Hydrogen vs. Battery Electric Cars
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 มิ.ย. 2024
- I drove 1800 miles in a Hydrogen car to learn about electric vehicles. Thanks to Toyota for sponsoring this video series and lending us the 2021 Mirai!
Video 1: The truth about driving a hydrogen car • I drove 1800 miles in ...
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Hello! This is a reupload because some of you expressed the graphs were misleading, and I agreed. The tiny bars were animated not to scale as an artistic choice, but in the interest of accuracy we decided to take the video down and change that. I hope you enjoy learning something from this video, or it at least sparks a desire to research and learn more!
Edit: Reuploaded again because the first comment wasn't "first"
Again again?
But twice?
So you don’t like any comments, got it.
How much did Toyota pay you for this glorified AD?
This is just ridiculous.
I like how the guy is amazed that a boat can be totally silent ... When we had sail boat for much longer than engine have been a thing 😂
I was thinking the same exact thing.....like what even was that? was looking for this comment.
Also, just realised that 0
Paddle boat are way older than sails, and are silent too if you don't consider the grunting from the rowers 😂
Rich guy doesn't do sailing. Too slow, want fast.
@@psikot do you know how expensive a sail boat is ? I motorboat regularly, and i definitely can't afford a sail boat 😂😂
sail boats are not quiet. LOL
On average, Americans drive ~26 miles per day. 95% of trips are under 30 miles. Under those conditions, recharging at home from a 240V charger is more than sufficient.
Thank you very much. I spend a year with fiat 500e (electric with about 90 miles of range) in LA in 2015 and that was the most frustrating driving experience of my life. This is when I needed to be late because car did not charge for some error when it was on the station charging. This is the time when I needed to be super scared if I will be able to get to another charging station and if it is going to work because the one I am at now is not working. This is the time when I needed to call a friend I was driving to visit to pick me up at a charging station where I will need to leave my car for charging. With your example of 95% trips under 30 miles I should have had no issues. Reality is much more harsh.
@@ponpetr 90 miles is a pathetic range for LA. All the time you must've sat in a traffic snarl with the air conditioning going full blast... 120 miles would be a little more reasonable. And for that longer trip maybe you should've rented a car.
What if you can't charge at home!!!!!
@@popefacto5945 I get your point... But "maybe you should have rented a car" sounds very flippant considering they already bought a car.
That said, I think in a few years when the range is over 200, and there's enough charging available to allow for redundancy (and lower cost).
I do think BEV will probably fill most of the needs for "runabouts"... But then there are plenty of people who will need something else, and if that something else is hydrogen rather than petroleum we should all be happy.
Rental cars exist too.
Interesting theoretical analysis. Would have been nice to see something about what really drives decisions to go EV, Fuel Cell, or stay with carbon (including LNG): COST! What are the comparative costs of ownership and 12K/yr use (for a typical 4 or 5 year period) between these potential competitors?
The cheapest and only FCEV is $70K.
The 100-200mi BEV is like $10K in asia and $30K in west. 300mi EV is double of that, but still cheaper than H2 by few thousand.
Charging is far cheaper than filling h2, it is only logical that h2 made from splitting water which uses electricity is going to be costlier than using electricity directly. H2 is like $36/kg and mirai goes 300mi on 6kg
I really enjoyed this episode.
A very balanced and well presented argument in favour of HFC cars. I have also driven the Mirai, and the Hyundai Nexo and the Honda Clarity, they were all really good cars that worked very well.
Yes, there are some serious problems with the filling stations, we used to have 12 here in the UK, we now have 5 because they were not used enough to maintain them economically.
But reliability issues with H2 filling stations is a fairly simple technical issue which I'm sure can be overcome.
However the one question not asked in this video, and for me it is the massive, oversized elephant in a very small room.
Where does the hydrogen come from?
I know there will be an immediate answer, 'we can split water using excess electricity from renewables ' and that is 100% true, okay, there are massive energy losses, you need 4 kWh of electricity to produce 1 kWh of hydrogen.
But even that is nit picking.
Where does the hydrogen we use today come from?
98% of commercial hydrogen comes from steam reforming natural gas, it's produced in an oil refinery, it is a fossil fuel derivative.
Yes, it's clean, yes, when you pass H2 through a fuel cell the only waste product is water.
But when we extract hydrogen from natural gas we 'bleed off' the CO2 into the atmosphere.
And yes, the fossil fuel industry are all over this, 'we are going to capture that carbon and sequestrate it in old oil caverns underground.'
They have been talking about doing this since 1990, and all the tests have proven unworkable or economically unviable.
So to sum up, a hydrogen fuel cell car is a very inefficient fossil fuel car.
Where does the electricity come from?
@@splendidsystems you don't know?
@@splendidsystems 14% Nuclear, 5% biomass, 1% coal (soon none), 29% Wind (rising), 5% solar (rising), 2% Hydro, gas 32%, 1% unknown and 11% imported (primarily France).
An EV with an efficiency of around 3 Miles per kWh (production to wheel) and will, including all production of both vehicles, have a lower total emission footprint by the time it's done 25k miles, powered on the average mix of the UK grid.
Even with the most efficient hydrogen production methods we have now, and improved efficiency of electric motors and car aerodynamics, you would still expect to get a "Green hydrogen" FCEV only 1 mile/kWh from production of the electric to wheels on the road.
An electric car's battery can now expect to have 95%+ of it's elements recycled after it has finished it's life cycle - estimated to be over 100,000 miles and then reused for grid storage for a number of years before being disassembled.
I think you missed the elephant in the room which is how hydrogen is actually produced. It is almost all through steam reforming coal, oil, and nat gas.
Get the cost of the electrolyzer down and then it becomes an interesting alternative
You will still need to produce electricity to do your electrolysis, then…
@@vbregier but that can be done via wind, solar, hydro and nuclear
@@tatianatub and by making hydrogen from that electricity, instead of using it directly in your BEV, you need to build about four times the power plants, because hydrogen is incredibly inefficient.
Doesn't really sound realistic, huh? Remember: we're already struggling to supply our electricity needs with those sources and we haven't even electrified heating, transport and heavy industry yet, which will take about 2.5 times the electricity additional to just the electricity our households use...
@@tatianatub Your efficiently currently is about 30-50% once you take into consideration the loss (you get O2 and H when splitting water, then you need to compress it, transport it (in trucks), and at the station you need to compress it again to get it into the car tank fast. You lose a lot of electrical energy doing all that when you could have just sent the electricity direct from the power plan to the cars battery pack with minimal transmission loss.
Depending on the quality of the feedstock (natural gas, rich gases, naphtha, etc.), one ton of hydrogen produced will also produce 9 to 12 tons of CO2,
I guess you need to get a BEV sponsor now and do the opposite pitch so we can compare results.
Lol yeah exactly. This is literally an ad for Toyota, but just with a layer of abstraction so as to try and obfuscate that reality.
Physics Girl has really gone downhill since leaving PBS and becoming a corporate shill
@@magickpalms4025 unlike the rest of youtube who shill for tesla, the apple analog of the auto industry
@@hargibson18 obfuscate? have you seen what BEVs do in the cold? their range drops to less than half, hydrogen maintains a consistent range regardless of temperature and altitude.
@@gasun1274 skandinavian people dont seem to have a problem with that. in norway more than 50% of new cars are BEV, and norway us not known for its tropical temperatures 😉
A blended mix as tech grows is intriguing. When we’ve tried hydrogen on diesels as an additive it’s been awesome. Too bad generating power creates the core issue of emissions.
It will definitely be good to have both of these options in the future, especially if we can heavily reduce the use of ICE vehicles.
If there's a H2 infrastructure, us enthusiasts that want engines to tinker on can have hydrogen ICE engines. Works especially good in Rotary engines. Water out the tail pipe.
@Ethan Wood
And if enough hydrogen ICE cars are on the road, increased humidity to go with it.
@@THall-vi8cp Still less than burning fossil fuels in ICE cars - as those fossil fuels are just a combination of (mostly) carbon and hydrogen you get both CO2 and H2O as results.
@@NikaHollywood You really want to have people tinker with a car that basically is a bomb on wheels - if those 700 bar /10000 psi tank bursts and discharges into the cabin you are dead no matter if the hydrogen ignites or not.
My current gas tank is a bomb. What's your point?
When I heard Nikola I laughed louder than I should
Same here.
Yeah, that added some much needed credibility for fool cells.
Same :D
There's no way that laugh was too loud :)
@420KinK What? Not even with a rubber band engine?
95ish% of hydrogen comes from fossil fuel. Electrolysis is too energy inefficient/expensive. How could we produce enough cheap hydrogen via clean sources? I would have liked to see this addressed.
About the only way is through building some next gen nuclear plants, but that's a matter that some green energy folks won't touch.
In the future if >850C heat source can be reached with either concentrated solar or thorium molten salt reactor, then water can be split to hydrogen via a thermo-chemical process. Necessary reactants sulfur & iodine get repeatedly recycled to make this work. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur%E2%80%93iodine_cycle. Still in development.
