Yeah, she talked about how much money she saved with a used Mirai against a new battery EV. Why not compare it against a used battery EV then? Surely there are hundreds of used Teslas in her region within her budget.
I agree that there are definitely better options for the price, but the Mirai and the Bolt are (besides the propulsion technology) *very* different vehicles.
For anyone wondering, the total global sales figures for fully electric battery cars last year was 9,500,000. For hydrogen fuel cell cars it was 8,500. Lamborghini sold more vehicles. That's how rare hydrogen vehicles are.
In other words, if you start counting from the beginning of the year right as the ball drops at midnight... By noon that same January 1st, battery electric cars will have finished outpacing the next 364.5 days of hydrogen fuel cell car sales.
@@evlo8059 No as far as I know all hydrogen busses use fuel cells, not hydrogen combustion (which is inefficient and produces emissions). The number is only for passenger cars anyway - not public transport vehicles. Although BEVs still massively dominate there too.
Fun fact: Harris ranch is also where the only Tesla battery swap station was back in the day. You’d swap in a battery and then you had to come back and retrieve your original battery on the return trip
I wonder how viable a battery swap program is. Like would people like being able to get a full charged battery in less than a few minutes in exchange of not owning their own battery? Ebikes can easily exchange batteries for a full one in less than a minute. Evs don't cause the batteries are just too heavy for manual labor. I can only see robotics and machinery doing it for us if we want a battery swap in less than a minute.
@@kabosune9097 NEO has a lot of battery swap stations in China you can read up on. Their main limitations are a few: 1. You become limited on the form factor of batteries your fleet of cars can use. Every new form factor reduces the capacity of the station. 2. The stations need to have a lot of battery packs in them that aren't in production cars. Even just 20 packs is a half million $ in batteries. 3. To support recharging the batteries in time you need to build effectively a DC fast charging station. At full speed a NEO station can only buffer about an hour worth of charged batteries, so you incur all the costs of building a fast charger on top of the swap station. So in the end it costs maybe $1.5m to build a swap station and fill it with batteries. Tesla superchargers are about $43k per stall, so for that same cost you could build a 35 stall supercharger. That supercharger would be able to 0-80% charge about 60 cars an hour, where the NEO station at 8min per swap would only do 7.5 cars in the same time.
@@kabosune9097 Nio, a Chinese EV company, is the world leader in battery swapping tech right now. They advertise 5 min swaps, but when tested, it takes more like 10 mins. Still, not a horrible trade off and customers seem satisfied. I honestly wouldn't mind it, I wouldn't have to worry about battery degradation or charging speeds. CNBC did a cool video about Chinese EVs: th-cam.com/video/9DLwtGw5yZY/w-d-xo.html
@@kabosune9097 it is a thing with NIO in China, I'm on the fence about it, I can see the pro's and cons, but even if it 'failed' and all the swap stations shut down, you still have an EV with a decent battery you can charge normally, and most charging is done slowly while at work, hotel, retail or if you are lucky, home. One of the cool things about the NIO swap is you can choose your battery capacity, going for a cheaper, lighter, smaller pack when you are about town, and then swapping for a longer range pack at the start of a trip - it's an interesting idea, and they have done millions of swaps - I don't know if they will bring it to the US, but for apartment dwellers it's a compelling option.
@@TheOfficialOriginalChad For some reason Germany is still heavily investing in hydrogen. Despite that, hydrogen car sales there have fallen off a cliff. Fell from 835 to 263 between 2022 and 2023. Turns out even with heavy subsidies, people don't want them.
Bro i researched for next gen fuel and just get 1 option that is SEAWEED BIO FUEL the reason is 1st it's from sea water to don't need to fight to grow food or or drive car aslo don't NEED FRESH WATER. 2nd we don't need new infra for running & processing for this ( we easily use our gas cars just minimal changes) 3rd its cheap than other emerging options 4th don't EMIT harmful toxic gases & Also carbon natural I just want 1 things research your own and if you think this is right please share it to every one
@@drunkenhobo8020 I meant infrastructure subsidies, not consumer facing. I don’t get why they don’t just shift oil and gas subsidies to more renewable fuels
yeah so we had a 2019 Hyundai Nexo, and we drove to LA from the Bay Area twice round trip. The second time, Harris Ranch ran out of fuel in the time it took us to drive from the Bay Area down to it (and past the point of no return). We got the last room at their motel overnight, and had to wait until their (diesel-powered) fuel truck showed up the next day for its delivery. Pro tip: they have a really good steak restaurant and gift shop. We always felt like we were living in the 1972 OPEC oil crisis with our Nexo, and we dumped it early off of its lease for a BEV. At some point, life is too short to wait at True Zero stations and have a car that's a science experiment.
Best example of the failed promise of hydrogen and why batteries just make sense... And cents! Worst case charging scenario is plugging it in a 110v outlet and trickle charging over night which is how MOST EV drivers charge anyway... Just like a really big cell phone battery!
@@stickynorthYep, it's why hydrogen will never take off. The nearest hydrogen fuelling station to me is 60 miles away. The nearest electrical socket is on the wall next to my left foot.
Toyota literally gives out these cars for free. Used they’re between $8K-$18K depending on the year, trim and miles. But Toyota will give you a $15K hydrogen card. If you live in LA, have a short commute and live close to a fueling station you can pretty much get this car for free until your card runs out of money lol.
Its kinda funny how toyota gives you free hydrogen for 3 years...but when it comes to building hydrogen stations, they back out. Why just sell you the car and not the lifestyle? Tesla got around that with superchargers and toyota is a far bigger company with a lot more resources than tesla ever had back in 2012.
@@thedumbconspirator4956 Because it requires building an entirely new fuel infrastructure, not just only distribution but creation infrastructure. Toyota is not interested in building hydrogen refineries or stations due to the cost. Tesla took a different approach. It knew the only way to sell its cars was to have free charging and create their own distribution infrastructure. Electricity is everywhere. Building a few superchargers directly to the grid is a lot cheaper overall than building a hydrogen station, where everything has to be done from scratch. Only a slight tangent, Jeff Bezos did an interview talking about Blue Origin and Amazon. Very good interview. He was saying that Amazon would not have been possible without the electric grid, USPS, the Internet, credit cards, etc, he built Amazon on existing infrastructure. Blue Origin is creating the next generation of infrastructure, there is nothing else that he can piggy back on.
Rich fn useless ppl an their CORPORATIONS dont want to spend a buck to save us Poors from paying for air not while their is billions to be squeezed from our empty wallets / accounts ...
$15k of hydrogen is worth much less than $15k of gas or electricity however. For a 30 mpg car it will get you as far as $5k of gas at $5 a gallon. You can probably find a Bolt in that price range, and get something like 5 cents a mile, so only $1.5k of electricity gets you as many miles as the $15k hydrogen. The car's resale value is also nonexistent in private sales because no hydrogen card, so you have to take those losses too.
Sounds very black mirror dystopia to me.. With the Tesla network you can literally drive all the way North into Mid-Canada aka The Yellowhead Highway that runs between Vancouver-Edmonton-Winnipeg and south into Southern Mexico nearly into Central America.. Hydrogen? Like you said... Stranded in Cali for eternity...
Well, burning/using hydrogen everywhere you would burn fossil fuels today (and having an enormous hydrogen infrastructure) is a great concept - with some difficulties 😬
i mean yeah, hydrogen is used as a way to store energy. Thats the point. It might not harm the environment as much in theory (given clean hydrogen) but it is less efficient than batteries. Hydrogen can be significantly lighter on the environment though. (If burning is feasible)
And you haven't seen how inefficient that is. If you were to use electrolysis to generate the hydrogen, you need 3 to 4 times as much electricity compared to simply storing it in batteries and getting traction that way.
@@cooltwittertag burning is even less efficient than using a fuel cell. And you still would need to store it, have a look at how massive those tanks in a Mirai are
Fun Fact: The building two buildings over, literally in the same parking lot is actually Tesla‘s first and only battery swap station. They once had a program that never made it past the trial phase where you could drive in swap your battery in 90 seconds and continue your trip down to LA. Then on your way back up, you would pick up your original battery again, which would be fully charged at that point.
