Fuel Cell Cars

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LorenEHeath

New member
Joined
Jan 17, 2019
Messages
1
Hi
I am starting a new discussion on Toyota Mirai Fuel Cell as I am new here and there's a lot to read in the old thread.

I am a fan of hydrogen fuel cell technology on vehicles especially hydrails.
My question is ordinary people have advocated for electric cars for 20 years now. Where is the similar groundswell of fuel-cell advocates? Where do we find the consumer demand for hydrogen fuel cell cars?
 
IMO, the elephant in the room regarding FCEV's is infrastructure. You won't see much demand until there is a widespread production/delivery system for hydrogen.
 
theothertom said:
IMO, the elephant in the room regarding FCEV's is infrastructure. You won't see much demand until there is a widespread production/delivery system for hydrogen.

The elephant in the room is the cost of hydrogen. Hydrogen is a battery. Energy from somewhere is used to produce hydrogen, which is then used to produce electric power using a fuel cell. The efficiency is terrible. That would be ok if the cost of the input power was low enough, the amount of stored energy was large enough, and the time before needed the energy is long enough. Think of a small hydrogen producing unit, a huge tank to hold hydrogen, and a small fuel cell to put the energy back on the wires.

Where hydrogen makes sense is in long term storage of energy. Efficiency doesn't matter much, a huge and cheap tank is the economic win.

Hydrogen for transportation only makes economic sense for aircraft and rockets. Both need huge amount of stored energy, and both are cost insensitive. Batteries are a better choice for a shorter range aircraft and cars.
 
Large trucks would also seem to be a good candidate for hydrogen fuel cells because they can accommodate large tanks, batteries have to be too large with present technology, and because fleet refueling with hydrogen makes a lot more sense than trying to run personal cars on it.
 
Why do we need a new thread?

There's already http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14744 and https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=17145.
 
I agree, but merging topics is a bit too hard for me to risk trying it. Hopefully another Mod will do so. I think this topic was started as Spam, anyway. I removed a spam link from the first post.
 
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