@@scarpfish which we desperately need to do anyway
@@scarpfish renewables are already cheaper per energy produced than building a new nuclear power plant
You're not wrong exactly, but it's worth mentioning that a lot of the cost of electrolysis comes from a lack of scale. A scaled-up green hydrogen industry would be able to do a lot more for a lot cheaper.
a) There's something wrong with the vehicle test weght vs range graph. It does not require 1500 Kg of additional weight to achieve a 400 mile range.
b) Fuel cells also have a limited life, which you dismiss with a "batteries lose range, hydrogen fuel cells, not so much". Last time I heard the costs of replcing the fuel cell in a car, it was in the $100k range.
c) Hydrogen fuel stations are eye-wateringly expensive to build and maintain compared to charging infeastructure.
d) Hydrogen production by electrolysis at the required scale is also expensive.
I don't think it will ever happen, except in places of high densiy/demand like California. BEVs have no step change required.
Spot on. I think the weight penalty for 400 miles is closer to 500 kg, which is still a lot, but it's a far cry from 1.5 metric tonnes. And it keeps getting lighter every year.
I like that the guy mentioned Nikola at 8:40. We all saw how that one played out..
another huge infrastructure issue that wasn't mentioned was the cost of installing new hydrogen refueling stations (1-5 million) vs that of a bev charging station (100k-300k). This is a huge factor!
this is why BEVs are currently on top, much cheap to add infrastructure. However she did mention that BEV infrastructure does depend on the grid. As BEVs scale, the grid would also need scaling. H2 can either be tied to the grid for onsite production via electrolysis or shipped not unlike our current gas infra. That's some flexibility.
@@monstercameron This is entirely true however, because the production to car efficiency is much lower compared to BEV's, about double the energy will be needed to produce the hydrogen for all the cars to go the same distance. So mass hydrogen production would require more electricity than just putting it directly into cars.
Another thing is that BEV stations can be put basically anywhere there's electricity. School parking lot, sure. Your house, sure! Parking garage, sure. Can't put a hydrogen station in your house, probably not in a parking garage. Definitely not at a school parking lot. I'm sure the places you put a hydrogen station will be much more limited.
@@culturedfrog7999
The difference is the fueling time, and energy density.
That's where hydrogen has the advantage.
@@culturedfrog7999 yes efficiency matter. However, due to the energu density, H2 will give consumer more range...That's a user experience win. Which is to say I don't think it's clear cut at all.
Given that this was sponsored by Toyota, it’s still feels like an ad even though she tries to give the other side of the argument, it would have been better if EV manufacturers were also interviewed for their perspective
You don't think BEV manufacturers have been interviewed enough over the past decade?
It is. The EPA and charging info are just wrong. Average EPA on BEV is 250 miles and needing more like 20 to 25 min to charge up. The Mirai EPA is 357mi for limited mode and the 400mi for XLE model. Toyota is basically comparing their highest EPA hydrogen car with cheapest EV's (Bolt)
@@vacri54 Agreed. I’ve heard basically only the BEV perspective until now. So I’m grateful for this video.
It’s in the title guys! Hydrogen vs BEV, you can’t do a Hydrogen vs BEV video without giving the perspective from the other side
She disclosed the sponsorship up front and in the description.
And she talked both sides.
In terms of giving BEV more time, have you missed the past decade?
10:12 - You wouldn't charge the truck for 4 hours or 12 hours though. You would swap out the batteries. And since you know you're gonna swap the batteries, you'd design the system around that, with quick disconnect, carts to get the batteries to and from the charging rack, etc.
6:07 - “Batteries lose capacity over time”: that depends mostly upon whether your BEV is a Nissan LEAF or most any other BEV. The LEAF has, practically-speaking, no battery cooling system. With a well-engineered battery-temperature management system, batteries lose only about 15% over capacity over 10 years.
"with a well ..... Battery lose only 10% ... Over 10 years"
Is that only on paper or there is real world test that established that ?
@@LinuxLuddite, several such studies have been performed, and here’s one: th-cam.com/video/Gb_i4ihsJ1w/w-d-xo.html
Most people who expect huge battery degradation base that upon consumer electronics lithium batteries degrading rapidly. That’s not a very useful comparison though: Cell-phone (etc.) batteries are mostly lithium-polymer, whereas automotive lithium batteries are typically lithium-manganese, lithium-iron-phosphate, or a few other chemistries, which are designed, in part, for longevity. That, plus, as mentioned, they are carefully temperature-regulated and are controlled for substantial charging margins (neither charged nor discharged fully).
One real world "test" is that Tesla has a battery warranty for 8 years.
@@lavernewendell3289, indeed. Most EV manufacturers have similar warranties.
Where you have to scrutinize such warranties though is how much capacity-loss they allow as “normal wear. IIRC, the LEAF’s warranty is similar, but allows something like 25% degradation as within spec. Tesla and most others, IIRC, set that at 90%.
15% capacity loss is still a lot more than practically 0% capacity loss with FCEVs. Yes, cooling systems help with this loss, but cooling systems also draw on your cars battery to power them, thus reducing your range at the same time.
@10:10 "if you replace all 15 million electric cars in California with battery electric and plug them all in, the grid would fail". But if hydrogen "uses about twice as much to produce/use hydrogen than battery", isn't that still a much better scenario than creating all that hydrogen? Regardless of the path, we're going to need more electricity generation and less fossil fuel generation
this is super important. the "switching every car to an EV breaks the grid" argument is a fossil-fuel company strawman argument to slow the adoption of electric cars. but even if this was a difficult issue, "switching every car to FCEV" might do worse to the grid, due to the inefficiencies of hydrogen production/storage/etc.
The grid works on 3 levels. 24/7 plants, 9am-9pm plants, and peak plants.
Most of the cars charge at night, where demand is the least, and other plants can be made to switch on.
The downside is that cost would rise to make the peak plants a 24/7 option, or change the 9-9 plants to overnight plants as well.
@@tiepup Who pays for that? You just moved the funding problem from more people to less people. You really think Sears, Walmart and Amazon are going to do that?
@@tiepup Tell it to Walmart, and businesses like them that don't worry about long term because they shut down move and rebuild before they see the return on solar.
Not if you produce hydrogen at the source e.g. at a nuclear power station. You could also balance the extra capacity of your grid to produce extra hydrogen. It enables you to not have to turn of turbines when there is no demand.
You know what? This hydrogen fuel cell series would be a lot more believable if it was not sponsored by the TOYOTA.
they have their place, but this is just an advert.
Exactly, I was excited to see what her conclusion was going to be, but once I saw Toyota sponsored this it lost are credibility to me. Nothing against Physics Girl, it’s just once something like this is sponsored, it gives off the wrong vibe. Still, I can see she’s trying to be unbiased.
@@coolminer6242 Also, if she's disclosing up front who's paying for it, she's giving you the grains of salt to take it with. The content is still better than nothing.
Well IMO, Diana has made a good job at not being too biased.
What I take from this video is that fuel cells are a very niche market (long haul heavy duty semi).
The question is, why the biggest car manufacturer investing only in this niche market?
@@xmtxx The issue stems from things like the BEV vs FCEV weight graph. That graph comes from a 2009 study. In 2009 there were almost no EV's available and technology had advanced significantly for them. It shows the FCEV weight at a constant 1,250Kg and BEV's climing to 3000Kg to reach 400 miles of range. However, that's just not accurate in 2021. We have EVs (Tesla Model S Long Range) capable of 400 miles, and that weighs only 100kg more than the Toyota Mirai does. And they both weigh around 2000Kg. That's a 1750Kg disparity that makes people think that BEVs are impractical when they are in fact very practical. I cannot think of a rational reason why she would use that graph when this is easily accessible information other than to specifically mislead people to appease Toyota.
Hi Bev, do you think hydro vehicles could ever get to 80% efficiency and if petroleum stations take up most property, if you purchase a hydro vehicle how long does it take for hydro charging stations to appear in a country like South Africa?
"Even startup companies. Hyzon, Nikola" 🤣
3 days old and aged like milk already.
I don't get it.
@@rylandrc th-cam.com/video/IKlZgI65gEk/w-d-xo.html
@@Doshinkyo thanks
10:08 - "If we replaced all 15.000.000 cars and plugged them in at night, the grid would fail."
If we produced all of the hydrogen with electrolysis for all 15.000.000 vehicles, the grid would fail 3 times over.
This is what I was thinking too, but perhaps there is some way to do electrolysis when the demand is low and store the hydrogen. You could recharge BEV at such times too but since they might be moving around maybe not to the same extent.
@@randomrandom316 I am just taking physic‘s girl argument to the extreme. If battery electric cars take 8 hours to charge and are 3 times as efficient in energy use, you would strain the grid for 24h on hydrogen :) That leaves no hour with low demand
Electrolysis is never going to cut it. And unless we can find better sources for clean hydrogen, FCEVs will never be more than Trojan horses for the fossil fuel industry.
An electrolysis is most inefficient way to get a hydrogen (the most efficient is steam reforming). But even simple electrolysis could be done near an energy sources what would nullify impact on the grid.
@@AlexK-oh2se There isn't enough methane, never will be enough methane to get hydrogen from steam reforming to fuel all the cars on the road.
Electricity - you might just need double the current production, maybe not even that.
Wow, such a helpful video. Thank you.
