Incorrect. It’s not great, but it’s not car-killing. Honda Clarity sold as planned, leading Honda to expand their hydrogen lineup with the CR-V in 2025.
It would be easier to confirm gas stations to hydrogen stations, than to charging stations world wide. Also Australian Hysata is pretty ready with technology to make green hydrogen with 95% effiency.
@@TheOfficialOriginalChad It really is great. This car had almost the same milleage (or even more) than most fuel cars, while only consuming between 5 and 6 kilos of hidrogen/100km. A couple of years ago, in my country, the kilogram of hydrogen was around 3-4€, so for a max of 20€ you could completely refuel the car. For reference, gasoline was almost 1.6€/liter at that moment, so numbers speak by theirselves.
@@Jizden_Mipanz missing the point. working on any vehicle is easy if the manufacturer provides service manuals and spare parts. lately all manufacturers have quietly been making those disappear.
@@Jizden_Mipanz Except with a mechanical machine, you can physically see right away what the problems is. "oh this is hitting that", or "that over there is loose" with just a simple visual inspection. And in the past MOST people had the know-how and tools to either fix it out-right, or even make their own parts if none were available or do a bodge job just to get by for now. It's only within the last generation or two where you start to see the majority of people who can't do these hands on kind of things. The fact that cars back then were much simpler, and you could get away with doing those kinds of things to it is another argument.
@@drkastenbrot Ain't nothing "lately" about it. And it's not all the manufacturers. When i was a tech in the early 00's, we used AllData, and it was literally SPECIFALLY stated in the user agreement, that we were not allowed to share anything on the program. If you came in looking for a specific wiring diagram for your vehicle, NOPE! sorry, i could be fired for showing you one, or for even telling you how to test it. That was Alldata, NOT the manufactures.
@@salemcripple the older generations can't fix a computer and the newer generations can't dig a trench, what's your point? Cuz that's well known. It's the people with drive and determination that achieved what was needed for the things they want. I land in the middle where I can do both things to an extent, but not a master at either one.... That's just life
I’m a student at Bath University doing a project on a H2ICE land speed record vehicle. We’ve just become the first undergrad team to run a single cylinder engine on hydrogen and have managed to source a Miria tank for the fuel system. We also bought a 2.3L EcoBoost engine which we plan to convert for hydrogen combustion and have just installed it into our Ginetta G20 which is the vehicle we plan to use for the attempt.
Aren't there more aren't there more common and less valuable cars than a gineta to use for your project? I really wish you had used a rotary engine, Mazda always touted it as being easy to run on hydrogen because of the separation of the oil from the combustion part of the engine,
@@metricstormtrooper We chose the Ginetta following MATLAB simulations where we could simulate different vehicles with different engines. Ultimately, the Ginetta was chosen as it is lightweight, easy to work on, and cheap enough to be within our smallish budget. The reason for the 2.3L EcoBoost is due to its mass aftermarket support. We have LinkECU as a sponsor and they are being very supportive with getting our entire electrics system set up. Additionally, the 2.3L EcoBoost gives us the option to test NA H2ICE, then boost the engine once we feel confident.
@@drunkenhobo8020 hydrogen fuel cells power electric motors. The issue isn't the motors, it's the batteries and cost to manufacture them and the lack of infrastructure to sustain that model. The issue was never the motors
I had this as a company car used for a commuting in San Francisco. I enjoyed the car but oh my goodness was the fueling so difficult. The three stations nearby were always offline or empty. And I could never get the tank to 100% full and the connections would often freeze up. We would get about 200 mi per tank with exclusive City driving. The interior is very right because of the tanks. Just not practical Even if you live right next one of these stations.
@@AstrotaseI'm imagining you shaking and crying as you scream at this commenter. Your fists clenched. Pounding the table with every pause as tears spill onto your keyboard, lubricating the switches below the keycaps. With every word your face becomes redder because of the frustration you feel that he just doesn't get what it's like. He doesn't understand and that's painful. The struggle you've been through to have an EV and a healthy stash of crypto is something no one could understand but you. I'm sorry it hurts so bad. I promise it gets better.
It realistically takes me about 20 seconds to fill up my EV. When I get home and it's below 30% I just walk over to the wall, grab the plug, and plug it in. Then the next day I unplug it. Sure, you have to plan marginally better, but a couple of weeks in you never think about it again. In the last two years I've had to fast charge maybe four times. 20 minutes each sucks, but 80 minutes in total over two years is way less than I used to spend pumping gas.
I’m a tow truck driver. My first experience with this car was towing it and it’s owner 55 miles a out of the city to a fuel station connected to the interstate because his fuel station in our city didn’t match his connection port. He bought it because the salesman said it would be cheaper than fuel in the long run. Hydrogen cost him $16 per ounce of it. He gets 350 miles topped off, it takes him 100 miles and $160 to fuel up every time
when we were picking up our new toyota corolla cross, i noticed a lot of mirais at the dealership lot in the bay area. resale was horrendous. even the toyota salesman was telling us the mirai is a waste of money. OG vietnamese man telling it straight.
This is why I still firmly believe that plug-in hybrids are the real transition vehicle technology. I've got a 2015 Chevy Volt and do 95% of my driving just off the battery, but the engine still takes plain old gasoline when I have to drive out of town. I can go anywhere on that, fill it up at any station in the world. Plus the battery is so small it can be charged to full overnight on a plain 120V outlet, and I get my residential $0.11/kWh rate.
Love that you remembered to also tell clearly how the Hydrogen is produced. It is very important to remember the whole production line of the fuels and energy when trying to save environment.
@@sprmn1983safe. And as much as I love my car (normal gas) EVs are still better for the environment. Yes battery production and post useful life recycling are still very important and affect the environment. But ice cars produce more emissions throughout their lifetime. I’ve had my car for over a decade now which is certainly quite a bit of gasoline over the years lol
There are plenty of ways to recycle lithium type batteries right now and companies working on scaling up. For the most part you're really just shredding them up after deeply discharging them, the separation of materials has gotten good at this point. Recycling isn't always profitable still, but we're able to recover 99% of the materials back and not at an extreme cost. The progress has been good, worst case you require manufacturers to take the vehicle back and recycle it. Just like lead acid batteries have required deposits and refunds for returning old batteries, that fixed the extremely low recycling rate and people tossing them in lakes, and made it so 99% overall get returned. The process of recycling lead acid is the same principle of lithium and is profitable because of a now existing scrap supply chain and scrap market. The worst materials used in lithium batteries like cobalt are nearly eliminated, many EVs like many Tesla's are using straight lithium iron phosphate with zero nickel or cobalt, these are even easier to recycle. @@sprmn1983
I had a 2018 Toyota Mirai (Look through my videos and you will find the review I did on it). My main issue was the infrastructure. I was crossing my fingers that there was hydrogen every time I drove to the local station (The hydrogen stations were placed in normal gas stations). And at one point, due to a Hydrogen factory fire, there wasn't any hydrogen for around 5 months and Toyota was paying for rental cars for everyone! Drive wise it was fine, just a peppier Prius. Admittedly I went through with the lease because it was super affordable, with the included cash back incentive Toyota was offering I was only paying like $190 a month. And they paid for all maintenance and included a $15K prepaid fuel card for hydrogen (which I didn't use up during the lease).
@@rpfour4 If I remember correctly, I did a rough estimation and figured I still would have had a couple grand left on it even there wasn’t the 5 months with no fuel available.
My mom leased a Honda Clarity hydrogen fuel cell for 6 years, after she fell in love with it at the LA Auto Show two years before she got hers. She adored the car every day of those six years, fueling issues be damned (Honda's fuel cards certainly helped). Of note was that the Honda Clarity was generally considered "nicer" than it's Mirai counterpart while costing around the same. She was devastated when she had to return it when they stopped letting her extend her lease early this year, especially as Honda stopped offering Clarity leases in 2022 (and production in 2021). Interestingly, by the time she gave it back, the lease was cheaper than basically any current new car lease due to being frozen in late-2010s pricing. No, Honda didn't let anyone buy out their leases or purchase the Clarity outright, in contrast with most cars (including the Mirai).
@@thunder_lloydyes but hydrogen is now dead. Wouldn’t have anywhere to fill it up, or not practically anyway if you bought one. Honda no longer has to support the vehicles once they’re all off the road, whereas the privately owned toyotas will need to be serviced
@thunder_lloyd not always, see the GM EV1 as a other example of a lease only vehicle that the manufacturer took away the opportunity to either extend the lease or buy out.
@enemyspotted2467 Well, it depends where you live. Here in the EU they're seriously investing in hydrogen infrastructure. Here in the Netherlands due to net congestion they're busy pushing for the right-wing green dream of hydrogen ICEs fueled by hydrogen made from nuclear energy.
I work in an R&D facility used by some of the biggest vehicle manufacturers in the world, the amount of money being spent on hydrogen is massive, specifically for large transport (air/see freight etc) it will be the norm for heavy industries, but it might filter down to the general population as the tech improves but EV's seem to be winning and the next gen batteries will noly solidify that
This is especially the case in Japan, where the government is pushing hydrogen very hard, since they're surrounded by oceans. And as you said, it has a lot of promise in big boats, trains and airplanes. Cars, maybe not so much, but hey Toyota isn't going to turn down free money from the government.
In Physical Science class, 40ish years ago, we produced small amounts of hydrogen gas by placing a zinc ingot into hydrochloric acid in a large test tube. We lit the gas in the test tube using a wooden splint, made a cool bloop noise when it burned, good times. Same teached also showed us how pure sodium metal chips freaks out on water(skittered and sizzled) and phosphorus spontaneously ignites once it contacts air. She took a big spoonful out, placed it on a overturned coffee can, let it dry out while she put notes on the chalkboard, and then FOOMPSH. I now knew why the ceiling over the teacher's lab table had those stains. 💥💥💥 She was a bit crazy, loved science class.
