Welcome to Tesla Motors Club
Discuss Tesla's Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y, Cybertruck, Roadster and More.
Register

Hyundai's Lease-only Fuel Cell Car Debuts

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
Screen shot from the video - One of these things is not like the other.........I spy something fossil-fuely.....it's a 3 letter word that rhymes with pass.....if regular folks think this is the next best thing instead of EVs, the industry fooled them and they won! Fossil fuel industry - "Let's just throw H2 in front of the word gas and see what happens......"

hyrdo.png
 
I agree with you, though technically hydrogen is distributed in its gaseous form for FCVs, as opposed to the "gas" that ICE vehicles use which is actually a liquid.

If they got the hydrogen strictly from water by using solar/wind energy, I would feel slightly better about FCVs. Unfortunately, the majority if not all of the fuel cell stations generate hydrogen from natural gas. As many already know, hydraulic fracturing for extracting natural gas is more frequently being used now, and this has resulted in water supply contamination for some areas and even earthquakes.

Superchargers sound so much more appealing. I can even just charge at home overnight, never having to visit a fuel cell station and never needing to be exposed to the dangers of fueling with high pressure hydrogen gas.
 
If they got the hydrogen strictly from water by using solar/wind energy, I would feel slightly better about FCVs.

I'm not impressed by that. It's easy to say, "oh it's all renewable," but that's just smoke and mirrors. Efficiency is about 1/4 that of an EV, so you'll have to build out 4X as much renewables for the same usage. Never mind that it doesn't make economic sense, it also means that the carbon footprint due to manufacturing that renewable harvesting equipment is also 4X worse per mile driven.

Unfortunately, the majority if not all of the fuel cell stations generate hydrogen from natural gas.

Exactly. I expect that the overall economics of simply fueling cars with natural gas would be much better. And in reality it's probably better for carbon footprint, too.
 
If they got the hydrogen strictly from water by using solar/wind energy, I would feel slightly better about FCVs. [...]

I wouldn't.
If there's some power station that is making electricity from solar/wind, I'd hate for that electricity to be wasted in splitting water.

It's much more efficient to make Hydrogen from Natural Gas and grid power from solar/wind than it is to make Hydrogen from electricity from solar and make grid power from Natural Gas.

Until there's a regional surplus of clean electricity, powering Hydrogen cars via clean electricity is a huge waste of clean electricity.
 
I don't understand the distrust of h2 power. It's more expensive than electric (and gas), its extracted from natural gas 95% plus (like there is 30% fossil / coal power electric car generation), but I support it because there is future potential there. Maybe eventually there will be an efficient way to split water directly into o and h. maybe there will be a good way to store it in a car, maybe they will figure out a safety feature where it wont be invisible if it catches on fire (really). I'm all for people spending money and effort to make it better.

Just like ice cars are cheaper than electric in lots of ways, but evs are getting way better all the time, there is potential for hydrogen power to get better. I'm slightly sad that so many companies are focusing on this, but its better than gasoline, and future potential is really great.
 
Maybe eventually there will be an efficient way to split water directly into o and h. maybe there will be a good way to store it in a car, maybe they will figure out a safety feature where it wont be invisible if it catches on fire (really).

Maybe, maybe, maybe. The thing is, these "maybes" all require fundamental breakthroughs in chemistry and/or engineering. There's no guarantee such a breakthrough is even possible. Now if there was one problem like this I'd say there's a chance. But it's not just one, or two, or three things that need fundamental science breakthroughs in order to make these things truly practical. It's not realistic.

There will be a niche for hydrogen power, but passenger vehicles will not be it.
 
Maybe, maybe, maybe. The thing is, these "maybes" all require fundamental breakthroughs in chemistry and/or engineering. There's no guarantee such a breakthrough is even possible. Now if there was one problem like this I'd say there's a chance. But it's not just one, or two, or three things that need fundamental science breakthroughs in order to make these things truly practical. It's not realistic.

There will be a niche for hydrogen power, but passenger vehicles will not be it.

Remember the huge investment in fusion power? The early promises indicated working reactors by 2000. This is the same thing, and in the end will result in the same failure. Fusion, powered by heavy water, was going to save the world. A multibillion dollar investment worldwide in tokomaks, lasers, and all other manner of technologies to make it work, including the fraud of cold fusion, amounted to nothing. It was and remains an insurmountable challenge of science.

H2 cars are the same story. And worse yet, it seems a last ditch attempt to prevent the inevitable and well deserved death of the fossil fuel industry.
 
Remember the huge investment in fusion power? The early promises indicated working reactors by 2000. This is the same thing, and in the end will result in the same failure. Fusion, powered by heavy water, was going to save the world. A multibillion dollar investment worldwide in tokomaks, lasers, and all other manner of technologies to make it work, including the fraud of cold fusion, amounted to nothing. It was and remains an insurmountable technical problem.

Don't give up just yet:

LPP investment questions/discussion
 
Remember the huge investment in fusion power? The early promises indicated working reactors by 2000. This is the same thing, and in the end will result in the same failure. Fusion, powered by heavy water, was going to save the world. A multibillion dollar investment worldwide in tokomaks, lasers, and all other manner of technologies to make it work, including the fraud of cold fusion, amounted to nothing. It was and remains an insurmountable challenge of science.

H2 cars are the same story. And worse yet, it seems a last ditch attempt to prevent the inevitable and well deserved death of the fossil fuel industry.

We'll see soon enough.

Your comment sounds a little like what most said about attractive, roomy, long-range EVs until recently. Everything is impossible until some does it, then it's suddenly possible.

y3eqaqag.jpg
 
Last edited:
We'll see soon enough.

Your comment sounds a little like what most said about attractive, roomy, long-range EVs until recently. Everything is impossible until some does it, then it's suddenly possible.

y3eqaqag.jpg

It's not a question of possibility but where the best investment of limited resources should be made. Instead of trying to make a thermonuclear power plant I think the better investment is harnessing the energy the great thermonuclear power plant in the sky already produces -- solar power. If the huge post-war investment in fusion power had been made at the time instead in the development of solar power we'd be far ahead of the game today. Regrettably, the obsession at the time was with nuclear and thermonuclear, largely, I think because of military implications. Solar had no apparent military benefits.