Wish you quick recovery girl. 😊
Useful video, thanks. Clear and concise comparison
I prefer electric for now since most of the H2 for these car is extracted from natural gas well at a very high CO2 cost so I think electric might be better on emissions
@@AdmiralEisbaer Exactly. Here in my country, one reason why BEV's have not taken off yet is due to the fact that nearly 90% of electricity that power our grid comes from burning natural gas and coal. We have zero nuclear power plant (operational at least) and very few renewable energy sources.
@@AdmiralEisbaer Nuclear energy is nothing like coal. All considered, it emits less CO2 than solar panels or wind turbine (due to production cost). Yes hydroelectricity is the best, but can't be built in so many places.
Nuclear produces waste and isn't ideal, but it's the one thing that can follow our increasing energy demand while limiting CO2 emmisions.
@@AdmiralEisbaer Even with a 100% fossil fuel grid, BEV's still hold to be better compared to ICE vehicles. It takes longer to be "beneficial", but it is. This is because power plants are more efficient at converting fossil fuel into electric energy, since they are optimized to operate at certain constant regimes. Considering ICE's, this is not true since their regimes change a lot with what the driver wants (load, rpm's,...)
Wait how does this make sense? The energy in your battery car comes from the same grid. How would it ever change which system has less CO2 footprint?
@@electricpaisy6045 most if the H2 that is used for this type of car is extracted from natural gas wells and you must process it which is energy intensive thus producing more CO2 per energy unit that just charging a battery with fossil fuel
Pretty disappointed you mentioned that if every BEV plugged in at the same time the grid would fail, but didn't mention the opportunity for charging BEV's to be paired with excess solar production during the day to relieve strain on the grid. And you didn't mention how much EXTRA energy would be needed to make and transport all the hydrogen instead.
it's like saying what happens if all the hydrogen needed was created at once using electrolysis.. guess what... the grid will blow up 3x the amount because of the high inefficiency
Im with you on this. It was straight up slanted
yeah, series is sponsored and all, but this was paid advertisement; the rate of fuelling is higher, but to make it sustained the grid load would also be several times higher than if was batteries instead of hydrogen.
Yeah it was an advertisement. Which is fine, we could have talked about the details of the technology, rather than misleading the audience for personal gain.
That doesn't work. Charging will take place during rush hours, where people are driving their cars anyway. So they stop for a 5min charge with couple of hundred kw DC charger to top off at roughly the same time.
For hydrogen, electrolysis can take place in the off hours, and when the people refuel their cars during the commute, the hydrogen is readily available in the tanks. That makes a lot better use of the power grid.
it would have been interesting knowing some info about what kind of waste both systems generate.
what happen and how will we deal with batteries that cannot be charged anymore? and how does it work for fuel cells?
This was a very informative video. Thank you for the great content
I appreciate the attempt by Dianna to present a balanced take on things, despite some perceived bias/optimism of Toyota employees.
The argument that that BEV's don't work for everyone because of living situation (no garage) vs FCEV is somewhat weak because you can still find electricity anywhere. Coffee shops, mall parking lots. Easy to expand to apartments and more common places. Even street lights have been proposed. Bottom line is the situation is pretty good for a good chunk of people, and getting better by the day. Can't quite put a hydrogen tanks everywhere though, so you'll never be able to get away from making dedicated trips to a station. I agree that Hydrogen can be a part of a healthy and diversified infrastructure, especially for energy storage if you have plentiful excess renewable energy, but I'm still not sold on its use case for commuter vehicles.
More specific to car design, hydrogen might have a weight efficiency vs batteries but it's volumetric energy density isn't great whereas battery tech is improving at a much faster rate. Its storage at pressure also makes it more difficult to package, since you can't hide them under the floor of the passenger compartment. The best user experience, from an ergonomic and aesthetic perspective will be found with BEVs.
Using hydrogen for trucks and stuff like that would be very nice. Especially those who drive in cities all day. Although i admire those powerful diesel trucks, i would prefer ev trucks in places with a lot of people around.
But imagine if we find a way to turn CO2 and H2O back into hydrocarbons and O2. But i dont think thats going to happen anytime soon
And while not everyone can install a charger at home today, it’s completely possible and increasingly normal to generate electricity at home. It takes me longer to fill my car, but I’m usually asleep while it happens and don’t have to worry about going anywhere other than my destination or whether a supply chain or technical issue makes fuel unavailable or suddenly very expensive.
I like the idea of diversity, though.
also 96% of hydrogen manufactured is from fossil fuels.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production
This is not a great take re charging. I own a m3 and was lucky enough to live pretty close to a supercharger in miami. Supercharging to full can take upto an hour. On level 2 charging like I do now in my garage, it takes a few hours and level one is over a day. I went to Jacksonville a few months back on a road trip and there weren't many super chargers in that huge city. It definitely is much harder if you don't have a personal/dedicated location to charge.
@@monstercameron As BEVs become more popular, anyone who owns a rental property will face ever increasing pressure to install chargers. If the numbers say that having chargers lets you set rent higher, or attracts a more wealthy renters, they'll be falling over themselves to install.
The problem with battery charge times can be overcome with a swappable battery. The large battery in the floor can be kept for long duration charging, but have a portion of the Frunk where a swappable battery like the Gravely 4kw FusionCore batteries can be placed for quick swaps at a station that specializes in keeping them charged. Each battery is equal to about 10 miles (based on my Sorento PHEV getting about 30 miles on a 10KW battery).
In any case, the infrastructure needs to be upgraded across the board.
one of the best & useful videos. Thanks
8:52 - not actually zero emissions if the H2 is made from steam reforming CH4+H2O = CO2 + H2...
Many here don't like emissions but .. what do you guys think trees "breathe"? Clean air as we define it is poisonous to trees.
@@Deploracle The trees have plenty CO2 without our help... What about the ocean vegetation? You know that more CO2 = more acidous water = less plants in the oceans?
@@mlepa Trees have more CO2 than they can process.
BEV also mostly use fossil fuels to charge up
@@giovannifrrri5495 Way more efficient than ICEVs (check how much energy just producing the fuel takes) and HEVs. Plus I live in Sweden, we don't burn anything to produce electricity and low-carbon electricity is growing all over the world.
Toyota, maker of the hydrogen fuel cell car used in the video, sponsors video about comparing hydrogen fuel cell vs battery charged vehicles.
Nope, nothing concerning about that.
Yeah, this is a lot of FUD from Toyota. They're actively trying to scare people away from BEVs because they've invested in FCEVs and they're scared by the entire rest of the industry embracing BEVs. They simply cannot afford to go it alone and build out all of the infrastructure for FCEVs themselves. FCEVs are dead on arrival but they're trying to do CPR - or at least delay BEVs until they can figure out how to pivot.
@@mzmegazone I wouldn’t say fcev are dead on arrival. There are other countries that produce more hydrogen than they can use. This would be a fantastic use for them. Like the video said there can be two solutions. One doesn’t have to win over the other. They raise a good point about people who don’t have an ability to charge their bev at night. Fcev would be good for that too. It would be better for a road trip. I don’t see that as dead on arrival.
@@jonathanfairchild I know EV owners who can't charge at home. They hit a DCFC once or twice a week. Battery capacity and vehicle range continues to rise, and charging speeds continue to increase. The 'inconvenience' of charging a BEV is less so all the time. We're better off investing in building out DCFC infrastructure than trying to bootstrap a hydrogen infrastructure from next to nothing.
Most of today's hydrogen is a byproduct of fossil fuel production. That's neither environmentally friendly nor sustainable. If green sources of hydrogen are developed or is much, much more valuable for industries where batteries are not a good option - such as aviation. Hydrogen will see growing demand as a direct fuel as well as feedstock for efuels - synthetic jet fuel produced from hydrogen and captured carbon. There is a real struggle to produce enough of these fuels, so any hydrogen used for FCEVs is a net negative.
If the funds spent on trying to make FCEVs happen were spent on improving BEV infrastructure, everyone would benefit. Pushing FCEVs at this point is simply producing a divided market and holding back progress and adoption.
They've been touting FCEVs for decades, abs they still aren't ready for widespread use. In that time BEVs have gone from a novelty to a viable product to the mainstream, with an explosion of products coming in the next few years.
FCEVs have no such momentum. They remain a novelty with billions in investment required to make them even marginally viable for most consumers.
Hydrogen has a future in some markets, automobiles isn't one of them.
@@mzmegazone In Norway 65% of our new cars sold is bevs.
We have also tried out, and totaly left the fruitless idea of hydrogen electric cars, a couple of years ago.
The people who bougt hydrogen cars has no place to fill them with hydrogen anymore.
@@kimantonsen5595 Exactly. FCEVs are an evolutionary dead end for small vehicles. I do believe hydrogen has a future in aviation - either directly or as feedstock for efuels - but that is a very different infrastructure. Same for shipping. You only need H2 distribution at airports and actual ports. Rail is best electrified - where that's more difficult perhaps H2 (combustion or fuel cells) has a role. But, again, your infrastructure is much less and more concentrated. Trucking becomes more difficult, but automobiles would require basically reproducing the gas station infrastructure with H2. That's a massive investment - and BEVs are well ahead. It is much easier to drop a charger into a parking garage, public lot, etc., than it is to install H2 filling stations. That's a key difference - BEV charging infrastructure can be massively distributed. And for those who can charge at home or work, it is far superior.
