The 2025 Honda CR-V e:FCEV is here, and man, is it ever unequivocally a vehicle. With a hydrogen fuel cell and a battery pack on board, it should theoretically offer plug-in power for local errands and green, water-emitting hydrogen power for longer journeys, and Honda will even lease them to Californian residents rather than just keep them internal as one big engineering exercise. However, given the *ahem* limitations of this vehicle, would Californians actually want one? Honda is quick to tout that the “CR-V e:FCEV is the only fuel cell electric passenger vehicle made in America,” but doesn’t seem to dig a bit deeper and ask why nobody else is currently building fuel cell electric passenger vehicles in America.
This isn’t the first time a manufacturer has explored the idea of a hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicle with a battery pack and a charging port so it can cover some distance on plug-in power alone. It’s a compelling thought exercise, and it allows the CR-V e:FCEV to also function like an enormous power bank, but the spec sheet of reality hits like the ruler of a recently-divorced 52-year-old chain-smoking English teacher from the 1970s with bits of biscuit crumbs stuck in his mustache.
Let’s start with packaging. Directly above the rear axle seems like a fairly safe location for a hydrogen tank, but it also isn’t exactly optimal for practicality. Instead of a flat load floor, you get a shadowbox theater, a platform in the trunk for your weekly shopping to perform The Book Of Mormon or Spamalot. There’s a lot less “U” in this CUV than in other CR-V CUVs, which might just make it a CV. Actually, that tracks.
In the year 2024, many electrified crossovers offer abundant range, but this isn’t one of them. The Honda CR-V e:FCEV is good for 270 miles in total, with just 29 miles on plug-in electric power alone. For the record, that’s less plug-in range than a Toyota RAV4 Prime, a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, a Hyundai Tucson PHEV, a Kia Sportage PHEV, a Kia Niro PHEV, or a Ford Escape PHEV. In short, less plug-in range than any comparable PHEV crossover. That’s, um, impressive.
Alright, well with range that disappointing, at least there should be some power under the skin, right? Not quite. With 174 horsepower and 229 lb.-ft. of torque on tap, the CR-V e:FCEV is less potent than a regular CR-V hybrid, so don’t expect outrageous acceleration in exchange for inefficiency. Then again, with front-wheel-drive being the only option, maybe tame output isn’t such a bad thing.
Oh, and once you run out of all 270 miles of combined range, then there’s the small issue of finding a hydrogen station that doesn’t look like an Arco circa 1973. California is in the midst of massive light-duty hydrogen shortages and exits, including Shell deciding that it just doesn’t want anything to do with light-duty hydrogen fueling in America anymore. Admittedly, it’s not the first time an oil company has turned up its nose at green technologies, but decisions on the ground play an outsized role in the viability of hydrogen as a fuel. What we have here is something that’s neat in principle but difficult to live with in practice, just like a pizza slice the size of an entire actual pizza, or hydrophobic towels, or a roommate who only speaks Klingon.
The Honda CR-V e:FCEV just strikes us as a way to occupy idle time and resources. Think of all of the research and development, all of the factory tooling, all of the PR and marketing money that went into the launch, all the distribution logistics, and all of the sales training put into a vehicle that seems so deeply uncompetitive in the face of, say, the Tesla Model Y, or even the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. I pity the techs who’ll have to get trained on such a low-volume product, and I pity the parts counter that may get stuck with, for example, a CR-V e:FCEV bumper cover for ages. Then again, once the sedanpocalypse is complete and Stancenation issues more passports to crossovers, I’m sure the clear taillights will become a hot commodity.
Hydrogen may have been good enough for the Apollo program, but Apollo the deity had a swan-powered chariot, something that seems more useful and more renewable than the Honda CR-V e:FCEV. Swans exist in places hydrogen filling stations don’t, they run on a combination of spite and grass, they can reproduce, and each swan comes with a built-in honk function, which saves on wiring. Sure, it may be a niche propulsion system, but the CR-V e:FCEV also has a niche propulsion system. While details of pricing and incentives for the Honda CR-V e:FCEV haven’t been released yet, one thing’s for certain: As far as methods of powering a vehicle go, this is certainly one of them.
(Photo credits: Honda)
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Last time I talk to you.
You EV fanbois always love the ‘moving goalpost’ style of argument. It’s a tiresome and altogether too common phenomenon.
What you actually said was this:
You: None of the batteries useful for this purpose generate hydrogen.
And that is just plain wrong. Look:
https://www.battolysersystems.com/projects
Regardless though, hydrogen for vehicles isn’t only going to come from battery storage stacks. That’s only one place. It’s coming from everywhere.
The Indian government has a whole Ministry devoted to it:
https://mnre.gov.in/national-green-hydrogen-mission/
Of course, the US DOE is going big on nuclear electrolysis:
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-nuclear-power-plants-gearing-clean-hydrogen-production
Nikola is doing hydrogen too:
https://nikolamotor.com/tre-fcev/
Whether you know it or not, Toshiba and Honda hold some very interesting hydrogen patents. They are working on high efficiency plasma electrolysis. Honda has a whole brief on their hydrogen business which anyone can read:
https://hondanews.com/en-US/honda-corporate/releases/release-4e58b4e0fcd795affa5685a66a2f2df9-summary-of-briefing-on-honda-hydrogen-business
There are even projects to take the activated charcoal from sewage treatment plants, and use microwave electrolysis on them, to decompose the organic and plastic microfibers in them, as well as water at the same time, to generate hydrogen:
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2021/ra/d1ra05977g
See, the thing is, the chemistry of hydrogen, and the absolute need which our society has for large quantities of it, is more important than the electrical engineering here. So it drives innovation and economics enough, that this large hydrogen supply WILL happen.
My backgroud of teaching undergrad chemistry for a couple years, before I moved on the teach at the medical school, informs my opinions here.
Your flippant response to my initial conversational comment, prevented a more leisurely foray into the topic, which we might otherwise have had. This is an interesting topic. We could have enjoyed it.
But now, I have absolutely no desire to converse with you ever again.
Ciao.
And didn’t Shell just shut down all their hydrogen refilling stations ? What happens when the other shut down as well, this will be a useless car that you can only drive 29 miles or less per charge.
My favorite part about hydrogen is how it takes everything bad about an EV and makes it undeniably worse. Incomplete energy distribution infrastructure? Range anxiety? Cost? Potential safety issues?
Yet another mindlessly enthusiastic hydrogen car article. No, really, they are much worse than you think, if you get one, lease, don’t buy, good luck getting it fueled in a decade. Here’s a bunch about just how dead hydrogen is, 25 years of pilot projects that never go anywhere. https://medium.com/search?q=hydrogen
This article was many things but enthusiastic about hydrogen cars it was not.
And yet, as the essays at the link I provided show, the reality is much more negative than that article. Hydrogen is a bad idea, for almost all use cases. The details are the killer. 20 years ago, who knows if batteries would get good enough. They got better, hydrogen tech hasn’t.
