OV9

Dumb question, and I could just google it but where's the fun in that - do hydrogen cars have what's approximately a normal combustion engine? Or is the hydrogen powering an EV? Or could it be either.

JonMad wrote: ↑Wed Nov 13, 2019 10:17 am Dumb question, and I could just google it but where's the fun in that - do hydrogen cars have what's approximately a normal combustion engine? Or is the hydrogen powering an EV? Or could it be either.

Very basically, you combine hydrogen with oxygen, it creates energy (heat) & water (H2O), the energy is used to create electricity which drives an electric motor.

It’s an energy source that’s been staring us in the face, but because hydrogen doesn’t exist in its elemental form on Earth, despite being the most abundant energy source in the universe, the cost of splitting it out from water has been prohibitive.

It’s best to think of it as an energy storage solution, an alternative to batteries. In an ideal world, we’d use the excess energy from wind, solar, hydro etc. that isn’t always being generated when the demand is there to generate hydrogen, which we’d then burn in fuel cells when the demand is there.

It’s a fairly efficient source of energy: hydrolysis is currently 80% efficient and rising, and power generation is about 60% efficient and rising from fuel cells, giving you roughly 50% efficiency overall. That’s better than coal or gas to electricity.

NotoriousREV wrote: ↑Wed Nov 13, 2019 10:27 am

JonMad wrote: ↑Wed Nov 13, 2019 10:17 am Dumb question, and I could just google it but where's the fun in that - do hydrogen cars have what's approximately a normal combustion engine? Or is the hydrogen powering an EV? Or could it be either.

Very basically, you combine hydrogen with oxygen, it creates energy (heat) & water (H2O), the energy is used to create electricity which drives an electric motor.

Ta. So I read this review. https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/to ... ai/verdict
I guess the price of refuelling a FCEV (actually that acronym answers my previous question!) needs to be comparable with the price of recharging a BEV, for an equivalent range. Maybe this is where the Govt tax away the current benefits of an EV. Apols if this was discussed already.

And I was expecting someone to make a crap joke about the Bristol motor company refusing to build a diesel car. Did anyone do that?

I remain unconvinced by FCEVs. I just can't see a second major technology leap in personal transportation happening. The tipping point for mass take up of EVs is almost upon us I would say, and once that happens I think it's simply going to be too much of a hurdle, and require too much further investment to switch again.

What I can imagine a lot more of is local fuel cell energy generation - it's easy to roll out and scale accordingly. Could maybe even be used to convert existing fossil fuel filling stations over to rapid-charging EV stations. Anyone seen this vid on fuel cell tech? The numbers are impressive!

FCEV works far better for commercial vehicles than BEV. You simply can’t get the range/refuelling times for trucks and buses that makes sense from batteries. I think we’ll see hydrogen used more in electricity storage and generation, large FCEVs and most, but not all, private cars being BEV.

NotoriousREV wrote: ↑Wed Nov 13, 2019 10:58 am FCEV works far better for commercial vehicles than BEV. You simply can’t get the range/refuelling times for trucks and buses that makes sense from batteries. I think we’ll see hydrogen used more in electricity storage and generation, large FCEVs and most, but not all, private cars being BEV.

If we could get the hydrolosis efficient, I'd like to think that we'd use solar or wind power to perform this at home (after all what will you need but power and a water supply?) and transfer the produced gas directly to the vehicles storage tanks, maybe to pie in the sky though.

NotoriousREV wrote: ↑Wed Nov 13, 2019 8:23 am https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Busine ... -to-cities

That is about the only I can think of hydrogen getting anywhere in the future. Large scale government support for infrastructure. Although how much of that is driven by the need of a government to appear to be different I don't know. Nothing I've read has at all convinced me that hydrogen is really the answer to anything.

Unless battery tech development completely stalls it's not hard to imagine given another decade that even bulk long distance cargo with EVs may be possible. Or the simpler solution is cargo goes carbon neutral via biofuel or other offsets.

Mr Pish wrote: ↑Wed Nov 13, 2019 7:17 am

Orange Cola wrote: ↑Tue Nov 12, 2019 9:14 pm
PHEV size being the smaller battery ranges currently found in PHEV cars, not the even smaller ones found in hydrogen cars. As the performance demands for hydrogen grow then so will the supplementary battery size to something about the same as a PHEV battery anyway. People will inevitably want their 2.5 ton car to accelerate the same as when it had a massive ICE under the bonnet, only they’ll be able to do it in an environmentally friendly way

The nice thing about the hydrogen set up is they don’t weigh quite as much as a BEV equivalent and that’s going to be a key issue for the larger cars on the market where when trying to make a BEV equivalent the 3.5t weight limit starts to become a real issue.

In Bjorns vid he mentions that some owners had drained the battery in daily use reducing the already low 160bhp to 120bhp the fuel cell rating

As it stands I would buy the similarly priced EQC over the NEXO, which is much faster and a lot cheaper to run

In time I am sure they will overcome the limitations of hydrogen fuel cells, although if technology was able to double battery density for the same cost BEVs would be transformed as well.

So I believe the development is looking to use capacity from the fuel cell to keep the battery from draining e.g. you can charge and drive at the same time. I guess it’s more complex energy management but it’s a simple theory so not impossible.

It’s quite simple really, you just need a bigger fuel cell but fuel cells contain lots of platinum which is expensive, so currently you have restricted power and a smaller battery to keep costs down.
I guess the next cheapest way to do it would be to have the same fuel cell but stick in a big battery, that way you can have a much more powerful motor.

I see May has bought a Toyota Mirai



Although the Mk2 concept is actually a good looking car

Why is James buying every zero emission vehicle he can find

Mito Man wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 10:14 pm Why is James buying every zero emission vehicle he can find

if only there was some way of him telling us... perhaps he should do some videos explaining it?

Crazy talk.

I’d rather not spend time watching James May ramble on about a Mirai.

Simon wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 10:08 pm I see May has bought a Toyota Mirai



Although the Mk2 concept is actually a good looking car

West London is the best served place in the UK for hydrogen, and I think they're a nonsense for passenger cars but hats off to him for wanting to experiment properly. Wonder what he paid, that's the Green Tomato taxi one - https://blog.toyota.co.uk/toyota-mirai-greentomatocars

Simon wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2019 10:08 pm
Although the Mk2 concept is actually a good looking car

That is quite a handsome thing.

I wonder how they'll fuck it up for production?

simon_g wrote: ↑Mon Nov 18, 2019 9:39 am
West London is the best served place in the UK for hydrogen, and I think they're a nonsense for passenger cars but hats off to him for wanting to experiment properly. Wonder what he paid, that's the Green Tomato taxi one - https://blog.toyota.co.uk/toyota-mirai-greentomatocars

Rare as hens teeth, not even the toyota site has second hand ones for sale

list price is very high, especially given the low performance and fuelling costs

Someone should figure out a way to harness this...

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-styl ... 11331.html

It released more energy in 1 second than our Sun will emit in it's entire 10 Billion Year Lifespan...