I see why it never made a lot of progress. Outside super high usage (like semi trucks or nearly constantly driven taxis), waiting for a charge for most consumers who can plug in at home or work is already sufficient since cars sit for 20+ hours a day anyway. Road trip charging is still longer than I would like, but you are stopping for 20-30 minutes after hours of driving. (It will only get better). We are still in the early stages of battery technology. Early combustion vehicles weren’t anywhere close to the 30% efficiency that modern cars engines have. Maybe soon, fast charging and cheap slow charging will be plentiful enough that hydrogen would not even be worth it. Sometimes the best of old technology is better than the first of new technology, in other words, EVs could be perfected enough that if/when hydrogen technology becomes good enough, it won’t be superior.
Swaps proved unreliable at the time. I suspect they can be done better now, but even so, the cost and complexity is likely not going to be worth it to most drivers. Also, they would need to have a surplus of un-used batteries at all the thousands of current charging stations if they went that route. That is a lot of sunk capital.
There are no public hydrogen fueling stations outside of the 59 or so in California. Add to that the unreliability of those stations, hydrogen shortages and high fuel prices. Then consider that there are less than 20,000 privately owned/leased HFCVs on the road. Coupled with the advances in battery technology (chemistry, energy density, range, safety, etc.), and the future of hydrogen for transport quickly evaporates. Lastly, what HFCV manufacturers don't talk about is the longevity of the fuel cell and the high cost of replacement. None of this makes any sense. Hydrogen for transport is a distraction. The time, energy and effort should be concentrated in building out the public DC fast charging network and increases the reliability of the existing chargers. Regardless of range, mass EV adoption won't occur until people can feel confident in the availability and reliability of the public charging infrastructure.
And from an environmental point of view, my understanding is, it doesn't make sense either. Green hydrogen is very nice... if you have a surplus of green electricity. As it is, most hydrogen produced is split from natural gas, blue hydrogen. Which is why oil & gas companies are big proponents.
@@CatatonicImperfect Actually, 98% of current hydrogen production is from steam reforming methane...without carbon capture and sequestration. This is referred to as "grey" hydrogen. "Blue" hydrogen would result from the same process, but with CCS. Literally no one is doing that. It's hype and green washing.
This is not true! Of the 59 publicly available hydrogen fueling stations in America, only 58 are exclusively limited to California! The 59th hydrogen station is conveniently located in Hawaii, which makes it perfect for cross-state road trips!
Not quite true; we had a good dozen or so in the UK. But they were slowly reducing and this time I went to check they can no longer be seen in the charge app I use. But yes not enough for unlimited travel so just a local runabout or known commute car. Ie the same as even the early (now cheap) EVs. Yet they come with the benefit of charging at home, in fact almost anywhere. Very cheap to run.
imagine if california spent $250 million in 2004 on making public transit better instead of this hydrogen boondoggle. they’re making the same mistake with hydrogen trains now. senior employees at caltrans are definitely in bed with the hydrogen industry.
The lady who got the Mirai for $15k with 23k miles on it couldn't find a BEV with ~23k miles on it for less than $40k?! I thought lightly used BEV prices were through the floor??
She was probably looking at a luxury BEV. The Mirai is on the same platform as a Lexus LS. The interior of the Mirai is super nice, compared to a Bolt, Polestar or Tesla.
This was a very honest look at “The Hydrogen Highway”. It was amazing that you hung out in the middle of nowhere as long as you did to talk a driver trying to make the trip that you were attempting.
For passenger vehicles (and probably semis) physics simply does not allow hydrogen cars to be competitive with BEVs on cost or efficiency (which, of course, are related).
In simple terms, a HFCEV is just an EV like any other,..... but it's just got a tiny battery in it and a rediculously complicated and inconvient onboard charging system. It still runs on electricity.. it's just someone has gone to the trouble of turning that electricity into a liquid which can leak through stainless steal..... at significant expense.
Bingo! The Bosch rep on Autoline After Hours admitted as such. Most expensive and breakable set up is a hybrid. He also admitted to owning a Tesla.. That's all you need to know like cafe workers who never eat what they serve... That's a huge red flag!
When the Mirai owners say they love how it drives, they are literally saying they love how EVs drive in general. I'm not sure if they're aware of that fact.
@@stickynorth tbf, hybrids, as in plug ins with range extender, arent a bad solution and relatively robust. Fuel cell is a different beast, not to mention all the energy reqired to store. Its just so much waste when you could just directly use the electricity
This is a departure from the regular "The Verge" video and I really liked it. For anyone who is into cars, I'm sure the "hydrogen dream" seemed really promising and sort of the best eco-friendly alternative to regular gasoline. Seeing the reality of it was great - thanks for putting this together. It was really educational to actually listen to the people who are living with a hydrogen car day-to-day. Great work, guys! Keep it up.
when a docu-mini turned out to be great publicity for electric vehicles - especially Teslas 😁 amazing job guys!!! very insightful to learn about the challenges faced by hydrogen car owners.
8:23 Tiny thing but the largest bank of Tesla superchargers is In Quartzite, AZ with two sites of 84, and 36 chargers for a total of 120 compared to Harris Ranch's two sites of 80 and 18 superchargers for a total of 96.
@@stickynorth The 84-stall Supercharger in Quartzite was installed a little over a year ago. I think Norway or China had the biggest station for a while until recently.
They also said Harris Ranch is in the middle of a desert, and it isn't. It's in the middle of agricultural land. They didn't do a whole lot of research for this.
There are plenty of delusional hydrogen fans who'll back this tech over BEVs because of 5 minute fill times. The only big issues I see with BEVs on the other hand is pricing and the lack of a cheap, plentiful, and reliable fast charging solution for urban areas.
Great demonstration of how BEVs have leapfrogged FC vehicles and incredible to think that there are people still adament that hydrogen will make a come back.. The testimonials from the users at the end sound just like what BEV early adopters would have said (~10 yrs ago) and probably what some people think is still the case with BEVs..
Fun fact: the Mirai is the only vehicle in America also on the Lexus LS full size platform (the other being the Toyota Crown estate sedan not sold in America - no, not the Crown lifted hatch).
Fuel cells need to be replaced as well, they use platinum (rare element) and they only last like 50k miles. Fuel cells also freeze in subzero temperatures.. and use energy to keep themselves warm.
fuel cells and batteries are both bad, batteries are worse. The issue is cars in general. Cars in large cities is insanity. Public transit desperately needs to be strengthened in america. At the very least if there is any regard for climate change
@@cooltwittertag restructuring of cities to support mass transit is enormously complicated and expensive. Realistic goals need to be set out and a consistent vision and investment over decades, or generations. Sadly the long term planning required to achieve these goals requires many years of reasonable politicians making sensible well considered decisions. Short term thinking, profiteering and boom and bust election cycles is all that ever is..
@@LeseanDeVonFYI public transport absolutely needs policing too. Perhaps even more then roads. You can get anti-social behaviour, theft and assaults on public transport, plus they can be a target for terrorism. In the UK, they have a police force dedicated to public transport called the British Transport Police, unlike most police in the UK who are normally unarmed, the BTP regularly patrol London Underground stations with assault rifles!
Enjoyed this one. The advancement of electric has been huge, and it's bolstered hybrid drivetrains too - now you can get the reliability of a 2.0 Honda with electric motors that keep themselves charged with peace of mind of gas and 50 MPG. At the same time EV cars have developed into offering performance, distance, and everything in between.
Pleasingly well informed isn't it, shows that similar anti-EV threads haven't got a clue what they're talking about. Wonder which tabloids they're all reading?
@@HoltAlexI wonder if they're funded by Big Oil. I've seen quite a few channels that do literally nothing but anti-EV stuff. Like any time there's a fire anywhere, they blame an EV. And of course they never correct themselves when it's proven not to be.
I see the same messaging at the end of all of these hydrogen videos, "maybe it will work for heavier vehicles like trucks, boats, planes, etc." and it seems like the same messaging for hydrogen cars 10+ years ago. Meanwhile, battery technology just keeps rapidly improving. How likely is it that in 10+ more years, batteries will be so good that hydrogen doesn't make sense then either; just like happened with cars now.
