modicum of research and due diligence. And no serious OEM will invest £shedloads in producing cars without that happening. Non starter.
Even in long-distance goods transport it's a long way from ideal and already truck manufacturers are looking more favourably at battery swaps. When used in depot-to-depot routes that makes more sense, and can turn a vehicle around in minutes. Meanwhile, EV vans and trucks with 200 miles range can easily carry out normal local deliveries and fleet managers are already well aware of their normal daily mileages and can procure vehicles to operate within those needs. Overnight charging at the depot becoming the norm.
There may be a valid use in aviation and shipping of course. But in the long run I fully expect governments to begin to water down their zero-emission zeal and find a way to fudge this aspect to allow sustainably produced biofuel to continue to be used for aviation and shipping - purely on economic grounds. Because the sheer cost of H2 could cripple that segment of the market.
There may also be a case to be made to use H2 as an energy storage medium when there is an excess production problem. A nice problem to have of course and it could solve the 'use it or lose it' conundrum from time to time. But then again, advances in battery storage systems are starting to make even that less attractive.
I expect that the fossil fuel lobby will not let this drop any time soon. And much depends on how naive government planners are to these approaches.
I do wonder how many of these threads begin in the PR department of oil companies.
After all, it's them who are literally begging governments for handouts to make "green" hydrogen.
Or synthetic fuel/e-fuels - alot of people hanging onto these also
"e-fuels" usually rely on food crops like soya, which should be used to feed people, not vehicles.
I'd say it the ratio approaches100%. It's just classic astro turfing, something dino juice companies are very good at
Thank you for all your interesting replies, as I find lots of anti ev people always say hydrogen is the future, but now I have read all your comments its blatantly obvious that isn’t the case, and you have now provided me with knowledge to counteract the pro hydrogen arguments in the future.
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The short answer is using hydrogen is inefficient compared to BEV, therefore BEV wins.
The long answer is
--BEV already has too much of a headstart
--Hydrogen cars aren't even in development, Toyota has one for race cars, but doesn't seem serious about it
--Overall, hydrogen cars are worse for the environment for now because not much hydrogen is green and it is less efficient
--No infrastructure, expensive to develop
I can't understand how people find the charge times on EVs an argument for H cars.
The time you save by not having to pass by a petrol station every X days is enormous.
Let's suppose the average driver does 18000 km per year with a consumption of 6 litres / 100 km and a tank of 50 litres they fill up when it's down to 10 litres.
This person consumes 1080 litres of petrol. Divided by 40 litres this means they need to go to a petrol station 27 times per year.
Between detour, waiting, filling up and paying it's at least 10 minutes per refill, so 270 minutes.
That's 4.5 hours of your time down the drain. What a waste!
If you're someone who doesn't do > 300 km per day on a regular basis, charge times for an EV are 10 seconds per day. 5 to plug in, 5 to unplug.
EVs are real time savers....
The time you save by not having to pass by a petrol station every X days is enormous.
Let's suppose the average driver does 18000 km per year with a consumption of 6 litres / 100 km and a tank of 50 litres they fill up when it's down to 10 litres.
This person consumes 1080 litres of petrol. Divided by 40 litres this means they need to go to a petrol station 27 times per year.
Between detour, waiting, filling up and paying it's at least 10 minutes per refill, so 270 minutes.
That's 4.5 hours of your time down the drain. What a waste!
If you're someone who doesn't do > 300 km per day on a regular basis, charge times for an EV are 10 seconds per day. 5 to plug in, 5 to unplug.
EVs are real time savers....
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