That sure sounds like an exciting class. Thomas Edison had a mobile lab on a train he worked for, he accidentally caused a blaze because his jars of phosphorus broke and the phosphorus started burning. One time he saved the train owners (Or maybe just a rich persons) child from a runaway boxcar. The kid was playing on the tracks and he grabbed the kid away just in time, else the boxcar would've hit them. Think the rich person gave him a job or something
Automotive engineer here who whilst at university did a module during my masters about tech needed to implement hydrogen vehicles into the world. Not only is it expensive to make, but it takes 3kw of energy to get 1kw of output in a hydrogen vehicle (it’s about a 33% process efficiency from production to it being processed in a fuel cell). You’re better off putting that 1kw to get 0.9kw in an EV (33% total efficiency vs 90% efficiency just getting the same energy into a battery). It takes all the problems of grid infrastructure associated with a move to EVs and multiplies it by 3!
Exactly. I feel like im taking crazy pills here watching the dude use electricity to make hydrogen that will be stored in expensive pressure tanks that will then be used to make electricity again. What in the hell is going on? Who signed off on this insane waste of a concept?
The problem is that too many people don’t take into account the whole supply chain when spewing out their “0 emission“ bullshit. And while the fuel cell itself may have a 60% efficiency it’s like you said, the production and storage of hydrogen is incredibly inefficient
The efficienty, the cost, the issues with transport and storage, the problems with generating hydrogen sustainably etc. It just makes no sense. Especially with the extremely quick development of battery and charging technology and the economies of scale constantly pushing prices down. Battery power is the obvious solution to this problem.
Learn about metal hydride, it can store hydrogen safely without high pressure necessary and store enough in 4 tanks about the size of a regular gas tank and theres a video by helmholtz zentrum and one by bob lazar where he made his own hydrate. Tho hydride is not dangerous it is illegal to sell (not illegal to make your own) and thous hydrogen cars haven't become available. Change the law.
I know someone that was supposed to be helping build a hydrogen plant in New York. They were there for a year and a half and never even broke soil to start building the plant. Felt like the job kept getting pushed back intentionally until they finally backed out. Seemed like sabotage to me. I hate to sound like a conspiracist, but these big corporations don't want new clean energy sources because then they're gonna lose out on all the money they make through gas.
Big corporations love hydrogen way more than battery EVs though as it keeps you in their ecosystem. You've still got to go to a fuel station to get fuel, they still have full control over production and supply. The problem is it's just not very good.
That would make sense if we weren’t being forced to buy electric cars. Gas cars are priced high as electric cars and having less and less options for gas cars.
@@drunkenhobo8020 I can agree it isn't great but it just hasn't come very far in it's life. The technology needs time and it got greater potential than EV's I think, but it's a matter of time and commitment from more than just Toyota.
I mean yes. It's a great concept with no infrastructure to enable it. It would be like saying "did trains deserve to fail?" if we NEVER built train tracks lol. Hydrogen is incredibly abundant but incredibly costly to capture, so hydrogen will never be the way forward until we fix that issue.
There are also massive efficienty issues an problems with transportation and storage in material physics that do not have a real solution. All while development in battery and charging technology is advancing at lightning speed.
Imagine if we were able to make electrolysis efficient enough that the car could run hydrogen through the fuel cell and capture the H2O on the backend and reprocess it back into hydrogen on board. Imagine if that process could run off solar panels on the roof. But at that point, it would probably be a better solution to just store the solar energy in a battery instead.
@@Kevin_2435 it always comes back to the fact that it would always be easier to just use the electricity to drive the car directly. Hydrogen is just an unnesecary step.
@rogerk6180 no sir, I can tell you with great confidence that battery technology and production is one of the biggest issues we are facing and will become a severe problem if governments keep forcing EVs onto consumers. (But hey they gotta get that insider trading somewhere🙄)
If you could do the green hydrogen process as Jerry The Science Dude described, I imagine that rather than letting the water leak out onto to road, it might not be a bad idea to recapture that water to at least minimize the need to drain a clean water source. This could be useful in some places where access to clean water (not sure how clean it has to be clean for electrolysis to work) may be limited. Thinking maybe like Las Vegas or other desert areas.
The biggest problem with hydrogen is that storage and transportation require much more energy. Compared to an EV, you're just adding extra steps. Why bother compressing hydrogen and transporting it in specialized vehicles and feeding it into complex power cells to generate electricity when I can just plunk down solar panels and run a standard 12-gauge cable to a charging station? At the end of the day, it's still using electricity to power a vehicle. Hydrogen adds unnecessary middlemen.
@@davegarneau The same can be done with battery EVs plugged into the grid. Overload on wind/solar (whichever is cheapest in the area) and then dump the excess peak power into EVs, get it back at times of high demand/low production. Its not like cars are always out on the road, most times they'll be parked Biggest downside is shortening battery lifetime, but biggest upside is that you could be paid by the electricity provider to provide the storage service, essentially the electricity provider would be renting your batteries
In exchange it's much faster to refuel, lasts waaay longer than a battery, is not as ridiculously heavy as a battery, doesn't rely on tons and tons of rare metals (per car) and can't explode / be on fire like an EV can, because there's only so much oxigen in the air the pressurized hydrogen can burn off on, so worst you could get is a little fire coming out of what is essentially a propane tank. It's just a much more elegant storage solution for energy than batteries.
@@hiya2793 as nice as you made that all sound, mega conglomerate companies like big oil and Toyota don’t want want you to have energy independence. They want you to stay dependent on them to supply the fuel and everything that goes with it, at a cost to you, and a profit to them. And they will spend enormous amounts of money to disuade you from making sound and rational choices for your own benefit, so they can keep milking you (and others) for money. The moment you realize you can reduce or eliminate your dependency on endlessly buying and burning a fuel that only they can make, and that you can make your own fuel, practically anywhere, store and use that energy renewably, they lose and you win. And they will spend lots of money on marketing and propaganda to disuade people from the thing they fear most: your own energy independence. All of my appliances, heat pump, stove, dryer, vehicles, etc are powered by the same electricity generated by my panels and by my batteries when the sun goes down. I am not affected by grid power outages, and my home powers and refuels my vehicles cleanly, silently, and sustainably. *By contrast I can’t make or store my own hydrogen fuel.* As long as the sun shines, the earth has an abundance of energy that can be captured, stored, and used cleanly, locally, and sustainably. On the flip side, it requires a *huge* amount of energy to create the fuel needed to power a FCEV, making them far less efficient and far more expensive to power compared to a BEV. Despite billions of dollars poured into FCEV for decades, BEV’s in a very short period of time have quickly surpassed hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by an exponential scale. Additionally, electricity is already nearly everywhere, and can be generated and stored practically anywhere. The same cannot be said for the fuel needed for FCEV’s, making them as viable and useful as corded rotary telephone. It’s only reason to exist at this point is for companies like Toyota to try and maintain dependency on its hard-to-create fuel and dependence on them to maintain the vehicle. There’s no upside to the consumer.
Hydrogen is light, much lighter than batteries. It doesn't make much sense for cars, but for anything larger - where you could easily store multiple tanks of it - it starts looking better. Trucks, trains, ships, maybe even airplanes.
I'm also in the bay area and the Valero on my street is the ONLY hydrogen pump this side of town, so ofc when these came out, so many people lined up and down my street for the *singular* pump that was installed. On the busiest day the line would be 15-20 cars long just waiting to use one "pump" while blocking access to the gas station from that side.
I definitely think that hydrogen is the future although right now it is dependent on full scale renewable electrification. As soon as we have a surplus of electricity in the power grid that could be used to create hydrogen in its useful form there really isn't a need for more development. It has the potential for the ease of use with ICE cars and the environmental benefits of operating the vehicle. Also the existence of hydrogen vehicles really makes me believe that any venture into creating electric tractor trailers is useless. On top of not having any of the drawbacks that current heavy duty electric vehicles face it also has the benefit of allowing over the road drivers to idle their vehicle whenever stopped.
I didn't know these were California only. So if you compare that with the bajillion teslas here, it's no wonder mirai customers would be upset with the infrastructure.
The Mirai or FCEVs didn't entirely deserve failure, but Toyota did. Why? 1. Toyota relied pretty much totally on third parties for infrastructure, and when they realized Toyota wouldn't sell enough Mirai's to make their infrastructure profitable, they didn't bother to expand. 2. Toyota didn't make hardly any effort to invest in green hydrogen production, so the majority of hydrogen still comes from fossil fuels, which makes it hard to consider really eco-friendly. This also kept prices high, so once you use up your free miles from Toyota, it becomes more expensive than a gas car to run. The only reason why Tesla succeeded was because they decided to invest in the Supercharger network early on.
Ah yes, totally Toyotas fault, totally not the agenda behind the EV production ramp up. And Tesla succeeded just because they invested in superchargers. That's totally the case and you're 100% right.
I'm pretty sure Tesla is in serious trouble right now with their stupid cyber trucks release. Pretty much all other car companies have battery cars now and a lot of them are much cheaper than any Tesla model.
@@AI-qd4vb I'm not smoking anything, it's logic, tesla did not succeed just because they had better infrastructure. If you believe that you're naive. Hydrogen could've been the future but it was made it so it wasn't, it wasn't by chance or because Toyota didn't put enough money into it. Hydrogen cars just were not allowed to exist because of EVs. Blaming infrastructure is the most naive way of seeing this failure.