Get well soon, we need an update video 😢❤
I heard about hydrogen cars when I was a kid, like still in the concept stages. I always thought they disappeared and wondered why that happened! Now I know they didn't disappear at all! This has been very informative and I totally had the instinct that one should "win" over the other. Really enjoyed the video and I'm glad to see how both sorts of vehicles have clear advantages that both cover the bases our society needs when it comes to green travel.
Imagine..isolated self made h2 electrolysis....car itsel produce h2 from water just 100kg water Near 4kg h2 all by electrolysis.. efficiency is 80 90% ..conversion in electric 70% motor efficiency 90% all is .0.9x0.7x.0.9=0.567 or 56.7% all efficiency from electricity in car motor ....and more car not have 1to 2 tons battery but just 100kg water and some lighty equipment for electrolysis....😊😊😊 how fast is electrolysis 😮😮😮😮
Worth noting that not all BEVs need a standalone charging station installed. I just plug mine into a standard 110VAC wall socket in my garage.
And if you so desire you can charge it using solar/green power. Don't need to burn fossil fuels to make that hydrogen.
assuming tesla model 3's smallest battery ~50KW / (110V * 15Ahr ~1.7KWh ), that's 1 day 6 hours 18 minutes-ish for a full charge
@@monstercameron that’s assuming you are empty or that you drive 240 miles every single day…
When in reality people drive 50 miles a day average which means 10 hours to charge is plenty to replenish the days usage… and cars sit for 20 hours a day.
@@cybertrk I gave the worse case scenario. all it takes is one weekend or a busy week to shake up the daily mileage cycle.
@@SandTiger42
But then you can only charge during the day.
"Losing capacity over time" - FCEVs still need a small battery, which will deteriorate over time. How long does a fuel cell last ? Also Hydrogen tanks need replacing every 10-15 years due to embrittlement.
Of course, but a small battery and a tank will be much cheaper and easier to replace than a 70 odd kWh chassis sized battery. My guess is that we'll see most small city cars moving the BEV route, with sedans, tourers, recreational vehicles (SUVs, 4x4s), and logistics vehicles (including trucks, planes and ships etc.) move the hydrogen route.
@@ayreon213 EV batteries are already lasting for longer than most consumer vehicles these days are ever driven before being scrapped. The drop in efficiency doesn't significantly affect their function.
@@hs_747 all of this is named and explained in the video. Battery recycling is trailing behind production because the demand is lower at the moment. currently, battery vehicle production is steeply ramping up and it will take a decade at least for the battery recycling tp follow. You may know that many people building power walls can't find used batteries because there's more demand than supply. there's a lot of R&D backed by big players that are interested to recycle batteries because it makes economic sense. If things make economic sense, it will happen. If we wait for people to "be nice", it won't.
In case it makes a difference geographically, I'm in Europe.
By the way, Hydrogen vehicles would have the same battery recycling issues, just less of them, as Mike already stated.
@@hs_747 I do agree btw that Tesla should be doing this!
@@hs_747 There's not enough of them (batteries) to "feed" a gigafactory yet... and you're completely neglecting used battery market. Used EV batteries are highly sought after for DIY(-ish) home storage, ICE->BEV conversions, replacements of worn out battery packs for good ones from wrecked cars (Nissan Leafs, mainly) etc. Most car battery packs simply are too sought after to be recycled.
Maybe this addressed elsewhere, but in the short segment on efficiency we get a single statement “if hydrogen is generated by electrolysis…”, but almost no hydrogen IS generated by electrolysis and prospects that that will change aren’t good. In reality, almost all hydrogen is generated by steam reforming of methane, or worse, by steam reforming of coal. While the electric grid is getting greener with the growth of renewables supplanting fossil fuels in electricity - and doing so in an economically competitive way - that is just not currently in the cards for hydrogen.
6:08 "battery loses capacity over time, that doesn't happen nearly as much with fuel cell electric vehicles..." oh yes but it does. Hydrogen is a very small molecule, difficult to keep it contained. This is also one of the main problems to transport hyrdrogen over long distance using pipes. It's also a problem of containment when it's in the vehicle. Basically over time your tank of hydrogen will jus evaporate. So it does also use "capacity".
Thanks for showing this
Correction: High-end BEVs have 500+ miles of range.
Also, you mentioned that the cleanest way to produce hydrogen is electrolysis but in reality, the vast majority of hydrogen is produced from natural gas (producing tons of emissions).
While fuel cell is superior technology to ICE, I do not think it will ever overtake BEV in widespread adoption.
Link your sources bro. I would love to see your 500+ mile range BEV.
@@criancrna1487 Lucid Air has 500+ mi range. Tesla has also been working on a 500 mi vehicle. Aptera has a 1000 mi ev with a less conventional design.
@@The_Flamekeepers So, no real world tests?
@@The_Flamekeepers How long do the batteries last? As in how many years before they break down? Batteries degraded from just sitting on a shelf, and I can never find good numbers from EV manufactures on this.
@@Justin73791 it’s hard to know from any OEMs other than Tesla, but Tesla’s data covers nearly (or perhaps more than) a decade of vehicles on the road in real world conditions. FYI charging cycles matters more than years on the shelf.
At 6:58 the vehicle test weight vs range graph (which is one of your core points) is hugely misleading. It's very outdated, as it's from 2009, and assumes ~150Wh/kg Li-Ion energy density (read the source) when today's batteries are nearing 300. With updated numbers, it will be clear that for *passenger* vehicles, hydrogen no longer has any advantages.
Edit: Regarding 10:07 current grid not handling if all vehicles/trucks were battery electric: Sure but this is actually worse for hydrogen as it ALSO requires electricity (if actually green) and it's only ~30% efficient so you'd need 2.5-3x MORE electricity.
abs values don't matter, it's the trend that counts. Toyota also improved the efficiency of their 2nd gen fuel cell too btw
Agree with mihail. Trends of batteries getting more efficient and cheaper also severaly helps. You could fill more than twice or tripple the cars with electricity than with hydrogen due to the inherently lost energy. Hydrogen is basically a very inefficient battery that is really only worth the use in large vehicles like large boats, but then on that scale its also a huge waste to have only 20% of energy actually being utilized.
Basically hydrogen is a type of battery. It stores energy, but very inefficiently due to the whole inherent process of making it.
Since users don't see the 20% efficiency on their end, it seems fine. But say you were charing up your tesla and your battery could only take up 20% of the energy put in, that would suddenly sound a total disaster.
This graph shows that Hydrogen-powered, 400 mile range cars are 1350kg. In reality, Mirai is over 1900kg and Tesla Model S with even higher EPA is only 300kg heavier while being a bigger car with tons more performance.
But the whole grid doesn't need to upgrade.
Only where there hydrogen production is done. And industrial areas are already equipped for that, so probably wouldn't need upgrading.
Whereas your street would need upgrading, and the next one and the next.
@@kedaruss only 300kg heavier is alot, that's over 600 lbs in american parlance. Also the point of the graph was to show that range scales differently for both platforms, due to energy density and volume
Let's be real hydrogen is just a BEV with more steps. Also find it funny the hydrogen proponents were making arguments that their system wouldn't be as affected by the grid. Your fuel source requires more grid energy to generate energy than just charging a BEV. The only good argument for hydrogen I see is using it as a long term energy storage system.
Enjoyed this!...Its was very interesting and informative!
I get that not everyone can charge at home, but for those who can: damn that's convenient! No hydrogen car can beat that.
100%
Totally agree
Not everyone can charge at home, for now. In the example in the video she is is renting the house and can not put in a charger. In the future people will not rent a house that does not have a charger installed.
And for apartments, that will be a big draw point for BEV owners if they have charging in the parking assignments.
A lot of the "downside" argument is the current status of things. Who knows what it will look like in 5 year.
I couldn't charge at home for the first two months until I moved.
The next two months I ... was lazy and didn't bother setting up my charger at home. It was just as easy to just charge on the street chargers.
As long as your city puts in infrastructure, charging isn't an issue.
I think that’s what the end of the video is about. Battery is better for some, but for others hydrogen is better. Both can help reduce the number of gas cars on the road
"move away from petroleum dependance"... By using hydrogen that comes from an energy intensive process stripping it from natural gas, releasing CO2.
@@tiepup and wasted energy to make the hydrogen. All to charge a battery just like in a battery EV.
Added complexity and extra thermodynamic losses for no benefit.
@@KenLord hydrogen cars take 5 minutes to refuel, are more durable and modular, and safer in crashes. most importantly, with a small battery that could be completely replaced by a supercap bank, it doesn't require children mining lithium.
@@gasun1274 Just to clarify, it's cobalt that uses child labour in third world countries. You might be mixing up that travesty with Elon threatening to coup Bolivia to access their lithium mine.
@@gasun1274 we already have a 8 minute loading car, the safest cars in crash statistics and crash statistics are teslas.
@@gasun1274 Also you forget, there isn't only lithium as an option. Next year for example na+ batteries are ramping up in production. Newer reports are showing which car is better for the environment by far.
I'd like to see a study comparing the production of batteries for BEVs vs the production of hydrogen for FCEV's and the impact on the environment, especially regarding the extraction of lithium and other minerals and metals needed for both technologies.
Thank you for the video. Great job!