I don't doubt that the battery tech will be way better in 10 years. What I'm worried about is that the electrical infrastructure will lag way behind. What good is EV capable of charging from say 20-80% in 5-10 minutes, if the charging infrastructure and the grid behind it, cannot support that. There are already issues with fast charging today. The "promise" of hydrogen as fuel was zero net emissions with rapid refill times. It obviously has an infrastructure problem as well, and given a choice between using renewables to charge electric cars or to waste most of it while trying to make hydrogen, most will choose the former. Today only 0.1% of Hydrogen is produced via electrolysis. I don't think Hydrogen is the future, but I do think there will remain a need for some form of liquid fuel storage to support remote locations providing rapid refill times.
Its going to CATL already has 500 wh/kg batteries coming out now which is plenty energy dense for OTR big rigs. And of course Tesla already has a semi out there and working
Not exactly the same thing - you eliminate the need to produce (and then recycle) battery. Sure, you technically waste energy to produce hydrogen, but the end goal is to have energy from “green” sources which means it technically doesn’t matter how much have you wasted.
No system is perfect, you need a lot of energy to mine, extract and purify the minerals for the batteries and has a huge impact in the environment in many ways. There's a case where maybe hydrogen extracted by hydrolysis coming from green energy could be better even if more energy is needed in that step, that's why is kind of disappointing to see hydrogen being put to the side, it might be better or it might not be but Is not as simple as you put it
@@fedirkryvyiYou still need a battery in a fuel cell car as they aren't very good at producing instantaneous power. Plus you have the fuel cells themselves and the tanks which also need replaced due to storing high pressure gas.
For some reason I thought this was a veritasium video when i clicked on the thumbnail. And then after about 20 seconds of waiting for Derek to finally show up, I noticed the channel said The Verge.
I lived by a hydrogen gas station in southern california. I don't know if I ever saw anyone actually filling up there, but I did see a lot of folks hanging out, handing bundles of cash to each other. I'm sure it was fine. Anyway, it's a Shell station now.
It's strange, California tried to make "Hydrogen highway" happen _before_ there were mainstream EVs. Before there was DC rapid charging for EVs. Yet now hydrogen is about where EV infrastructure was when CA went in on hydrogen! While EV infrastructure is essentially "solved" for most of the continental US.
Yup... Market forces vs a wimpy government mandate under Ah-nold... I have a feeling his buy in to the hydrogen hype killed his political career faster than his cheating/fathering a kid with the housekeeper scandal ever did... Especially in a post Truth, Post Trump era.. ;-)
5:50 - She was willing to accept a used FCEV with 20,000+ miles, but wasn't willing to accept a used EV with that many miles? Heck, there are brand-new EVs for well under $40,000; finding a used one should have been no problem. Even if she wanted a "high end" one, a used Tesla Model S can be had for less than she paid for that FCEV.
This is the story the Toyota dealer told her, and this is the story she needs to tell herself now. It's hard to admit when we have been conned, especially by a used car salesman, the Reddit Mirai thread is full of regretful realization too (and angry hydrogen hype-ers, blaming BEV's and Tesla for all their 65 cent per mile problems)
This video is incredible. Not only did it show how pathetic hydrogen stations are, but they interviewed Tesla vehicle owners who had nothing but praise about the supercharger network.
Another thing that yall forgot to mention is that...most of the hydrogen fuel was gotten through burning coal, not splitting water molecules into hydrogen. Since burning coal is the easiest way to get hydrogen, most companies use that method, which isn't really environmentally friendly.
Harris Ranch was also the first Tesla Supercharger location between SF and LA. I used to have to make it there in my Tesla Model S back in 2013. Of course, since those times, numerous other superchargers have filled in all the gaps along the I5, so it's rather risk-free. Also, the Tesla ranges have grown, and the Supercharger speeds have increased. And the number of chargers at Harris has also shot up way beyond the early days. And, yeah, it smells like hell! The cow depot in Coalinga is a stinka!
Interesting video! Making cars run on hydrogen is the easy part. Creating, compressing, storing, and delivering hydrogen is the real issue. Making hydrogen from water is wasteful and expensive. The vast majority of hydrogen is made from Natural gas reforming…but it would be less wasteful to just burn the natural gas in an engine.
I used to own a Mirai for 3 years (leased). Started out to be ok when there wasn't a line of people fighting for the few stations. But between multiple down stations to long lines, it makes driving the Mirai a disaster. I almost had to fill up at half tank every time because you can't just show up to station expecting it to work (50% of time the station is either out of gas or malfunctioned all together). Even when a pump works, it may not fill your car up 100% if the pressure system is not working correctly. Bottom line: 2 years after returning it, I highly recommend anyone from getting a Mirai no matter how 'cheap' it is.
Next time visit the Netherlands for your hydrogen roadtrip! Literally every 100 km there is a H2 fuel station. Not sure whether they all work but the Netherlands is way ahead than the US at every point
....yeah. and the Netherlands ( i live in it) is like 160km north so south and 110 east to west. so we have like 6 fuel stations all of them in useless places. i think there's a random one in Eindhoven that fills from regular bottles
The reason why the gentleman asked "did you just fill up?" when he couldn't get his car to fuel up, is because he probably thought the pressure tank of the station had lost its pressure. H2 has to be pumped under high pressure (350 or 700 bars, depending on the car model), so the fueling station has a pressure tank on site where it stores H2 under extreme pressures. When several cars have filled up, the pressure in the back-up tank goes down so the station infrastructure has to start repressurizing the big tank, which can take a long time. That is also why so many of the H2 stations are offline so often: yes, they're sometimes just broken, but very often they are working very hard to get the pressure back up. Depending on the pump, it can take as little as a handful of cars to take away enough pressure for the station to go offline. The whole H2 infrastructure for cars is incredibly flawed. One pump costs about as much as a Tesla Supercharger location with 42 fast-charge places (was calculated by a Norwegian specialist), and it can be operational day and night. On top of that, EV recharging times are getting eerily close to H2 refueling times while charger downtime is much lower.
I would love to see Rebecca's math. The money she pays for hydrogen could make her car payment with money left over to pay for her electric use. Also, the convenience of plugging in at home is priceless. Over the years, I've noticed anti EV people are down right ignorant. About 99 percent of what they say about EV's are wrong. Almost everything uses electricity but an electric car, no way.
She would have got a $15,000 fuel card (hopefully) and that tends to skew the math - it's only actually worth $1,500 to $3,000 of miles travelled if you had an EV or gasoline car, so it still doesn't really work out, and it cancels after 3 years (used) or 6 for new - but in the dealership, at that moment of signing, it looks like an unbelievably good deal, the dealer makes you think you are getting a free Lexus quality car (gen 2 is a really nice vehicle) The dealerships are just the worst, they are lying about hydrogen and I believe there is a class action, a lot of Mirai owners just want their money back so they can move on with their lives, so many are badly upside down on the loan or lease, a mild crash that results in a total loss is often sweet relief for the owner - at least based on some Reddit thread's I've seen where folks getting rear ended are jokingly considered lucky.
I suspect she was sold the propaganda lines by Toyota and she just parroted them word for word and didn't actually bother to do the math... For her $15K even at Toyota she would have been better off in any number of used Prius models now on the market... Even with a battery that MIGHT need replacing...
Man, I'm amazed at what Billy loves about the car. You still have to fill up at a station, instead of at home. Why have a car at all with an 8 mile commute? And you're never gonna be able to take this car anywhere beyond a couple hundred miles from a station.
While Coalinga Supercharger at Harris Ranch does have 80 stalls (and 18 at one next door), Quartzsite, AZ has 84 stalls (plus 36 next door). And, Baker, CA has 96 stalls. So, Harris Ranch is not in fact the largest station.
Thanks for the humorous presentation throughout the video. I live in Hong Kong. No Hydrogen cars here yet. but they do test run hydrogen powered buses now.
