With all of the EV talk, another car of the future being introduced to the public seems to have been missed.
https://www.hyundaiusa.com/nexo/index.aspx
And I know these really exist, as we have one in our garage here at research. Like Fusion reactors, these were always 10 years out, until now. Granted, it's a very limited release, and only in California, but IMHO, it's a pretty big deal. Bigger than grid tied EVs, these EVs should be able to be refueled a lot easier.
That's pretty neat, and it comes with 3 years/$13K in free fuel as well. Seems like the times, they are a changin.
Fuel cells are cool. For them to be anything more than a novelty, they're really, really going to have to expand their fueling infrastructure. Every house/business has electricity, and fueling stations are widespread, even for a less common fuel like diesel.
Meanwhile this is every hydrogen fueling station in North America according to the Department of Energy:
I think it would take decades to get any kind of broad hydrogen fueling infrastructure in place, and it's a bit of a "chicken/egg" scenario as nobody wants to buy a fuel cell vehicle that they can't refuel conveniently, and nobody wants to spend piles of money on a hydrogen fueling station when there are a very small handful of vehicles that could take advantage of it.
There are some long haul trucks on the horizon that are fuel cell powered, and something like that could be the catalyst for a more nationwide distribution network. But there's still a lot of "what if" involved and it will take mountains of money and some time to bring it to reality. And simply existing isn't enough either. Once the tech exists and is widely available, it still has to make financial sense in order to gain market share over other fuel types.
Honda has had their Clarity out since 2008. No one talks about them either.
You would think that with Hydrogen being the most common element in the universe it would the direction we would head.
In reply to STM317 :
Given that right now, the electrical infrastructure also needs billions of dollars for upkeep and upgrade, well....
In reply to alfadriver :
That's a pretty regional thing though, depending on the equipment involved and demand in the area. Changes and improvements will only help, but the "EVs are going to crash the electrical infrastructure" argument seems overblown. For the most part, we've got enough power now, we just have to be more deliberate about where/when we're sending that power:
Yale provides a fairly unbiased look that gives good details for different regions
This study claims that if all ICEs were magically transformed into EVs overnight, the grid would be ok nearly everywhere (so long as they're charged during off peak hours). Obviously, that's a worst case scenario from a grid perspective, and it would take decades to get to a point where the fleet is entirely BEVs. It also doesn't seem to take into account that all BEVs wouldn't need to charge at the same time, just as all ICEs don't currently need to fuel at the same time.
In reply to STM317 :
How about we just agree to disagree. I currently don't see real solutions to EV's being as widespread as everyone thinks they will be- I've seen what real high power looks like when it was melting dirt, and that's a massive drain on the electrical grid. Also, when we were asked last summer to turn up our A/C to make sure there are no failures to the power grid system, I get a strong idea that it's not nearly as robust as people think, let alone the massive black out we had a decade ago, or the huge time it took to rebuild the system after hurricanes.
I very much see that fuel cells, where you have a chemical potential energy vs. electric as a much more robust solution. I very much see that you disagree, and we will just leave it at that. I'll not degrade EV as much as I can, but toting EV's so much does take away from the significant tech that Hyundai has put into production and for sale. This is a huge deal.
BTW, doing the math on how many cars are out there, and how long they last, and how much cost it wil be to maintain them, many, many, many decades before EITHER BEVs or Fuel Cells will totally displace ICEs. I very much don't see the ICE being totally displaced within my lifetime. Even if the population of cars 100% changed next year, it will take 3-4 decades to replace all of the fleet- as a lot of the cars permanently taken off the road are due to accidents, not them wearing out- and with a large population of new cars out there (16-20M new cars every years), well.... Just look at Copart.
The whole thing is very interesting. The fleet in California is just a pilot, and you can lease a Honda, Toyota and Hyundai. Speaking of Hyundai the entire country of Korea is going all in on a Hydrogen infrastructure (starting with a few key cities then expanding). This will be a nice test case and prove out how the convergence of transportation, utilities and HVAC is possible.
In the US the infrastructure is definitely the barrier, and the investment that goes with it. Getting hydrogen from green sources vs grey is also a key to making a solid impact from a CO2 standpoint. Gut feel is that large scale adoption is 10+ years out, but there will be some big moves on the global scale in the meantime.