Hmm when this was announced I was really hoping for 50+ miles of EV range which would have actually been an interesting vehicle in California. That being said I’m not as bearish as others when it comes to hydrogen vehicles and tend to fall more on the “let a thousand flowers bloom” side of propulsion technologies.
I do think some people are unfairly discounting the “fueling speed” advantage. To me that’s the main thing in favor of hydrogen is it’s an easy transition for people. Will it catch on? Seems unlikely at this point.
The main problem is that fueling speed is pointless if there are only stations within metro areas. In CA, the land of hydrogen stations(52 of the 58 retail stations in North America), there are 6 outside of the LA and SF bay areas. One in San Diego, one in Santa Barbara, two in Sacramento. Exactly two are found outside cities/along interstates. One on I5 about halfway between SF and LA, and one on I80 near Truckee.
So sure, it’s great if you live in one of those cities and you like to take road trips without worrying about time stopping for charging, but you also only ever drive between those cities or to Lake Tahoe. Of course that’s actually probably a few 10s of thousands of people given that those metro areas are pretty big and many of those people really do only ever go to the other metro area or Lake Tahoe. But don’t forget, it’s also hilariously expensive to refill. So the car only has life as long as you have free hydrogen credit.
Yeah I was thinking more theoretical. Today there’s really no reason to buy this car unless you have money and are curious. In a world where there are ample hydrogen stations, it’d be an easy transition that wouldn’t depend on people having home chargers for viability which is kind of where we are for EVs right now.
I’m all for shitting on the oil companies, but it’s highly debatable whether existing hydrogen infrastructure is in any way “green”. At the moment hydrogen is just a less efficient way of using fossil fuels, which would actually appeal to an oil company. The fact that they’re still abandoning it tells you something about the viability of hydrogen as a fuel.
“Seems Like A Waste Of Time”
I would say that’s correct.
I predict this will be another glorified low-volume PR exercise like all hydrogen cars that came before it.
And I predict it will also be a complete flop.
Since they’ve already got the word “electric” covered by the “E” in “FCEV”, what’s the other “e” for? Excess? Extra?
Excrement.
Because compared to a proper BEV, this thing will be shit..
A plug-in hybrid is the best option for a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, even if it has packaging problems — nobody wants to pay to commute on H2.
I always say that more diversity in clean tech is better. More options means more niches that get covered, and more opportunities for complementary technologies to arise. So I’m not exactly mad that Honda is throwing R&D money at this thing… but I am confused.
Honda’s going to sell maybe 2000 units worldwide and lease a few hundred in California and never recoup the R&D cost. Yeah, they’ll get emissions credits, but they could do that with the Prologue — or better, put the Clarity drivetrain in literally anything.
I strongly suspect Honda is still playing the Japanese domestic politics game, where hydrogen was long perceived as the only way to decarbonize without depending on China.
I could never have written this article. I feel like a small part of my soul would die every time I had to type “CR-V e:FCEV”.
Yup, I was correct.
ctrl-v
Which one of their cars is that going to be based on?
This is the Hyundai N Vision 74 of CUVs and I’m perfectly fine with it. It’s great for the niche group of people who want a plug-in but also want to have fuel stations instead of rapid chargers. This is actually my hope for the future as we phase out gasoline, just with less range. In my version of 2044, most vehicles are EVs with 60 miles of electric range and a hydrogen range-extender. It solves the weight issue of electric cars, along with the wasted resources for giant batteries that are rarely used to their full capacity.
It solves the weight issue of electric cars, along with the wasted resources for giant batteries that are rarely used to their full capacity.
How does it solve the weight problem?
It solves the Ouroboros issue with larger electric cars. If you want more range, you need a bigger battery. But a bigger battery weighs more so it cuts down on range… so you need an even bigger battery. Theoretically, you also could drive around in a hydrogen PHEV with an empty tank and only fill it up when you need to go out of town.
So here’s the current situation:
Tesla 3 LR: 4,034 lbs for 341 miles (300 typical) Battery weight is 1060 lbs
2nd gen Mirai: 4225-4335 lbs for 401-357 miles of range.
Adding 30% more battery pack for an additional 318 lbs will bring the real world range of the 3 to the same as the Gen2 Mirai or better with a similar overall weight.
A charged battery weighs essentially the same as a discharged one, however the weight of the hydrogen in the Gen2 Mirai is only 5.3kg so a partial fill yields no practical weight advantage. It does however provide a significant disadvantage in reduced range to get to the next station. At least with a BEV you can fill it from a household plug if you need to.
Overall hydrogen does not provide any weight advantage for cars. AFAIK you’d need to get to delivery trucks to even begin to see any weight advantage. Advances in battery tech may wipe even this advantage out in the next few years.
The only practical advantage of hydrogen I see for cars is the waste heat. Cold weather is bad for BEVs but utilizing all the waste heat of a HFC can keep the cabin toasty warm.
Having driven both, they are not really comparable. The M3LR is fairly cheaply made car optimized for efficiency. The Mirai is basically a modern day Lexus GS equivalent optimized to feel like a normal Lexus. It uses the Lexus LS platform which is not exactly lightweight. Model S is more similar to the Mirai in terms of overall build.
Model 3 LR battery weighs a little over 1000lbs and the rear motor is about 200lbs.
To double its range would take a minimum of another 1000lbs but due to the ouroboros EV weight problem, likely even heavier.
The Mirai H2 tanks weigh about 200lbs and hold 11lbs of hydrogen which is good 400miles. The fuel cell stack weighs ~125lbs and the electric motor is likely almost similar in size and weight the Tesla’s so let’s say 200lbs. And the tiny 1kwh lithium buffer battery is I’d 100lbs.
To double the Mirai range you just need to double the tanks and their h2 so an addition of 211lbs.
Well I’d hope so:
So assuming a loss of $62k-124k even after selling each one at $58k is by my cocktail napkin maths a $120k-$182k car to manufacture. For that kind of money I’d expect much better than Lexus but Maybach levels of quality. Does it have Maybach levels of quality?
Meanwhile Tesla sells the Model 3 for $47k at a profit. And it was built in a tent by grumpy underpaid minions using “Home Depot-Grade Fake Wood”. So yeah, as far as quality goes a bit of polished apples to rotten oranges is to be expected.
To double the Mirai range you just need to double the tanks and their h2 so an addition of 211lbs.
For hydrogen the ouroboros is volume which is worse. To double the range required another 35+ gallons of volume or 2-3 beer kegs worth of external volume and hardware. And unlike batteries that can be molded into lots of shapes high pressure gas needs to be stored in large cylinders in places that meet federal safety requirements. That means to double the range you’re going to lose either the trunk or the back seat.
These vehicles are hedges. Honda and Toyota are shrewdly maintaining a level of hydrogen market preparedness should political winds shift. They don’t expect to sell this thing at volume, or make any money on it, but they do expect to maintain a level of know-how internally re: how to engineer them, and gather some performance data on the various components.
If the winds shifted on hydrogen tomorrow, Honda and Toyota would be years ahead compared to companies that haven’t touched it.