My BEV has virtually no maintenance. Check tires for wear, top up the washer bottle and check brakes for wear. That’s about it. How does an HEV compare for maintenance?
I guess that, since both BEV and HEV are electric vehicles and their main difference is the storage device (battery vs fuel cell), there's where you'll find the biggest difference. Considering that batteries degrade a lot over time and ussage (avobe all when using fast charge) and fuel cells degrade much slowly in comparison, HEV should require less maintenance. In fact, the most expensive maintenance task with BEV is the replacement of the battery (and also one of the main sources of polution about BEVs).
Also, because any BEV expecting to have big autonomy has to add a lot of weight in batteries compared to a HEV, it is expected to have more wear on tyres and brakes with BEV compared to HEV if we're talking about long range vehicles.
This is just a guess. Im no expert nor have the numbers
@@fresita_jugosa That's exactly what Toyota would like you to believe in. Current batteries in good BEVs last longer than ICEVs and have a longer warranty than hydrogen installation and fuel cell stack in Mirai. Surprised?
@@lightdark00 of course there is. And we're talking only about the maintenance of the vehicles; the infrastructure for hydrogen is hugely more demanding in maintenance than the power grid. It's like the comparison between the efficiency of fuel cells vs batteries. It's true that, for the same weight, hydrogen is more energetically dense. However in volumetric efficiency the story reverses. That's the reason why hydrogen is not a realistic option for planes, but at the same time is pretty appealing for trucks. All in all, a very complex situation, pretty hard to analyze.
@@kedaruss Source?
For Mirai, you have to change the ion filter every 35k, around $500. But you don't have a loss in battery efficiency. FCEV's have the edge in this department.
The overall efficiency really makes me lean conventional battery whenever possible.
The place I see Hydrogen being good would be emission-free air travel where the less weight means everything. Also it's much easier to plan infrastructure between a few airports.
Ya I could see this being good for trucking and airplanes, which are dependent on weight but in just reg personal travel I think batteries are just fine
So what I understand the fuel cells aren't efficient enough and add extra weight and cost, so they're looking at burning the hydrogen instead. No carbon emissions but the problem is at the high temperatures nitrous oxides are produced which aren't good, but at a lower level than traditional airplane engines.
Completely agree. Until batteries achieve much more energy storage per pound, airplanes could use Hydrogen. But, the inefficiency of Hydrogen, inability to charge at home, putting frozen, extremely pressurized liquid into a tank, and lack of hydrogen refueling facilities will combine to make Hydrogen not able to catch on. And those with a hydrogen car will thusly have the auto-equivalent of betamax.
depends on how you look at emission free. Since most hyrdogen comes from crude oil. So the vehicle may not be "emission free", but nearly everything else about it still is emission heavy. Even to some extent, it could be worst in emission if we were to keep the hydrogen but dump the carbon from crude oil.
The issue with hydrogen air travel is how do you store the fuel. While the fuel is light, it either needs to be kept in heavy reinforced containers under pressure, or at cryogenic temperature, which also requires heavy equipment.
I really appreciate Mr Sam's hard work and high quality videos. His extremely interesting to listen and I've been learning a lot from him, making a difference into so many lives and I look forward to work with him.
@@user-xt9ng4hx2h Mr Sam’s 4 week course is very well done. Even if your knowledge about technical analysis and the market is extensive, you will still learn new things. He is extremely good at explaining concepts and has the ability to explain complicated notions in a simple matter.
@samdeymon43333
$1 Invested in Bitcoin vs Gold over 13 years. Bitcoin:
$62,670,300.00
Gold:$1.82
I'm looking up for a 10000$ investment. any idea on what my profit would be?
£16000 on my second Investment, that man is smart.
After watching this, it seems like the benefits of creating consumer-FCEVs doesn't make up for the infrastructure requirements...
I still think they'd be great for trucking, or other industrial uses (particularly for electric planes!), but those are all places where you could make specialized refueling stations, rather than making public ones on every street corner.
I think that's the general consensus at the moment, that initially hydrogen will make the most impact for use with trains, buses, trucks and boats. Hydrogen cars will be niche, but maybe there'll be a tipping point as the infrastructure grows and hits critical mass.
@@johnmcnulty6171 why start building the infrastructure in the first place?
We already have electric lines going everywhere... In some places they're putting electric car charging ports on old street lamps when they switch over to energy efficient bulbs.
@@guamae
But we would have to upgrade all those lines.
@@guamae Because BEV's are not practical for a substantial number of drivers. Also, lithium is a finite element, BEV's can only play a role at best. If we want to move away from ICE we will need to embrace FCEV's.
@@Robert-cu9bm honestly, that's something we need to do anyways, particularly in the US.
Our electrical grid is outdated, inefficient, and too vulnerable to the extreme weather that is only going to keep getting more common.
this vid honestly makes me lean further away from hydrogen.
See if you can test drive one. You will lean further away when you feel how they accelerate.
@@psikot Is that really such an important thing? Driving range seems to be much more important.
@@eduardoroca1991 next year we have a 800km range bev, which one can load in 8 minutes from 0-80%. Also na+ batteries will ramp up in production. Btw, any hydrogen car has range problems. They don't get full in lots of circumstances.
@@dieabsolutegluckskuche5174 I won't hold my breath for these new long range BEVs. Tesla cars have also shown to not have nearly the range that they're advertised.
@@dieabsolutegluckskuche5174 But I'm pretty sure more people would care about the range on the highway a lot more than urban range.
Thank you for such an informative video 😊
I'm in my 6th year driving an EV and often hear some of these arguments from friends against battery technology. I've never run out of power as I charge every night on 220 at my house. I rarely use the superchargers. In California, many houses have 220 outlets installed in the garage for electric dryers but most dryers sold are gas so the outlet is unused. My EV cost per mile is 3.4 cents compared to 23 cents for my wife's gas car. As a point of reference, my brother leased a Toyota Hydrogen Mirai only because Toyota provided a debit card to fill up for free during the lease. There is only 1 hydrogen station in San Diego County so he has far more planning to make sure he doesn't run out.
Interesting. How much did the car charging raise your home electric bill. Thank you and be safe..
@@Big.Ron1 3.4 cents per km, obviously (already mentioned).
I’ve never seen a gas dryer in my life
The problem with hydrogen isn't the weight, it's the volume. Especially since it needs to be stored at very high pressure (or low temperature) and those vessels can't be shaped easily. So the reason hydrogen cars have issues getting more range is the space the tanks use. That's not as much a problem for batteries at this point.
the problem of hydrogen its poor performence (power ratio) new merai have about 95 hp per metric ton while the standard model 3 which is alot cheaper have 175 hp per metric ton 👍
At this point. That's the point. 😁
@@keepthefaith9805 Yes that's correct, unlike the efficiency problem, storage issues could be improved with smaller, higher pressure tanks. But that would also come with other downsides like more expensive fuel and infrastructures, and further reduced efficiency.
But there's not really a point to pursue it when BEV are cheaper and more convenient already. I don't think FCEV will ever make sense for general road use. Just get a BEV.
That’s fair, but I think the point made in the video that hydrogen could be used for so many other applications than average commuter vehicles still makes the development of the technology “worth it”.
@@CrossoverGenius
well , no , after calculating repair costs and if you refer to factories or facilities they use power grid electric motors so they get 90% efficient :) the main fight was in automobile industry because cars stop and move a lot and run at variable speeds most of the time
i have been seeing a lot of talk lately around how hydrogen is sourced and its net carbon impact, along with terms like 'grey' and 'blue' hydrogen... and it is clear to me that (as are most things meant for popular consumption these days) these articles are biased towards one particular position or another... i would appreciate a video in this series (or thereafter) that looks at the science behind how hydrogen can be sourced on the scale needed to serve a national or international market for fuel cell vehicles, as well as an objective presentation of the pros and cons for the various methods and sources in terms of net energy, cost, environmental impact and sustainability, etc... i have of course googled for this, but it is difficult to tell what is objectively factual (and complete) and what is slanted by opinion. i would trust you for this information far more than i would any online article. thank you for your continued excellent youtube material!
My current take on this - There are three main ways of making Hydrogen: Steam Reforming, Electrolysis and Gasification. The efficiency numbers I have seen for these processes have varied a bit: Small Scale SMR - 65-75%, Large Scale SMR - 70-80%, Electrolysis - 65-80%, Gasification - 40-50%. Depends on who did the study, when it was done and what they included in their calculations.
However I did find a table that looked at it from 'grams of CO2/MJ of Energy' for over a dozen systems (from source to pump, including transport/processing storage etc). For example:
Electricity from nuclear energy, electrolysis on retail site, hydrogen compression (88 MPa) - 8 gCO2eq MJ− 1
Central electrolysis from wind energy, hydrogen liquefaction, liquid hydrogen road transport to retail site, hydrogen cryo-compression in to vehicle tank (35 MPa) = 4.2 gCO2eq MJ− 1
Natural gas delivered by pipeline (4000 km), centrally reformed in a 200 MW plant with an efficiency of 75% and CCS technology = 43.2 gCO2eq MJ− 1
Farmed wood, small-scale gasifier and hydrogen liquefaction, liquid hydrogen road transport to retail site, hydrogen cryo-compression in to vehicle tank (35 MPa) - 8.8 gCO2eq MJ− 1
The document I got this from focused a lot on the lower monetary costs of SMR, but did acknowledge how bad it was in terms of CO2 production and Methane Production. It did also suggest ways of improving the SMR process so at least they are looking into it.
