this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2024
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it's going badly for light vehicles
Yes, as I said above, this is true because a) hydrogen doesn't currently have the scale to bring the cost down, and b) is more suitable for large vehicles anyway. It's failure to be a viable consumer option doesn't mean it wouldn't work in mass freight transport.
Spending longer filling up than an EV because the pump keeps freezing up, and $200 USD to do so, isn't an issue of scale.
Of course it is, don't be daft.
Price will come down with scale. Currently hydrogen is only produced at a very small scale. As production increases, price will drop. Simple really.
Freezing pumps is a problem I'm certain will be solved. In its infancy, EV charging stations were slow. Look how far the technology has come in a short number of years. As uptake increases and infrastructure is built, I am certain these problems will be overcome.
They won't, because EVs will always be the better option, and the niche applications where an EV simply isn't viable will be served by biofuels rather than hydrogen. It's a mongrel of a product to manufacture, store, transport, and transfer into the vehicle, whereas liquid fuels can be stored in a fuel can, and transported by every means of transport known to man.
Hydrogen has been the fuel of the future for the last fifty years, and it's still not a viable option.
It is technically challenging, I don't disagree, but it has high energy density by weight. It also, of course, has lots of other applications. Steel manufacture being one.
But to be honest, even if it never eventuates and we get carbon neutral biofuels, I'll be happy. Anything is better than what we're doing right now.
EVs won't, because internal combustion cars will always be the better options, and the niche applications where ICE simply isn't viable will be served by bunker fuel rather than EVs. It's a mongrel of a product to manufacture, store, transport and charge the vehicle, wheras liquid fuels can be stored in a fuel can, and transported by every means of transport known to man.
EVs have been the propulsion of the future for the last fifty years, and it's still not a viable option.
This is true if you completely ignore the cost of running a combustion engine vehicle, or the fact that EVs have improved hugely even over the last ten years.
This is true because you wrote a bunch of nothingburgers about EVs being better than hydrogen where those EVs were in the same space barely 10yrs ago that hydrogen is now.
Hydrogen has been in the same place it is now for the last fifty years, it's not happening.