From a EV and grid perspective, there are definitely pockets of "just fine" and others that will be massive panic. I can cite a specific case for a city bus depot to go all electric it needed a full utility scale transmission line to feed it. That's a high ticket item. Not impossible, just full of interesting challenges when you get into the details. Things like utility infrastructure (transmission, distribution, renewable energy sources, storage, green hydrogen) are all building blocks for the next phase of "regular life." IMO
I'd heard about some research into fuel cells that would just make electricity out of gasoline. I wonder what happened to those?
The problem is hydrogen is not really a fuel like gasoline or diesel because of the energy it takes to create it. It is better to think of it as a battery since it really is just an energy storage mechanism. Hydrogen is made from natural gas for the most part (as far as I know). You can create it from electrolysis of water, but that takes energy that has to come from somewhere. So, in the end, the EROI is less than one for hydrogen as a car 'fuel' at least for now and I don't see that changing. I have not followed any developments in the tech for years since the last time I looked at it, it seemed to be an obviously bad idea. Things may have changed, I don't know.
I would love to have a natural gas fueled fuel cell whole house generator, but I don't want a fuel cell powered car.
In reply to alfadriver :
I want to make it clear that I don't really disagree with you. The tech is cool. The upside of hydrogen is great. We're seeing more and more money poured into fuel cell development (including from my employer), and that's probably a good thing. I just don't think it's anywhere near feasible at this point in time, and I'm willing to admit that there are significant societal and financial hurdles in place that will make it difficult to ever be feasible. That doesn't mean I'm anti-hydrogen, or I want it to fail, or that I'm championing BEVs over fuel cells. It just means I don't see it as the best current option.
At this point in time, BEVs and fuel cell vehicles both tend to cost more to purchase than an ICE of similar size/features. With a BEV, you see fuel savings through the use of cheaper electricity, and should eventually come out ahead in the financial math. With a fuel cell vehicle, you pay more upfront, and then continue to pay more for the hydrogen fuel (current cost is roughly equivalent to $5.60/gal). I think there's going to have to be a really big change in hydrogen production to bring the cost/mile in line with electricity before fuel cells have any chance of seeing mass adoption.
As pointed out, Honda and Toyota have been doing the same thing for several years (offering very limited access to fuel cell vehicles in CA only). I commend Hyundai for their efforts, but what's so revolutionary about it vs what's already on the market? It's not even the first time that Hyundai has offered a fuel cell powered CUV in CA.
MadScientistMatt said:I'd heard about some research into fuel cells that would just make electricity out of gasoline. I wonder what happened to those?
The natural gas ones exist (solid oxide fuel cells) and Bloom Energy factory is right up the road from us. They work great for backup power and for off grid. They still produce emissions, so if carbon neutrality is the goal its not as good a step forward.
H2 really shines if there is ever enough renewable infrastructure that gas convrsion through electrolysis is economical (10+ years likely) and it can be used as a storage medium for excess grid generation instead of curtailment.
waiting patiently for a "Halo" fuel cell ev to really show the performance possible
There is a hydrogen fill up station about a mile from my house and another one about 3 miles in the other direction.
This might be the only place in the country that they are so close but one is across the street from Toyota headquarters ( it moved to Texas) and Honda headquarters is a mile from there.
It's a good idea for someplace that has extra electricity to make the hydrogen , too much solar , wind or hydro sometimes .
Hope they figure out the problems in the near future.
Has anyone mentioned that Honda is finally more or less giving up on fuel cell cars and bringing BEVs to market? It has always been a non-starter because of the infrastructure requirements. Don't take my word for it, just look at the map. Noone started! Most electric grid operators are for-profit. If they need to adapt to EV proliferation then they basically have the option to either A: f*%&^ing do it, or B: Go out of business. Every industry cries wolf about everything that asks them to change faster than they're comfortable with, and in the end hardly anyone ever actually packs up and goes home, and they somehow mysteriously end up profitable year after year and insurmountable hurdle after insurmountable hurdle. Like clockwork. This is not to belittle the efforts of the individuals who make that possible, just the constant whining and threats from industry about anything that forces them to modify the business model they were happily milking.
Anyway, fuel cell development for the automakers is going to be a lot like Uber in the sense that the actual end application will not be the same way it was incubated. Those technologies will be sold and licensed for other applications that won't involve powering normal cars for normal people, and whoever holds those cards will name their price for a good long while.
To your point warehouse applications (forklift) and long haul trucking are the likely early volume targets. Cummins is going banannas investing.