Personally though, if the electricity for the electrolysis comes from a renewable source like wind/solar/tidal, I guess you can put nuclear in there as well, is the way we need to go almost regardless of monetary costs.
Excellent request! Check out “Engineering with Rosie”. Rosie gave an excellent review of hydrogen sources and use technology, without the hype.
It's an interesting problem, and the reason I don't expect hydrogen to ever break out of a small niche use. Electrolysis at least can be green (at least as far as carbon goes) if the electricity source is green - Nuclear, Hydro, Wind, Solar, etc.
The problem is why add an extra conversion step & source of inefficiency to use electricity to make hydrogen when you already have the electricity & can use it directly (to charge a battery)?
Agreed.
@@WhiskyCanuck based solely on this video, it seems like FCEV can tackle larger weights, and has the advantage of quick refills, compared to BEV, so would be much more useful for a fleet of big rigs.
Best compare video of battery and hydrogen. Thanks!
Great video showing the need for both battery and hydrogen electric vehicles.
Diana, what is the life span of the hydrogen fuel cells? I was involved in a project about 15 years ago where back up electricity was provided with hydrogen. With that technology the fuel cells need maintains every 1500 hours. I'm sure it's a lot better now, but how much? Will the fuel cells last as long a the car, or will they need to be replaced periodically? And what will the cost be?
Not Diana though, but anyway, fuel cells have come a long way since then. In fact, the durabillity of FC has improved dramatically. According to DOE it is around 5k for mobile applications. Toyota claims that their FC should outlive their car(150-200k miles). Bear in mind one intersting fact. When FC is at the end of their lifespan, it is much much more easier to recycle and obtain critical minerals back from the FC such as platinum and iridium. That is a huge factor when considering the environment. 👍
@@PanEvropa2004 out live the car at 150-200k miles? It wasn't a few decades ago car manufacturers were trying to make cars last a half million or more miles. Strange how that number has gone DOWN over the years rather than up.
@@SWRaptor1 I agree. Though FCEV are relatively new and there are reasons to believe, that this number will significantly improve with a adoption of hydrogen economy.
@@PanEvropa2004 no, this number will improve when we drastically reduce the number of moving parts in automobiles. This advantage is to BEV vehicles and their adoption is much further along than hydrogen. Once you can feasibly state that 90%+ of hydrogen comes from renewables, it's just another fossil fuel as it mostly comes from fracking.
@@PanEvropa2004 the fuel cell should outlast the car at 150 - 200k miles. Interesting.
Because she mentioned batteries losing capacity over time... Without bothering to say the a Tesla at 200k miles only loses about 10% capacity, and can keep on being used long after that.
And the new Tesla 4680 batteries, with new chemistries and better efficiency / less losses to resistance, are coming in the next 6 months or so.
Most hydrogen isn’t obtained through electrolysis, it comes from fossil fuels and is crazy expensive. The graph showing range is still misleading because the way you increase the range of a hydrogen cell car is by installing a bigger fuel tank. You could drive hundreds of miles on a single tank, but you’ll have little storage space and your head will hit the car ceiling.
Hydrogen fuel cells only make sense on the larger vehicles: trucks and boats.
Hydrogen proponents talk about how you can source hydrogen from electrolysis powered by renewable energy, yet they mix in the price from hydrogen created by the most economical means, which happens to also happens to be incredibly polluting...
@@Bryan46162 it's obviously not ideal. unlike electricity which has had time to mature, hydrogen manufacturing is still in the same stage it was when it was only produced for chemical uses. hydrogen has an incredibly inefficient infrastructure and would require the same treatment as electricity got back when that was new. i hope the companies pushing it can show the world that it is possible.
Batteries aren’t that clean though
They require hard to get cobalt and lithium
For both battery and fuel cells have a long way to go
And possibly airplanes
@@captainahab5522 Tesla is already stopping the use of cobalt and lithium only causes point source pollution in very limited remote locations which are not significant at all.
Does cold weather affect H2 because EV it drops range drastically. Quicker charging for industrial transport. UPS doesn't want to wait 1/2 for the bullcrap to charge, for example.
Love, love, love these discussions, showing how quickly technology development and recent discussions can become a touch dated the new BEV EPA target is now set by Lucid at 520 miles. That aside new advancement in Hydrogen EV will no doubt also improve. Once BEV settles in the 450-500mile EPA rated will remove range anxiety. Recharge times will likely abate once solid state battery tech advances (hint new video opportunity) which should help both HEV/BEV community.
Can we have a non-sponsored view on this?
Yup. Hydrogen cars, objectively, have many issues, but you wouldn’t guess it from this infomercial.
There's a lot of material on this issue out there.
@@elliottmcollins This is a purportedly objective scientific channel.
2:31 The first hydrogen station in CA... "dispenser unavailable". That doesn't inspire much confidence. XD
It would be interesting to see a video on the global impact of lithium mining to make those batteries and impact of producing solar panels as well. Also, next time you’re at a electric car charging station look around for a diesel generator supplying power; it could be a little ways away from the charging station.
There are diesel generators near internet service providers maybe, but they're not found near EV charging stations. Some have solar panels to help offset the cost of electricity. Either way the global impact on mining is still far outweigh by the impact caused from drilling, transporting, and burning fossil fuels. The search papers from several universities are easy to find.
What a lovely series.. I'm glad I subscribed..
5:35 What about the fact that 95% of H2 is currently being produced in steam reforming of CH4 process that outputs CO2 and more of it than if a car was driving just on the CH4...
But methane is 80 times better green house gas than co2. If that methane would otherwise be released into atmosphere it is at worst equivalent to burning methane. Then there are other stages of making hidrogen fuel...
@@white_shadow_123 I hope you meant CH4 is a 80x worse green house gas... Either way the problem is that to produce H2 you have to use up more CH4 and energy than if you would just run the car on CH4...
That's kinda like saying "what about electricity generated by coal plants" a decade ago..... things changed; electricity generation has gotten cleaner.
@@holycrapchris See, even then that was a disingenuous argument. A BEV that was charged by a grid that used pure coal power was still more environmentally friendly than normal ICE vehicles. Since the power plants aren't size limited, as well as being a lot fewer than cars, they're able to reach much higher efficiencies than internal combustion engines. It also takes a lot less energy to transport any type of fuel to less locations than the hundreds of thousands of gas stations.
EDIT: Please see xmtxx2's comment below mine. Coal may not be better, but a pure natural gas grid still would be. My apologies.
@@kingknapp That's false. With a small car, electricity produced by coal, would emit 220g of CO2 / km. Diesel is 160 and gas is 185 (source in french: th-cam.com/video/zjaUqUozwdc/w-d-xo.html).
That's why in poland, (which is heavily powered by coal), an EV produce more CO2 than an ICE.
With fuel, it's pretty equivalent to diesel, with natural gas, you are already at 90g/km.
In comparison, PV is at 12g, wind 3, and nuclear 1.3.
But poland is pretty much the only country where it is like that.
Even in the USA, with it's mix, its well favorable to have an EV.
We are on the same boat, please refrain from claiming false arguments, it taint "our" (EV supporters) overall credibility.
One major assumption is that we will only ever have lithium-ion batteries. There is an enormous amount of research going into batteries that are safer, charge faster, and have higher energy density.
As do Lithium batteries today. The graph shown was from 2009. Deliberately ignoring the fact that energy densities have improved many times since then.
Yes, battery research has piggy backed on smartphone revolution to reduce cost by whopping 80% during last decade and ready to repeat it this decade.
You're right, we should compare the fuel cell technology of today against the as-yet uninvented battery technology of the future. Very fair comparison.
@@vacri54 But the point is they are comparing the fuel cell of today with the battery tech from 12 years ago. Since then battery prices have dropped 90& and their energy density has doubled.
Fuel cells had a window of opportunity to become a viable technology for cars. They missed it. BEVs have too many advantages, are established at scale and they are rapidly improving. Fuel calls are a mature technology that is comparatively stagnant.
Australia has developed a graphene/aluminum battery that seems more like a super capacitor to me.
Hi, thanks a lot for this comparison ! The only missing thing is the environmental impact of the battery vs fuel cells. I THINK this would give another pros to the fuel cell but would love to see a more scientific analysis than my tought ;) Another great comparison would be hydrogen full cell vs hydrogen internal combustion engine efficiency. I know BMW made a 7 series hybrid gasoline/hydrogen more than a decade ago but there were no (or too few) way to refill hydrogen, and Iceland has some combustion engine bus.
As much as I love this series, I'm really super excited to keep seeing clips of my hometown of San Pedro.
It's all about infrastructure. The availability of it is the winner for me. In my area there isn't any hydrogen. However, EV charger are plenty and so far they're free of charge!
And power points. Can use the mobile chargers off any power point. And an upgrade is easily sorted out with an electrician. Can't do that with hydrogen.
I think hydrogens best use cases are in public transport (Buses, Taxis etc) and the Trucking industry
Once the infrastructure is in place, hydrogen will take over. The trucks are going to force hydrogen development, which will make it more available to personal cars.