By my math using the numbers in the video (range, tank capacity, H2 price) it costs between 50 and 75 cents per mile to drive the car. This compares to 8 cents per mile for my Prius and 4 or 5 cents per mile for my Mach-E (charging at home, PA electric prices). Some of the H2 cost is due to limited H2 generation infrastructure but for today it's hard to make an argument in favor of hydrogen. You can produce hydrogen via solar electrolysis (efficiency of H2 production not discussed in the video, but 60% efficient to use H2) or you can use that solar electricity to chage EV batteries directly (80 or 90% efficient). The numbers don't add up and the primary advantage seems to be faster refueling.
You only get that efficiency if you use the solar energy to charge EVs during the day. If people charge while they're at work that's good. If they charge at night, they are using other sources of electricity that are less efficient. The question is what is more efficient and sustainable: storing solar energy in hydrogen, storing it in huge batteries or storing it some other way (i.e. pumping water up the dam).
@@jasons5916 Perhaps a big storage battery in their garage or on the grid somewhere. The point is electrolysis isn't an efficient energy storage medium regardless of what you do with the hydrogen. Offhand I don't know the efficiency of pumped hydro storage.
It doesnt work. There was a test by some European car channel and it cost them 120 euro per 400km of hydrogen, 60 euro for petrol and 40e for EV. Nobody wants to pay that much
I'm an engineer in the hydrogen fuel cell space and I can tell you that, from what I've seen, hydrogen fuel cell cars will not be viable any time soon. The infrastructure is the issue. The viable markets for fuel cells right now are back-up and off grid power systems where hydrogen is stored in large quantities or made on site. These applications prioritize constant power availability over cost, especially considering the fuel cell systems are not meant to be full time, main power systems. Eventually, when the infrastructure catches up to these back up systems, the cost of H2 will come down and H2 cars may be much more viable.
Yepp.. the hydrogen tanks in the new CRV are $30-40k each.. there are two in the vehicle. Insurance companies are going to lose their minds if we keep this up.
@@RodSumner Is this hydrogen 99.9% or greater purity like modern fuel cells require? Are you compressing it to 2000-5000 psi to have any useful capacity? This is what is needed to make hydrogen reliably useful for power production. The components are still very expensive at this point in time due to the low quantities of systems being made. When the infrastructure starts to grow along with the quantities of these parts being produced, and more manufacturers joining the space, the prices will come down quite a bit.
There was a time before gas stations and a time before EV chargers. Engineers like yourself in the US, have bought these cars and found a way to produce and store hydrogen to run their entire house and all of their vehicles. The more people switching to hydrogen, the faster the infrastructure grows, the quicker we reduce dependence on fossil fuels...... (but there are those who prefer the status quo)
I'd love to see a video where gas cars are introduced to a world where electric/hydrogen cars are the norm. Imagine you having to convince people that deep sea drilling to get a liquid that will have to be processed, transported and stored and then transported again to new fuel station that doesn't exist yet because you have an solar/nuclear powered charging station every couple miles
You may see one in the near future. The government of Japan is pushing hydrogen very hard, because Japan is surrounded by oceans. Toyota and many many other japanese companies are getting a lot of subsidies to do research and development of it. It may not make a ton of sense for cars, but it has more promise for boats, trains and airplanes (where constant EV charging and big giant batteries are less than ideal).
@@beanapprentice1687 salt water is easier to split. And ocean wave generated power is becoming a thing. Paring those two together and proper storage, which is also a factor they didn't explain in the video. It makes for a decent outcome
This is gold. "Duh how long did it take you to charge? I filled up my car in 1 minute!" Oh yeah, and how many hours did you have to work to pay for that?
@@MrJjuuaann11 sure, but you know how many other countries have a coastline? How does Japan have any more chance of making hydrogen work? And besides, with all that wave power you referred to, they could yet generate electricity to charge battery-electric cars. The country isn’t very large, so it’s not like Japanese people need to go on 1000-km road trips and fill up in a matter of minutes.
The advantage of hydrogen is that it does not need expensive and polluting batteries. Hydrogen can be produced in the Sahara and shipped in container ships to Europe. The tech needs to develop to make it cost effective.
A big disadvantage of hydrogen is that it leaks out of whatever container you put it in. If you were to fill your tank with hydrogen, then leave it parked for a week, you'd come back to find your tank almost empty. That is effectively a huge energy efficiency loss.
I wrote a paper on hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles in college. This video is very accurate, even down to the methods we use to produce the hydrogen fuel. Some recent news in the industry includes the accidental discovery of white hydrogen while drilling for oil. There is also ongoing research into cheaper catalysts.
Granted Japan has only recently finished developing the next gen nuclear reactors, that can sustain temperatures high enough to extract hydrogen, but can I use that paper to wipe my ass?
In Europe its a Future, we already have 150 Gas Stations, and more than 60 are Planned to Build. And Price of Hydrogen is nearly the same as Gas. You can already drive Around Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland with a Hydrogen Car without having to worry about filling up Hydrogen. And now with the new Law, every country in European Union need to build/upgrade a Gas Station to have alternatives Fuel such as Electric Charger and Hydrogen every 60km, on Highways that connect other EU Countries.
I severely doubt it - All the Nordics are decomissioning their hydrogen stations not building new ones. Taking Germany (98) and France (22) out of the equation there is basically nowhere to fill up. The number of stations in Norway,Sweden and Demark has reduced by 60% over 2 years and declining- there are videos of Mirais abandoned next to decomissioned stations in Norway becuse there is nowhere to fill them.
@@TB-up4xi It just makes sense though. Electric vehicles don't really have anywhere to go, because unless you can completely revolutionize the way we store electricity (unlikely) and fix issues with rare metals / duration of the battery / charging rate / a gigantically obscenely massive energy grid required if everyones driving EV, requiring you to basically refit the entire country- EV's just don't really have a long term future. Hydrogen is just a much more elegant solution for storing energy. For hydrogen, all you need is just a specialized tank on fueling stations, and a bunch of trucks with hydrogen tanks which transport it. And you can produce the actual hydrogen right next to a nuclear powerplant or wind farm or whatever, so you don't have to refit your entire country with a ridiculously gigantic energy grid that'll have huge upkeep costs forever and ever.
@@hiya2793 electrical grids have to upgraded even if BEV is ignored. As most BEV charging happens overnight, a massive grid is not needed. Hydrogen "specialized" infrastructure costs more, to build & maintain vs grid; and that's before factoring in insurance. Norway had a H2 refueling station until June 2019. There have been several attempts to create a new one, it hasn't gone well & even the industry wants H2 generation onsite vs "bunch of trucks". That's how California mostly does it, working so well Toyota being sued by Mirai owners & Shell backed out recently.
@@RoyBoy2019 All these companies backed out because there's no money in Hydrogen. Also "Every upgrade is the same, because the word is in it" wat?? There's a difference between "We need to upgrade the electricity grid to add 12 new homes" vs "Every household has 3 EV cars, each one of which requires as much electricity as a 5-10 entire households do. So every single household has just been 30 folded in terms of electricity cost." These two are not the same lmao. Just because the word "upgrade" exists in both of them doesn't mean they both have the same weight lol.
It takes all of about 10-15 minutes of simple Google research to get an idea of why hydrogen was never going to go anywhere as a "fuel" source, but the main points are; 1- Production - elemental hydrogen isn't found naturally anywhere on Earth, we have to make it. Our current best method of doing so st scale requires a lot of water and a LOT of electricity, significantly more electricity is required to produce enough hydrogen to fuel a single car than the amount it takes to fully charge an equivalent electric vehicle. 2- Distribution - There isn't any infrastructure for hydrogen distribution, unlike electricity which is already everywhere. Transport via truck, unlike with gasoline or diesel, is incredibly difficult due to the ridiculously high-pressure needed to compress enough hydrogen to even make transport worthwhile. Vehicles for transport of hydrogen are wildly cost-prohibitive. 3- Fuelling/refuelling - Even if you get past 1 & 2, the actual use of hydrogen as fuel is problematic on it's own. If a vehicle has a simple fuel tank, it has to be built to handle the very high pressure of compressed hydrogen as well as to ensure it's structural integrity in the case of an accident. The fuel stations would need to be similarly over-built, and transfer from the pump to the tank is quite a bit more complex than simply pumping gasoline into a tank. Extra care would need to be taken to ensure no accidental combustion takes place, as hydrogen doesn't really have any smell and the flame it produces is damn near invisible, especially during daylight. If removable fuel cells are used instead this creates it's own complications, are all vehicle manufacturers going to design their vehicles to use the exact same kind of cell? Maybe, maybe not. Regardless there would need to be some kind of fee as well as a deposit for the actual canister itself, similar to how exchanges for propane tanks are handled. Actually producing such fuel cells at scale would also be incredibly costly, and obviously the companies making the vehicles that use them would pass this cost on to the end user, as with any other such products...
@@aaronlandry3934 True, but that doesn't make it better at all. It's a fact that the most obvious and significant issue that full electric vehicles have is the battery. Material sourcing is really the worst, but issues of longevity and cold weather performance are also problematic. Having said that, if all the money that is being (and has been) spent on hydrogen was instead put into R&D for battery tech, we would be in a much better position, at least on that side of the equation. The fact that the infrastructure for, and production of, electricity can barely cope with the current number of electric vehicles is also an issue.
It isn't an energy source at all really. You split water to make water. Basic thermodynamics tells us this is not energy positive. Hydrogen here is being used as an overly complex highly flammable battery. Jerry points out we can use solar panels to create the Hydrogen but that's so silly. Solar cells are already making electricity, JUST USE THAT.