This is where the Hydrogen fuel industry needs to take notes from Tesla.... maintaining the fuel station stops... From this video, it is clear that the car is great but because the fuel system isn't maintained properly, the drivers go through hell of an experience...
meanwhile here in the uk we only have 14 hydrogen fuel stations , 3 in London ,1 at hondas factory in Wiltshire , 2 in Aberdeen, 4 at University's 2 in wales and 2 in the west midlands ,3 at mortoirway service stations 2 of them being in Surrey and one at a clean energy company in Yorkshire
hydrogen fuel cells may make sense for "very long distance, far from any infrastructure" transport (ocean ships, cross-continent trains, maybe Australian-style "road train" long haul trucking;) but for basically any consumer use, a BEV makes significantly more sense; and even most larger commercial uses (shorter-distance trucking,) and grid-electrified makes sense for others (trains, light rail, etc.)
Around 2003, I read about hydrogen fuel cell cars in Popular Science magazine. I thought the concept was so cool and truly thought they were the future. But like the video said, it’s the hydrogen fuel station infrastructure that’s the problem. Toyota and Honda should’ve invested in building out stations if they really wanted their fuel cell cars to take off. One of the biggest reasons why Tesla is so popular is because they invested heavily in building a vast supercharger network (and it’s our number one reason why we bought one, despite strongly disliking Elon). It’s kind of a bummer that consumer hydrogen fuel cell cars never took off, but the convenience of charging at home, work or on the road makes battery electric vehicles better.
Harris Ranch is also the fuel stop for small private aircraft. Thats basically why its there. Stop and get gas and have a steak :) Now it is also a hydrogen stop too
This actually Shows How Gas Stations have made ICE possible . If the supply system is not there , there is literally no use for Gas in Daily life of people and GAS cars would be impossible to propose to people today if there was no Gas Stations .
I'm supposed to use that when i take the mirai gen1 to that pump but I've been so afraid of getting stuck and getting the gas mileage equivalent to driving a Hummer. Funny in Texas it's about 1-4$/KG but they don't have adapters for these cars yet. Crazy how it's 36$/kg in CA compared to half that in 2019. My car only has 3k miles because of the current price of gas not letting me use it. I will get rid of it for 7k but if hydrogen gas was cheaper no way id let go. Its a great car and very luxurious on the inside. Would be great if the price came down soon!
Had my first EV experience last week with a weeks long rental and had many close calls with charging the car with my closet getting down to 1% charge which was very scary. It was a testiment to how not far along EV infrastructure is especially with super slow level chargers being everywhere that can barely charge the cars or charger stations being down with no more in range or barely in range and the four or five different apps i had to download for all the different providers. I couldn't imagine the nightmare of a hydrogen car.
It's a shame and sad to see the promising future of fuel cells stuck even in the most adoptive state. I've been reading about the fuel cell since twenty years ago (maybe more? I don't remember that) and have been dreaming of seeing it in real life or even driving one myself while thinking I'm saving the world and nature. But in reality, the fuel cells have been nearly abandoned, it's 2024, and the fuel price is higher than the gasoline, and the stations are totally limited and broken. It's really a sad future I'd tell myself from 20 years ago how the adoption goes.
Hydrogen will be part of the energy mix, but in NO WAY will it ever be a major energy carrier. It's just not efficient enough. The more we electrify, the less enegery in total we need. It's simple. Even if we would make hydrogent with green engergy, we would need 2 to 3 times the amount of energy to facilitate that.
Bingo! Electrics make sense for almost every application but especially personal vehicles and particularly when you use re-gen braking.. That technology can capture at least 50% of the wasted energy lost which is why public transit vehicles like LRT cars were the first to adopt it even if it emits a high-pitched mosquito like noise every time...
Down the street about 20mins is the Lemoore naval base and when I was stationed there Harris Ranch was my lighthouse to know I was almost back and safe in my bed. I would often drive to LA to visit family. The bbq is some of the best for a random gas station.
What would be your car of choice for a 320-mile road trip?
Not an electric, for sure.
Given my EV would do that without needing to charge along the way... I'd use that.
my 2011 bmw 328i with 194k mi
@@suxess619 Electric for sure. 320 miles is soo easy with anything under 450 miles.
My Tesla Model 3 for sure. And that's pretty short for a roadtrip, would only have to charge when arriving at the destination.
The little detail of seeing a bonsai tree on the dash after they leave Harris Ranch was a nice touch.
Glad they supported that guy's business. I think I totally would've bought one too if I was driving through.
That bonsai stand has been there as long as I can remember.
@@theredmonkey it’s a staple of Harris Ranch visits
Hahaha the same goes with the hat
No one told Rebecca that she could get a Bolt for $15k as well. That stealership took her for a ride.
Dealerships being shitty. No one could've seen that coming!
Yeah, she talked about how much money she saved with a used Mirai against a new battery EV. Why not compare it against a used battery EV then? Surely there are hundreds of used Teslas in her region within her budget.
I'm guessing she only wanted a Toyota; and Toyota's EV is…. terrible. So they screwed her over to sell her a POS.
Hell no one told Rebecca she could get a 2021 model 3 long range for $15k after the used ev tax credit
I agree that there are definitely better options for the price, but the Mirai and the Bolt are (besides the propulsion technology) *very* different vehicles.
I've never seen a video from these two from the Verge before, I thought it was a very fun and informative video, great job guys
I’ll have to start watching the Verge if it continues to make content like this.
Great job, great video!!
Feels CNBC-ish
For anyone wondering, the total global sales figures for fully electric battery cars last year was 9,500,000.
For hydrogen fuel cell cars it was 8,500.
Lamborghini sold more vehicles. That's how rare hydrogen vehicles are.
well, probably because buses etc. are hydrogen, not hydrogen fuel cell
honestly surprised it's that high
In other words, if you start counting from the beginning of the year right as the ball drops at midnight... By noon that same January 1st, battery electric cars will have finished outpacing the next 364.5 days of hydrogen fuel cell car sales.
@@evlo8059 No as far as I know all hydrogen busses use fuel cells, not hydrogen combustion (which is inefficient and produces emissions).
The number is only for passenger cars anyway - not public transport vehicles. Although BEVs still massively dominate there too.
Try 2700 in the US. This year sales are down to less than 1000 annualized. H2 is a joke. It’s not green. All made by Methane reformation.
Fun fact: Harris ranch is also where the only Tesla battery swap station was back in the day. You’d swap in a battery and then you had to come back and retrieve your original battery on the return trip
2015 pilot program
I wonder how viable a battery swap program is. Like would people like being able to get a full charged battery in less than a few minutes in exchange of not owning their own battery?
Ebikes can easily exchange batteries for a full one in less than a minute. Evs don't cause the batteries are just too heavy for manual labor. I can only see robotics and machinery doing it for us if we want a battery swap in less than a minute.
@@kabosune9097 NEO has a lot of battery swap stations in China you can read up on. Their main limitations are a few:
1. You become limited on the form factor of batteries your fleet of cars can use. Every new form factor reduces the capacity of the station.
2. The stations need to have a lot of battery packs in them that aren't in production cars. Even just 20 packs is a half million $ in batteries.
3. To support recharging the batteries in time you need to build effectively a DC fast charging station. At full speed a NEO station can only buffer about an hour worth of charged batteries, so you incur all the costs of building a fast charger on top of the swap station.
So in the end it costs maybe $1.5m to build a swap station and fill it with batteries. Tesla superchargers are about $43k per stall, so for that same cost you could build a 35 stall supercharger. That supercharger would be able to 0-80% charge about 60 cars an hour, where the NEO station at 8min per swap would only do 7.5 cars in the same time.
@@kabosune9097 Nio, a Chinese EV company, is the world leader in battery swapping tech right now. They advertise 5 min swaps, but when tested, it takes more like 10 mins. Still, not a horrible trade off and customers seem satisfied. I honestly wouldn't mind it, I wouldn't have to worry about battery degradation or charging speeds.
CNBC did a cool video about Chinese EVs: th-cam.com/video/9DLwtGw5yZY/w-d-xo.html
@@kabosune9097 it is a thing with NIO in China, I'm on the fence about it, I can see the pro's and cons, but even if it 'failed' and all the swap stations shut down, you still have an EV with a decent battery you can charge normally, and most charging is done slowly while at work, hotel, retail or if you are lucky, home.