Correct. Everyone who says, “stop development of all alternative power sources, EVs are enough!” are comically short-sighted.
I don’t think it has anything to do with schrewdness. They pushed “go” on this project and there’s too much corporate bureaucracy to cancel.
The weird thing is that they’re still focused on passenger cars instead of applications like OTR trucks where BEV struggles and hydrogen has a chance.
Agreed — seems like fleet operations is the natural place for H2. Predictable routes and fuel consumption. Hell – manufacture fuel on site with electorlyzers.
…and consonants. That said, my 1994 Oldsmobile Delta Ninety-Eight Regency Elite would have been more efficient in the naming department if they had went with Olds: D-98.RE and just let people figure it out from there.
Honestly! wht th fck s tht nm?
Next up, the Honda FC-EV I-no
Of course, the Honda Football Club-Evolution Volume I-no
Wait, I think I got it!
These are just hiding-in-plain-sight ways of distributing Armored Core parts. It’s slightly more feasible than hydrogen fuel cell vehicles at this point, anyway.
BMW Individual M760i xDrive Model Excellence THE NEXT 100 YEARS
I could maybe see this as being useful if it had a longer EV only range (100+ miles) and used hydrogen for occasional longer trips, but a 29 mile EV range makes this thing absolutely useless given the lack of fueling infrastructure. It seems like any cost savings achieved by using a small battery would be more than offset by the cost of adding the fuel cell and associated equipment.
I am struggling to how Honda benefits from releasing this vehicle in the US. It obviously will not be profitable. I see no laws that require manufacturers to specifically sell fuel cell vehicles in California, so it doesn’t seem necessary as a compliance car. It also does not appear hydrogen will be a common fuel in the coming decades, so Honda is not going to be ahead of the curve when these vehicles become common. I can usually come up with a use case for any vehicle, but this one appear to be the exception.
Even for longer trips, hydrogen doesn’t make a ton of sense. There’s no place to fill. Sure, that was true of BEVs a decade ago too, but building out charging infra (especially L2 destination chargers) is drastically easier than hyrogen.
Offering these in the US just feels like they figured they may as well ship a few over to reduce fleet average emissions. They invested in the hydrogen per Japan’s big bets and they want to get whatever value they can out of them.
This. There’s definitely a compliance aspect here, especially considering Honda just now launched their first EV, which in reality is a GM EV. They also have some real gas chuggers in their lineup. The Odyssey and Pilot come to mind and until the ZDX drops Acura has 0 electrified vehicles.
…you heard that right. 0. All of it is pure ICE and the turbo V6 in the Type S models essentially gets V8 fuel economy. They need all the help they can get right now.
Wouldn’t it be easier to just sell more Prologues? Those are supposed to be released months before the fuel cell CR-V. There is an expense associated with training dealers to sell and service these vehicles, so releasing this vehicle here isn’t free. I don’t see how the fuel cell CR-V is even useful for compliance purposes.
But they’ve built this hydrogen engine, so they’d like to use it. And Japan’s hydrogen car market is shrinking, but not gone, so they’ll sell some there. If they send a few here, they can probably massage the numbers just right to round the fleet average in their favor. They ship enough to say the car makes up a portion of the fleet, round up the percentage however is allowed, and they see a benefit from a few of these that probably wouldn’t have sold in Japan due to declining demand.
And the smaller battery is a factor, too, probably.
“But they’ve built this hydrogen engine, so they’d like to use it.”
Many of the arguments in favor of this vehicle appear to be based on the sunk cost fallacy. Honda’s investment in fuel cell vehicles didn’t work out. That sucks for Honda, but throwing more money at it won’t make fuel cell vehicles any more successful. Honda can’t fix a lack of infrastructure and a cheap source of hydrogen by investing more fuel cell vehicles.
“If they send a few here, they can probably massage the numbers just right to round the fleet average in their favor.”
From what I have read, Honda thinks they can sell 500,000 battery electric vehicles in the US between now and 2030. If that is true, I don’t see how selling a few hundred fuel cell vehicles makes any difference in compliance. The number of fuel cell vehicles will be a rounding error compared to the number of BEVs that were sold.
“Japan’s hydrogen car market is shrinking”
If hydrogen powered cars aren’t working in a country that invested heavily in hydrogen infrastructure, that doesn’t bode well for the future of these vehicles elsewhere. It is probably time for Honda to move on.
I don’t disagree with any of your points, but I suspect that they’ve got bean counters deciding just how much of the investment in hydrogen to throw away and the best way to use it to their advantage. I am not financially savvy enough to know how it works, but we live in a world in which studios axe shows that are still relatively popular because of some tax benefit to writing them off early enough.
I suspect by adding a very low volume vehicle, they can continue to get Japanese hydrogen subsidies and also put just enough on our shores to use the model in fleet calculations because it will help while they continue to roll out more EVs. I also think compliance cars work in their favor because the number of total vehicle miles driven is skewed toward less efficient vehicles, but they use the average across the board. So a compliance vehicle brings down the average miles driven while getting credit for a lot more miles than they actually travel. I could easily have this wrong, though.
And, as to sunk cost, I suspect they are hedging a little in hopes of Japanese hydrogen taking off.
In a world without subsidies and tax breaks, I’d agree that this makes no sense. But there’s enough complexity in tax code and such that I suspect Honda has made this decision based on a number of factors that make sense when combined.
Very good point about the tax code. It seems like Honda is making a bad business decision on this endeavor, but I’m sure tax write offs and subsidies change the math considerably. Maybe not enough to be profitable, but enough to keep the technology around.
I am pessimistic about hydrogen vehicles in the near/medium term, but there is probably some value in keeping the technology available in the event an affordable hydrogen source becomes available.
This is exactly where I land. If we get better at making and storing hydrogen (though I’m not sure we can ever make it efficiently enough to get there) and we start using it for freight transport, I can see passenger hydrogen becoming potentially viable. Otherwise, it’s less efficient than EVs and less practical than either gas or EV.
“Honda can’t fix a lack of infrastructure and a cheap source of hydrogen by investing more fuel cell vehicles.”
Technically they could by simply opening their corporate wallet and start building hydrogen stations… the same way Tesla did with the supercharger network.
Only difference is hydrogen infrastructure costs 10X more than the equivalent BEV infrastructure.
But that’s not gonna happen.
I feel like automakers need to wait on making these until hydrogen long distance trucking starts becoming a thing. With new standards for heavy-duty vehicles coming in the 2027-32 period, it’ll take a few years.
“I feel like automakers need to wait on making these until hydrogen long distance trucking starts becoming a thing.”
It won’t. Even in commercial trucking, the hydrogen trucks will only ever be a low-volume glorified PR exercise.
All the higher costs and other downsides that were observed with hydrogen cars don’t magically disappear when the tech is installed in a commercial truck. If anything, it’s likely to last for even a shorter period once operators realize how bad hydrogen is on a TCO basis.
