Fuel Cells VS BEV

"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch) 09/30/2015 at 12:21 • Filed to: None

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Takin all bets!

Honda has just released an image of their upcoming production ready HFCV (hydrogen Fuel-Cell Vehicle) called the FCV (Fuel-Cell Vehicle). Its supposed to seat 5, have good passenger and cargo room and have a range of 435 miles.

Toyota has the Mirai

Which aside from being HIDEOUS is actually pretty clever AND Toyota is trying to push hydrogen infrastructure a little harder than Honda.

Tesla made BEV’s (battery electric vehicles) fashionable and, at the very least, gave critics (such as myself) some pause to reflect on the viability of the BEV though at great personal expense to Tesla in starting up and investing heavily in infrastructure. It makes me wonder if we are starting to see the sparks of the same kind of market viability of the HFCV and what it would take to make it stick.

First of all, the cars need to be sexy in some way or another. The Tesla was sexy because it looked good inside and out, had gee-wiz features no one was trying and drove like a bat outta hell. Sexy.

The Honda and Toyota aren’t exactly lookers, inside or out and they are more or less cars in their interiors and their performance is...car like. That’s not sexy. However, I do think there is some sex appeal in the fact that its space exploration science at mid manager prices. These will definitely compete in different markets than a Model S or X (though the model 3 could stir things up).

Secondly, Tesla has been fanatic about building and supporting infrastructure to support his vehicles needs in the supercharger system. Toyota has built a few California Hydrogen stations but for the most part has been waiting for the Egg...or the chicken...whatever.

Detractors of Hydrogen claim that its not a great way forward because creating hydrogen is energy negative, therefor, not worth doing. While that’s currently true it doesn’t take into account that you CAN create hydrogen at some levels of efficiency using the supercharger model of converting sunlight into power to separate water into base elements. True its not as effective as putting that power right into the batteries but 100% of the hydrogen is used to propel the car without damage to the car, where in a BEV draining the battery to dead is a bad idea. To say nothing of how much faster fillups are and how filling up quickly wont hurt your car in the long run. In any case, free solar power is free solar power and needing more of it to convert water to hydrogen is not that big an issue in the ecological sense (aside from needing bigger solar arrays).

The trouble I see for HFCV’s is two part:

1. Who’s driving the infrastructure build-out - currently no one

2. Who’s paying for it? The Model S is a pricey car and while that limits its adoption to people who can afford to pay it, it also means that some amount of that money is being used to fund infrastructure, plus it means that fewer vehicles put demand ON that infrastructure.

I personally Don’t think Honda OR Toyota is up to the challenge of doing what Tesla has done in that regard, so who will? The government? Right now I feel like as much as Toyota or Honda would love the HFCV to take off and be a big hit, neither is willing to take the risks that Tesla has to ensure its place in the automotive landscape.

That being said, I’m exciting about the idea of a hydrogen economy, at least in a 5-10% market share kind of way, and I’m hopeful that bringing fully baked products like these to market is a good, if inadequate, first step.

Whats your take on HFCV?

TheHondaBro > HammerheadFistpunch 09/30/2015 at 12:30

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Takin

You rang?

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > HammerheadFistpunch 09/30/2015 at 12:32

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Better than batteries. The problem is chicken-or-the-egg though. Nobody will build fuel cell cars except in California, because of the emissions standards. Nobody will build infrastructure for a vehicle that doesn’t exist.

The other thing is many people thing hydrogen=Hindenberg

DrJohannVegas > HammerheadFistpunch 09/30/2015 at 12:34

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They are both interesting energy storage mediums, but each has obvious benefits and drawbacks. HFC’s current refueling speed advantage is offset by the cost and complexity of getting the storage system to work (and the public’s insistence on thinking about the Hindenburg, no matter how wrong that comparison is) in-vehicle. Batteries are easier to package, but long-term capacity and charge times are still behind. The infrastructure for batteries is a bit more built out, as high-voltage service goes many more places than any hydrogen pipeline does. (Tanking it seems silly, and on-site generation of hydrogen is that “5 years from now” technology that I’ve been hearing about for 15 years.)

(Edit: I’ll amend to say that, in my mind, the hydrogen distribution model is closer to the petroleum model than it is to any system for batteries/direct charging. So, I’d guess that major oil companies would be the likely ones to start a proper build-out, much larger than what Shell did in SoCal.)

I think there’s a place for both in the market, though. HFC just seems like it’s better for long-distance use, while batteries cover most of the average driver’s use cycle. What would be really awesome, but a terrible compromise which probably ruins a vehicle, is an electric powertrain in which the energy storage module can be swapped. Batteries during the week, HFC for the roadtrips.

Bottom line: electric motors are rad, but storing all those pesky electrons is tricky.