People tend to look at hydrogen as if it's just another type of "fuel" similar to fossil fuel. There's a fundamental difference between hydrogen and fossil fuel. Fossil fuel comes out of the ground packed with energy, ready to be released. As for hydrogen, we actually spend more engergy producing it than actually getting out of it. Hydrogen is more of an energy transfer and storage medium than an actual energy source and therefore, it's closer to a "battery" than a "fuel". Now that we know it costs extra energy to produce, store and transport hydrogen and costs a lot of water to produce, is hydrogen really less environmentally impactful than lithium battery? Lithium battery's carbon footprint is front-loaded but carbon footprint follows a hydrogen car for as long as it runs
Hydrogen fuel production is significantly better for the environment, and our health, than lithium mining, extraction, and disposal. Lithium will become scarcer and price increases will happen. The same will happen to whatever other material comes after lithium. The process to make hydrogen relies on water and electrical generation, something that will be replicable until humans no longer exist. I'll say that in another way - we can make the fuel we need. That in itself is a HUGE selling point. Infrastructure needs to be built. There wasn't infrastructure for electricity at one point. Should trains never have been built because we didn't have railroads? Should phones never have been established in society because we didn't already have phone lines all over the world? The neat thing is we already have gas stations everywhere all over the world. If we put up for the up front, very costly transitioning of regular gas stations to hydrogen stations, then we already have our hydrogen station locations already established globally. It just take the social and political will to make it happen. High energy battery storage carries with it a lot of risks and downsides. Google Tesla car battery fires. Tesla car battery fires can be caused by a number of factors, including thermal runaway, exposure to high temperatures, improper recharging, etc. It also adds a lot of weight to the vehicle, and over time has to be replaced, very expensive, because the fuel cell efficiency makes them no longer viable. Charging an electric vehicle takes way, way too long... and based on the nature of the process, will likely never get down to a time frame even remotely as quick as fueling with hydrogen. Charging from your house is cool, but you aren't always at your house, obviously. Having to coordinate half an hour so your vehicle can charge is a huge waste in time. A world of EV's is a world of people sitting somewhere waiting for their car to charge so they can get back to the trip they were on.
Honda had had the FCX for years now and possibly before Toyota was trying fuel cell. They were even offering a home generator that would pull the hydrogen from the air itself and would be used to fuel your car and could also power your home. That would have been nice. But of course as J.P. Morgan said “if you can put a meter on it, we’re not interested.” So NONE of those devices will EVER go into production.
If one can choose between “Solar > electrolysis > low temp storage/transport > tank > fuel cell > battery > motor” and “Solar > grid > battery > motor”, the latter will always come out more efficient. An interesting technology, but for cars the BEV will be the best option for most people, IMO.
Not only that, but the vast majority of the electrical infrastructure is already there. Not talking about charging stations, but the fact that we already have electricity running to all modern infrastructure that any BEV can tap into to refuel. Yes it's slower but it is there right now and can serve the vast majority of people's daily driving needs.
But our grid is not expanding. We’re about to have massive issues as coal and fossil fuels are being transitioned out too rapidly to replace. And I worked on networking for solar and wind farms and unfortunately we are investing in this tech as if it’s a replacement but they are at best supplements. Meanwhile we are also reducing hydroelectric and nuclear which are the best chances we have to replace fossil fuels as they are consistent generators. Solar has the obvious disadvantage of only being able to produce full power for about 1/3 of the day and hope there’s no clouds or lingering weather and wind turbines have had so many issues that maintenance and prevention companies for turbines are making tons of money mostly from governments desperate to keep their operations going since they invested so much starting capital into very expensive turbines by the hundreds. So I don’t think we can handle more than maybe 20% of the country converting to full time EV use without major grid overhauls which will result in nearly billions of more acres of what should be farmland being used for solar panels and wind turbines and sadly no new investments in nuclear and not much interest in hydroelectric for some reason.
@@rawkfist-ih6nk and how much solar coverage would 20% h2 fleet would need? 3x more than the electric fleet, thats for sure. 6kg h2 for mirai will require 300kWh electricity to go 300mi. model s gets 300mi range on just 100kWh battery and still costs same as mirai at 67K. you are using 3x more electricity with hydrogen but sure tell me all about how EVs will destroy the grid. h2 also requires platinum and palladium which are even rarer and costlier than battery minerals
@@shresthsonkar9207 Put another way ... Hydrogen requires 3 times the area of photoelectric cells and 3 times as many wind turbines to get a fuel-cell vehicle down the road as it does to get an EV down the road the same distance. Another factor often ignored is that refining the petrol that would be required to get a petrol vehicle down the road that same distance, today uses something like half the electricity that the EV would use (because of the electricity used in the process of pumping and refining petroleum), so a switch to EV is only (roughly) half the extra demand that it might first appear (because now you're avoiding what was used to refine the petroleum).
And in each step there is a loss, so what is the actual real world efficiency of a hydrogen powered vehicle. Thinking much less than advertised and seems in no way cleaner than a ICE powered vehicle.
Same concern with what it takes to make batteries for EV. I personally think that we just need to invest into these new technologies to perfect them. ICE engines have a 130 year head start with infrastructure in place. We need to give new tech a chance. That is the hard part.. hybrid is probably our option for now but I have high hopes for hydrogen. I don't think full EV is plausible unless we get a battery breakthrough.
We have one station in our entire town, that’s constantly going down and the next closet station is 500km away. The 2019 Mira I can’t even make it 300km range on a tank. Not to mention the tanks expires after about 10 years and all lines and tank need to be replaced. Fun car to drive, but was definitely made to make the company look good, less for the consumers.
@@dannydaw59 hydrogen is inherently harmful to materials which contain it, it slowly causes the tank to become brittle and eventually break. Not just tanks, all parts tbh, the fuel cell, pipes and pump all have expiry date written on the fuel cap of the mirai. all this info is from user manual of mirai.
Sounds like a safety risk if any owners are too cheap to replace the parts properly. And will they ever be able to overcome the material's lifespan limitations? @@shresthsonkar9207
You can get it at Servco Hawaii too. There is one station at the mapunapuna location on Oahu. You are only allowed to lease it though. Whatever sales person sold it to you has to go out and refill your tank anytime you need it within operating hours.
@Daveeeeeeyhowyoudoing yeah but then again can't judge hydrogen as this is how it started with electric we didn't hsve the Infastructure now there is an ok one
Infrastructure availability isn't the only problem, nor is scale - the cars themselves and the fuelling are both challenges. The car is heavy and limited in space because the tech is heavy and bulky - it's shorter range and heavier and externally larger than a model 3, while having less space for passengers and much less space for luggage, or about the same weight as a model y while having a LOT less carrying capacity. Performance is somewhat limited though this can be mitigated in various ways like being willing to use more battery for short bursts of acceleration or similar so we could see quick cars with hydrogen, if anyone spends the money to develop them. The infrastructure problem is a big one too - because those fuelling stations are very expensive and high maintenance so even if the hydrogen itself were totally free it would still not be anywhere near cost competitive with electricity. It takes a huge amount more electricity to run a green hydrogen vehicle vs a pure EV also and while there is one seeming advantage (using electricity to create the hydrogen at times of lower grid demand, helping level the grid) this is not what actually happens - hydrogen manufacture is so expensive that they run nearly all the time to try to recoup the costs. This too is not just a question of scale as hydrogen already has many uses so is already produced in large quantities, if not for the vehicle market - though if somehow mass adoption did come along the scale would increase significantly so some gains should be made. Refuelling itself is also not a clean sweep in favour of hydrogen - it can be very slow as depending on the specific way the station works many need a lengthy repressurisation period between cars, so the first car of the day is quicker than an EV but the second and subsequent are actually slower. With the cost to install being nearly 2 orders of magnitude higher than a supercharger (circa $2mill vs $40k) you're not going to have nearly the same level of availability so queuing is inevitable at peak times. Waiting to start fuelling also means waiting at the car, not going and having a coffee or a meal, so for long journeys even were there infrastructure in place it could (but not necessarily would depending on traffic etc) be a much harder process than with an EV. Servicing is also an issue as you've got all the EV components plus all the fuel cell ones and that fuel cell stack will need replaced if you drive a lot of miles, much sooner than the battery in an LFP EV or even many NMC batteries. This isn't a huge issue for most people as most cars don't cover all that many miles - but given hydrogen is often compared with EVs which people often suggest are not going to last well it's worth highlighting that these have the same issue but worse. This is one area though that should improve as the technology develops further - though it's worth remembering that this is not new tech and has already had large sums of money invested in it so it'll likely be smaller incremental improvements over longer timescales rather than a rapid improvement. People often worry about safety with hydrogen cars but I think this one is overhyped - yes, hydrogen is a pain, yes it makes metal brittle and fail, yes it burns - but it's very light and good at escaping so a leak isn't likely to result in a vapour cloud building up. The tanks are very durable and if ruptured the bigger threat is just the pressure release rather than extended burning or fiery explosion, again as a result of how light hydrogen is. There would probably have to be some slightly more stringent car inspection laws than much of the US currently employs and I have no idea what the hobby/self build market would be able to safely do. The stations themselves still have some work to do though with leaks too common. On site electrolysis should help if that becomes viable, though then you're running major electricity to sites on highways - even more work than EV infrastructure again - with about 3x the needed electricity so way worse for the grid. All of this wall of text to say - I really wanted hydrogen cars to be a thing, but sadly can't see it being successful beyond niche / novelty vehicles unless they get really heavily pushed by legislation - and even then, I think we'll come out with worse vehicles than we would going the EV route. It has a lot more potential in larger vehicles than in small vehicles but without being viable in cars I can't see the infrastructure to serve heavy trucking becoming a reality. Big boats may be the real option.