I think city buses will be a big player , they go "home" to the same place every night unlike Long haul truckers.
Where does the hydrogen come from? Does it get trucked in or does a piece of equipment make it on site when you want it? I know very little about it.
In reply to californiamilleghia :
That makes a lot of sense . We're currently buying straight electric buses and they're pretty impressive. If we could replace the batteries with fuel cells I'm guessing it would make refueling smoother than the current plan of putting in dozens of chargers.
In reply to Wally :
It's typically trucked in, but can be made on site. Making hydrogen currently requires a complex, energy intensive process. 95% of hydrogen fuel produced comes from steam reforming natural gas at the moment. Basically, you use energy to make steam, mix in some natural gas, use more energy to heat up that mixture and cause chemical reactions (hydrogen is formed as a result), and then let it cool and condense to be filtered, transported, etc.
Toyman01 said:Honda has had their Clarity out since 2008. No one talks about them either.
You would think that with Hydrogen being the most common element in the universe it would the direction we would head.
Pure hydrogen is pretty dang hard to come by on Earth. We get it by disassembling other molecules, which means we're spending more energy to make it than we can get out of it. And it's kind of a bastard to try to store, in quantities large enough to be worthwhile as a motor fuel.
Yes. Hydrogen takes more energy to make and compress than we can get out of it by burning or in a fuel cell. Hydrogen molecules are tiny and will leak out of their storage tank. It is not a good idea for automotive applications and I cannot fathom why any of the car companies are spending any money on it at all.
T.J. said:Yes. Hydrogen takes more energy to make and compress than we can get out of it by burning or in a fuel cell. Hydrogen molecules are tiny and will leak out of their storage tank. It is not a good idea for automotive applications and I cannot fathom why any of the car companies are spending any money on it at all.
It's because carmakers hope hydrogen cells can use the existing gas station structure- EV recharge stations can literally be tossed anywhere there's enough power to generate, i.e. a few acres of empty space you can drop a solar cell and a battery of some form.
Another detail that doesn't get talked about with fuel cells is their lifetime- Per battery University, a fuel cell stack only lives for 4,000-5,000 hours. Eventually the reactive metallic 'salts' just don't give up the hydrogen ion anymore and stop working completely instead of degrading. Worse yet, they're never really *not* working- hydrogen will always sneak though unless caught in powerful magnetic fields. Couple that with the fact the cars like the Mirai having to pressurize it in tanks over 10,000PSI and said tanks only having a lifetime of 10-15 years as well, and the fact they're still a battery electric vehicle at their core, and anyone can see fuel cells are a non-starter.
This paper from 2016 states their service life is 75,000 miles for commercial vehicles.
The point of using it is that it's a pretty universal answer across a few different applications. Sure it has it's technical hurdles, but most things do. The way the auto industry is dealing with gasoline evap is a sign of things to come, and makes the leap to hydrogen not quite as large as one might think.
It all starts to make sense when you can start making the hydrogen from very very low cost electricity (large renewable infrastructure) and leveraging it. Not now, not soon, but eventually.
Paul_VR6 said:The point of using it is that it's a pretty universal answer across a few different applications. Sure it has it's technical hurdles, but most things do. The way the auto industry is dealing with gasoline evap is a sign of things to come, and makes the leap to hydrogen not quite as large as one might think.
It all starts to make sense when you can start making the hydrogen from very very low cost electricity (large renewable infrastructure) and leveraging it. Not now, not soon, but eventually.
But there's another problem there. Hydrogen vehicles are always battery-powered, since the fuel cell has to dump it's energy somewhere before it's use. Problem is, per this paper, electrolysis is over $10/kilogram of hydrogen as the process requires a LOT of electricity- and at that point, why not just dump the straight power into your electro-car battery instead? You're otherwise just adding another step.
In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
Exactly - hydrogen is just a way of making a "fast fill battery". It did make sense to pursue 20 years ago, but battery and charging tech has improved a lot since then, and is getting better.
Electrolysis cost reduction curve is quite steep, can't find a source but I have seen it. Apra-E maybe.
One good thought experiment is imagine that there are no fossil fuels (extreme long term energy storage). What kind of things would that need to drive long term? Think of hydrogen as an energy storage medium that you can actually stand up in a reasonable timeframe. It could be part of a much larger picture, one with many possible solutions.
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