And if hydrogen can’t make it in consumer-grade cars, they don’t have a snowballs-chance-in-hell of making it in a more TCO-sensitive segment like commercial trucks.
I feel like hydrogen will win over BEV in the long distance trucking segment, perhaps with a higher TCO but a much higher revenue potential compared to BEV trucks who have to charge.
Overhead electric lines on the other hand may be more viable than both for freeway hauling.
If you know anything about the trucking industry, it’s that TCO is a VERY IMPORTANT thing. With a higher TCO, it means it has NO CHANCE of making it on any large scale.
The most likely outcome is hydrogen continues to go nowhere, battery-electric trucks take over the short and medium haul routes and for the long haul routes, plug-in electrics with diesel generators are most likely the way until battery tech gets better and even makes that redundant eventually.
I was told hydrogen was the future! https://www.autoweek.com/news/a46791348/shell-closes-hydrogen-stations-california/
They lied.
Honda e:FCEV: Heghlu’meH QaQ jajvam!
May be a dead end, but I thought this was a site that celebrated unicorn cars and unique engineering? I don’t disagree, maybe Honda’s resources would be better spent elsewhere, but 1. Seems like kind of a hard slant against the whole concept in this article, and, 2. Everybody is developing pure electric, or plug in ICE hybrids, doesn’t hurt to diversify and explore other options.
DT did review the Mirai trade in a few weeks back.
https://www.theautopian.com/the-toyota-mirai-hydrogen-car-is-a-fascinating-waste-of-money-trade-in-tuesday/
Solid call out. I feel this article would be better if it gave more history of Honda dabbling with Hydrogen power for 2 decades (FCX, FCX Clarity, Clarity) and how every other manufacturer has bowed out of this space. The fuel cell Clarity production numbers are listed as 1900 globally.
My take is that Honda has already invested in the technology and is continuing to leverage the dollars spent to dive further into it. Without the infrastructure to sustain it is the fundamental issue with it being in vehicle format and 29 mile range isn’t good enough for the plug-in piece of this CR-V version, but there has to be a reason they still go after it. This could be a planned use of being a tech pioneer and using this in other powerplant formats (stationary generators for example) or to sell their research to someone else at some point.
“My take is that Honda has already invested in the technology and is continuing to leverage the dollars spent to dive further into it.”
This is an excellent example of the sunk cost fallacy. Honda bet big on a technology that never took off and never became profitable. Given that current EVs appear to be on the verge of profitability, it seems silly to double down on a failed technology instead of shifting resources to battery EVs. If Honda has only sold 1900 fuel cell clarities globally, that shows how little demand there is for these vehicles.
If the financial and time investments were made on hydrogen to the same degree and scale of EVs, hydrogen would be competitive. EVs were chosen because they were perceived as the easier option. Instead of something that is a more elegant, engineered solution, automakers just take the ham-fisted approach of brutally stuffing more lithium-ion batteries onto a frame.
I don’t think it is fair to assume that a comparable investment in hydrogen would have led to viable fuel cell vehicles. Again, the issue here is that there does not appear to be an inexpensive source of hydrogen. Battery EVs only became viable when affordable lithium-ion batteries were created. A similar breakthrough would have to happen for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to be viable. Investment alone cannot guarantee a breakthrough technology will be invented.
That’s a fair point.
“If the financial and time investments were made on hydrogen to the same degree and scale of EVs, hydrogen would be competitive”
No it wouldn’t. Hydrogen vehicles are fundamentally flawed as a concept that no amount of investment will ever overcome.
Says you. I’ll agree once Toyota throws in the towel.
“Instead of something that is a more elegant, engineered solution”
Look at the picture of this vehicle’s trunk and tell me that’s elegant. They just shoved a hydrogen tank in anywhere they could.
EV fast chargers cost around $100k to install. Hydrogen filling stations cost around $2m per pump and serve maybe twice as many cars per hour due to the need to repressurise after filling. Hydrogen cars need precious metals for fuel cells and have tanks that need mandatory replacement after ten years, hydrogen loses tons of energy as it’s shipped around and compressed and liquified and expanded again and so on. Hydrogen costs a lot to fill and isn’t even green in most cases.
Seriously, where is the elegance here? I can’t see it.
Big agree, thank you.
I get heavy “teapot calling the kettle black” vibes from EV proponents saying hydrogen is a waste of time and resources. I like that hydrogen doesn’t utilize materials as heavily that are often mined irresponsibly and unethically. Hydrogen only becomes an evolutionary dead end when manufacturers cut bait and quit. Diversifying our options is always a good idea. Let’s stop trying to pick winners and cheer all the participants on.
If Toyota, Honda and others want hydrogen to succeed they need to first solve the biggest problems of hydrogen, namely:
Making enough of it from renewable energy to serve first the industrial hydrogen sector, then heavy trucking, then light transport so that it actually reduces global emissions instead of increasing them. Such renewably sourced hydrogen also needs to be price competitive with both gasoline and electricity. Right now hydrogen at the pump runs $36/kg. That is clearly a deal breaker.
Finding ways to pack more of it in storage tanks than is possible now. Zeolites have been the answer for decades but little progress has been made in that field. Storage vessels also need to be robust enough to outlast the car. AFAIK they are as of now only rated for 10 years and replacement will likely cost more than the value of the 10 yo car.
Ramping up the infrastructure
Making the cars affordable.
Only when those issues are dealt with hydrogen can be a contender in the light transport arena.
“Ramping up the infrastructure
Making the cars affordable.
Only when those issues are dealt with
hydrogenelectricity can be a contender in the light transport arena.”Hydrogen is not the only industry that still has hurdles to overcome.
Exactly. EVs are heavy and expensive. The only reason what charging infrastructure we have available is due to policies and companies forcing square pegs into round holes. Not all that different from hydrogen, just further along. EV enthusiasts blindly rooting for their preferred horse in the race are not considering all aspects. Their fervent myopia is no better than pro-petrol boomers discounting anything that isn’t an ICE powertrain. Development is good.
Exactly. EVs are heavy and expensive.
A Tesla Model 3 LR weighs 4034 lbs. A Mirai weighs 4,255+ lbs
You do the math.
If the Mirai had the same time and financial wherewithal dumped into it as EV powertrains, I believe they could, at a minimum, bring those figures to parity or come out lighter still. But if everyone states that hydrogen technology is a stillborn failure, we won’t get the opportunity to find out. There’s nothing wrong with diversifying.
The Mirai was not a product of some underfunded, undermanned startup but made by Toyota, one of the biggest auto manufacturers in the world who is one of the biggest proponents of the tech. The vehicle in this story was made by Honda, another major manufacturer of cars. This is the best they can do?
Not necessarily true. Sure, some of the charge providers (ahem, Electrify America) are half-baked compliance projects. But others like the Tesla Supercharger Network seem to be working well enough as a self-sustaining project. With the new charge network alliances and market-wide NACS/J3500 adoption, the prospects are only looking better. Meanwhile, the challenges of hydrogen have yet to be overcome and haven’t seem any meaningful commercialization in over two decades.