TheHondaBro > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 09/30/2015 at 12:37

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A substance as flammable as gasoline.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > TheHondaBro 09/30/2015 at 12:43

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I’m not arguing the logic here, I’m just saying what some people think.

Though to be fair, much more flammable.

djmt1 > HammerheadFistpunch 09/30/2015 at 12:51

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Hmm... I reckon Hydrogen will be one of those things like Maglevs. A future technology that never quite takes off. The thing about Tesla is that it is losing a shit ton of money. Elon is brute forcing this by putting his money where is mouth is and I don’t see that happening for hydrogen because the costs will be even higher due to lack of existing infrastructure.

I’m curious how the model 3 will do because entry level electric cars suck. People look to how great the i3 is but 27,000 cars in two years is pretty piss poor for such a “great car”. If the model 3 doesn’t take off than battery cars will continue to be a fancy gadget for the wealthy.

Either way I’m still backing biofuels to be the future.

BobintheMtns > HammerheadFistpunch 09/30/2015 at 12:56

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The future is gonna be gas/electric hybrids. Hydrogen fuel cells are, unfortunately, a joke.

nermal > HammerheadFistpunch 09/30/2015 at 12:56

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As of today both options are serving niche markets. For Teslas and other EVs, there are additional benefits beyond simply the lack of emissions. From performance to technology to convenience (charge at home), there are many things that only EVs can do today. That said, the trade off is range and “refilling” speed. Thus the reason why EVs need to fit your lifestyle and driving habits to be feasible. If you need a car for a commute that is 25 miles or less each way, every day, in traffic, you’d be hard pressed to find a better option than an EV. Your electricity and maintenance costs are minimal, and you never need to go to a gas station again.

The biggest problem with Hydrogen is still making Hydrogen and distributing it. A pie-in-the-sky vision for HFVs would be having a fueling station at home or at traditional gas stations that is solar powered and hooked up to a water line. Just like an EV, you fuel up at home and go about your business. Just like a gas car, you can stop and top off your tank at a station, maybe buy some munchies and a drink while you’re at it.

In theory it’s great. In practice, it’s not economically viable, at least as of today.

MontegoMan562 is a Capri RS Owner > HammerheadFistpunch 09/30/2015 at 13:00

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2008:

Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell Vehicle

2009:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a2017/422…

Ford Fusion 999 team hits 207 mph in a fuel cell vehicle

2015:

Honda and Toyota considered cutting edge for producing an FCV option....

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > HammerheadFistpunch 09/30/2015 at 13:05

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The hydrogen economy doesn’t excite me at all. Frankly the propane or CNG economy would be more interesting. And CNG is renewable... can be had from various sources... like rotting sewage.

HFCVs, while technologically interesting, are a dead end.

Also...

“Secondly, Tesla has been fanatic about building and supporting infrastructure to support his vehicles needs in the supercharger system. Toyota has built a few California Hydrogen stations but for the most part has been waiting for the Egg...or the chicken...whatever.”

You might also want to consider that for the price of one hydrogen station, you can build 7-14 (depending on the number of ports and whether solar is included) supercharger stations. THAT’S why you see so many more Supercharger stations getting built... well that and the fact that there are way more BEVs out there.

The economics and ‘practical science’ behind HFCVs just isn’t there. BEVs are better in just about every way. And when it comes to ‘refuelling time’, there’s no advantage in practice either since you can take 2 seconds plugging in your BEV when you get home and do a recharge overnight.

Good luck trying to pull that off with hydrogen. Safety regs would make it too expensive... just like home-CNG refueling is too expensive for most... which is something I personally looked into for myself.

When I see the Honda and Toyota HFCVs, I see future museum pieces.

HammerheadFistpunch > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly 09/30/2015 at 13:08

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Where did you get the figure for a hydrogen station?

for Michigan > HammerheadFistpunch 09/30/2015 at 13:14

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The Honda looks like a Citroen. In a good way.

HammerheadFistpunch > for Michigan 09/30/2015 at 13:16

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It actually is pretty decent looking. Sexy? maybe not. But certainly alluring.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > DrJohannVegas 09/30/2015 at 13:16

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“I think there’s a place for both in the market, though. HFC just seems like it’s better for long-distance use,”

At this moment in time, for long-distance use, a Telsa is a far better option since there are so many more supercharger stations covering a greater geographic area. And even in places without Supercharger stations, you can still get by with 220V/50 Amp plugs that many RV parks have. And then just rely on the regular 120v plug at home if you don’t want to install a 220V dryer outlet in your garage.

If someone gave me a BEV right now, I could use it on a daily basis even without a supercharger near me. I could just charge it overnight using the standard 120V outlet in my garage.

