Hypx

From a theoretical standpoint, you don't need to worry about that. You can conceive of metal hydrides or other forms of dense hydrogen storage. Even as LH₂, you're still looking at around 2700 Wh/L of energy. That's well beyond any known rechargeable battery.

And the "special alloys" really just mean certain types of steel alloy, and "nonmetal materials" really mean certain types of plastics. This is not a big challenge.

You still need very low temperatures and exotic materials for superconducting cables. Not to mention the power generation needed to sustain that level of power draw. This is a long-term problem that we're nowhere near solving.

As I said before, this is not a race and there is no finish line. There's nothing stopping fuel cell cars from displacing EVs at an arbitrary point in the future.

Hydrogen energy density is around 39,000 Wh/kg. That's rarely going to the limiting factor. The physical limitations are nearly the same as natural gas, which is to say they are easily solvable. Superconducting wires will have their own major issues that are a long ways away from being solved.

In reality, we're nearly at the point where hydrogen is a solved problem, but batteries will be a very long ways away from being a car for everyone. In particular, you've ignored the limits on battery energy density which will likely limit battery powered cars to either expensive luxury cars or short-ranged urban cars.

Those losses can be made much less than that. Theoretical minimal losses are on the order of 1-2kWh per kg, and in practice not much more than that[1]. Further efficiency improvements can get reality even closer to theoretical.

Most of these arguments are increasingly outdated, as I mentioned before. We're at the point where hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent on hydrogen right now[2]. So naysayers are more accurately described as being out of touch with latest events and not people with any special knowledge.

[1] https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/9013_energy_requirement...

[2] https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2020/7/8/europe-unveils-pl...

There's nothing stopping FCEVs from being as efficient as BEVs. Even now, huge improvements are being found like 90% efficient electrolysis[1]. Future improvements in hydrogen and fuel cell technology could close the gap entirely.

Like I said, you're repeating many arguments that are a mirror of the arguments made against BEVs. It's pretty ridiculous to just repeat anti-EVs for something else while being pro-EVs.

The other thing is that this viewpoint is increasingly outdated. A lot of these "facts" date to the 2010s or earlier. These are more inline with a person being out of touch than someone that is informed.

[1] https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/03/20210307-topsoe.htm...

You can't build a "lead" as if this was a race. For one thing, there's no finish line. There's nothing stopping fuel cell cars from having their own technology revolution and a S-curve like adoption curve that displaces everything else. This could happen ever after EVs "win" over internal combustion so to speak. It's fully possible that EVs are still on-track to being replaced no matter what happens next.

The other thing is that we still have to pay attention to fundamental limitations. There are hard limits to battery energy density that likely to never be crossed. Extremely fast-charging will probably always be limited by its high power power draw. Meanwhile, fuel cell technology is advancing extremely quickly in its own right. We could be seeing fuel cell cars that cost as much as a Corolla[1], and cost only $1.5/kg[2] to refuel (or about 2-3¢ per mile). In a world were fuel cell cars cost <$20k and are cheaper to run than EVs, while also delivering 400 miles of range and 5-minute refueling times, EVs quickly lose much of their luster.

[1] https://www.thedrive.com/tech/26050/exclusive-toyota-hydroge...

[2] https://renewablesnow.com/news/nel-aiming-at-green-hydrogen-...

Yes, but people get confused. Hence why EVs should be referred to as BEVs, and fuel cell cars as FCEVs.

The fundamental problem is that EVs might be doomed once fuel cell cars come around. Nearly all of the criticism of this argument are just a mirror of the arguments against EVs (often made by pro-EV people no less).

So the real misunderstanding isn't with anti-EV people, but with pro-EV denying that there's a future beyond EVs.

This is such a bland take these days. Basically every EV owner says the exact same thing. Do any EV owners ever ask themselves "What if I were wrong?" Or better yet, ask themselves "What is the scenario where I am wrong?" The answers to those questions will be much more interesting.

They certainly could. We just live in the pre-"Model T" era of fuel cell cars.

It's been done for decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_hydrogen_storage

It's pretty well-established tech at this point.

It's underground salt caverns. This is extremely feasible and has been done for decades with natural gas.

Hydrogen could achieve something like 84.8 PWh: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/06/16/hydrogen-storage-in-s...

While it's unlikely to reach this value, it's such a high figure that actually can solve the energy storage problem altogether.

Internal combustion could be with us for a long time.

And what if fuel cell electric vehicles became the future? Wouldn't you have completely gotten it wrong?

The tanks are physically smaller than batteries. The limitation is with packaging, not the technology itself. Future fuel cell cars with just have multiple small tanks instead of a few big ones.

The Mirai is a much larger car than the Model 3.

You still have nickel and manganese. Plus secondary metals like copper and tin for the electronics.

You should google the Riversimple Rasa. Hydrogen cars can be made far lighter than EVs.

There now exists hydrogen burning internal combustion engines. It raises the question of how important is the need for a liquid hydrocarbon fuel.

As opposed to being a luddite?

These inefficiencies aren't a big deal, and as I said they'll continue to shrink.

People are also totally unaware of just how much progress is being made. There's a global rush to deploy as much hydrogen infrastructure as possible right now. Too bad some pro-EV people still think it's the year 2015.

