Toyota wants hydrogen to succeed so bad it’s paying people to buy the Mirai::Toyota is offering some amazing deals for its hydrogen fuel cell-powered Mirai. That is, if customers can find the hydrogen to power it.

  • FiskFisk33@startrek.website
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    8 months ago

    In the near term, it’s pretty clear that zero-emission, light-duty vehicles will need to rely on batteries. So why are Toyota and Honda (and Hyundai and others) still so bullish on hydrogen?

    To some degree, it’s like they wanted to invest in an image of being climate-conscious and technologically innovative while eschewing electric vehicles — the most common vision of a low-emissions transportation future.

    Why is this article so agressively angled?

    While it’s clear the infrastructure isn’t there right now, isn’t hydrogen in the long term a clearly better alternative than ev’s? The biggest problem with EV’s being the battery, with all the horrible chemicals that go in to making them.

    Shouldn’t hydrogen, in the long term, be the obviously greener alternative, or am I missing something?

    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Hydrogen cannot be greener than an EV, because it’s just an EV with more steps. It’s energy intensive to turn electricity + water to hydrogen, transport it, pump it, then convert it back to electricity.

      The losses from simply running electrons through a wire are very small.

      It is physically impossible for hydrogen cars to ever be as green as EVs. In order to do so you’d have to break laws of physics.

      E: ok people. You live in your little fantasy world where thermodynamics aren’t a thing.

      • FiskFisk33@startrek.website
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        8 months ago

        It is physically impossible for hydrogen cars to ever be as green as EVs. In order to do so you’d have to break laws of physics.

        In a pure fuel comparison sure, does that still hold true when you also factor in manufacturing?

        The losses from simply running electrons through a wire are very small.

        You conveniently forgot about battery charging and discharging losses.

        • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          In a pure fuel comparison sure, does that still hold true when you also factor in manufacturing?

          Yes.

          You conveniently forgot about battery charging and discharging losses.

          I didn’t. Those are very small. Compared to the losses of a HFCEV or even worse, a combustion hydrogen car.

      • desconectado@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        There are laws of thermodynamics and there are laws of kinetics.

        Fuels have much more power density than batteries. You can’t deliver power as fast with a battery compared to a fuel. It doesn’t matter if thermodynamically one is more efficient or greener than the other. You would be crazy to suggest moving an airbus with a battery, that’s physically impossible.

        I’m a researcher in both fields (batteries and hydrogen)

        • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Sure, but I’m not talking about jets, which yeah, do need a far greater energy density than batteries can currently provide.

    • Thrella@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Honestly, the article answers its own question and acts oblivious to it, but I’ve been saying it for years.

      It’s for boats. The easiest and most convenient place to store hydrogen is near a port, which conveniently also generally has the infrastructure for natural gas, used to make hydrogen.

      Honda and Toyota do make EVs, as does Hyundai, as well as patents for batteries, which would put them near the top of the market. Clearly, they’re also betting on BEV cars. But they all also have a marine sector, and Toyota just partnered with a company to test out fuel cells for marine applications. The cars might as well have been a useful test bed which had its costs subsidized by consumers. Seems pretty clear what their angle is.

      Or maybe they’re out of their mind. Who knows?

    • jabjoe@feddit.uk
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      8 months ago

      In H2 car the H2 is just a really inefficient battery. Sure it can hold a lot, but it loses a lot. You lose it in energy conversions (to H2 and from H2) and you have to transport the stuff, and it leaks (smallest element) and it has to be cooled and compressed.

      Battery tech is getting all the time, and really, you only need 300 mile range (many have that now) as humans have to stop for a rest/wee. With a charge network like or petrol network, you can charge then.

      Edit: English

    • Wahots@pawb.social
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      8 months ago

      Hydrogen is good when it’s green hydrogen- made via electrolysis. Blue hydrogen is produced by gas companies, so it isn’t clean, unfortunately. There are some other snags, such as designing a really hard gas tank that cannot be punctured, and hydrogen storage is a bit challenging. It’s less dense than gasoline, particularly at normal temps. So it has to be cooled down, which takes additional power and delivery complications, and it’s still less dense even as a liquid, so you don’t get as far of a range vs gasoline or jet fuel.

      Hydrogen storage as a battery medium for overproducing wind, solar, even solar towers might make sense. I, for one am excited about the idea of hydrogen blimps coming back for lifting heavy loads to remote places, which Canada is toying with right now.

      Hydrogen might make sense for something like container ships, but short term, I think other efuels will be used for things like planes, buses, trucks, maybe cars. Stuff that is more inert or just less expensive to design across a supply chain. It also has potential offworld uses in the further future. It definitely has its uses, it just seems a bit difficult in personal vehicles.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      For personal vehicles, no, that is not at all clear and many of us would say clearly the opposite.

      However there are more heavy duty applications where batteries are unlikely to ever scale. I don’t think we have a clear winner yet so hydrogen is likely still in the running for things like aviation, shipping, construction and farm equipment, industry, maybe even grid scale energy storage

      • desconectado@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        There’s no need for a “winner”, why are people so fixated that it has to be one or the other?

        All the technologies we have are not exclusive, having more options is always better when it comes to energy.

        This “winning” debate has to stop. There’s no gas vs diesel vs natural gas winner… There is no hydro, wind, PV winner… They all can coexist just fine.

        There is a place for hydrogen fuel, and there’s a place for battery vehicles.

        Stop debating this like they are football teams.

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Firstly: winner, as in the more appropriate and mature technology

          Secondly: while it may appear the technologies are not mutually exclusive, they each depend on a lot of infrastructure. It doesn’t make sense to build put multiple sets of infrastructure for multiple technology vehicles. The reason it may make sense for heavy equipment is you typically have a central hub everything comes back to, so the infrastructure can be much simpler

          • desconectado@lemm.ee
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            8 months ago

            More appropriate in terms of what? Batteries and renewable fuels could serve two applications. And be more practical in certain locations.

            The infrastructure can be location based. Doesn’t make sense to have EV in certain locations with poor grid coverage, or renewable fuels in big cities.

            We have plenty of technologies with double infrastructure, I mean EV and carbon based fuels are both around, no problem whatsoever, even better on because we don’t rely on a single infrastructure. Renewable fuels can use a similar infrastructure to natural gas with a few tweaks. We have fiber optic, cable phone, 4/5G, all serve the “same” purpose but for different applications. There’s no “winner” there.

            Batteries don’t deliver power as fast as fuels, so depending on what you need as a consumer you can decide to go for EV (single passenger small car for cities) or renewable fuels for long range, or high powered trucks for freight and heavy load.