Those challenges are not even remotely similar in magnitude.
Ramping up the infrastructure: You really think building the challenges of building a hydrogen infrastructure to serve a world of FCVs is on par with that of upgrading the electrical grid to serve a world of BEV?
Consider this – practically every home in the first world already has electrical service. Many BEV users can already recharge at home, at work or while shopping. Hydrogen has none of that and never will.
Yes hydrogen fill times are shorter – when the pumps work and when they have hydrogen to dispense. Meanwhile battery charging times are getting shorter.
Tesla already has a functional national network and other charging networks exist however flawed. Those flaws are trivial to fix vs the challenges of building a whole new hydrogen infrastructure.
A BEV can go twice as far on electricity as a FCV can go on the same amount of energy made into hydrogen. To meet the worlds transport needs using hydrogen means you will need a renewable grid twice the size. That’s a big, expensive ask that will take much longer to meet.
Making the cars affordable: BEVs are way ahead in this. Tesla makes money on the model 3 at $35k whereas AFAIK Toyota still loses money on the Mirai at $60k.
All I said was there are hurdles to overcome, and the insinuation was that just because hurdles exist, it doesn’t mean all further effort is pointless.
Why does it seem that every time someone here comments “Hell yeah, try something new”, the response seems to offend EV stans. I didn’t say stop building EVs. I said try something new, cuz why the hell not? There are enough vehicles out there to allow them all to exist.
I’m not an EV stan. I do however recognize the advances in EVs are far greater than those with HFVs
I said try something new, cuz why the hell not?
In a perfect world of unlimited funding and resources for research I’d agree with you, however we do not live in that world.
IMO its pointless and counter productive to keep trying to drum up FCV hype without first solving the issues I listed above. That’s how we get boondoggles like the Mirai and its $36/kg hydrogen and the Australian brown coal to Japanese hydrogen deal.
You are without doubt correct that EVs are FAR more advanced. I don’t really believe that hydrogen will ever make a viable non commercial fuel. I don’t think vehicles like this and the Mirai will ever fit a persons needs usefully.
But I also don’t think the money Honda and Toyota are throwing at hydrogen would suddenly up end the world of EVs and change everything. I think in the global scale its a drop in the bucket, but that is pure speculation.
I see it as a Chicken and Egg scenario. Breakthroughs in hydrogen production would help encourage development of cars like this. But viable powertrains might encourage renewed investment in hydrogen creation. So I don’t see it as valueless as you do.
It might pointless though. Afterall, the chrysler turbines went nowhere (and also seem way cooler than a hydrogen car).
Sorry if I’m playing keyboard warrior over here today. Its not usually my style. I think I’m just in a mood.
No worries. We all have our moods 😉
If I haven’t said as much before I think there is a very easy way for Japanese companies to save face. Adopt the tech to run on natural gas instead for markets that don’t have or want a hydrogen infrastructure.
The tanks I think would be a drop in. If my maths are correct the same volume of CNG contains 3x as much energy as hydrogen under the same storage conditions yielding much greater range and/or much lower storage volume needs. Since it does not embrittle CNG is much easier to store than hydrogen too. There is also a robust existing international infrastructure.
Bloom energy and others have been making NGFCs for a few years now for commercial power generation. The TE is 60%, about the same as current HFCs. Licence that tech and develop drop in replacements for HFCs
Or simply go into the parts bin and use the CNG hybrid tech already there. at 40% TE Hybrid drive trains aren’t as efficient as FCs but they exist right now. This is a drop in solution.
For big rigs CNG is especially attractive. It’s very cheap, readily available throughout the world and far cleaner than diesel. Las time I looked wholesale costs are a buck or less per GGE.
Refueling times are comparable to both diesel and hydrogen. The gas would be much easier to pipe in, in come cases produced from local wells.
Existing diesel engines are relatively easy to convert to run on a combination of 80%NG/20% diesel yielding similar power to 100% diesel. Since NG burns much cleaner than diesel not only are emissions lower but the oil stays cleaner longer so less maintenance is needed. I can’t say for sure but I suspect this could be a very good way to squeeze quite a bit more life out of existing diesel engines that would otherwise be trashed due to excessive emissions.
Specially made diesel engines can run on even less diesel, 5-10% of the total energy content. Those will be more expensive but will also need less maintenance and use cheaper fuel so the ROI may work out.
Both diesel and NG can be made renewably from biomaterials using mature tech – some so mature its billions of year old. In fact you’re using it to generate NG from biomaterials right now!
What I see is trucks that spend almost all their time on the highway would be regular ICE. Trucks that spend more time in urban areas or in mountainous areas would ideally be hybrids with relatively small batteries and retractable pantographs for catenary power lines. In cities with overhead power for busses and the trucks would go full electric. Same with mountain passes except the on board battery would also be used. Such a system would allow descending trucks to transfer power to ascending trucks. Energy can be buffered with gravity storage.
The main problems I see with NG is its propensity as a GHG. I don’t think this is a dealbreaker, especially since it’s better for the environment to harness this gas and make it into far less potent CO2 rather than let it escape. The solution I see is to contain leaks and harness the energy as much as possible.
I’m all for trying something new and different, but.. they did. Their FCHV program has been running since the 90s. The first-gen Mirai was the culmination of decades of work, and the 2nd-gen was only a modest improvement.
Hydrogen fuel cells were tried. It makes sense to keep up some R&D, especially on green production, but continuing to produce them at a commercial scale makes so little sense that the only explanation for it I can think of is thr petroleum industry pushing it to greeenwash hydrogen reformation from natural gas.
You’re not wrong, but hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are basically EVs with extra steps. More steps means more hurdles.
The problem here is that people seem to think automobile manufacturers can make fuel cell vehicles viable. Fuel cell vehicles do not benefit from further development until inexpensive hydrogen sources are available.
EVs have limitations, but at least they can be filled up with electrons almost anywhere (albeit slowly, in most cases).
I’m here as well. Why are we supposed to be offended that Honda built some small fleet of random tech vehicles and are willing to lease them? Chrysler built freaking Turbine cars and ran a few million miles on that tech out in the wild. Was turbine the replacement for ICE? No, but I still don’t believe that because an idea ends up dead means it should never have been pursued in the first place.
I think the biggest argument in favor of the article is the active decline of light-duty Hydrogen In the US. Offering a product that is objectively harder to use than any traditional ICE, EV, or Hybrid version is a really tough sell, especially when Hydrogen suppliers are actively pulling out. The love for quirky engineering and cars here is almost entirely on cars that are usable, or at the very least compelling in a way that overcomes their design issues.
This is a worse CRV, and already bland commodity vehicle (albeit a great one). It feels like a false equivalency to say that it’s unfair to criticize Hydrogen in the US because we like other weird stuff here. While diversification of options is good, emphasis should still be given to making real gains with the resources we have, whether that be physical or labor/design, etc. The argument I have here is that this is a product that will benefit nearly nobody, and likely become a burden more than an asset in the next 5 years. The money, resources and time spent on development could have been allocated for a better, more advanced, and more efficient traditional PHEV, Hybrid or even Hondas first full EV Platform.