Like everything you said in this conversation, you drastically exaggerate the inefficiencies of fuel cells. In practice, batteries and fuel cells are already close enough that it has ceased to be a major roadblock.

Fuel cells getting more efficient and cheaper is pretty much a default assumption. The only thing that's quasi-religious are the supposedly "pro-environment" people that strongly disagree with the idea of a green technology getting better. It's frankly a cult of batteries, and more than anything they're out of touch with reality.

The problem with EVs is that fuel cells are also real, and already viable and interesting. If EV fans actually paid attention, they'd realize we're heading towards a disruption event and prepare according.

Your own driving needs are not everyone else's drivers needs. 20 supercharger uses per year means you wasted more time than refueling a gasoline car 40 times a year. Fuel cell cars that can do both would be more convenient than either.

Fuel cells of the future will also be superior to fuel cells of today. That likely includes a dramatic increase in efficiency that will great reduce or eliminate this issue.

If you can electrolyze water at home, the compression step is not a hard problem anymore. This is more trolling than a serious counterargument. Alternatively, you can have hydrogen piped to the house instead of home electrolysis.

You should understand that fuel cells will continue to improve in efficiency. 40% today will mean 50% tomorrow, and likely 60% at some point in the future. Losses for transport and compression of hydrogen is a surprisingly small amount. In fact, its more efficient to pipe hydrogen over long distances than to transmit electricity. In additional, you can always reuse the heat in either CHP or thermal energy recapture.

It's also important to realize that the electric grid is not perfectly efficient, nor is charging a battery. You're likely to lose around 30% to these types of losses. This figure is going to get worse once grid energy storage and long-distance power transfer become necessary. Combined with your 15% loss pushing the extra battery weight and it really does start to add up. Worse if you look at cold weather performance. The notion that fuel cells can never match batteries on efficiency is a very short-term worldview.

> Its a a series of pumps, filter and tubes, and that is if we don't consider the tank. All of that is IN ADDITION to everything a normal EV also has.

As if battery powered cars have no pumps, filters and tubes... And a tank is literally just a tank, with no complexity inside it. It allows you reduce the amount of batteries you need to carry by nearly 2 orders of magnitude. This is a significant reduction in cost and complexity.

> Look at this simple design, I'm sure they can't wait until they can finally mass produce it, so easy: https://global.toyota/pages/news/images/2020/12/09/1200/005....

You see a battery in the back, 3 hydrogen tanks, and the fuel cell stack in front. This is in fact quite simple.

> And every car maker disagrees with you that it doesn't cost much.

Most car makers have never even bothered to look seriously at fuel cell cars. The only companies that did think they can make one for the same cost as a Corolla. That should tell you something.

> Maybe in some future it can be built as cheap as you say, but not now. So you would really have to compare it to some future EV as well.

> Fuel cell have been studied for 60 years, and their efficiency is still not good. Li-Ion has made far more progress in far less time and is still improving significantly year over year. Nobody has announced anything close to that in terms of improvement for fuel cells.

> And even if there were such announcements, there is still a long way to go for fuel cells to catch up to current battery tech.

The problem is that you're just stuck in the past. Fuel cells have advanced to the point where they are a disruptive threat to battery electric cars. The notion that batteries have some massive lead is a claim completely at odds with reality. You're going to see cheap, long-ranged fuel cell cars in the coming few years. Due to advances in hydrogen related technology, batteries will lose every single advantage they enjoy, including the ability to refuel at home and cost per mile of driving. That is a big problem that battery powered cars will face.

Unless you need to drive beyond the limits of your battery, at which point a gasoline powered vehicle makes more sense. I get the feeling your belief system is a post hoc rationalization since you’re just ignoring a major use case.

If it really bothers you, then you probably be able to refuel your fuel cell car at home at some point in the future. So you can avoid the refueling station altogether with fuel cell cars too.

Why not? A company called Lavo is selling such a thing right now.

You should realize that weight steals from your efficiency. A fuel cell can be less efficiency, but still gets you a similar distance on the same amount of energy.

If you can accept that a fuel cell car can match a battery powered one on efficiency, then it’s conceivable that it can be as cheap to drive too.

Again, either with drivers or geofenced.

That's just a big pile of misinformation. A fuel cell is pretty simple device. It's literally a type of battery not much different than a li-ion battery. The "complexity " you speak of is just a series of pumps and filters. Those cost nearly nothing and weigh very little.

A fuel cell cad is likely to eventually cost the same as a Toyota Corolla while also allowing for gasoline-like refueling time and range.

Finally, there's no reason for a fuel cell to be similar as efficient as a battery powered car. As I said, it's technically a type of battery. If your going to talk about batteries of the future, you also have to talk about fuel cells of the future.

You can probably refuel a hydrogen car at home eventually too. The problem with electric cars is that there's not a single thing that fuel cell cars can't replicate.

The breakthrough might just be hydrogen fuel cells getting efficient enough that it's no longer an issue.

Eventually, you want the ownership experience of the gasoline car without the emissions. So much of the argument against them are short-term only. You have to assume there will be fuel cell cars that are fast and desirable as the technology improves.