But a FC vehicle? Totally useless once that initial tank of hydrogen the car came with runs out. There is no hydrogen fueling station near me and I have no way to refuel it at home.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > HammerheadFistpunch 09/30/2015 at 13:19

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http://ecomento.com/2015/09/08/cal…

And that’s just one of many sources.

And if you are looking at home charging, the case for hydrogen gets even worse as you can get a home level 2 charger for less than $1000, while home refueling for hydrogen isn’t even discussed.

http://gas2.org/2014/11/20/why…

But I can tell you that if there is ever a hydrogen home fueling option, it won’t cost less than CNG. And a low-pressure CNG home fueling system costs at least $5000 to buy, plus installation, plus annual inspections for safety.

And if you look at it on a throughput per station basis, then hydrogen looks even worse still:

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1099548_g…

wiffleballtony > HammerheadFistpunch 09/30/2015 at 13:20

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Frankly to me BEV and HFCV are both a dead end. The way forward is to find an alternative fuel that works in the cars people already have. Asking people to shell out 30k to replace something that works just fine is stupid. Batteries themselves are poor storage devices in themselves and they aren’t exactly made of rainbows. Then the power in them comes from somewhere, and that somewhere needs to be nuclear because there aren’t enough wind farms in the world that could handle the demand if a majority of the public was using BEV. With nuclear you have the NIMBYs so that’s a non starter. HFCV is a better solution but again comes down on power generation and NIMBYs. If we had an endlessly renewable combustible fuel that wasn’t food based all of this would be moot.

for Michigan > HammerheadFistpunch 09/30/2015 at 13:21

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It’s just the right mix of sleek, odd, and futuristic. I really like it.

wiffleballtony > djmt1 09/30/2015 at 13:23

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Elon is putting his money and shit tons of government subsidies where his mouth is.

DrJohannVegas > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly 09/30/2015 at 13:24

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Actually, the original source for the link you posted is: http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1099548_g…

If you look at that article, you’ll see that the author simply adapted the comments of a user of the site to write the article. Are the numbers wrong? Maybe not. Is citing a source which is a second-generation article written from internet user comments going to convince me? Hell no.

DrJohannVegas > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly 09/30/2015 at 13:33

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Perhaps it was unclear, but I was referring to the technologies as they are right now, ignoring the support network issue. It’s clear that, for Tesla at least, the build-out of the infrastructure is much better. Just like for CNG (which you mentioned above), the support network isn’t there. 5 years ago, neither technology was an effective one for long-distance driving.

But, I stand by my original point: pumping liquified/pressurized hydrogen into a storage tank is, right now, a faster process (in terms of energy transferred in a given unit of time) than charging a lithium-ion battery, which is the dominant battery technology in BEVs right now. If you are going cross-country, stopping every 300 miles to recharge, even at a Supercharger, adds more time than an equivalent stop to refill a hydrogen tank.

The battery-swap technology which Tesla and others have prototyped isn’t ready for prime time, and would face the exact same problems of build-out as hydrogen stations do.

Nonster > HammerheadFistpunch 09/30/2015 at 13:41

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I think too many people are still on the fence about HFCV’s. So that creates the problem that there’s no-one ready to go whole hog on building hydrogen stations.

Tesla on the other hand made electric vehicles more viable by going all in on them and building their own network of charging stations.

I think in the future we’ll just see a steadily growing percentage of electric vehicles on the road. Battery and charging tech will continue to improve, maybe not by leaps and bounds but it will get better, along with a steady increase in charging stations. Maybe inductive charging on the interstates will be thing so that on long drives your range is extended

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > DrJohannVegas 09/30/2015 at 14:53

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One other thing... for fast hydrogen fuelling, it needs to be one of the newest fuelling stations. I saw a video from a few years ago on the hyrogen refuelling process for a GM-made hydrogen vehicle and it took about 30 minutes.

Also, it’s my view that in practice, the ability to refuel faster isn’t necessarily as much of an advantage as some make it out to be.

This past summer I went on a long trip to eastern Canada. I drove 3500km over 8 days. And when I stopped to rest/eat/go to the washroom/refuel, typically the stops lasted 30-60 minutes.

As long as the EV has a range that is long enough to drive 3-4 hours, fast refuelling does not matter as much since you have to take breaks every few hours anyway.

So because of that, even if the infrastructure coverage were equal, I still think that hydrogen will be a dead end because it’s also more expensive... both the vehicles as well as the cost to refuel/recharge.

I predict hydrogen cars will become interesting museum pieces like many other dead-end technologies that had cheaper competitors that were as good or almost as good.

Though I think it might be a good idea to try using the high pressure hydrogen tanks with CNG.