"tech is heavy and bulky" fuel cells are fairly simple and non-complicated. But in a hydrogen vehicle you need high pressure tanks for the liquefied hydrogen, filters for the air to get the oxygen out of the air and batteries to store the energy since a fuel cell isn't really an immediate source for the motor. So you're bolting on all the existing complexity of a BEV as well. If the vehicle was much larger and a closed system recharging with electrolysis and oxygen stored separately it'd be pretty practical but wouldn't have great range.
This highlights the need for supportive infrastructure for such cars to thrive. It's clear that the transition to such futuristic vehicles needs a more structured approach.
the biggest issue with hydrogen is to 'refine'it is amazingly energy intensive, and here in Cali, all the eco policies have made any attempts at building any refinery or power plant unless it's a wind or solar, extremly hard
you can use renewables, and you have the issue of when they are produced vs when they are used. Sun is very abundant during the day when the usage of energy is not at his peak and there is no sun during the peak hours of energy consumption. So we have to come up with solutions to store the excess energy produced during the day, like getting water up some hill to have it come day in the evening to produce electricity, that's certainly not very efficient. This would be a great use case for that, generate hydrogen with it.
@@taktuscat4250 because there's periods when production is much greater then consumption, it's not a flat line, they don't always match, and you don't have a way to storage that excess electricity.
@@Jeffcrocodile using electricity directly in a BEV appears significantly more efficient (almost 2-3 times) than using electrolysis to create hydrogen for an FCEV (ignoring additional losses during compression, transportation, and storage). This is because the FCEV process has multiple energy conversion steps, each with its own efficiency losses.
You have to consider all factors when talking about efficency. Producing, transporting, storing and pumping hydrogen makes it very inefficent compared to all other fuel sources or energy mediums.
Look at this car that runs on electricity. When it’s electricity stored in a battery at 90% efficiency it’s BAD, when it’s electricity generated in the vehicle from fuel stored in very high pressure tanks, itself made from electricity somewhere else, at 33% efficiency it’s GOOD. I can’t wait for my first hydrogen powered mobile phone.
It has to do with pyschology of the people. In order to oppose something, they start promoting its competitor in good light to show the former down. Same is happenning with EVs. In order to playdown EVs, people are praising hydrogen as future. The same people who hated hybrids before are now defending it as alternative to EV. So in future, they may do the same with H2. Who knows..
Thanks for the video! You can think of a fuel cell stack as basically an alternative to an ICE range extender for an EV, but a large scale actually. It's nothing more to that. The drivetrain is EV, and the vehicle still has electic motors, inverters and a battery. Of course, the capacity of the latter is substantially smaller (as modern FCs have a much greater power output than at the dawn of the technology), but still, you have that extra weight and complexity. Speaking of which, you have multiple of high pressure tanks under your butt, which is quite a safety concern. Furthermore, those are have to be made of composite - pure hydrogen can basically leak out of a metal tank through the crystal grid of the metal. It also does through the composite, but at a slower rate. So, as a FC car, basically you have an EV with a electricity generator that uses hydrogen (which is pretty difficult and expensive to produce) instead of regular gasoline/diesel, which requires top-edge complex technology to produce and function properly, as well as take up more space and weight than a ICE range extender with its auxiliary equipment (fuel tank, lines, intake-exhaust system). Only time will tell if it becomes viable, but right now the odds are drastically against the full-scale implementation of hydrogen-powered means of transportation and the needed infrastructure. Take care!
Part of the problem is compressing hydrogen takes a significant amount of energy. This makes a lot of sense for trucks and towing as well as airplanes. Batteries make a lot more sense for smaller vehicles. Small fuel cells are also really inefficient, like less than 60%, and they're _really_ expensive. Might as well just stick a cheap internal combustion engine in there and burn the hydrogen that way.
@@beanapprentice1687that and hydrogen burns faster and hotter so your metal engine gets brittle and cracks. To modify an internal combustion engine to burn hydrogen is quite the engineering challenge. I’m also nervous about everyone rolling around in little Hindenburgs.
I mean, till now it isn't really a good option for airplanes either. Airplanes should be as light as possible, so putting heavy hydrogen tanks in them will diminish their payload drastically. Also fitting those kinds of tanks into planes is challenging. Usually the fuel is stored in the wings and with the need of circular pressure tanks, this will have to be put into the fuselage, rather than the wings. Sure, Airbus is developing some hydrogen planes, but they are planned to be released in 2035 and those are just the modified versions of conventional airliners like the ATR 72. The blended wing body design (which would be perfect for installing tanks and maximizing space efficiency) is still in its early stages and by Airbus estimates will only be ready in around 30 years, if they actually end up producing them, as it is only a concept.
Everyone worried that the grid can't handle EV charging, imagine if that energy went to producing hydrogen instead! Not only is the propulsion system less efficient, but you also get significant efficiency losses making the fuel itself. Maybe instead of giving owners $40k+ in incentives/fuel, they should just BEV swap the remaining cars and call it a day.
Umm the grid can’t handle it. It’s being strained as it sits now. I’m not sure how you go from EV hurts the grid but hydrogen is worse so we might as well convert all cars to EV?
@@rawkfist-ih6nkso your idea is to transport the energy using high pressure tanker trucks or new high pressure pipelines instead of aluminium transmission cables. Sounds great 👍🏽
1:05 I'll double check, but I think that's wrong. It depends on what you mean by "mass market" but the Honda clarity was actually in it's second generation by the time the Mirai had hit the market. You could be correct if you meant "able to be purchased" because early FCEVs were often lease only because the manufacturers wanted them back for study. So, small possible technicality.
3:04 I will say the fuel cell if an FCEV is less risky to work on because it doesn't store energy. If there's no hydrogen in it, a fuel cell is just a box. Now the high pressure hydrogen is a different scenario entirely, and I f course most FCEVs have a small high voltage battery. But it's roughly hybrid sized.
As a kid, he became my favorite non-Jeff Gordan NASCAR racer because he was somehow tangentially related to WCW. I can't even remember how at this point, I just know because of that I started calling him my favorite driver.
Feel like I can relate to the fueling struggles with renewable diesel in Washington right now… main pump I use in Seattle has been out for a couple weeks now.
Its a great concept, limited by current tech. You're 100% right, that the hydrogen production adn distribution are the major pain points. All things being equal, they have a great opportunity to replace combustion vehicles. They can recharge quickly, produce water and could just replace pumps at a gas station in the future over time. But we're still quite a few years from that possible future, if at all.
Also I think the fact the government is not trying to shove hydrogen cars in our throats like they do with battery cars could make it easier to get familiar with and not force companies to invest massive amounts of money with no guaranteed results.
@@Hide_and_Tweak Yep, and keep in mind the massive amounts of subsidies, and grants, etc have gone to EV. Hydrogen tech is simply a much riskier tech to develop and invest in right now. Its way better, feasible. Practicalities can be mitigated, and improved. It doesn't happen if no one invests in it.
@@threezerol944t Germany is one of the exceptions - they have about 100 refuelling stations and plan to build 100 more. But the cars still aren't selling. 263 hydrogen cars sold last year across the entire country. Around 2,400 on the roads in total in Germany. So 24 cars per station.
The word "just" in your phrase "just replace pumps at a gas station" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Gasoline and diesel fuel are stored and dispensed near atmospheric pressure. Hydrogen requires 700 bar (10 000 psi) which means totally different storage tanks and distribution hardware ... and fire safety. You can't re-use natural gas distribution, either, because hydrogen leaks through practically everything, the materials and construction methods are different. Basically the only thing you can keep from the gas station is the credit card reader. Everything else, start over, and it is not cheap. We can piggyback EV charging infrastructure on top of what we already have (and that's already happening). Hydrogen requires starting from scratch.
The oil companies want to produce hydrogen. It’s the government that has been subsidizing EV’s to the tune of billions of dollars that don’t want adoption. They claim to care about the environment but with the advent of the hydrogen powered internal combustion engine, the carbon footprint argument goes out the window. You cannot claim to care about human rights and the environment, then turnaround and say you want EV’s instead of the new hydrogen powered cars with traditional engines. It isn’t a coincidence that as soon as these hydrogen cars came onto the market that stations went offline. Stations in California that are controlled, in part, by government. The kickbacks from lobbyists in EV legislation is huge and that’s what we are seeing.
@@Ericsaidful when you mention the downsides of EV, are you mostly talking about E-waste and child slaves mining for cobalt? i never heard about toyota mirai until today and it's pretty neat. im impressed with toyota for even attempting that. of course i myself drive an altima (a high end sports car produced by nissan)
@@violarulez Slave labor, electronic waste, and just the overall C02 footprint. The crossover point in emissions doesn’t even occur until after 100,000 miles between an electric and gas vehicle. Most people who can afford a new electric vehicle are going to trade it in before that mark, and a new battery will be needed before then. I also don’t see climate change as an existential threat. Where I live now was under the ocean in the last few thousand years, a few thousand years before that the shoreline was out 30 miles away from where it currently is. But I’m going to make a prediction, this year is the 14th year of the solar output cycle. We are in a solar maximum right now and I imagine temperatures will return more so to normal over the next few years. Of course scientists will say it’s because of emissions reductions but the reality is that it will be due to the suns cycles. Again, climate change is happening, but it’s always happened, and humans have survived and even thrived over several massive changes.
In major cities of India, you can find a lot of cars running on CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). Almost all cabs and buses run on CNG in cities like Delhi, India. But these cars have a normal IC Engine and run on CNG rather than gasoline. You can also retrofit your car with these CNG kits for about 600USD. It's obviously not as cleaner as Hydrogen but still cleaner and cheaper than Gasoline and the filling process is kinda similar to how it was for the Mirai too!