The batteries are too heavy for the trucks, making them very inefficient for heavy vehicles.
@@tonymouannes maybe!
@@tonymouannes You are assuming that batteries today will never improve energy density...while I agree that hydrogen is interesting for heavy vehicles, fuel cell technology and hydrogen infrastructure are aiming at a moving target. If batteries 10 years from now have twice the energy and half the cost of today's batteries, it's hard to imagine hydrogen-based transportation on a nationwide scale being competitive, given the enormous cost of putting in a nationwide network of hydrogen refueling stations. Local delivery vehicles? Maybe.
*This is just gasoline with extra steps*
Nope. The hydrogen is never burned.
@@Deploracle it's oxidized so yeah it is burnt
@@whatthefunction9140 That's a reach.
@@Deploracle The majority of hydrogenis produced from fossil fuels by steam reforming of natural gas, partial oxidation of methane, and coal gasification
@@Deploracle Starts with Natural Gas, ends up as Carbon Dioxide and Water. I don't really care if the is actual fire in between those.
Thanks for sharing the video. Hey what about costs? What is the real all in impact in ghg reduction?
Dianna, none of the big car manufactures are talking about cold weather usage and with good reason. Sure these systems work great year round in the south. In the north it is a different prognosis entirely. I don't have a graph but at 20 below zero F, batteries lose 80% of their charge. The car range is cut 80 % for example 200 miles to 40 miles. My municipality tried LP on all the police squads and they refused to start in the winter time when the temps went below zero. They had to be towed inside and thawed for at least an hour before they would start. I am not sure about hydrogen, but the other problem is filling and ice. The ice jams the nozzle and you are stuck. Well here are a few other things to think about. Even a diesel truck cannot be shut off in the cold and has to be left running 24 hours a day. As an added bonus, you have to add anti-gel to the fuel tanks to prevent the fuel from freezing. So pick your poison carefully. Love your show, your personality and your looks.
If to many battery electric cars overload the power grid, and hydrogen cars need double the amout of electricity per mile. Then aren't hydrogen cars a bigger problem?
I think part of the idea is that hydrogen would be be produced on the grid. It would probably be made in central locations with dedicated generators and then shipped around just like petrol today.
definitely !
@@neeneko so the H fuel shipping needs to be taken into account into the efficiency… and it will drop further…
More than 95% of hydrogen are made from fossile fuel now. And you'd have hundreds of thousand of pieces of yard art if all cars turned FCEVs over night with those very few hydrogen stations, while the grid would still be able to cope.
@@Makatea Well, yeah, but we are moving away from ICE because of fossil fuels, what's the point if we still need oil to power our cars?
This video is just a Toyota Fuel Cell ad and it still reaffirm my opinion that hydrogen fuel cell is the wrong technology to focus on.
See if you can test drive one. You will lean further away when you feel how they accelerate.
You may not be able to install a full on Tesla charger but I have to imagine the landlord will be ok installing a 30 or 50amp outlet if you're paying for it. It has its benefits outside of BEV charging. Also, you can just use the dryer outlet to get 22 mi/hr
Great video, very informative.
Where is the hydrogen being sourced from? From what I understand it's sourced from the fossil fuel industry. Electrolysis isn't ideal from what I've read as it takes a lot of energy. How do we ensure the source is green?
By further developing the technology and government policies?
That's the same argument for electric cars though. We just have an easier time storing the energy in hydrogen than we have as pure electricity.
@@nobodyimportent8795 Are you operating under the illusion that lithium extraction is cost free?
@@agabrielrose The cost of getting lithium is less then hydrogen. Lithium is only in construction, so you don't need to refill lithium, like you need with hydrogen. Hydrogen cars still need lithium, just less then a normal EV, as Hydrogen EV still need a small batter. And hydrogen is not wildly used, but lithium is (in almost any technology) so scaling up lithium production is easier then making new hydrogen electrolysis stations (if you don't what to burn up fossil fuels), which still will need lithium batteries to store the electricity for hydrogen production.
@@nobodyimportent8795 The cost to the planet.
Where's the environmental cost? I want to see a comparison between batteries and hydrogen (and prospects for the future).
Correct total Comparison between manufacturing , maintenance , run time for particular time period in terms of carbon emission .
It's bad. Very bad. Hydrogen is mainly made from either wood or fossil fuels. It can be made from electrolysis, using green energy. But it's not.
The future is bright for hydrogen based on photovoltaic advances. However, the current industial production of hydrogen relies on mining for natural gas. Current industrial hydrogen is produced from methane (natural gas) and does produce carbon dioxide as a byproduct.
It is certainly better than gasoline, but its a toss up depending on where you live for battery powered cars or hydrogen.
In the future if we can better harness the sun, hydrogen powered cars will likely be the initial step forward, but for now they still lag environmentally behind traditional electric cars in most markets (maybe not California, and definitely not in northern Europe).
agreed. one big problem with batteries is their dependence on exotic materials. I would be curious how that stacks up with the materials needed for hydrogen systems.
@@neeneko Very true. I'm waiting for battery technology to improve before getting a BEV myself. Lithium Ion is not so great for the environment. It's improving though, and solid state batteries may get there in the future. One can hope.
Very Interesting. Thanks.
8:39 "Even Start-ups like Nikola" 😂
When the electricity grid is down you can't fuel up with hydrogen. You need some electricity for the compressors.
More of this thinking please
Also a bike pump, obviously.
Unless the compressor is powered off grid.
@@psgouros by.... a battery?
@@LabGecko batteries are not a source of energy. Just a method of storing it. There are plenty of ways to generate (not store) electricity ’off grid’.
@@psgouros Like fossil fuel :D
I'm a french engineer that works in a start up that has develloped a carbonless way to produce hydrogen, and let me say that hydrogène is in no way the solution to transports : producing hydrogen without cracking méthane is sooooo inefficient it's painfull, you say about 30% efficiency for it, i say about 5% with the actual numbers that we have before modification to make them public. Currently, and it's no way near changing, 99% of the hydrogène that is use in the World (most of it is used in ammoniac production for agricutur, not for power cell transportation) is produce by cracking methane and therefore 1g of H2 produce 10g of CO2, so encouraging the use of hydrogène for transportation while we don't even produce it "greenly" for agricultur is quite ironic i'd say
Thank you!!! Exactly.
Wow je savais pas du tout, merci !
@@lightdark00 Electrolysis is about 50% efficient while battery charging is about 95% efficient. Fuel cell is about 50% efficient, battery discharge about 95% efficient. Throwing away over half the energy means over double the CO2 in production of solar never mind the hydrogen consumables.
@@mychevysparkevdidntcatchfi1489
Added mass of a battery in a vehicle should count to losses in efficiency. If I have to accelerate 50% more mass because of low energy density of batteries it doesn’t sound like efficiency.
@@lightdark00 Except that you would need 2-3.6x more solar to make up for the inefficiency of hydrogen.
That is a very good mind provoking subject. I can't wait to see. How both technologies mature over time. Who knows, maybe something else might come along.
Excellent review of the two technologies, and conclusion.
The argument that hydrogen has less of an impact is contradicted with how inefficient it is.
so we continue driving fossil fuels because it is "more efficient"?
the argument that batteries has less of an impact is contradicted with how you can't recycle 90% of the battery. if you think batteries today are recycled in any meaningful amount, that's pretty silly of you.
plus the cost of transporting the mats for the battery, all the energy it requires to create them and then ship them around. the weight that puts on the energy grid, so now all the lines need to be upgraded to handle all of that. then you need batteries on the grid to keep up with massive spikes on the energy grid as people add/remove their massive battery banks.
no solution is without it's problems, try not to gloss over the ones batteries have.
@@rocksfire4390 only 10% recyclable on a lithium-ion battery? I highly doubt that...
@@rocksfire4390 Just google: Düsenfeld or Volkswagen Recycling Salzgitter. Well above 90% ist possible in recycling.
@@rocksfire4390 Agreed.
But we have to consider how this Hydrogen is produced as well.
As an engineer and climate activist, I'm deeply disappointed by this video. Yes, the sponsoring made it clear from the get go, but this is more a commercial for nerdy people than an honest science communication attempt.
I can tell you tried to make it balanced and impartial, but that didn't quite actually happen. Interview a few people in the BEV sector or other car manufacturers and researchers that are considering all options, not just the outlier that's heavily investing in hydrogen...
So as an engineer, tell me how you can drive a 10 tons truck with a load of another 15 tons making it 25 tons in total with just batteries. Please tell me "engineer".
not possible, thats why the tesla truck never got released. Because once you add that 20 tons of battery juice on a 10-15 tons truck you can only tow a few more tons that it will become useless since there are weight resitrictions on the road and bridges as well as the whole thing would become a disaster. You pseudo-engineer
@@gameblamerfan dude, you're being aggressive for no reason. At no point did he say that BEV are the only choice or anything that your response would actually be relevant to. In fact neither did the folks in the video. Both technologies have their applications.
He just said that if you're only showing the opinion of people heavily invested into fuel cell technology, then the opinion is obviously biased. Showing what battery people don't like about fuel cells would fix that. Otherwise it is indeed just a commercial.
Regarding to the tesla semi, the reason they haven't released it yet is that they are battery production constrained. They can make a lot of cars out of the same number of cells they'd need for a semi. They aren't a company that has to promise outlandish stuff just to get some attention for sales. If it wasn't viable, they'd ditch it already.