New tech is a great thing, and it does take a lot of time, effort and money to get it mainstream, but form a practical light-duty transportation standpoint, Hydrogen does nothing better than a normal PHEV or EV. Couple that with the astronomical cost (comparatively), near nonexistence of filling stations, and the only suppliers for it actively pulling out of the market, it seems clear this is a dead end for the market for light-duty Fuel Cells.
Ignoring essentially the entire article (although it was a good read), It’s actually pretty good looking aside from the heinous black wheels. That’s what stands out to me most.
This styling feels more like the last gen Accord’s
The current CRV is a really attractive car. It’s certainly not an envelope pusher, but it’s handsome. It has very good proportions, hard angles in the right places, and just a little bit of edge to spice things up. The interior is near luxury level in the higher trims too.
It’s a very impressive car for what it is and is currently the leader in that very crowded but very dull class. I see it as the GT3 of NPC mobiles and as a result I must respect the engineering and design prowess that went into it. It’s pretty much perfect at its stated mission, after all CRV allegedly stands for Comfortable Runabout Vehicle.
These little touches make it look even sharper. Maybe we can get them as an appearance package on the regular CRV? Anyway the current CRV hybrid is my most frequent recommendation to people who just want a functional daily. It really can’t be beat. My MIL has the pure ICE one and it’s ridiculously good for what it is. There’s a good chance we get a CRV hybrid for my wife’s next car as well.
I think it was Chelsea Sexton, when people were talking about hydrogen after the EV-1 was killed, that said basically PHEV will kill hydrogen. And I think that’s about right, as mentioned a RAV4 Prime gets better range, has way more power, and you can fuel it anywhere.
If there was a magic hydrogen making machine that somehow broke the laws of thermodynamics and took less energy to make hydrogen than using it in a fuel cell car created, sure, let’s do that. In the meantime PHEVs are about as efficient, the fuel is everywhere, they still don’t need as much battery as a full EV, and they can store the fuel way simpler.
ICE is largely a solved technology. There are some incremental gains to be made, but we’re approaching the theoretical limit of efficiency for the tech. It makes sense, then, to use ICE as a way to bootstrap a rapidly developing technology like BEVs. Hydrogen fuel cells, on the other hand, still need a lot of development. Why would we slap a very undeveloped technology onto a slightly more developed technology and expect it to work better?
While this seems to pretty clearly be a compliance vehicle, I’m really not sure why the Japanese manufacturers are still trying to make hydrogen a thing. It’s just not a thing right now and it may never be, although I know we have a few hydrogen stans on this site that I’m sure will offer a defense of this car.
Why not just make some damn EVs like everyone else is doing? Or use some of these battery resources to make more CRV Hybrids? Or a goddamn Pilot or Odyssey hybrid? Why the hell don’t those exist? I understand that Japanese manufacturers are ludicrously conservative and bound by all sorts of social and cultural norms that I won’t even pretend to understand, and that rolling out BEVs slowly was probably the right call even if it got them a lot of flak.
But just…why? Of all the things to focus on right now why are they digging their heels in on hydrogen when no one else is? Toyota and Honda tend to take a “we will tell you what you want” approach to customers rather than a “what do you want?” one, and it feels a bit cynical to me.
Because the Japanese Government believes that their only path to energy independence is thru hydrogen. The government belief is that Japan doesn’t have enough land for solar, the water is too deep for wind, and there’s definitely no oil in those hills. What they do have is easy access to nuclear materials, a populous that is comfortable with nuclear and never ending access to the sea. Converting all that nuclear power into green energy is seen as way to go back to relative isolationism (note this is a bit of less call complicated topic) while having an extremely profitable export for the sweet currency. And with companies like Honda, Toyota, Fuji, Mitsubishi and somewhat Nissan were the company ends and the Japanese state begins is anyone guess.
This is useful context, thanks for providing it.
You know what else nuclear plants make?
Electricity. Lots of it.
And thanks to the inefficiencies of hydrogen a nuclear plant can power twice as many BEVs as it can FCVs.
I’m not saying the Japanese are right or wrong about their love of hydrogen. But switching to BEVs means needing to acquire significant reserves of lithium, which they aren’t finding in Japan. And even if they cut a deal with say Australia, then it doesn’t solve the whole Japan has like no natural export market problem. Which is becoming a problem as the economy has been fairly stagnant for awhile, and just entered a recession, again. Basically, if your the Japanese the government a switch to BEVs, puts you in the same position you’re currently in. But with less greenhouse gases. Japan is desperate for something to jumpstart their economy in the new globalized future. if they could have made Hydrogen work, probably would have been great. As it looks increasingly unlikely, now we’re starting to see the sunk cost play out. As Japan can’t just switch to exporting its nuclear production directly to its neighbors for reasons that the Japanese have never publicly acknowledged.
“which they aren’t finding in Japan”
Did you know that extracting lithium from seawater is possible?
https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/Can-seawater-give-us-lithium-to-meet-our-battery-needs/99/i36
And did you know that Japan is surrounded by seawater?
Nah… you’re wrong. The issue has nothing to do with ‘finding’ lithium. There is plenty of it out there. It’s not rare or hard to find.
The real issue likely has more to do with sunk-cost fallacy. The Japanese government and Toyota and Honda sunk a lot of money into hydrogen.
To admit they made a wrong choice and that it was all a waste would be an admission that would cause them to ‘lose face’.
And in Japanese culture, that’s very bad.
My dude, I’m not wrong, this is all from very public statements from the Japanese government. Like this isn’t some hot take. There is no current commercial lithium production from the sea. Lithium might not that be rare, viable pockets of lithium are pretty rare. But, please if you want to go tell the US federal department we wasted 30 billion dollars buying access to the Chilean market and could just start production off the Cape, you do you.
Also Karoshi has its problems. But it’s not like they’re going to make the Mr. Honda commit seppuku. We’re getting stuck vastly oversimplifying the entire Japanese economic situation and motivating factors from a western view. It’s really not as simple as “lol, build more EVs/Hybrids you dummies.”
Yes, but nuclear is only good for base load. It can’t scale up and down like natural gas.
You could expand that base load to consistently deliver grid power and hydrogen production.
That’s still very inefficient and resource intensive. There’s a 20-30% conversion loss when splitting water. The most efficient fuel cells have a 40% or so conversion loss going back to electricity. If we used hydrogen as energy storage, about half the energy will be lost in conversion… not to mention the theoretically massive amount of water it would take.
Meanwhile, there are all sorts of battery formats that can do the same thing with net losses below 15%. The hydrogen process would have to increase efficiency by more than double while massively reducing the usage of exotic materials just to match current battery technology.
not to mention the theoretically massive amount of water it would take.
Japan is an island that gets plenty of rain. Water is the least of their problems.
The most efficient fuel cells have a 40% or so conversion loss going back to electricity.
