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Comment by rbf | Hacker News Reader

Interesting read. I don't have high hopes for hydrogen cars as batteries seems to solve the range problem adequately for most scenarios, and it's easier to build charging stations than hydrogen filling infrastructure. However, for planes it seems that the advantage of low weight is a necessity to electrification. I wonder if the future will be (mostly) electric road transport and hydrogen air transport.

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Agreed on the perspective regarding hydrogen cars - I never quite figured out the thought process behind trying to make an experimental platform of that type into a mass-consumer product. I mean, I guess it makes environmental sense but the R&D path seemed so long and trying that EVs & hybrids really had a lot of growing up time in parallel.

For me I was always more interested in a turbine system for cars that would use an advanced biofuel (ex: eventual algae-based fuel) which would power electric systems (wheel motors, some batteries, KERS) and sort of convert they existing infrastructure into a more modern one - tanks, pumps, etc.

Even from an environmental perspective, hydrogen cars make little sense. Currently, hydrogen is a petroleum product. It's typically made from natural gas, and this process emits plenty of CO2 (plus all the pollution inherent in oil extraction). You can make hydrogen cleanly by using renewable electricity to power electrolysis, but nobody is doing that currently and the efficiency is terrible. You'd need three times as much generating capacity to power a fleet of hydrogen vehicles as you would to power an equivalent fleet of EVs.

I really can't figure out why Toyota is pushing them so hard.

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