One of the cool things about the NIO swap is you can choose your battery capacity, going for a cheaper, lighter, smaller pack when you are about town, and then swapping for a longer range pack at the start of a trip - it's an interesting idea, and they have done millions of swaps - I don't know if they will bring it to the US, but for apartment dwellers it's a compelling option.
This country, not just CA needs to put a big focus on high speed rail and local public transportation to get cars off the road
I don't know why this didn't get more likes.
High speed rail needs to be coupled with local public transportation to replace private cars. I doubt America will ever be ready for that
Awareness @@haidiralias5098
The car manufacturer lobby is strong in the US since early Ford era, thats the reason US didn't have rail networks.
You can thank Elon for stopping those plans with his vaporwave and awful "cars"
A few years back, it felt like eventually every science TH-camr would do the "Hey Hydrogen is really good" video (sponsored by Toyota).
That was realy sad, a bunch of TH-camrs I liked did that. Atleast its not entirely blood money some other TH-camrs resort to.
All I’ve seen is videos explaining how hydrogen is unrealistic.
It really needed a huge subsidy to take off and it didn’t get it.
@@TheOfficialOriginalChad For some reason Germany is still heavily investing in hydrogen. Despite that, hydrogen car sales there have fallen off a cliff. Fell from 835 to 263 between 2022 and 2023.
Turns out even with heavy subsidies, people don't want them.
Bro i researched for next gen fuel and just get 1 option that is SEAWEED BIO FUEL
the reason is 1st it's from sea water to don't need to fight to grow food or or drive car aslo don't NEED FRESH WATER.
2nd we don't need new infra for running & processing for this ( we easily use our gas cars just minimal changes)
3rd its cheap than other emerging options
4th don't EMIT harmful toxic gases
& Also carbon natural
I just want 1 things research your own and if you think this is right please share it to every one
@@drunkenhobo8020 I meant infrastructure subsidies, not consumer facing. I don’t get why they don’t just shift oil and gas subsidies to more renewable fuels
yeah so we had a 2019 Hyundai Nexo, and we drove to LA from the Bay Area twice round trip. The second time, Harris Ranch ran out of fuel in the time it took us to drive from the Bay Area down to it (and past the point of no return). We got the last room at their motel overnight, and had to wait until their (diesel-powered) fuel truck showed up the next day for its delivery. Pro tip: they have a really good steak restaurant and gift shop. We always felt like we were living in the 1972 OPEC oil crisis with our Nexo, and we dumped it early off of its lease for a BEV. At some point, life is too short to wait at True Zero stations and have a car that's a science experiment.
Best example of the failed promise of hydrogen and why batteries just make sense... And cents! Worst case charging scenario is plugging it in a 110v outlet and trickle charging over night which is how MOST EV drivers charge anyway... Just like a really big cell phone battery!
@@stickynorthYep, it's why hydrogen will never take off. The nearest hydrogen fuelling station to me is 60 miles away. The nearest electrical socket is on the wall next to my left foot.
Toyota literally gives out these cars for free. Used they’re between $8K-$18K depending on the year, trim and miles. But Toyota will give you a $15K hydrogen card. If you live in LA, have a short commute and live close to a fueling station you can pretty much get this car for free until your card runs out of money lol.
Lol. That is hilarious. I loled too, at the lolness.
Its kinda funny how toyota gives you free hydrogen for 3 years...but when it comes to building hydrogen stations, they back out. Why just sell you the car and not the lifestyle?
Tesla got around that with superchargers and toyota is a far bigger company with a lot more resources than tesla ever had back in 2012.
@@thedumbconspirator4956 Because it requires building an entirely new fuel infrastructure, not just only distribution but creation infrastructure.
Toyota is not interested in building hydrogen refineries or stations due to the cost.
Tesla took a different approach. It knew the only way to sell its cars was to have free charging and create their own distribution infrastructure. Electricity is everywhere. Building a few superchargers directly to the grid is a lot cheaper overall than building a hydrogen station, where everything has to be done from scratch.
Only a slight tangent, Jeff Bezos did an interview talking about Blue Origin and Amazon. Very good interview. He was saying that Amazon would not have been possible without the electric grid, USPS, the Internet, credit cards, etc, he built Amazon on existing infrastructure.
Blue Origin is creating the next generation of infrastructure, there is nothing else that he can piggy back on.
Rich fn useless ppl an their CORPORATIONS dont want to spend a buck to save us Poors from paying for air not while their is billions to be squeezed from our empty wallets / accounts
...
$15k of hydrogen is worth much less than $15k of gas or electricity however. For a 30 mpg car it will get you as far as $5k of gas at $5 a gallon. You can probably find a Bolt in that price range, and get something like 5 cents a mile, so only $1.5k of electricity gets you as many miles as the $15k hydrogen. The car's resale value is also nonexistent in private sales because no hydrogen card, so you have to take those losses too.
lmfao they bought a bonsai! amazing team
imagine buying a car that can't leave california lol
Sounds very black mirror dystopia to me.. With the Tesla network you can literally drive all the way North into Mid-Canada aka The Yellowhead Highway that runs between Vancouver-Edmonton-Winnipeg and south into Southern Mexico nearly into Central America.. Hydrogen? Like you said... Stranded in Cali for eternity...
@@stickynorthnot only that, anywhere there's a plug you can still refuel a BEV... You don't need a special station to do it.
Like a prison. Genius.
Why would you ever want to leave Cali? 😉
No wonder the government is investing in them!
Using electricity to convert water to hydrogen then back to electricity seems like a BEV with extra steps.
Well, burning/using hydrogen everywhere you would burn fossil fuels today (and having an enormous hydrogen infrastructure) is a great concept - with some difficulties 😬
i mean yeah, hydrogen is used as a way to store energy. Thats the point. It might not harm the environment as much in theory (given clean hydrogen) but it is less efficient than batteries. Hydrogen can be significantly lighter on the environment though. (If burning is feasible)
Toyota just refuses to build BEV for some reason (BZ4x is a joke)
And you haven't seen how inefficient that is. If you were to use electrolysis to generate the hydrogen, you need 3 to 4 times as much electricity compared to simply storing it in batteries and getting traction that way.
@@cooltwittertag burning is even less efficient than using a fuel cell. And you still would need to store it, have a look at how massive those tanks in a Mirai are
Fun Fact: The building two buildings over, literally in the same parking lot is actually Tesla‘s first and only battery swap station.
They once had a program that never made it past the trial phase where you could drive in swap your battery in 90 seconds and continue your trip down to LA. Then on your way back up, you would pick up your original battery again, which would be fully charged at that point.
I see why it never made a lot of progress. Outside super high usage (like semi trucks or nearly constantly driven taxis), waiting for a charge for most consumers who can plug in at home or work is already sufficient since cars sit for 20+ hours a day anyway. Road trip charging is still longer than I would like, but you are stopping for 20-30 minutes after hours of driving. (It will only get better).
We are still in the early stages of battery technology. Early combustion vehicles weren’t anywhere close to the 30% efficiency that modern cars engines have.
Maybe soon, fast charging and cheap slow charging will be plentiful enough that hydrogen would not even be worth it.
Sometimes the best of old technology is better than the first of new technology, in other words, EVs could be perfected enough that if/when hydrogen technology becomes good enough, it won’t be superior.
Swaps proved unreliable at the time. I suspect they can be done better now, but even so, the cost and complexity is likely not going to be worth it to most drivers.
Also, they would need to have a surplus of un-used batteries at all the thousands of current charging stations if they went that route. That is a lot of sunk capital.
There are no public hydrogen fueling stations outside of the 59 or so in California. Add to that the unreliability of those stations, hydrogen shortages and high fuel prices. Then consider that there are less than 20,000 privately owned/leased HFCVs on the road. Coupled with the advances in battery technology (chemistry, energy density, range, safety, etc.), and the future of hydrogen for transport quickly evaporates.