The difference between CNG and H2 is the pressure required. CNG is stored between 8 and 12 bar, hydrogen needs 700 bar to have enough of it to be useful. I've seen a CNG cyllinder fail, and it wasn't pretty. Don't want to know what a 700 bar failure looks like.
You did not touch on the cost of replacing a fuel cell or their longevity. Should have made the car some feet longer to fit the hydrogen tanks. Compressing hydrogen at the production and dispensing stages also adds to station capital and operating costs. Typical 35 MPa and 70 MPa H2 compressors cost $50,000- $140,000 each and consume 2-4 kWh/kg of electricity (compressing 20-350 bar) Just what every home owner needs! A $150K pump to go with his solar roof. Your NOT Going to make hydrogen and fill your car at home! That was a non truth. 10K PSI is 69 MPa. Donut frequent dumps on stuff that works much better than this.
@@gabrielrousseau_NM BEV sales percentages have more to do with incentives than cold weather. There are a lot of BEVs in cold countries. People are wasting money on hydrogen because it is there for the taking.
They didn't even touch how difficult it is to store hydrogen. Like the Mirai is 5,000lbs due to the tanks alone, and those tanks will loose hydrogen over time because no matter how air tight you can store hydrogen that well, it'll always leak out. "Infrastructure" isn't the limiting factor for hydrogen cars, its simply not better than EV examples or ICE examples in any way. The technology to develop it further could be used to develop the other two further for greater results.
don't break a sweat mate. nobody seriously thought hydrogen will replace lithium cars. its just due to trade war between japan and china their government asked manufacturers to seek out an alternative to the lithium, which is controlled by china. so the hydrogen and derivatives are not better - just a way to escape china's dependance.
EVs do have battery end of life issues. Which we are simply not prepared for. The fuel cells have end of life issues too (though its basically the same as the catalytic converters, so we are geared for it) and the tanks will need dealing with at some point (but again we have things there already), but EVs batteries don't have an end of life plan and it is something we haven't dealt with since consumer electronics started using batteries.
@@smalltime0This is false lol. Almost all EVs batteries are rated for above 200k miles or 7+ years. You’re insured in case the battery goes bad before the expected time you’d replace your ice vehicle
If the cleanest way to get fuel is to literally use electricity to separate hydrogen from oxygen, why not just use an electric powered vehicle. You are just adding an extra step in the middle. Plus if we had more efficient solar panels that made the process cheaper and easier, the process to charge way more efficient electric cars would be cheaper too. The only offset I can think of is the lack of battery cells, and to be fair, batteries are incredibly harmful to the environment, so potentially that is an effective argument.
It isn't really a problem with passenger cars. It's a problem with semis, cargo ships and airliners. No ones even thinking about the latter two and the semis could actually have the economics set to want fleets of lithium ion semis which would completely trash passenger car prices. Again it's not a problem with coming up with the lithium in the worlds supply it's in the technical details about the scale of these industries. Individuals will not buy enough of these cars fast enough to justify scaling up production. This is why I argue for building out catanary wires now making it a much more obvious switch for commercial vehicles. It's be incredibly expensive and obviously we should be building more trains too but it'd be far more effective than letting capitalism shit itself over and over. The third of all farm land currently going to ethanol could be considered for cargo ships. Airliners would require an even more expensive synthfuel. Good luck Earth.
And now honda is trying the same with semi trucks, huge fuel cell behind the cab adding extra weight to it, its a day cab truck as well, so it'll be roaming in the 32k lbs weight plus the load it picks up it'll immediately shoot it over weight fast
Ever since Tesla decided to build a robust charging network alongside their cars, and properly maintain that network, it was game over for hydrogen. Simply because of the cost to implement the infrastructure supporting each of these vehicles and improve upon it.
nah, EVs have a hard limit because power drain and limited resources and we are close to it, hydrogen cars could be made with the exact same tech as ICE cars.
Tesla was able to do that because the US government gave them money to do so. But yes, their charging tech and facilities is leaps above hydrogen stations and other types of EV chargers. I think the best way to own an electric car is to have a charger at home, so you can charge your car overnight before your commute, or having a level 2 charger at your workplace where you can charge for free.
I find that there's 3 types of a car person. The not really a car person, but pretends to like them to look manly or cool. The "car person" that likes only one type of vehicle, or specific types of engines, or a single manufacturer. There is also a true car person, those who appreciate every type of innovation or quirks in any car, they will take time to analyze every car they haven't seen before, and will comment on unique ways someone tackled a specific problem. Thank you for being one of those, electric, piston, diesel, hybrid, wankel, hydrogen... They are all fascinating!
Main disadvantage of this vs any EV (leaving aside the lack of infrastructure, insane cost of hydrogen and low power) is missing the option of charging/refuelling at home (it is super convenient to leave home every day with a full "tank" and never visit gas stations). Majority of people charge their EV where it parks most of the day and rarely visit DC chargers. Batteries will most likely stay for the personal transportation, but hydrogen could make sense in trucks, buses and other larger vehicles, where large tanks are less of an issue and refueling needs to happen relatively fast en route.
@@martinqizeaq people come home and park their cars which charge while they sleep overnight. If the commute is short, they may even be done by the time one eats dinner - as in my case. Home charging is done because it is convenient and the car is already going to stay parked there for 12h+ And because it is free for me with home solar. Why would I pay $200 for 300mi when I can pay zero for EV charging?
So are EVs. Swapping a fuel station to hydrogen is a lot cheaper than building car lots for fast chargers. Our infrastructure can handle hydrogen, not so much for EVs.
@@vr6one How is it cheaper? You cant use the same storage tanks, the hydrogen has to be under very high pressure. You have to literally swap out every piece of equipment. All that and you are still effectively driving an EV. Not to mention you have build the same amount of hydrogen stations. I have an EV and I have used a fast-charger once in the last year.
@@LoganX00Yeah and the energy that is needed to collect and liquify hydrogen is intensive enough and it's much better to just directly charge something off of it
@@LoganX00ev is only “green” when you charged it with renewable energy which isn’t always available hydrogen can be made any time there is more power available then used and later be put in your car
Honestly, hydrogen-powered cars are a much more advantageous option than battery-powered ones. Of course, today there is the problem of the difficulty of finding a hydrogen pump, but this is only a matter of incentive. When you think about the ease of recharging, especially considering long trips, they are better. Likewise, they don't have the problem of batteries getting bad as you use them in the long run. And also, there's the issue of weight, a hydrogen cylinder is much lighter than a battery with the same capacity. And they also have a structural advantage for the city. The increase in battery-powered cars can generate several problems in the grid of a city, since it was not planned to have this high voltage demand coming from several homes at the same time. Hydrogen is a counterpart, it can be produced in plants on the surroundings of the city near substations and then distributed to the city's pump stations, not generating an overload on the city's electrical system, and avoiding long-distance transport, as in the case of fossil fuels that need to be extract from specific places.
Recharging an EV on a road trip is easy (as long as there are sufficient charging stations - and we, collectively, are working on that). Pull off the motorway, plug in, tap the phone or RFID card if the vehicle doesn't do it automatically (simple), go have a coffee. When you come back, the car is good to go. YES, there's a ways to go, in both the number and reliability of charging stations - but it is improving, and rather quickly. The Mirai is a 5000 lb vehicle. The new just-announced Chevrolet Equinox EV is a 4800 lb vehicle and the real world range is probably going to be about the same, and I betcha the Equinox has more interior space. Fuel cells aren't light, and the 700 bar (10 000 psi) pressure in the storage tank restricts their size and shape and makes them awkward to package. The Mirai has a huge central tunnel and the rear seat bases are high up (low rear seat headroom) because there's another tank underneath there. Awkward interior packaging. Battery tech is improving, too.
@@bikeaddictbp You say this as if all EV charging stations are fast charger. Most aren't, and outside of the big urban centers good luck trying to find one. On a day-to-day basis, it's fine, but for those who like to take a long road trip it's unfeasible. After all, a full charge in a standard charging station takes about 3h. So if you want to put on the charger, have a coffee, and go, you'll have to stop at each station on the way to have a coffee. Because your car won't charge even 5% of the battery in that time.
@@ZizoMass No issues in Australia, I drove the 1200mile round trip Sydney to Melbourne 3 times between Christmas and the end of February. It was both faster and cheaper in my EV than my previous ICE car - 2 x 20 min stops in each direction is all it takes, I would stop 2 times no matter what car I am in to eat and use the bathroom - by the time I'm done I have plenty of charge to continue. There are very few distinations, even in a very large and sparsely populated country like Australia where I couldn't even find a 50kw charger (the slowest paid public charger available) - the vast majority of public chargers are 120kw to 350kw chargers, the slowest 50kw charger would give me enough to continue in about 45min not 3 hours, 3hours would be a Level 2 charger like a free destination charger at a hotel meant for overnight guest charging. At the extremes there are 6 fully electric cars per day (4300+ annual crossings) traversing the Nullabor in Australia in each direction, if you are unfamiliar with this location look it up.
@@ZizoMass When you're going on a roadtrip with an EV you'll obviously only be using the fast chargers. Wtf is this 3 hour charging station you're talking about? Last summer I drove 13,500 kilometers through Europe with my Tesla model 3. EV fast chargers are everywhere, it's just no longer a problem.
They still need batteries, so no benefit in longevity - the opposite is true. The tanks only have a 10 year lifespan, they actually have a expiration date stamped on them. Neither are they lighter, the tanks + battery+ fuel cell is heavier than a pure EV. the Mirai is heavier than a Tesla model 3, with less space and range.