The Mirai FC has a peak TE of 63%. Granted that’s under low load so you definitely need a battery to get moving.
For scaling Japan is an extremely mountainous country with an already well developed pumped hydroelectric capacity specifically built to scale up and down with solar variability and nuclear base load.
You could expand that base load to consistently deliver grid power and hydrogen production.
Nuclear plants tend to be expensive to build as is usable land in Japan. The fewer power plants needed the better.
I well remember snacking on hard boiled eggs quickly cooked in the hot springs at Unzen —I’m quite curious why Japan doesn’t produce more power with geothermal
I’m quite curious why Japan doesn’t produce more power with geothermal
Good question. This is what I found:
https://www.irena.org/news/articles/2009/Apr/Unlocking-geothermal-potential-in-Japan-through-small-scale-generation
Thanks for that. Deeper in, it seems Japan is working to loosen some of the regulations—especially for small-scale installations. Seems there’s a bit of a redemption story for Fukushima, too: when faced with the absolute devastation of the tsunami, and complete dearth of tourists afterwards, some of the stakeholders are working together to make it happen. Good for them!
They don’t have much of a choice. They need a LOT of power, preferably green power and they don’t have many other ways to get it.
I’m betting it’s pretty contentious: even if people don’t actually believe in Kami , it’s part of the zeitgeist and most people don’t want spots like hot springs full of piping when the cultural tradition has been to keep them unsullied as possible.
But, as you say, needs must.
It’s because most of the viable areas were in protected natural parks and tourist destinations. So there was no significant public appetite to convert popular areas for it, since nuclear was going pretty well. Then it didn’t go as well, so they are reconsidering.
Then it didn’t go as well, so they are reconsidering.
They are also reconsidering their aversion to nuclear power:
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61386
Group think and sunk cost fallacy, especially when the Japanese government insists it is the way of the future and start raining cash.
The change to an EV future necessarily involves vehicle manufacturers building new designs that may or may not pan out, as the efficiencies of different systems become more clear.
The obvious problems with BEVs in northern, sparsely settled North America haven’t stopped their production. So when the market showed auto manufacturers that buyers couldn’t fit them into their use case, BEV production has slowed.
Fuel cells are an extremely viable method to get to EV dominance. In fact, they are likely to be the dominant over-the-road trucking solution in North America eventually. So starting out slow, with a single passenger vehicle using the technology, is a logical next step for Honda.
The transition to higher solar and wind generation, will mean that large banks of stationary batteries need to accompany those intermittent sources. Many of the battery types useful for this purpose generate hydrogen. Also, as the permafrost thaws, large amounts of methane will be released, that should be captured and burned, rather than simply allowed to vent to atmosphere and worsen our global warming situation.
Both of these sources can be used in fuel cells.
It is true that the current ‘blue hydrogen’ is more or less a pointless fuel long term. But the technology can be refined via this sort of Honda fuel cell vehicle, until the other sources of ‘green hydrogen’ come online.
That’s why this isn’t really a waste of time.
On ‘intermittent sources,’ I don’t understand the power grid at all. I always assumed any transmission wires I saw were always live. I was very surprised to see that these lines only transmit power at certain times.
If that is the case, aren’t all electricity generating facilities intermittent? I have no idea how the transmitted electricity is stored, or if it is used immediately, but it would seem there needs to be some sort of buffer / battery / large weight raised high in the air between the transmitted energy and end user load on the system.
Grid balancing is incredibly complicated. You cant start and stop a coal/ng/nuclear plant at the drop of a hat like you can with solar/wind. This means output is more of a curve as generation leads or lags load. If you shove a multimeter into an outlet at home in the summer you can see grid balancing happen. In the late afternoon as people are home from school and ACs are working hardest, you will see lower voltage (in the US, think closer to 110v) than you’ll see later in the day or morning (closer to 117ish). Grid operators generally have to keep enough power online (or offline) to supply within 5%+- “nominal” voltage so problems dont happen.
Thank you. Is there any storage capacity of any kind, or is it just distributed as it arrives? I understand this may be impossible to simplify to my level of understanding.
There is almost zero grid level storage. Hawaii has just brought online a large storage battery bank, but their grid is entirely separate from our continental grids.
There is almost zero grid level storage.
Not exactly.
Pumped storage hydropower (PSH) is one of the most-common and well-established types of energy storage technologies and currently accounts for 96% of all utility-scale energy storage capacity in the United States. PSH facilities store and generate electricity by moving water between two reservoirs at different elevations. Vital to grid reliability, today, the U.S. pumped storage hydropower fleet includes about 22 gigawatts of electricity-generating capacity and 550 gigawatt-hours of energy storage with facilities in every region of the country.
https://www.energy.gov/eere/water/how-pumped-storage-hydropower-works
In addition regular hydroelectric is often used to balance the grid load.
Fair enough. I hadn’t considered PSH in this context, but I should have. When i consider it, i think of it being pumped uphill using intermittent renewables and downhill generating hydro, vs most of its current use cases where excess hydro (which is renewable, sure, but not intermittent) pushes it uphill. But really, it is a distinction without difference and even existing PSH is still totally a grid battery.
Hydro is how almost all grid level energy is buffered and has been for over 100 years. Hydroelectric turbines are also the fastest to respond to demand, faster even than NG plants:
https://www.hydroreview.com/technology-and-equipment/generators-and-electrical-components/hydroelectric-plants-have-fastest-start-up-time-of-u-s-electric-generators/#gref
These are really good questions. If you want to know about load balancing generation you should look up how the main grids use natural gas generation in geographic distributions to do just that. It’s fascinating stuff.
Water is one. It gets pumped into an upper reservoir from a lower one, then released to turn turbines & generate electricity. Smith Mountain Lake is one such ‘battery’ in Southwest Virginia
The efficiency of hydrogen is pretty clear, and has been since about 2009. Until someone invents a better production method, it takes about 4x as much energy to move a car one mile with H2 compared to just using the electricity directly. The reliance on compressed or liquefied tankers for transport over very limited ranges makes distribution a showstopper until someone invents a hydrogen-safe pipeline. Fueling stations need to use expensive and exotic materials in their compressors and plumbing to slow down hydrogen embrittlement. The cars need crazy amounts of platinum and PGMs, which is a showstopper until someone invents a new fuel cell.
They’re barely viable at all. In the short term, they cost more up front than BEVs, and hydrogen costs an arm and a leg to produce and distribute. Not great for kickstarting adoption. In the long term, expect platinum/PGM shortages.
Road-based shipping is extremely sensitive to fuel prices, and hydrogen will always be more costly than the electricity used to make it. In cases where range and refueling speed matter more than cost, liquid synfuels already hold the crown.
None of the batteries useful for this purpose generate hydrogen.
There are proposals for capturing methane from hydrate or clathrate wells, but not biological methanogenesis, which is where most of the permafrost methane will be coming from.