Lastly, what HFCV manufacturers don't talk about is the longevity of the fuel cell and the high cost of replacement. None of this makes any sense. Hydrogen for transport is a distraction. The time, energy and effort should be concentrated in building out the public DC fast charging network and increases the reliability of the existing chargers. Regardless of range, mass EV adoption won't occur until people can feel confident in the availability and reliability of the public charging infrastructure.
also the life limit of the high pressure storage tanks
And from an environmental point of view, my understanding is, it doesn't make sense either. Green hydrogen is very nice... if you have a surplus of green electricity. As it is, most hydrogen produced is split from natural gas, blue hydrogen. Which is why oil & gas companies are big proponents.
@@CatatonicImperfect Actually, 98% of current hydrogen production is from steam reforming methane...without carbon capture and sequestration. This is referred to as "grey" hydrogen. "Blue" hydrogen would result from the same process, but with CCS. Literally no one is doing that. It's hype and green washing.
This is not true! Of the 59 publicly available hydrogen fueling stations in America, only 58 are exclusively limited to California! The 59th hydrogen station is conveniently located in Hawaii, which makes it perfect for cross-state road trips!
Not quite true; we had a good dozen or so in the UK. But they were slowly reducing and this time I went to check they can no longer be seen in the charge app I use. But yes not enough for unlimited travel so just a local runabout or known commute car. Ie the same as even the early (now cheap) EVs. Yet they come with the benefit of charging at home, in fact almost anywhere. Very cheap to run.
imagine if california spent $250 million in 2004 on making public transit better instead of this hydrogen boondoggle. they’re making the same mistake with hydrogen trains now. senior employees at caltrans are definitely in bed with the hydrogen industry.
Maybe 10 or so covered bus stops?
Lemme tell you about high speed rail...
@@irvingwashingtonable they’re still building it. it would’ve been done quicker if NIMBYs hadn’t weighed it down
Hydrogen uses the same infrastructure as gas. That is why. In fact, most hydrogen gets made from natural gas.
@@nami1540 so it actually involves more lifetime emissions than natural gas? lol
The lady who got the Mirai for $15k with 23k miles on it couldn't find a BEV with ~23k miles on it for less than $40k?! I thought lightly used BEV prices were through the floor??
Yeah she could’ve gotten a used bolt or something
She could’ve not a used model 3 from hertz for 27k or a polestar 2/volvo for 30k or others
She was probably looking at a luxury BEV. The Mirai is on the same platform as a Lexus LS. The interior of the Mirai is super nice, compared to a Bolt, Polestar or Tesla.
Look at her face while she's talking. She has no clue about anything. She's probably barely done any work in her life.
@@Fractal42 She was probably only considering a Toyota/Lexus maybe other Legacy auto
Huge thumb up for waiting at the hydrogen station to see someone !
This was a very honest look at “The Hydrogen Highway”. It was amazing that you hung out in the middle of nowhere as long as you did to talk a driver trying to make the trip that you were attempting.
For passenger vehicles (and probably semis) physics simply does not allow hydrogen cars to be competitive with BEVs on cost or efficiency (which, of course, are related).
Exactly.
In simple terms, a HFCEV is just an EV like any other,..... but it's just got a tiny battery in it and a rediculously complicated and inconvient onboard charging system. It still runs on electricity.. it's just someone has gone to the trouble of turning that electricity into a liquid which can leak through stainless steal..... at significant expense.
It's not like a EV at all... Hydrogen car is the most unificient type of car. EV is the most efficient
Bingo! The Bosch rep on Autoline After Hours admitted as such. Most expensive and breakable set up is a hybrid. He also admitted to owning a Tesla.. That's all you need to know like cafe workers who never eat what they serve... That's a huge red flag!
When the Mirai owners say they love how it drives, they are literally saying they love how EVs drive in general. I'm not sure if they're aware of that fact.
@@stickynorth tbf, hybrids, as in plug ins with range extender, arent a bad solution and relatively robust. Fuel cell is a different beast, not to mention all the energy reqired to store. Its just so much waste when you could just directly use the electricity
This is a departure from the regular "The Verge" video and I really liked it. For anyone who is into cars, I'm sure the "hydrogen dream" seemed really promising and sort of the best eco-friendly alternative to regular gasoline. Seeing the reality of it was great - thanks for putting this together. It was really educational to actually listen to the people who are living with a hydrogen car day-to-day.
Great work, guys! Keep it up.
I really really really love this video! The format and the delivery are amazing. More of this please
when a docu-mini turned out to be great publicity for electric vehicles - especially Teslas 😁
amazing job guys!!! very insightful to learn about the challenges faced by hydrogen car owners.
8:23 Tiny thing but the largest bank of Tesla superchargers is In Quartzite, AZ with two sites of 84, and 36 chargers for a total of 120 compared to Harris Ranch's two sites of 80 and 18 superchargers for a total of 96.
Bingo... That's been that way for a few years now right? I remember even the Autoline daily story on it...
@@stickynorth The 84-stall Supercharger in Quartzite was installed a little over a year ago. I think Norway or China had the biggest station for a while until recently.
They also said Harris Ranch is in the middle of a desert, and it isn't. It's in the middle of agricultural land. They didn't do a whole lot of research for this.
Very nice mini doc on the hydrogen infrastructure.
I thought it summed up the experience quite well. For good and for bad.
6:30 its nice to know that the route guidance lady is the same as in my 2008 Prius.
My 2021 Venza has the same lady 😂
Nice video guys 😊
Greetings from Greece from an EV owner 😊
I love my EV too hello from Colorado 👋🏻 💜😊
This video should be shared with every EV hater that says "I'Ll WaiT FoR hYdRoGeN"
Well said
There are few of them in the comment section here!
There are plenty of delusional hydrogen fans who'll back this tech over BEVs because of 5 minute fill times. The only big issues I see with BEVs on the other hand is pricing and the lack of a cheap, plentiful, and reliable fast charging solution for urban areas.
They to interview some people at a elecfy America station?
@@thedumbconspirator4956 it's called Tesla
this was a truly great video. i've heard of hydrogen cars and the california network, but knew very little about them. an awesome watch.
Great demonstration of how BEVs have leapfrogged FC vehicles and incredible to think that there are people still adament that hydrogen will make a come back..
The testimonials from the users at the end sound just like what BEV early adopters would have said (~10 yrs ago) and probably what some people think is still the case with BEVs..
Loved that you guys bought the bonsai
I wonder what happened to it. Can't just put it in your checked luggage.
@@Hans-gb4mv Probably gave it away or gifted it to the Mirai owner.
Fun fact: the Mirai is the only vehicle in America also on the Lexus LS full size platform (the other being the Toyota Crown estate sedan not sold in America - no, not the Crown lifted hatch).
Fuel cells need to be replaced as well, they use platinum (rare element) and they only last like 50k miles. Fuel cells also freeze in subzero temperatures.. and use energy to keep themselves warm.
fuel cells and batteries are both bad, batteries are worse. The issue is cars in general. Cars in large cities is insanity. Public transit desperately needs to be strengthened in america. At the very least if there is any regard for climate change
@@cooltwittertag restructuring of cities to support mass transit is enormously complicated and expensive. Realistic goals need to be set out and a consistent vision and investment over decades, or generations. Sadly the long term planning required to achieve these goals requires many years of reasonable politicians making sensible well considered decisions. Short term thinking, profiteering and boom and bust election cycles is all that ever is..
@@joeynessily not as expensive as a highway combined with surveillance by emergency/law enforcement, get real
@@LeseanDeVonFYI public transport absolutely needs policing too. Perhaps even more then roads. You can get anti-social behaviour, theft and assaults on public transport, plus they can be a target for terrorism. In the UK, they have a police force dedicated to public transport called the British Transport Police, unlike most police in the UK who are normally unarmed, the BTP regularly patrol London Underground stations with assault rifles!
The thing is, the hydrogen sold there was derived from natural gas. Green hydrogen is extremely rare and even more expensive.
Enjoyed this one. The advancement of electric has been huge, and it's bolstered hybrid drivetrains too - now you can get the reliability of a 2.0 Honda with electric motors that keep themselves charged with peace of mind of gas and 50 MPG. At the same time EV cars have developed into offering performance, distance, and everything in between.
