Has Tesla Killed the Fuel Cell Vehicle?

I don't feel either car (Tesla or a FCV) will be the alternative car of the immediate future. Neither one has a viable fueling infrastructure. Oh, you may say Tesla runs on electric, but the quick charge to get those 200+ miles is non-existent. It is literally a ton of bricks when it comes to charging. And there are no battery swap locations. Fueling the Tesla will take installation of fast chargers across a wide network of gas stations. Once you put the charging function into gas stations, there goes the savings, and we will continue to feed the monster known as big oil.

No...for the moment, the glory belongs to the Leaf, iMiev, and a few other plug-in hybrids that are "affordable" and can be charged for very little, at home at night. So, the EV range is a little limited, but they carry around a sensible number of batteries and can be reasonably refueled at almost anyone's home.

Sure the Tesla looks impressive...styling, range,... but I think it is ultimately going to hurt the image of EVs because it is impractical to buy and operate.

One man's opinion...

 

1. Batteries that keep all reactants will always have a specific energy density problem relative to "air" anything.
2. "Air" anything batteries that retain the oxides are next best . . . air-zinc.
3. "Air" anything batteries that dump the spent oxides have the next best energy density, fuel cells.
4. Hydrogen compounds, methanol, methane, or ammonia, are generally safer and easier to handle than raw hydrogen. I have no problem with cells that operate using these compounds.
5. Hydrogen gas or liquid is the most dangerous and difficult to handle stuff.

Bob Wilson

 

Fuel cells very well might work out, for plug ins.

The big hurdle for gaseous or liquid hydrogen ones is the refueling infrastructure. It's flammability aside, hydrogen degrades most materials. This means installation and maintenance costs will be higher than for an equivalent natural gas pipeline. The current hydrogen pipeline network is a tiny, mere fraction of the NG one.

Then the tanks required to hold the hydrogen under such high pressure for the car are heavy and bulky. The one in the in the Clarity is likely over 200 pounds. For fuel cells to exceed in cars, you have to move away from hydrogen as the fuel.

There are already home power FCs that run off NG. The issue is getting them small enough for a car. Work is also being done on methanol powered cells. It doesn't get away from hydrogen, but reduces some its cons is laser metal hydrides. The hydrogen is bound to a metal, so no worrys about leaks. Refueling requires only low pressure pumping. It can also be done by swapping out the CD sized discs, so not as many traditional pumping stations are needed. It's farther off, but I find the idea of getting fuel for my car from a vending machine at the supermarket romantic.

 

Back to the "green" incentive. I categorize those that talk about "green" into two groups. Those that talk about it and those that DO something about it. The huge advantage of electric cars is the owners that understand sustainability not only get an electric vehicle, they then waste no time getting solar power installed and/or get utility power from renewable sources.

In this regard, what fuel cell proponents are going to build a "green" home hydrogen production facility?

If your honest motivation is to do something about pollution reduction, the selection between FCV and Electric is trivially easy.

 

Some of the biggest hydrogen proponents have already thrown in the towel

Hydrogen Highway is Dead
Hydrogen highway hits dead end

Note - this read came prior to the financial collapse of 2008 ... back when investment was flowing like dirty water out of the ganges river. Would billions & billions of investment dollars be easier to find now days? Wouldn't that same non-existent never ending pile of money be better spent on a national high speed rail system? Oh I forgot ... I must have thought we were Chinese. They seem to be the forward thinkers now days. Yea, lets work on hydrogen (rolling eyes).
.

 

The wild card you left out was the price of gas in the future. I don't know what it will be, but it plays the biggest factor.

I would debate the point about charging stations being colocated with gas stations. Present day gas stations only have two reasons for cars stopping there, gassing up and getting snacks (or unloading snacks). However, any resturant, snack store, business can just add a profitable charge station. Few EV owners are going to seek out a gas station just for the snack selection when charge stations are easily available everywhere. Think of how many ATMs are put in every possible location. A charging station is about the same size and the parking space is already there.

 

I wouldn't give Tesla the victory in this category based on the battery swap. It's a great idea, but at this point it's expensive or limited. If you don't want to be charged for a new, large-capacity battery, you have to swap back at the same station. I'd rather deal with 3 more minutes of fueling time than have to return to the same station to get my battery back, since my road trips don't always include the same way back that I took to get there.

 

H2 is a little more hazardous that nat gas, but there is also some mystique related to Hindenburg etc. Natural gas is also lighter than air and flammable, so H2 is not too much more hazardous. It's not toxic, so that's good,
H2 leak is probably easier to catch fire via static and wider explosive limits in air (need to check data).

Liquid H2 is a whole different story I am not commenting on that. The only thing colder than liquid H2 is liquid He. Like -400F or something.

I've got some experience with H2 and I am not aware of a serious degradation issue of metals; I mean a few issues but nothing that can't be engineered. Like you mention, there are quite a few H2 pipelines already, not to mention H2 is often used (pipes etc) in labs and petrochemical industries. More or less handled just like everything else. Yes we need a Bloom box on wheels.

