I don't understand why you don't have companies like Tesla building fuel cell (hydrogen) solutions for commercial use cases. Here is an article that explains it - https://www.bmw.com/en/innovation/how-hydrogen-fuel-cell-car... If Tesla can build a super charger network, they can build a hydrogen refilling network.
jackmott42|3 years ago
Hydrogen on the other hand, is difficult to keep contained and cold enough to remain in liquid form. Even NASA who has worked with it for 50 years with massive budget and engineering expertise constantly has problems with it. For instance one of BMWs hydrogen cars you are not allowed to park in a garage! As hydrogen is expected to leak from it. And current hydrogen gas stations still suffer from this challenge.
So hydrogen fuel cells do offer the advantage of better energy density for more range, but you have the dual difficulties of 1. how do I make the hydrogen efficiently AND cleanly and then 2. the infrastructure build out is actually as hard ad EV doubter think wires are.
enragedcacti|3 years ago
That particular BMW effectively one-of-a-kind in that it is 1) internal combustion rather than fuel cell, and 2) stores its fuel as a liquid rather than a compressed gas. The liquid storage is a consequence of being ICE because it is required to get even remotely reasonable range out of something as inefficient as ICE combustion of hydrogen.
fuel cell vehicles like the Mirai still have a number of problems, but they have actually done a very good job with fuel storage and range using compressed hydrogen and don't have any of the limitations of the BMW such as leaking hydrogen or losing massive internal volume to the fuel storage.
mschuster91|3 years ago
Oh god, can that damn hydrogen hype please die out. Hydrogen has an incredible amount of conversion loss both at generation and in recombination (each step only has about 40-60% efficiency rate) compared to way over 90% for lithium based batteries. Additionally, it's fiendishly difficult to safely transport it because it's highly explosive, and it will slowly leak out wherever it can.
The only place where hydrogen really has its uses is in synth-fuel applications (e.g. for airplanes) to shift these away from fossil-origin fuels, in processes where the heat of a burning flame is required and as raw material in chemical processes. Hydrogen generation capacity is incredibly scarce, we should reserve it for those processes that literally cannot use any alternative.
_hypx|3 years ago
People are starting to realize that most of the criticisms are literally just made-up bullshit from EV fanatics and were never true. The most notable example is the safety issue. Hydrogen is straight-up safer to deal with than lithium in a car. EV fans were just lying about this subject the entire time, and in fact you want a hydrogen car because it is outright a safer type of car.
drexlspivey|3 years ago
sidcool|3 years ago
qubex|3 years ago