Glad most of these comments show that people understand that hydrogen is just electric with extra steps.
Pleasingly well informed isn't it, shows that similar anti-EV threads haven't got a clue what they're talking about. Wonder which tabloids they're all reading?
@@HoltAlexI wonder if they're funded by Big Oil. I've seen quite a few channels that do literally nothing but anti-EV stuff. Like any time there's a fire anywhere, they blame an EV. And of course they never correct themselves when it's proven not to be.
There's really something wonderful about watching the interviews vs listening to the podcast. Thanks for providing both!
I love the Harris Ranch. Before Covid, I would stop there every time for a quick charge and steak on my monthly trips to SF and back from LA.
I see the same messaging at the end of all of these hydrogen videos, "maybe it will work for heavier vehicles like trucks, boats, planes, etc." and it seems like the same messaging for hydrogen cars 10+ years ago. Meanwhile, battery technology just keeps rapidly improving. How likely is it that in 10+ more years, batteries will be so good that hydrogen doesn't make sense then either; just like happened with cars now.
Correct. In the meantime battery electric trucks are already mass produced and in use on long routes.
@@Simon-dm8zvLoads of electric buses near me too. Economics of hydrogen just won't work.
I don't doubt that the battery tech will be way better in 10 years. What I'm worried about is that the electrical infrastructure will lag way behind. What good is EV capable of charging from say 20-80% in 5-10 minutes, if the charging infrastructure and the grid behind it, cannot support that. There are already issues with fast charging today. The "promise" of hydrogen as fuel was zero net emissions with rapid refill times. It obviously has an infrastructure problem as well, and given a choice between using renewables to charge electric cars or to waste most of it while trying to make hydrogen, most will choose the former. Today only 0.1% of Hydrogen is produced via electrolysis. I don't think Hydrogen is the future, but I do think there will remain a need for some form of liquid fuel storage to support remote locations providing rapid refill times.
Its going to CATL already has 500 wh/kg batteries coming out now which is plenty energy dense for OTR big rigs. And of course Tesla already has a semi out there and working
@@jamesg6071 + Volvo, Scania and Mercedes in Europe
The "hydorgen promise" is to use serveral times as much energy as a battery electric vehicle to achieve the same thing.
You nailed it. Hydrogen makes no sense as a substitute for a Battery EV.
Not exactly the same thing - you eliminate the need to produce (and then recycle) battery. Sure, you technically waste energy to produce hydrogen, but the end goal is to have energy from “green” sources which means it technically doesn’t matter how much have you wasted.
No system is perfect, you need a lot of energy to mine, extract and purify the minerals for the batteries and has a huge impact in the environment in many ways. There's a case where maybe hydrogen extracted by hydrolysis coming from green energy could be better even if more energy is needed in that step, that's why is kind of disappointing to see hydrogen being put to the side, it might be better or it might not be but Is not as simple as you put it
It's the step after battery cars I think
@@fedirkryvyiYou still need a battery in a fuel cell car as they aren't very good at producing instantaneous power.
Plus you have the fuel cells themselves and the tanks which also need replaced due to storing high pressure gas.
For some reason I thought this was a veritasium video when i clicked on the thumbnail. And then after about 20 seconds of waiting for Derek to finally show up, I noticed the channel said The Verge.
This is a great video - informative and really fun. Thanks for shedding light on this almost forgotten revolution!
This was an amazing video. More of this, please!
Great piece. Just so you know, the images at the top of the article on the site dont show at all on Safari, and show very little on Chrome.
I lived by a hydrogen gas station in southern california. I don't know if I ever saw anyone actually filling up there, but I did see a lot of folks hanging out, handing bundles of cash to each other. I'm sure it was fine.
Anyway, it's a Shell station now.
I bet it was some people giving birthday gifts! 🎁🎂🎈
Love this style of video. Would love to see more
It's strange, California tried to make "Hydrogen highway" happen _before_ there were mainstream EVs. Before there was DC rapid charging for EVs.
Yet now hydrogen is about where EV infrastructure was when CA went in on hydrogen! While EV infrastructure is essentially "solved" for most of the continental US.
Yup... Market forces vs a wimpy government mandate under Ah-nold... I have a feeling his buy in to the hydrogen hype killed his political career faster than his cheating/fathering a kid with the housekeeper scandal ever did... Especially in a post Truth, Post Trump era.. ;-)
Billy, the lone warrior!
5:50 - She was willing to accept a used FCEV with 20,000+ miles, but wasn't willing to accept a used EV with that many miles? Heck, there are brand-new EVs for well under $40,000; finding a used one should have been no problem. Even if she wanted a "high end" one, a used Tesla Model S can be had for less than she paid for that FCEV.
This is the story the Toyota dealer told her, and this is the story she needs to tell herself now. It's hard to admit when we have been conned, especially by a used car salesman, the Reddit Mirai thread is full of regretful realization too (and angry hydrogen hype-ers, blaming BEV's and Tesla for all their 65 cent per mile problems)
@@brushlessmotoringthis, so much this right here...
Harris Ranch has me thinking Radiator Springs
These two really need to save The Verge
This video is incredible. Not only did it show how pathetic hydrogen stations are, but they interviewed Tesla vehicle owners who had nothing but praise about the supercharger network.
Another thing that yall forgot to mention is that...most of the hydrogen fuel was gotten through burning coal, not splitting water molecules into hydrogen. Since burning coal is the easiest way to get hydrogen, most companies use that method, which isn't really environmentally friendly.
Not so. Most of the H2 in the USA actually comes from cracking natural gas, and extracting hydrogen. Also a fossil fuel, but facts matter.
Oh look a hydrogen refueling station, let's stop and ... [sees person hiding] ... @ 9:27 nope, time to GO!
Yup. Lurker vs being stranded in the desert? I'll take the desert any day.. ;-)
Great editing... Loved watching the video
Harris Ranch was also the first Tesla Supercharger location between SF and LA. I used to have to make it there in my Tesla Model S back in 2013. Of course, since those times, numerous other superchargers have filled in all the gaps along the I5, so it's rather risk-free. Also, the Tesla ranges have grown, and the Supercharger speeds have increased. And the number of chargers at Harris has also shot up way beyond the early days. And, yeah, it smells like hell! The cow depot in Coalinga is a stinka!
Interesting video!
Making cars run on hydrogen is the easy part.
Creating, compressing, storing, and delivering hydrogen is the real issue.
Making hydrogen from water is wasteful and expensive. The vast majority of hydrogen is made from
Natural gas reforming…but it would be less wasteful to just burn the natural gas in an engine.
real journalism! kudos and thank you for getting us the reality of it.
Really great documentary! More like this, Verge!
More videos like this plz, very interesting topic & filmed very well.
Something very OCP (RoboCop) future about it 😅
I used to own a Mirai for 3 years (leased). Started out to be ok when there wasn't a line of people fighting for the few stations. But between multiple down stations to long lines, it makes driving the Mirai a disaster. I almost had to fill up at half tank every time because you can't just show up to station expecting it to work (50% of time the station is either out of gas or malfunctioned all together). Even when a pump works, it may not fill your car up 100% if the pressure system is not working correctly.
Bottom line: 2 years after returning it, I highly recommend anyone from getting a Mirai no matter how 'cheap' it is.
Glad you bought the Bonsai tree 🌳
Next time visit the Netherlands for your hydrogen roadtrip! Literally every 100 km there is a H2 fuel station. Not sure whether they all work but the Netherlands is way ahead than the US at every point
....yeah. and the Netherlands ( i live in it) is like 160km north so south and 110 east to west. so we have like 6 fuel stations all of them in useless places. i think there's a random one in Eindhoven that fills from regular bottles
You'd have trouble getting a car though - Netherlands hydrogen car sales are in double digits per year.
yeah Europe is great when owning a hydrogen car. you can find live information on an app called H2 live.
7:18 fantastic transition 😂👏
Just in this video, Farenheit, Gallons, Miles.... you guys are unbelievable
love this, want more of this content from the verge!