CNG may be a far more practical alternative since there is more infrastructure in place, home fuelling options are technically available (though expensive) and it’s renewable (can get it from many sources... like rotting garbage/sewage).

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > DrJohannVegas 09/30/2015 at 16:18

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Well the Supercharger station cost of $150,000-$300,000 is listed right on Tesla’s website and has been mentioned by Elon. So that is probably accurate.

As for the cost of hydrogen fueling stations, judging by page 10, table 4 in this DOE report:
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/…

It looks like the price range is currently $1 million to $4 million per station, depending on capacity.

And the price range for the future is projected to be $732,000 to $2.7 million.

Can a station that makes less than 100 pounds of hydrogen be built for less? Maybe. But I don’t see it ever getting anywhere near as cheap as what Tesla is building.

And the cost of building Supercharger stations has been getting cheaper too!

So I’d say my assertion that you can build 7-14 Supercharger stations for the price of one hydrogen fuelling station is reasonably accurate.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > wiffleballtony 09/30/2015 at 16:33

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“Then the power in them comes from somewhere, and that somewhere needs to be nuclear because there aren’t enough wind farms in the world that could handle the demand if a majority of the public was using BEV.”

I think a big potential source is solar panels installed on the rooftops of homes and other buildings.

And I disagree BEVs are a dead end. The R&D that goes into batteries alone can be used by many industries, not just automotive.

I view HFCVs as a much crappier, more expensive, less safe and less flexible solution.

But as far as alternative fuel sources go, I think we should be doing more with CNG. It’s a renewable form of energy. You can get it from rotting garbage and sewage. And I don’t think the world is gonna run out of either of those any time soon. And it takes advantage of existing infrastructure.

wiffleballtony > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly 09/30/2015 at 17:13

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My main gripe about solar is that it’s not reliable enough or powerful enough unless you cover massive square footage. As far as batteries, yeah maybe they can get better, however we’ve had batteries forever and there hasn’t been any massive leaps. I would have expected the laptop companies to have cracked it first if anyone. But they still degrade in capacity over time, they’re made out of less than friendly materials and they’re heavy. Ultimately I think it would be best to use a solution that makes the most of the tech we have instead of over engineering something new.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > wiffleballtony 09/30/2015 at 17:52

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“solar is that it’s not reliable enough or powerful enough unless you cover massive square footage”

The average house has enough area that you should be able to get enough power to have a surplus during the day. Note that these days, panels are more powerful and less than half the cost compared to 10 years ago. Like this panel:

http://www.wholesalesolar.com/1922385/solarw…

10 years ago, a solar panel that was about 3’x5’ would only put out maybe 200W and cost around $1000. There has been HUGE progress in solar. And that place is selling panels in 20-30 pack quantities that would make more than enough power. And you either set it up as a grid-tied system (put power into the grid during the day, pull from the grid at night) or you go off grid (use a bank of batteries that get charged by day, discharged by night). Grid-tied makes more sense for those who already have electricity service. Off-grid makes more sense if you need electricity on an unserviced lot.

“As far as batteries, yeah maybe they can get better, however we’ve had batteries forever and there hasn’t been any massive leaps”

That’s not true at all. The invention of the Lithium Ion itself was a massive leap. NiMH was very promising too... until GM screwed the pooch with that tech.

Lithium battery tech has been steadily improving over the past 20 years. The Lithium batteries you get today are 1/10 of the cost, are more durable and have more capacity. And I know because I work in IT and have to buy replacement laptop batteries every so often. A $50-$60 lithium ion laptop battery today would have cost $500-$600 around 1997.

And laptop makers were the first adopters of lithium ion batteries. Prior to that, they either used Ni-Cad or lead acid batteries. And for a little while they were using NiMH on cheaper laptops too. I have personally seen/touched old Compaq and Grid laptops from the 1980s. They were huge and heavy by today’s standards.

And there have even been a few laptops that used methanol-to-hydrogen fuel cells... which failed due to safety reasons. Basically you can take your regular laptop on an airplane, but not a laptop with a volatile tank of methanol. Though it did give very long run times (something like 9 hours).

“But they still degrade in capacity over time, they’re made out of less than friendly materials and they’re heavy.”

Everything degrades over time. And how heavy it is depends on what type. Lithium Polymer batteries are very light. But they’re more suited to small/expensive electronic devices like cell phones. And some batteries are very long-lived... like the nickel-iron battery (aka the Edison battery) which is known to last 50+ years. Jay Leno has a Baker electric from the 1920s that still works with the original Edison batteries. They’re heavy as hell though.

“Ultimately I think it would be best to use a solution that makes the most of the tech we have instead of over engineering something new.”

That’s one big reason why BEVs are much better than HFCVs. They make use of existing tech and existing infrastructure... at a much lower initial and ongoing cost.