![]() That is because of the inherent inefficiency of the entire hydrogen fuelling process, from generating the hydrogen with that electricity to transporting this diffuse gas long distances, getting the hydrogen in the car, and then running it through a fuel cell - all for the purpose of converting the hydrogen back into electricity to drive the same exact electric motor you'll find in an electric car. And this gets to the heart of why hydrogen cars would be the last car you would ever want to buy: they are wildly inefficient compared with electric cars.Įlectric cars - and plug-in hybrid cars - have an enormous advantage over hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles in utilising low-carbon electricity. OK, you say, can't hydrogen be made from carbon-free sources of power, like wind energy or nuclear? Sure, but so can electricity for electric cars. ![]() Most egregious: Where, exactly, does the Times think hydrogen comes from? Santa Claus? More than 95% of US hydrogen is made from natural gas, so running a car on hydrogen doesn't reduce net carbon dioxide emissions compared with a hybrid like the Prius running on gasoline. Is the Times unaware that electricity is pretty much available everywhere, whereas hydrogen is essentially available nowhere? Is the Times unaware that the per-mile fuel cost of an electric car is probably one-quarter that of a hydrogen fuel-cell car? Is the Times unaware that electric-car manufacturers are working on "exchangeable batteries", which would make a battery swap about as fast as it takes to refuel a car with hydrogen? The New York Times, of all places, writes:įuel cells have an advantage over electric cars, whose batteries take hours to recharge and use electricity, which, in the case of the United States, China and many other countries, is often produced by coal-burning power plants. After all, why should oil companies spend tens of billions of dollars building a hydrogen fuelling infrastructure, which at best will take away business from their tremendously profitable gasoline sales, and at worst will be a complete business loss, assuming, as now seems likely, that hydrogen cars never catch on?Īnd yet the media can't get enough of these hi-tech Edsels. ![]() As the New York Times reported, "the cars cost several hundred thousand dollars each to produce," although Honda's president Takeo Fukui "said that should drop below $100,000 in less than a decade as production volumes increase."īut why would production volumes increase for a car that delivers no real value to the consumer and has no significant societal benefit to motivate government support? Answer: they wouldn't, so prices may never drop below $100,000.Īnd who, exactly, is going to buy a car that can't easily find fuel? On the other hand, who is going to build tens of thousands of fuelling stations - price tag $2m apiece or more - until the cars are wildly successful? That is the so-called chicken-and-egg problem, which is especially acute for hydrogen. ![]()
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