The reason why the gentleman asked "did you just fill up?" when he couldn't get his car to fuel up, is because he probably thought the pressure tank of the station had lost its pressure.
H2 has to be pumped under high pressure (350 or 700 bars, depending on the car model), so the fueling station has a pressure tank on site where it stores H2 under extreme pressures.
When several cars have filled up, the pressure in the back-up tank goes down so the station infrastructure has to start repressurizing the big tank, which can take a long time.
That is also why so many of the H2 stations are offline so often: yes, they're sometimes just broken, but very often they are working very hard to get the pressure back up. Depending on the pump, it can take as little as a handful of cars to take away enough pressure for the station to go offline.
The whole H2 infrastructure for cars is incredibly flawed. One pump costs about as much as a Tesla Supercharger location with 42 fast-charge places (was calculated by a Norwegian specialist), and it can be operational day and night. On top of that, EV recharging times are getting eerily close to H2 refueling times while charger downtime is much lower.
I would love to see Rebecca's math. The money she pays for hydrogen could make her car payment with money left over to pay for her electric use. Also, the convenience of plugging in at home is priceless. Over the years, I've noticed anti EV people are down right ignorant. About 99 percent of what they say about EV's are wrong. Almost everything uses electricity but an electric car, no way.
She would have got a $15,000 fuel card (hopefully) and that tends to skew the math - it's only actually worth $1,500 to $3,000 of miles travelled if you had an EV or gasoline car, so it still doesn't really work out, and it cancels after 3 years (used) or 6 for new - but in the dealership, at that moment of signing, it looks like an unbelievably good deal, the dealer makes you think you are getting a free Lexus quality car (gen 2 is a really nice vehicle)
The dealerships are just the worst, they are lying about hydrogen and I believe there is a class action, a lot of Mirai owners just want their money back so they can move on with their lives, so many are badly upside down on the loan or lease, a mild crash that results in a total loss is often sweet relief for the owner - at least based on some Reddit thread's I've seen where folks getting rear ended are jokingly considered lucky.
I suspect she was sold the propaganda lines by Toyota and she just parroted them word for word and didn't actually bother to do the math... For her $15K even at Toyota she would have been better off in any number of used Prius models now on the market... Even with a battery that MIGHT need replacing...
If you live in California you probably don't own a home. You're a renter most likely and always will be - no garage and driveway to charge in for you.
Awesome segment guys
Man, I'm amazed at what Billy loves about the car. You still have to fill up at a station, instead of at home. Why have a car at all with an 8 mile commute? And you're never gonna be able to take this car anywhere beyond a couple hundred miles from a station.
While Coalinga Supercharger at Harris Ranch does have 80 stalls (and 18 at one next door), Quartzsite, AZ has 84 stalls (plus 36 next door). And, Baker, CA has 96 stalls. So, Harris Ranch is not in fact the largest station.
That lady with a Mirai, iconic
loved the idea and the video
Thanks for the humorous presentation throughout the video. I live in Hong Kong. No Hydrogen cars here yet. but they do test run hydrogen powered buses now.
There has to be a market for someone to convert Mirais to BEV
Great video.
I work 1000 yards from one of two hydrogen stations in Oslo, Norway. Really cool, until it exploded. So no thanks
So glad you guys are covering climate tech! Guess The Seeker acquisition is finally showing up! Love it!!
This makes the good old reliable and easy to fill up internal engine car look even better.
This is where the Hydrogen fuel industry needs to take notes from Tesla.... maintaining the fuel station stops... From this video, it is clear that the car is great but because the fuel system isn't maintained properly, the drivers go through hell of an experience...
The expense is too high. Moving hydrogen is 10000x more complicated than moving electrons.
meanwhile here in the uk we only have 14 hydrogen fuel stations , 3 in London ,1 at hondas factory in Wiltshire , 2 in Aberdeen, 4 at University's 2 in wales and 2 in the west midlands ,3 at mortoirway service stations 2 of them being in Surrey and one at a clean energy company in Yorkshire
I subscribed to this channel due to this video. Well done 👍
Beautiful video
Harris Ranch, is a freaking gem. nice find.
hydrogen fuel cells may make sense for "very long distance, far from any infrastructure" transport (ocean ships, cross-continent trains, maybe Australian-style "road train" long haul trucking;) but for basically any consumer use, a BEV makes significantly more sense; and even most larger commercial uses (shorter-distance trucking,) and grid-electrified makes sense for others (trains, light rail, etc.)
Around 2003, I read about hydrogen fuel cell cars in Popular Science magazine. I thought the concept was so cool and truly thought they were the future. But like the video said, it’s the hydrogen fuel station infrastructure that’s the problem. Toyota and Honda should’ve invested in building out stations if they really wanted their fuel cell cars to take off. One of the biggest reasons why Tesla is so popular is because they invested heavily in building a vast supercharger network (and it’s our number one reason why we bought one, despite strongly disliking Elon). It’s kind of a bummer that consumer hydrogen fuel cell cars never took off, but the convenience of charging at home, work or on the road makes battery electric vehicles better.
Harris Ranch is also the fuel stop for small private aircraft. Thats basically why its there. Stop and get gas and have a steak :) Now it is also a hydrogen stop too
This actually Shows How Gas Stations have made ICE possible . If the supply system is not there , there is literally no use for Gas in Daily life of people and GAS cars would be impossible to propose to people today if there was no Gas Stations .
I'm supposed to use that when i take the mirai gen1 to that pump but I've been so afraid of getting stuck and getting the gas mileage equivalent to driving a Hummer.
Funny in Texas it's about 1-4$/KG but they don't have adapters for these cars yet. Crazy how it's 36$/kg in CA compared to half that in 2019.
My car only has 3k miles because of the current price of gas not letting me use it. I will get rid of it for 7k but if hydrogen gas was cheaper no way id let go. Its a great car and very luxurious on the inside. Would be great if the price came down soon!
I've always seen these pumps and wondered. Thanks for this story. Somehow feels weirdly nostalgic already
Had my first EV experience last week with a weeks long rental and had many close calls with charging the car with my closet getting down to 1% charge which was very scary. It was a testiment to how not far along EV infrastructure is especially with super slow level chargers being everywhere that can barely charge the cars or charger stations being down with no more in range or barely in range and the four or five different apps i had to download for all the different providers. I couldn't imagine the nightmare of a hydrogen car.
It's a shame and sad to see the promising future of fuel cells stuck even in the most adoptive state. I've been reading about the fuel cell since twenty years ago (maybe more? I don't remember that) and have been dreaming of seeing it in real life or even driving one myself while thinking I'm saving the world and nature. But in reality, the fuel cells have been nearly abandoned, it's 2024, and the fuel price is higher than the gasoline, and the stations are totally limited and broken. It's really a sad future I'd tell myself from 20 years ago how the adoption goes.
videos like this might make me subscribe again.
I’ve bought 4 BEV, none of them have have cost more than 20k. She got screwed.
Hydrogen will be part of the energy mix, but in NO WAY will it ever be a major energy carrier. It's just not efficient enough. The more we electrify, the less enegery in total we need. It's simple. Even if we would make hydrogent with green engergy, we would need 2 to 3 times the amount of energy to facilitate that.
Bingo! Electrics make sense for almost every application but especially personal vehicles and particularly when you use re-gen braking.. That technology can capture at least 50% of the wasted energy lost which is why public transit vehicles like LRT cars were the first to adopt it even if it emits a high-pitched mosquito like noise every time...
Loved this video, more of this 😊
I like that they actually bought the bonsai from the merchant
0:25 it's also not gas
Hate to break in to you buddy, but hydrogen *is* a gas.
Hydrogen is a gas (;
@@memethief4113
it's not gasoline, but the hydrogen is stored in a gaseous form. Lol, fair enough.
@@ironspider9280touche 😌
I dig the Wes Anderson style photography of the video
Down the street about 20mins is the Lemoore naval base and when I was stationed there Harris Ranch was my lighthouse to know I was almost back and safe in my bed. I would often drive to LA to visit family. The bbq is some of the best for a random gas station.