@timemachine_194 ty for asking, still just majoring in computer engineering and economics
@timemachine_194 I assume you're John Titor right?
Being from outside of the cities in Australia, where distances can be vast, hydrogen has always been my favoured choice. I always wished that batteries were designed to be interchangeable, so you could pull into a petrol station, remove depleted battery, and insert a new one. Five minute operation. It would be nice if all electric car companies could come to an agreement on battery tech to make this possible. Battery is great if you live in a city where distances driven are less per day, and chargeable overnight. Unfortunately, the driving done in my area, fuel cell is the only realistic option. Unfortunately, we don't even nearly have the infrastructure yet, but the Western Australian government is seriously investigating improving things going forward, so hopefully soon!!
I just want to add a little point concerning efficiency/breaking (hope I didn’t miss it). I think you can’t recuperate with a fuel cell. So every breaking would be mechanical (->dirt)or wire heating (->life span). So bevs efficiency would be improved a little bit.
FCEVs have batteries - because the FC can't produce the maximum current required for full torque from the motor. The batteries are used to store regenerative *braking* energy just like in a battery EV
Love the Truckla reference…Simone Giertz is awesome.
Well, Toyota said, she can't say Tesla ;-)
@@Makatea Did you catch Dianna's "Byyeee" in the first video...she was channeling Simone for sure :-)
I know they've done collabs before....wonder if they've been hanging out while Dianna was shooting this?
and Truckla is infinitely better anyway :-p
@@sillydrizzy2985 Hopefully Simone tells Dianne how far she strayed from the righteous path of science with this series of shameless, deceitful ads.
@@Makatea Simone had a very serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome so she's in no position to talk about bias. I stopped watching after that. It really turns me off when my educational channels get political. I unsubscribed to Half As Interesting for the same reason (though that channel has toned it way down lately).
@@jasondashney What episodes do you have in mind for both channels? I don't watch them regularly.
Still, totally selling out to some giant carmaker and giving them total editorial control, thereby helping them to run a smear campaign against BEVs and donating to climate-change-denying representatives is a completely new level of dishonest in my book: arstechnica.com/cars/2021/07/toyota-bet-wrong-on-evs-so-now-its-lobbying-to-slow-the-transition/
The one thing she left out is most Tesla charging station especially in California are solar powered.
I would not expect her to be fully educated about EVs.
@@sweiland75 but The fact that tesla supercharger stations are solar powered is common knowledge and is very easily found. Just like that are here in Florida. If it’s covered most likely have panels on the roof and battery storage for after hours.
So they have each have their own batteries for overnight storage? Or are they grid tied solar?
@@Justin73791 depends on the location and size. If they’re adding it to a small amount of chargers. Let’s say 4 then it’ll be grid. But a 12 charger location with a roof then the roof would be solar and a small mage pack will be at that location for after hours charging. But i believe that the grid is also there for backup for week of overcast weather. Where the panels aren’t getting enough sun to charge and refill cars and mega pack. Hence why the solar operated superchargers are mainly in sun states like Florida, Nevada, NM, and California. But also most current power planets are finding ways to switch from coal to other forms of gas AKA natural gases.
I am a Tesla fan but don't see any evidence of that claim. Do you have actually references ? That is certainly Tesla's goal but I don't think it is the current reality.
In Ontario, we have most of our excess power at night actually. A big part of our grid is nuclear power (from emission-free CANDU reactors), which is great for baseload power but takes forever to turn on and off. We also have lots of hydro. At peak times (typically evenings), Ontario has to turn on its natural gas power stations to top up for hydro, nuclear, and a little wind and solar. Coal power (by the way) does not exist in Ontario and will be banned in Canada soon
From what I understood talking to a Hyundai engineer a few years back, the miles per tank of Hydrogen depends on the pressure in the tank (higher psi more gas) he told me that in Germany where the car came from it was regular to fill the tank to 800psi giving a range of about 800 kilometeres.
It's not 800 psi - it's 800 bar which is closer to 11500 psi. And that's eating into the safety margin of the tank which isn't a good thing as hydrogen under pressure can diffuse through solid metal and alter/weaken the structure along the way.
I wish you had investigated the energy requirements for creating the hydrogen fuel. Fossil fuel companies are creating hydrogen fuel from natural gas, a process that releases methane, which defeats the whole purpose of FCEV. I’d like to know who else is in the hydrogen business (electrolysis processes at industrial scales?) and how we are going to provide clean hydrogen fuel moving forward.
Okie then coal fired power plants are providing electricity for the BEVs. Nobodys shirt is spotless
@@smanasalam I know. That was my point. I’m not casting aspersions or trying to denigrate one technology over the other. I know that for BEV the focus will also have to be on solar and wind in order to make the effort worthwhile. But I don’t know who out there is trying to make FCEV fuel choices cleaner. Or what the other options are. I’d like to know but I currently don’t know.
Depending on the quality of the feedstock (natural gas, rich gases, naphtha, etc.), one ton of hydrogen produced will also produce 9 to 12 tons of CO2,
Electrolysis will never be economically viable at scale. And why waste all the extra energy converting electricity to H2 and then back to electricity when you can just charge a battery? Basically all the drawbacks to BEVs are just a matter of technological innovation, H2’s problems are the laws of physics.
Although I have criticised the first two versions I really hope you don't take it down again. Let's discuss openly, Dianna(+team)! :)
I'm glad the video is back with improvements! :)
I'm aware these videos are Toyota-sponsored but I think there should be more critical views on hydrogen-electric cars/vehicles.
For them to go the same distance as purely battery electric cars we need about 2-3 times as much energy in ‚production‘. (~55kWh/kg for 100km range in a car vs. 15-25kWh/100km). German scientist Volker Quaschning and economist Claudia Kemfert regularly call hydrogen the ‘champagne of energy resources‘. I think for a rapid reduction of emissions we need to preserve green hydrogen and e-fuels mainly for the energy-intensive industry and planes/ships/maybe heavy duty trucks.
We shouldn't ‘waste‘ green electricity to H2-cars. Also H2-cars and green hydrogen will stay too expensive for many people for many years, which further delays our energy/mobility transition.
Regarding 6:51 : And yet BEVs need way less energy than hydrogen-electric cars. Again: Yes, there are use-cases for hydrogen, but in cars not so much, I think. 8:09 & 8:41 Volkswagen is aiming for BEV-trucks as well, not so much for hydrogen-electric, but I'm not well-informed enough in trucking. 8:39 I'm sorry, has anything changed with Nikola or is it still a disastrous scam? 10:06 And if we tried to fill all these vehicles with hydrogen at the same time that probably wouldn't work as well. At least with BEVs we have a decentralised refilling infrastructure and many people can recharge at home. (Yes, not everybody) 10:13 Some(!) trucks can charge while (un)loading, but for now I agree, trucks might work better with hydrogen-electric technology. 11:35 No, Without electricity you cannot use the electrical pumps at hydrogen stations. Or am I missing something?🤨
P.S.: Had to edit this comment I posted unter the previous two versions because of slightly changed video length. :)
On the other hand, one major advantage of hydrogen is the relatively efficient transmission cost. You can produce it in energy rich areas (like solar setups in deserts) and transport it by tanker, allowing you to decouple generation and consumption in a way that becomes very inefficient with electricity.
There is also the major economic question of how battery prices will change as demand goes up. Right now they are 'cheap' due to relatively low demand, but ramping up the supply chain to support several orders of magnitude more production AND constant replacement could change that equation.
What about the waste generated from battery cars? That's a lot of Li ion.
the huge inconvenience of hydrogen:
1. volumetric energy density. The gravimetric looks fine, but doesn't consider which volume one kg of hydrogen takes.
2. filling: it's fast when you're one of the first 8 customers at the pump. After 6 to 10 fillings the station needs compressing the hydrogen to 800 or 900 bar, which typically takes 25 to 40 min. So then battery would be faster
Would it be possible to use the oxygen from the hydrolysis to make ozone to help the ozone layer?
I like being able to charge my car at home. Hydrogen just sounds like a step backwards to be honest
Not everyone can recharge overnight at home. Also, if you want to drive above the range of your car in a day, you will have to go to a supercharger.
@@tonymouannes I agree with you, but we should rather focus on upgrading the grid it will benefit more people not just drivers.
That's kind of the point of this video.
Each have their benefits and one may work better for others.
HEVs can refuel in 5 minutes at a station, BEVs can charge at home gradually while not in use.
HEVs have more range typically etc etc.
@@JerryFlowersIII I know it is the point of the video and they both have their benefits but at the end of the day im saying li-ion is better, hydron is made through electrolysis which takes tons of electricity and water🤦♂️, Water will run out just like any fossil fuel. Im basically trying to say people should focus on improving the grid and battery's. I understand hydrogen cell can refuel much faster and that is a huge benefit but i feel battery will get to that point too. Anyway all this is just my opinion 😅🤦♂️
@@OnlyFacts196 Uhh... water is um... I mean, OK, technically it is finite, but compared to the amount of fossil fuels, the amount of water available to humanity is vast.
Like, absurdly huge. I don't think hydrogen is gonna be the way forward, but this, in particular, is not a concern.