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

Hydrogen fueling is slower than Tesla EV supercharger

This site may earn commission on affiliate links.
check this out:
Hydrogen fueling slower than Tesla EV supercharger (fuel cell electric) | PriusChat

hydrogen.png


wow that charging infrastructure sucks!! the systems overheat and need to cool down for 30 minutes until the next car can refuel. that's a lot of wasted time! and it doesn't even refuel you to max. this guy needs to dump that crappy hydrogen fuel cell car and get a Tesla!
 
$2.8 million for a refueling station? A Supercharger station is about $200,000. Any house or business can install a charging plug for $1000 or less.
The whole hydrogen fuel push is just a last desperate attempt by legacy automakers and the fossil fuel industry to squeeze a few more years life out of their soon to be stranded assets in "proven reserves" and ICE manufacturing equipment.
 
To be fair, this is likely just a poor design of the filling station, not an issue with HFC EV's in general. After all, with so few cars on the road, the builders of the station probably skimped on the specs. After all, they're already something like $2.8 million each:

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56412.pdf

As Elon and JB say, compare current tech with current tech. The filling stations are what they are; the superchargers are what THEY are, and have already been upgraded twice (90->120->135 kW peak).

H2 is a stunning boondoggle, and this posting speaks to that. I honestly do not know why anyone would buy an H2 vehicle right now.

In two years and four years, the filling tech will probably advance, but so will the superchargers (and prevalence of other DCFC stations). It is not valid to evaluate an idealized technology against a deployed and fully available technology!
 
Many of the H2 filling stations require H2 fuel trucks to replenish them. These stations only keep enough H2 for about 15 cars. Given that this is all experimental technology with highly flammable and explosive fuel, it just isn't worth it IMHO.
 
Since CARB will only allow credits for technology that is actually in use and not theoretical (e.g., like battery-swapping), I hope that they do not award fool cell cars the fast refueling credit. Unfortunately, they probably will because they are in the pocket of the fool cell industry.
 
The elephant in the room that the FCV people are trying SO HARD to ignore is that Teslas, and most other EVs, charge at home and don't need a charging system for nearly all their driving needs. Well, unless you only have 80 to 100 miles of range. I would imagine that 70 to 90 per cent of all Tesla charging occurs at home, and THERE IS NO WAITING. So in the above scenario, it would be 190 minutes to drive to a fueling station, wait, fill, drive, return, etc. etc., vs Take 3 Seconds (personal official time) to plug in, and car is full.

As in no waiting. As in Full Every Morning. As in Not Having to Go To A Fueling Station. And on the RARE occasion you charge away from home, it takes minutes, not hours.

Why can't people see this?

The advertisement of the Lexus hybrid knocking EVs and suggesting they have to search for a charger, and then wait hours for a charge, is patently wrong, and is especially funny when they tag line they are using "Proven Technology", and in the next paragraph want you to know that when FCVs come around in their hybrids, they will be even better.
 
Some charging will of course be at a supercharger, but only like 10% of the miles driven.

So, for hydrogen: 10,000 miles / 250 mile range = 40 fillups
At 1 hour each, that's about 40 hours a year filling up

Model S: 10,000 miles / 150 miles per SC visit x 0.1 = ~7 visits a year
At 30 minutes per visit, thats 3.5 hours.
Plus 365 x 0.15 minutes = 55 minutes.
In total about 4 hours and 25 minutes per year.

Gasoline car: 10.000 miles / 400 miles = 25 fillups a year.
25 x 10 minutes = 250 minutes
So about 4 hours and 10 minutes per year.

So basically, a gas car and a Model S are fairly similar, and a hydrogen car is around ten times as slow, given the experiences above. Even if the hydrogen car could do the fillups consistently in 10 minutes, it would still be the slowest.
 
To be fair, this is likely just a poor design of the filling station, not an issue with HFC EV's in general. After all, with so few cars on the road, the builders of the station probably skimped on the specs. After all, they're already something like $2.8 million each:

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56412.pdf
It isn't just poor design, the reason the cost is so high and the product so bad is in part because of the nature of hydrogen. To get it into a small space you have to compress it, that takes energy, it takes a compressor, and either you spend way more on the compressor, or you have a smaller one that tends to overheat.

It is explosive, and stored at high pressure, so you have to do a lot to make it even come close to safety, including locking connectors and such, which make it harder to use.

It isn't that they are lazy, it is that they have decided to do a very difficult thing with minimal rewards.
 
To be fair, this is likely just a poor design of the filling station, not an issue with HFC EV's in general. After all, with so few cars on the road, the builders of the station probably skimped on the specs. After all, they're already something like $2.8 million each:

http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/56412.pdf


I think it is proof that they ( the FCV makers ) are not really serious about the cars being competitive. They know that FCVs aren't going to go anywhere, but they are playing their game.
Since they know the FCVs are inferior and are just a political play, they don't care that the infrastructure is half-assed. Can I say half-assed and not be censored?