 

You are saying the only thing that matters is the potential capability to achieve 100% CO2 reduction, even so, H2 has that capability and that is considered one of H2's key advantages.

But beyond CO2, for CA, H2 provides another possible way to reduce smog in the basin. Also if H2 is more efficient than gasoline, then for places like Japan, they can extend their limited supplies of fossil fuels by directionally converting more petroluem to H2 (Japan actually does quite a bit of H2 production from petroluem already, apparently due to short nat gas supply historically). Sustainability means better efficiency so we cannot rule that out as an important tool (presuming it works of course).

 

Yeah,

The corn ethanol that fuels our cars could be the corn that fuel the hungry in our country.

DBCassidy

 

It the larger picture, there is most definitely a need for H2. For aircraft propulsion it might be a viable future fuel. I cannot see battery technology getting to the point of hauling 500 folks across the Pacific even with a fantastic breakthrough. Likewise big vehicles constantly on the move (trains, semi-trucks, etc.) maybe even including taxi cabs have a need for a fuel that can be quickly loaded. The debate of H2 fuel viablity is a completely different debate than H2 fuel being to optimum fuel for cars. Especially those that only haul butts less than 100 miles a day. It looks like EVs just flat have the advantage in every category....already. That really is the OPs point and it can be debated at the margins, but overall it's making a good point.

 

I agree with that statement, but I also understand where this comes from. We get this -

Electric cars head toward another dead end| Reuters

And you slap your head, and say, what. Don't you see the tesla? Its exactly where your fuel cell car hopes to be in 2 more years on cost of the car, and refueling is cheaper. Why won't elecitric car costs go down as fast or faster than fuel cells? It has similar range. Refueling will be better than for a fuel cell car (it doesn't need huge fueling infrastructure built, you can charge at home, and superchargers cover more area than hydrogen pumps.). It may be that Toyota is still thinking like they were four years ago, and don't think batteries are further along than this

Toyota to introduce BEV in 2012, fuel cell in 2015 | FuelCellsWorks

+1

It may make sense in 2025, I don't know. It certainly isn't going to take the world by storm in 2015.

 

Aviation fuel is likely to be a liquid fuel for density. liquid hydrogen could be forced to work, but is much worse than methanol. Methanol can be made from hydrogen, natural gas, but also from electricity, and renewably from garbage, sewage, biomass. Other biofuels have also been tested.

Killer apps for hydrogen today are fork lifts (need zero emissions indoors) and buses (much cleaner in polluted citities than diesel). Stationary Fuel cells are used to create electricity.

 

My understanding is H{2} has the widest range of air-fuel combustion so it is definitely easier to ignite. It also has a very pale flame, almost invisible in daylight. Under pressure, it tends to permeate just about any material which leads to structural changes. So I still prefer my hydrogen as part of a larger molecule with more benign qualities.

Most of the hydrogen compounds can be converted to H{2} for a modest energy cost and only as much as is needed. My personal preference is ammonia as the nitrogen released is not ordinarily reactive with anything else. But then I grew up when ammonia was used in industrial refrigeration units.

Bob Wilson

 

Bob,
Amonia is great for rocket fuel, but not so great as a fuel cell fuel. Methanol is the leading portable fuel cell fuel after hydrogen. It could use most of the existing infrastructure. Methanol has that invisible flame problem, but it can be mixed with something else that likely won't poison the fuel cells. The biggest problem with methanol is fuel cells using it are more expensive. It can also be used with only slight modification to most hybrids and phevs. The other choice is metal hydride storage, this shows great promise, but no one has cracked some the technical challenges.

 

Natural gas has the same dangers, but we use a low tech method for detecting leaks. Nearly everyone knows what the odorant added to it smells like. If that isn't possible with H2 do to fuel cell poisoning, then you are relying on sensors that may be broken, turned off, or simply not placed in the best spot to detect leaks.

I was referring to the issue of embrittlement. It's mainly a problem for steels and when the metals are hot, but it will happen overtime when there is a hydrogen differential. The high pressures aren't going to help. The hydrogen may also act like a halogen, ex. chlorine, causing some corrosion directly. They aren't insurmountable problems, but they will add to the cost of the pipeline.

"Most analyses show that pipelining GH2 costs approximately 1.3 to 1.8 times more, per unit energy-
distance, than NG," - http://www.leightyfoundation.org/files/WHEC16-Lyon/WHEC16-Ref022.pdf

That paper was sourced as H2 lines can be done for the same price as NG for the Wiki.
Hydrogen pipeline transport - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I'm mostly going on the information that the Boeing Phantom Eye was H2 powered and a number of other initiatives are exploring the option. However, I do not want to get into claiming it is or is not a good idea. I have not done enough homework.

 

I was thinking the big commercial jets, not drones. Liquid Hydrogen may work for drones, they have quite different fueling characteristics.

 

Isn't there some sort of national fire code that prohibits in-home production of liquid fuels (liq. hydrogen, LNG)?
If this is the case, that's one more advantage EV's and CNG cars have over fuel cell cars.
It would also be a big disadvantage to LNG/SOFC cars, if those ever come out.