I read about a guy here in North Carolina that bought a hydrogen car from California and uses solar to create the fuel. He's a big proponent for the fuel, but the east coast has laws about moving tanks of hydrogen through tunnels and double stacked bridges. That keeps those cars from spreading easily here, but as my son said when I told him about this, "but car tanks full of gas are ok?". I'd like to see this technology spread, but I'm sure some people wouldn't like the idea of people making their own fuel at home (who's going to buy the slurpees?).
Have you ever seen a gas leak vs a hydrogen explosion? Takes a lot for a big kaboom to happen with a gas car, but something fails or pierces that 10,000psi hydrogen tank...KABOOM
Using solar to make hydrogen to fuel a car seems stupid, when one can eliminate the "making hydrogen" step, and just use solar to charge a car directly.
The problem with green hydrogen: once we have clean electricity to do hydrolysis, why not hook it up to the grid and use it to run EVs instead? Efficiency is nearly 100% and it builds on existing infrastructure. Green hydrogen may have industrial applications in the future, like steel making, but not transportation.
@@Tallnerdyguy the only issue is that it has massive storage and transportation problems. Mostly the fact that it is hydrogen, the smalles molecule in existence and that no other material can hold it inside itself without leaking out to the atmosphere.
Hydrogen has this problem called containment. Being the smallest atom it will just leak overtime. It also has the lowest energy density per volume. If you do make liquid hydrogen you must keep it very very cold and under lots of pressure.
Because generating electricity to create hydrogen to create electricity to power a car will always be more inefficient than just generating the electricity and using it charge an electric car’s battery directly.
My dad recently got a 2021 model for around 17k. I don't know how it compares to other new-ish cars around 17k, but I felt it was a very good car for the money. we will definitely have to re-evaluate after his $15k/3yr fuel card expires, but I feel very safe letting my elderly man drive this car with all the safety features and cameras. It's not spacious bc off the tanks, but it's not cramped and claustrophobic either. It's not fast like a Tesla, but it's quiet and comfortable like one. 10/10 would recommend for a daily driver, but prepare to rent or have an ICE if you want to go on road trips.
The biggest benefit of an EV over this, is that you can get an EV charger installed at your home, or even just plug it into a regular outlet. Can't do that with hydrogen
Imagine thinking hydrogen cars are the way to go when there are so few hydrogen stations and literally every building and every house is already wired for electricity. You have to produce electricity in order to make hydrogen. Why add a step when you can just send the electricity directly to the car? You’d still have to drive to a hydrogen station to refuel too so it would be no more convenient than owning a gas car is. Do people just really like having to drive somewhere to refuel their cars?? Makes no sense to me. Most people buy their cars based on cost of ownership and ease of use. People want convenience and nothing will ever be more convenient than having a car that can refuel at your house while you’re asleep. I think it’s funny that the same people who say EVs won’t work because there aren’t enough fast chargers also push for hydrogen cars. I’ve had an EV for five years and have yet to use a public charging station. Let’s just admit that you only want hydrogen cars because they still have an exhaust pipe so they can make noise if you want them to. Because the hydrogen infrastructure will never be as vast as our electrical infrastructure already is right now and you’d never be able to refuel a hydrogen car at your house while you sleep.
"But why would I ever want to spend 5 seconds every night plugging in my car at home, instead of the much more convenient once a week driving 10 minutes to a hydrogen station, filling for 5 minutes, then driving back???" - HFC proponents (probably)
@@chrisc1140 and while sitting in a land barge with less interior space than an econobox really is it even more practical for long trips as they claim? they are visibly annoyed by the interior layout, surely it can't be comfy for a cross country trip. Not like you can do one in an FCEV anyways due to lack of filling points, compared to tens of thousands of DCFC stations. Not to mention the pisspoor boot space, ensuring that you never make a road trip in that car even if you have stations on the way. 320L on a full size sedan is a joke. just get a model s for 70K, 300mi range, 750L boot, and a performance which needs no introduction
@@shresthsonkar9207”it gets more range than EV” 💀 yeah mainly because almost all car space goes to the hydrogen tank. could make a 1000mile range car if they dedicated that much space to a battery.
The Gen 1 Mirai is a smaller car with a slightly larger interior because of the additional fuel tank. They really should piggy back on CNG for the fuel cell. There is substantially more infrastructure around the Compressed Natural Gas. The larger problem would be the pressure differential. CNG is typically at 3600 PSI vs 10,000 PSI for Hydrogen.
Being able to charge your car at home at night when when power costs are cut is just way to convenient. Hydrogen is cool and all, but its pretty inconvenient.
You can say lack of infrastructure for the hydrogen cars, but, we have a lack of infrastructure to support EV's. Our grid system cannot handle the energy demand that the EV creates
No amount of advertising will make this car a true success until the infrastructure gets built. The problem is the infrastructure is more expensive than even building a new EV charging station is
I could see this doing well in Japan which was its intended market (long story short there isn’t enough electricity to charge electric cars in Japan, so hydrogen is their solution) Japan is a relatively small country so it would be easier to install infrastructure compared to the US. This could also work is similarly sized countries such as Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, etc
Only problem is that Japan (and the vehicle manufacturers) thought about the "using" side of the hydrogen situation, but they never thought about the "producing and distributing" side of it. If they're short on electricity generation capacity for EVs, they're really, really short on hydrogen production capacity if they want to do it in an environmentally tolerable manner.
Technology is still extremely experimental, toyota themselves say the car is a "pre production" so saying its failed is stupid because it hasn't even started yet
One thing that isn't talked about often is how we source the H2. Most H2 is sourced from Natural Gas making this just as much of a fossil fuel. Sure it burns clean but the process of getting that H2 isn't clean. "Green Hydrogen" isn't sustainable or efficient at all.
So Hydrogen cars are EVs with more complexity and less room? EVs are simpler, and clearly won this war. The Anti-EV propaganda from Big Oil is crazy effective though, people think its cool to diss an electric motor and battery. Weird.
I am a fire fighter, in the fire house we are very heavy on tradition and very anti change. For example the basic fire helmet that commonly wore by many fire department such as the FDNY is extremely old and out dated in fact newer helmets are arguably much safer however I and many other fire fighter still refuse to swap out for those safer helmets despite logically it being the better decision, but some times you just can't change the mass's opinion. Their something about gas cars that I and many others love it has to long of history for many to accept it. It's not propaganda. Add in the reasonable concerns about the car it not going to ever replace the gas cars.
13:30 I don't know, but I do know it has a replaceable fuse, a separate ground and neutral (mainly for older appliances that needed it), the ground pin is now used as a safety feature for little shutters on +/- in sockets (outlets), it fits behind a cabinet quite well as it's pretty flat... Oh, and it hurts like &*!? when you stand on it at 6 am. (type G plug btw) :) Oh, also a British dude made a plug in 1883. What a mad lad. American plugs are pretty cool too though, they look cute.
Something yall missed is that Toyota made the Murai for Japan. Japan can’t get much petrol/gasoline because of them being an island. To add, they have many outages due to struggle with electricity. Thus hybrids being the best in Japan efficient wise. So they tried hydrogen but not enough infrastructure is the main failure behind these. Still doesn’t make sense as to why they brought these to California
their electricity woes are their own undoing, shutting down nukes and not investing enough in solar and wind. seeing the amount of hot springs in japan, one would think they exploit geothermal like the icelandics, but they dont
@@shresthsonkar9207 I don't think they have the land to support solar and wind. Shutting down nukes was due to world fears from my understanding. Geothermal sounds cool, but would it be able to support Japan's population. Iceland population isn't huge compare to Japan.
Because fuel cells operate as electrolyzers if you run current through them directly, it begs the question: why not have FCVs that plug in and electrolyze their own H2 and O2 when they do? The result would be indistinguishable from a driving experience standpoint from a full battery EV but without the lithium overuse.
There's a few issues with that. 1. FVECs still need batteries to store the output of the fuel cell, so they still need Lithium. 2. Lithium is pretty common and easy to get (you can extract it from sea water), it's other metals like cobalt that make batteries so expensive. 3. Fuel cells require platinum, which is very expensive and hard to get. 4. (This is the big one.) Hydrogen is just an inefficient battery anyways. Turning electricity into hydrogen and then turning it back into electricity wastes a lot of energy compared to just using the electricity directly. Because of this, FCEVs will _always_ be much more expensive than BEVs to run.
Good car but lack of infrastructure is the problem
Incorrect. It’s not great, but it’s not car-killing. Honda Clarity sold as planned, leading Honda to expand their hydrogen lineup with the CR-V in 2025.
And it always will be. You need so much more than just the complex hydrogen pumps.
And the cost of fuel. And bad efficiency at higher speed, high price, poor trunk space, high fixing cost. Apart from this... great car 😂
It would be easier to confirm gas stations to hydrogen stations, than to charging stations world wide. Also Australian Hysata is pretty ready with technology to make green hydrogen with 95% effiency.
@@TheOfficialOriginalChad It really is great. This car had almost the same milleage (or even more) than most fuel cars, while only consuming between 5 and 6 kilos of hidrogen/100km. A couple of years ago, in my country, the kilogram of hydrogen was around 3-4€, so for a max of 20€ you could completely refuel the car. For reference, gasoline was almost 1.6€/liter at that moment, so numbers speak by theirselves.
"Car problems?" "Yeah dude my proton exchange membrane went out"
I just thought of ghostbusters
“No worries. The local auto parts chain keeps plenty of those in stock. I buy ‘em by the gross!”
Great.. now I want the car just to be able to say that at some point
Crazy insane, got no 'brane!
You have no idea how expensive that statement is.
Hint, think batteries, only more.
Consumer- "I'm not gonna work on that."
Manufacturer- "Excellent."
