And where are you going to fill it up? Where can you drive to?

Right now they have fill up stations in the LA area and Silicon Valley. Fill up's are part of the $499 per month. I imagine that there was the same issue with the first gasoline car.

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''Sweeney - you can both crush your AG *and* cruise in dead last!! 😂 '' Murphy's Law

I'm not a big car guy, so I may be off-base with this...but I thought Honda had a hydrogen car, the FCX Clarity. If I recall correctly, they started leasing a limited number of them in Southern California in ~2008. It seems if it were a massive game changer they'd have started to take off and at least spread into additional "select cities" by this point in time. This looks cool and promising with the Hyundai, but I have to wonder why there's not more traction beyond Cali after 8 years, especially since people seem beyond geeked about Tesla & this seems more convenient with the fill-up time (but not so with the current infrastructure for filling up).

Per the link:

Acceleration (0-62 mph):
12.5 sec




ouch! Don't think Tesla is going to be sweating anytime soon.

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There are three kinds of people, those who can count, and those who can't.

I can only speak for me, but if I can have a car that puts out oxygen and I can fill it up easily I don't care how long it takes to get to highway speed

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

The car outputs water. But right now the Hydrogen comes 95% from natural gas reforming. So really its still fossil fuel powered.

You can get Hydrogen from electrolysis, but it is pretty inefficient. You can go roughly twice as far on the same amount of electricity if you just put it in a battery EV.

Or just get a Chevy Volt. I get 55-65 miles on the battery, then generator kicks in. 95% of our driving with the Volt is on electricity now. As for charging, I charge overnight. With all electric cars with 200 plus range, if you plug at home every night, you will have a full charge in the morning.

Lots of questions regarding hydrogen vehicles.

Where is the hydrogen going to come from?

Natural gas? That doesn't seem very "green".

Use electrolysis and get it from water? How much power will that take and how will it be generated?

How will we get the hydrogen to the filling facility? Pipeline or truck? If truck, will it be compressed and chilled to liquid first? That's pretty energy intensive.

Fuel cell vehicles were the next "big thing" when I was in university in the mid to late 90s. There's a reason they haven't taken off. See Ballard Power systems as an example.

I've bought and used fuel cells in the past. But they're best suited to stationary locations with a permanent source of fuel. IMO.

There's a hydrogen station in my town.


Ps: water vapor is a greenhouse gas. We're all going to die!!!!

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

- Chinese proverb

Best use case scenario for fuel cells is..... spacecraft. They already need O2 for the crew, need water for the crew and for cooling, add an H2 tank and get some power out of it while you are at it. It's perfect.

Yes those are all good questions. Most hydrogen production is from natural gas because of economics. Much cheaper than electrolysis. Electrolysis is very energy intensive. We spend more energy on breaking down the water than we'd ever get back from recombining H2 and O2 in a fuel cell. It's basic physics. Just like it takes more energy to charge a battery than what we can get out of the battery. The upside is of course portability/convenience. H2 would probably be transported in liquid form, in which it quickly boils off. It can't be kept around in storage for too long. The cars would certainly keep the H2 onboard in gaseous format. NO WAY you can hand over a cryogenic H2 tank to Joe Blow to drive around with.

BMW has had it since 2005 to 2007 burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine. Tested on their 7 series.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_Hydrogen_7

I know wikipedia is not a real viable source of official information but I recall the BMW from memory so a quick search brought me to this. It uses a little different technology but the same fuel source.

Forgot about the spacecraft uses. Good point.

Most of my questions were just me being a smart ass. I realize where and why we get hydrogen from the sources we do. It just appears to be very inefficient and not very green. Other than range, I don't see the huge upside for personal fuel cell vehicle applications. EVs seem like the better option if they can address the range and recharging issues.

My neighbor has worked for a fuel cell manufacturer for the last 10-15 years. They still have yet to produce a commercially viable product.

However, like I said above, I've bought and used fuel cells for my clients with great success. The primary use has been scada and valve control for remote pipeline locations.