There are reasons to keep pursuing hydrogen. More diversity in our approach is always better, and there will always be niche use cases. Someone out there has probably seen that there’s a plug-in hybrid fuel cell (PHFCEV?) and is desperately phoning their Honda dealership right now. I count that a win.
But it’s extremely important not to prop up hydrogen (or really any clean tech) with unrealistic claims — doing so creates a perpetual Osbourne Effect that could result in us frittering away our carbon budget while waiting for a miracle.
Which is what many proponents of hydrogen are counting on. Some of the biggest voices in support of hydrogen are fossil fuel companies and their proxies. They want to keep the market hooked on fossil fuels (where most hydrogen is still derived) or push back the development of viable alternatives as long as possible.
It’s just the same as what Elon Musk did with hyperloop in an effort to kill high speed rail in California.
Look. I don’t know who you are. But when you say say this…
You: None of the batteries useful for this purpose generate hydrogen.
..then I know you are completely ignorant of the possible chemistries of stationary storage cells, and what kinds are now being developed, that do indeed produce hydrogen.
I make it a habit of not arguing with ignorant people in online forums. As my day job is doing full professor stuff, and I am in the middle of my day, I’m too busy to play Punch and Judy to satisfy your EV fanboi behavior.
So I’ll just leave you to your blissful ignorance. Have a great day.
If you are talking about using electrolysis to make hydrogen, compressing/liquifying it for density then converting it back to electricity as a means of storing electricty that is a really terrible way to store electricity. At best you’re looking at a 40% return of your input.
You’re much better off using pumped hydro ARES or other gravity based storage mechanism which are far more efficient and offer similar 0-100-0% response times.
Just got off work. Long day at the hospital. I haven’t been able to respond, to get back to this, but it’s an interesting subject.
Lately, I’ve been interested in a project in Rotterdam that’s using old Edison chemistry Iron/Nickel batteries to do the storage and H2 generation thing. In fact they are hiring electrode Chemical Engineer specialists right now, if you know anyone interested in doing the ground work. There are some ads I’ve seen online. For those inclined to actually DO STUFF, and not just jawbone.
But getting back to your point about the cost effectiveness of various load balancing, hydrogen is currently being looked at as a method to do it. The inefficiency of the process is affected by scale and distribution.
Here’s a recent study out of Stanford, that addresses your point about simple pumped hydro, and how it compares to other possible methods, like batteries and hydrogen:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004224002098
If you really want to go into it, there are people who can give you break points on cost effectivenes.
They exist. And they are working on it now. Not just commenting online.
So the problem I have with using hydrogen as an energy storage medium is not just that its inefficient but that the hydrogen is too valuable to waste that way.
IMO surplus renewable energy should be used to make hydrogen but hat hydrogen should be bottled and sold to industry rather than used as an inefficient way to store grid power.
Hydrogen is used to make fertilizer, steel etc and 95% of that hydrogen is made by steam reforming natural gas. Industry has no alternative, only hydrogen will do. As such industrial hydrogen generates a lot of GHGs.
Instead of using the hydrogen to store surplus power that power should be replaced by using the natural gas that would have been steam reformed. NGFCs have similar TEs to HFCs so I think the overall energy efficiency would be much higher.
The Stanford article I linked talks about that too.
One of the things people commenting here seem to forget, is that once fossil hydrocarbons go away, the Haber process for ammonia based nitrogen fertilizers and coke steel go away too. So regardless of the efficiency, we are going to need to figure out a way to create absolutely huge volumes of hydrogen. We have to, or the agricultural revolution goes away and structural steel goes away.
Since neither of those things is consistent with maintaining our current global population, one of the biggest priorities in the next 10-15 years, is figuring out how to generate that hydrogen.
We WILL figure it out. We have to.
Therefore, assuming an abundance of hydrogen, as a precondition for continued advanced societal function, is relatively safe bet.
And building hydrogen cars is likewise a safe bet.
quod erat demonstrandum
Therefore, assuming an abundance of hydrogen, as a precondition for continued advanced societal function, is relatively safe bet.
Er no.
The amount of energy just contained in the industrial hydrogen used worldwide today is equivalent to the entire current renewable capacity of the United States, including all its hydro. Not the surplus, but ALL of the renewable energy made.
There simply isn’t enough renewable energy to squander on hydrogen for transport and will not be for a very, very long time. And until that is the case you are far better off using methane for transport.
We clearly disagree. Nice talk.
Time will tell who is correct.
Right now though hydrogen ain’t looking good.
Daimler and Honda disagree wit you.
We can watch together, though.
Have a beer on me next time we meet.
Daimler and Honda disagree wit you.
I expect they will come to regret their folly just like the folks who are now stuck with a $190/tank-when-you-can-get-H2-at-all Mirai have.
We can watch together, though.
Have a beer on me next time we meet.
Sounds good.
Yeah. I’ll trust Honda and Daimler over you.
No offense.
Oh? Enough to buy a HFCV today? You can pick up a Mirai for just $7-$8k right now! Maybe less with a federal rebate.
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/ctd/d/pleasant-hill-2017-toyota-mirai/7722406658.html
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/ctd/d/pleasanton-2017-toyota-mirai-sedan/7717860977.html
https://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/cto/d/pittsburg-2016-mirai-toyota/7720452189.html
Nothing that plebian.
Enough to buy Honda stock. Not Tesla.
Plebian? The Gen1 Mirai was a near $60k car when it came out!
https://www.caranddriver.com/toyota/mirai-2017
And Toyota lost money on every one!
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1095773_how-much-money-does-the-2016-toyota-mirai-lose-a-lot-perhaps
As far as money spent goes that makes a Mercedes S class look plebeian.
You know what else costs $60k? This eFCEV CRV:
https://www.caranddriver.com/honda/cr-v-fuel-cell
That’s going to be a very hard sell vs the ICE at $30k.
And I expect in a few years you’ll see these eFCEV CRVs on CL for $7-$8k, trending down too.
Maybe take it down a notch there, bud. Nobody else is calling anybody names here.
I know you can collect hydrogen from the catalytic discharge of vanadium flow (or similar redox) batteries, and I know regenerative fuel cells exist. But I also know that the best round-trip efficiency you’ll see outside a laboratory is around 60%. [1][2][3][4][5]
And because I’m an electrical engineer who’s done work for utilities from Florida to Hawaii, I can tell you first-hand that none of them are seriously considering storage systems with round-trip efficiency that low. Between demand-side management, HVDC transmission, thermal storage for cogen, and conventional battery/hydro/gravity systems, there are much better ways for the grid to use a megawatt-hour than to throw half of it away just to save the other half.
I know your science project batteries exist. I’m saying they’re not useful.*
*For the purpose of grid-scale storage. Residential or commercial microgrids with small amounts of daily energy and low net metering prices could be potential markets, provided installation prices ever catch up to conventional batteries.
This is logical support for implementing an alternative product. Successful companies such as Honda see a strategical gain of experience and knowledge that outweigh the lack of short term profits.
Exactly.
That name/letter salad reads like the name of a Star Wars droid.
LOL good timing! 😛