Originally Posted by
sharkythesharkdogg
Originally Posted by
Mirage
my 1995 audi has better fuel economy than a 2005 ford focus. not that i'm bragging or anything
it has run nearly 300000 km, but the engine is reasonably unproblematic still
I just hope it lasts until i can afford the upcoming tesla model 3. smurf fossile fuels.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars, pls. That would be great.
Please, no. Hydrogen fuel cells are terrible. The main source for pure hydrogen is as a by-product of the fossil fuel manufacturing processes. The other way of purifying hydrogen is electrolysis, which requires 2.5 times as much energy to be put into it than the hydrogen itself holds afterwards. This is not counting the energy required to compress the gas by an immense amount, which is required to get any sort of meaningful amount into a fuel tank. Furthermore, this hydrogen needs to be moved around to fueling stations, which again requires energy, and lastly, hydrogen is an extremely small atom, and seeps through solid metal over time, making storage difficult, as it requires a lot of special materials to keep this at bay. In addition, the way hydrogen interacts with metals make the metals more brittle, so they break more easily.
A fuel cell car by design requires an incredibly complex drive line, as well as tons of movable parts to support the fuel cells. The fuel cells themselves also require lot more maintenance than any part of a regular electric car. Hydrogen is very inefficient to use as a energy bearer, and the gas is extremely explosive (much more so than gasoline), and will in cars be under extremely high pressure. The fewer such cars on the road, the better.
The only advantage hydrogen cells really have is faster refueling, but even that is an advantage i doubt will matter for a lot longer. This is of course assuming you can find a hydrogen station. Building additional superchargers is a much simpler process than keeping a remote station supplied with hydrogen. Meanwhile, battery capacity in electric cars increase by around 5% per year, without getting bigger or heavier. 5 years from now, a new car in the same class that the model S is in today will most likely have a 400 miles actual realistic range, with the ability to charge 300 miles in 30-45 minutes. Assuming you're a normal human being, you probably want a break after driving 300 miles in one go, so at this point, range problems are for most people no longer relevant.
To sum up:
Hydrogen cars are less efficient (35-45% efficiency compared to 80% in a battery electric, and this is before we count the extreme energy loss in hydrogen harvesting)
Hydrogen is either inefficient or dirty to harvest
Performance is lower because the fuel cell has lower peak output
Much higher motor + driveline complexity = more things that can break
Hydrogen stations are rare and more expensive to build than superchargers
Can't be charged at home, which is what 90% of people do 90% of the time because they use their cars to and from work every day
The main reason japan has a hardon for hydrogen cars is that they want people to use the hydrogen as an emergency power source if they lose power from things like earthquakes or tsunamis. For this, hydrogen will last much longer than a fully charged electric car, although this is possible to do with normal electric cars too without too many changes made to them. That, and that it is much easier for japan to import hydrogen than it is to import electricity. Japan actually has quite a bit of electricity supply problem, now that they've decided to shut down many of their nuclear reactors, which was their main source of power until recently.
edit: I can see that not all of the mazda cars in that link seem to be using fuel cells, so I don't know exactly how efficient they are. Regardless, it doesn't change the other disadvantages, and I doubt it's as efficient as 80% like battery electrics are.