Hydrogen Fuel Cells Are Becoming Too Big to Ignore

Which is the strength of EVs.
ICE, and to a lesser extent FCVs, waste a good chunk of energy year round.
In the winter, in northern climates, some of that waste heat is useful.
During the summer all of that heat is wasted.

EVs loose efficiency only when they need heat, not year round.

 

Again, why the different standards?
If you are including the inefficiencies in power generation and delivery for BEVs, why ignor the similar losses for gas and FCEVs?

 

Because the future!

 

You are still going to bring up old and slanted data that even Toyota doesn't use anymore?

 

Yes. Toyota now says gasp.... BEVs and FCV are about the same when methane is the original fuel.
Slightly means, they no longer claim its superior, yet you do?

They like you have been told numerous times their old 2009 numbers are bogus. They stopped using them. Furthur the big thing wrong with the slide is it assumes that plug-ins are all bevs and that these bevs won't use non-fossil fuel. What if both the fuel cell vehicle and plug-in use electricity? The plug-iin is much more efficient.
Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Car Questions: Toyota, Honda & Hyundai Respond (Part 2)
Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Car Questions: Toyota, Honda & Hyundai Respond (Part 3)

I haven't heard anyone but nissan say that.

What if the plug-in and fuel cell use the same rules for electricity. That is what green car advocates asked plain out. The old slides assume that fuel cells get special clean electricity, while plug-ins plug-into the grid. Its even on that slide. They used california electricity for the hydrogen, but nationwide old grid for the bev.

They simply want the same rules.

If you are claiming grid tied wind uses X amount of fossil fuel for fuel cells, why does it use national grid for plug-ins. It simply is wrong on the face of it.

I'll assume if you use the slide again you simply like pretending fuel cells will use magic electricity, and the grid has not improved at all since 2000 in terms of renewables or fossil efficiency.

 

You started with :

In this, you didn't include losses at refineries, transportation, compression, etc for either gas nor hydrogen.

Later you stated:

Yet in this where you inserted upstream losses for EVs, you didn't include upstream losses for FCVs or gas cars.

Even if they are less, it is dishonest to include them for one object, and not the others, when comparing the two.

So who is it again that is ignoring the upstream losses?

 

Seriously, you haven't noticed that the majority of plug-in advocates don't include KWH consumption in their posts? Perhaps I should retract my comment about you being well informed...

It happens routinely, especially from Volt owners. They state GALLONS only. It's quite bias and rather difficult not to notice.

When comforted, they laugh at the concept of an electricity guzzler and turn a blind-eye to the "legal cheat" hybrid. Electricity is treated as a free lunch.

 

The majority of advocates don't pretend that electricity is magical and is not produced. That is what USB claimed they were doing.

Yes they talk about how few gallons they use. I don't think they pretend that they don't use electricity also.

In terms of tail pipe emissions - yes, absolute, then the plug-in is not using gasoline there are none.
In terms of oil consumption and oil dependance when the plug-in is running on electricity except for a few special cases like hawaii, the consumption is extremely low.
In terms of smoke stack emissions in my experience they acknoledge this for the fleet. For personal cars some do not if they are using wind or solar to power their cars, but I haven't heard advocates claim this for the fleet.

If anyone does claim no smokestack emissions they are completely wrong. Even with grid tied solar or wind there are some.

 

No pretending necessary. You just have to be naive enough to not notice.

The omission of data contributes to a misleading impression.

 

EVs make the most efficient use of the fuel loaded into them. The waste is upstream, but then there is some more waste for the other fuels there too.

Then the electric production method needs to be considered. The inefficiencies involved with wind and solar and nuclear, if carbon is your primary concern, can just be ignored for the most part. This is also so of hydrogen made from those routes. Because of 'the bang for the buck' equation, we just get more vehicle miles using the electricity in plug ins than making hydrogen for FCEVs.

Again, this is an outdated graphic.
Second, if the goal of hydrogen cars is to move to renewables, shouldn't it be using renewable energy as the start point instead of natural gas?

Talk about FUD. Lexus had to apologize for saying such. How about I counter that with, "You never have to go out of your way to refuel your plugin for daily trips, and then it can be refueled as fast as gasoline on long ones."

Drop the hydrogen requirement, and FCEVs have a chance in the US.

 

Efficiency comparisons on their own and out of a broader context aren't very useful. One place they are great is when comparing one peer vehicle against another on the same terms such as mpg or gallons per 100 miles in hybrid operation or for EV operation MPGe or kWh per 100 miles.

It has gotten almost no coverage so far, but the 2016 Volt has an excellent efficiency screen. I hope Toyota has something at least as good in the new Prius Plug-in. In particular, the Volt screen shows EV efficiency with battery charging overhead included in the MPGe number so the number is easily comparable to the published EPA estimate.

This photo of the screen was taken from the car I was in during the GM media test drive event this past September.

 

GM had to deal with a lot of complaints about the "gallons saved" not including electricity data. It contributed to the owner trouble of focusing solely on gas consumption.

 

I don't believe this is true.
For some, "gallons saved" is the only number important to them.
Also, the electricity used has always been shown in the onboard displays.

I haven't seen many complaints, except from people that weren't aware this data has always been available.

 

That was the point... only number important to them.

As for the display, that's more of the naive. Sorry, but digging for detail is the only way to confirm constructive sharing. In this care, the main website using the data-feed did not have electricity usage. That consumption exclusion was misleading. Like it or not, the missing data was a big deal. Having it presented predominately on the display is a big helper to ending that.

 

Are you talking about VoltStats.net? That non-GM site can't get access to the EV charging data from OnStar for whatever reason but they do get EV miles driven so they substitute EPA estimated charging statistics. In many cases, actual Volt drivers do better than EPA so the VoltStat numbers end up looking lower than reality. My annual EV average including charging overhead is about 26 kWh per 100 miles or about 130 MPGe but I get stuck with VoltStats assuming 36 kWh or 95 MPGe for my 2011 Volt.

The Volt interior center display does not show "gallons saved". It shows gallons used along with gas miles driven and as of the 2012 Volt it shows kWh used from the battery (not including charging overhead, which is the same policy as every other plugin I have ever seen) and EV miles driven. Unfortunately, the first gen Volt doesn't show a calculated mpg or MPGe numbers or combined MPGe like the new 2016 Volt does. Just the gas mpg numbers can be calculated by the car using the driver's odometer display.