Can you imagine owning the first ice vehicle? That guy probably didn't wanna work on it either... But we learn.
@@Jizden_Mipanz missing the point. working on any vehicle is easy if the manufacturer provides service manuals and spare parts. lately all manufacturers have quietly been making those disappear.
@@Jizden_Mipanz Except with a mechanical machine, you can physically see right away what the problems is. "oh this is hitting that", or "that over there is loose" with just a simple visual inspection. And in the past MOST people had the know-how and tools to either fix it out-right, or even make their own parts if none were available or do a bodge job just to get by for now. It's only within the last generation or two where you start to see the majority of people who can't do these hands on kind of things. The fact that cars back then were much simpler, and you could get away with doing those kinds of things to it is another argument.
@@drkastenbrot Ain't nothing "lately" about it. And it's not all the manufacturers. When i was a tech in the early 00's, we used AllData, and it was literally SPECIFALLY stated in the user agreement, that we were not allowed to share anything on the program. If you came in looking for a specific wiring diagram for your vehicle, NOPE! sorry, i could be fired for showing you one, or for even telling you how to test it. That was Alldata, NOT the manufactures.
@@salemcripple the older generations can't fix a computer and the newer generations can't dig a trench, what's your point? Cuz that's well known. It's the people with drive and determination that achieved what was needed for the things they want. I land in the middle where I can do both things to an extent, but not a master at either one.... That's just life
I’m a student at Bath University doing a project on a H2ICE land speed record vehicle. We’ve just become the first undergrad team to run a single cylinder engine on hydrogen and have managed to source a Miria tank for the fuel system. We also bought a 2.3L EcoBoost engine which we plan to convert for hydrogen combustion and have just installed it into our Ginetta G20 which is the vehicle we plan to use for the attempt.
Aren't there more aren't there more common and less valuable cars than a gineta to use for your project? I really wish you had used a rotary engine, Mazda always touted it as being easy to run on hydrogen because of the separation of the oil from the combustion part of the engine,
Keep going. Save the ICE. We don't want these oversized kids toys to drive around. We need engines and exhausts and the beautiful sound of combustion.
@@metricstormtrooper We chose the Ginetta following MATLAB simulations where we could simulate different vehicles with different engines. Ultimately, the Ginetta was chosen as it is lightweight, easy to work on, and cheap enough to be within our smallish budget. The reason for the 2.3L EcoBoost is due to its mass aftermarket support. We have LinkECU as a sponsor and they are being very supportive with getting our entire electrics system set up. Additionally, the 2.3L EcoBoost gives us the option to test NA H2ICE, then boost the engine once we feel confident.
So much yes
@@UltraObamaOk boomer
Toyotas flagrant hatred of electric only cars is my fave
But this is electric? It's just a rubbish version of one.
@@drunkenhobo8020bro its hydrogen it uses hydrogen to drive.
@@drunkenhobo8020 hydrogen fuel cells power electric motors. The issue isn't the motors, it's the batteries and cost to manufacture them and the lack of infrastructure to sustain that model.
The issue was never the motors
@@Dubfiance The video explained how the car works. It's an electric car.
They just know that battery evs are not sustainable and are purely just a marketing hype.
I had this as a company car used for a commuting in San Francisco. I enjoyed the car but oh my goodness was the fueling so difficult. The three stations nearby were always offline or empty. And I could never get the tank to 100% full and the connections would often freeze up. We would get about 200 mi per tank with exclusive City driving. The interior is very right because of the tanks.
Just not practical Even if you live right next one of these stations.
Ok but consider the fact that even then it was far faster to fill up than charging an EV.
@@JoeBleaux69you don't know nothing bro , you don't own one
@@AstrotaseI'm imagining you shaking and crying as you scream at this commenter. Your fists clenched. Pounding the table with every pause as tears spill onto your keyboard, lubricating the switches below the keycaps. With every word your face becomes redder because of the frustration you feel that he just doesn't get what it's like. He doesn't understand and that's painful. The struggle you've been through to have an EV and a healthy stash of crypto is something no one could understand but you. I'm sorry it hurts so bad. I promise it gets better.
It realistically takes me about 20 seconds to fill up my EV. When I get home and it's below 30% I just walk over to the wall, grab the plug, and plug it in. Then the next day I unplug it. Sure, you have to plan marginally better, but a couple of weeks in you never think about it again.
In the last two years I've had to fast charge maybe four times. 20 minutes each sucks, but 80 minutes in total over two years is way less than I used to spend pumping gas.
@@ericaschner3283 make believe math
I’m a tow truck driver. My first experience with this car was towing it and it’s owner 55 miles a out of the city to a fuel station connected to the interstate because his fuel station in our city didn’t match his connection port.
He bought it because the salesman said it would be cheaper than fuel in the long run. Hydrogen cost him $16 per ounce of it.
He gets 350 miles topped off, it takes him 100 miles and $160 to fuel up every time
when we were picking up our new toyota corolla cross, i noticed a lot of mirais at the dealership lot in the bay area. resale was horrendous. even the toyota salesman was telling us the mirai is a waste of money. OG vietnamese man telling it straight.
that poor dude.
Wait, how can there be different sockets if there is just one hydrogen cell car being sold.
Also that price is completely bullshit.
@@bobkowalski7655 Like 50 cent EV charging.
This is why I still firmly believe that plug-in hybrids are the real transition vehicle technology. I've got a 2015 Chevy Volt and do 95% of my driving just off the battery, but the engine still takes plain old gasoline when I have to drive out of town. I can go anywhere on that, fill it up at any station in the world. Plus the battery is so small it can be charged to full overnight on a plain 120V outlet, and I get my residential $0.11/kWh rate.
Love that you remembered to also tell clearly how the Hydrogen is produced. It is very important to remember the whole production line of the fuels and energy when trying to save environment.
And after life, still no 'save' way for battery's to be recycled of destroyed so what about that....
@@sprmn1983safe. And as much as I love my car (normal gas) EVs are still better for the environment. Yes battery production and post useful life recycling are still very important and affect the environment. But ice cars produce more emissions throughout their lifetime. I’ve had my car for over a decade now which is certainly quite a bit of gasoline over the years lol
There are plenty of ways to recycle lithium type batteries right now and companies working on scaling up. For the most part you're really just shredding them up after deeply discharging them, the separation of materials has gotten good at this point. Recycling isn't always profitable still, but we're able to recover 99% of the materials back and not at an extreme cost. The progress has been good, worst case you require manufacturers to take the vehicle back and recycle it. Just like lead acid batteries have required deposits and refunds for returning old batteries, that fixed the extremely low recycling rate and people tossing them in lakes, and made it so 99% overall get returned. The process of recycling lead acid is the same principle of lithium and is profitable because of a now existing scrap supply chain and scrap market.
The worst materials used in lithium batteries like cobalt are nearly eliminated, many EVs like many Tesla's are using straight lithium iron phosphate with zero nickel or cobalt, these are even easier to recycle. @@sprmn1983
@@cwill2127washed of the brain, are you.
Better than how gas is produced
I had a 2018 Toyota Mirai (Look through my videos and you will find the review I did on it). My main issue was the infrastructure. I was crossing my fingers that there was hydrogen every time I drove to the local station (The hydrogen stations were placed in normal gas stations). And at one point, due to a Hydrogen factory fire, there wasn't any hydrogen for around 5 months and Toyota was paying for rental cars for everyone! Drive wise it was fine, just a peppier Prius. Admittedly I went through with the lease because it was super affordable, with the included cash back incentive Toyota was offering I was only paying like $190 a month. And they paid for all maintenance and included a $15K prepaid fuel card for hydrogen (which I didn't use up during the lease).
California huh?
@@sirhorsechoker yep
"Factory Fire" sounds like corporate /NGO sabotage to me.
Do you think that the lack of hydrogen refueling infrastructure the reason why you didn't use up your fuel card?
@@rpfour4 If I remember correctly, I did a rough estimation and figured I still would have had a couple grand left on it even there wasn’t the 5 months with no fuel available.
My mom leased a Honda Clarity hydrogen fuel cell for 6 years, after she fell in love with it at the LA Auto Show two years before she got hers. She adored the car every day of those six years, fueling issues be damned (Honda's fuel cards certainly helped). Of note was that the Honda Clarity was generally considered "nicer" than it's Mirai counterpart while costing around the same. She was devastated when she had to return it when they stopped letting her extend her lease early this year, especially as Honda stopped offering Clarity leases in 2022 (and production in 2021). Interestingly, by the time she gave it back, the lease was cheaper than basically any current new car lease due to being frozen in late-2010s pricing. No, Honda didn't let anyone buy out their leases or purchase the Clarity outright, in contrast with most cars (including the Mirai).
Isn't there often a "buy after lease" option?
@@thunder_lloydyes but hydrogen is now dead. Wouldn’t have anywhere to fill it up, or not practically anyway if you bought one. Honda no longer has to support the vehicles once they’re all off the road, whereas the privately owned toyotas will need to be serviced
EV1 flashbacks...
@thunder_lloyd not always, see the GM EV1 as a other example of a lease only vehicle that the manufacturer took away the opportunity to either extend the lease or buy out.
@enemyspotted2467 Well, it depends where you live. Here in the EU they're seriously investing in hydrogen infrastructure. Here in the Netherlands due to net congestion they're busy pushing for the right-wing green dream of hydrogen ICEs fueled by hydrogen made from nuclear energy.
We need more Jerry the Science Dude™
Im not against this, but i would have preferred to see bill nye with the original intro music instead
Bring back bart!
@@jonnyodwyer2938He would've been perfect for segments like that
i like chemistry so this was cool
@@muskaman2kyes and I would like to see the hammond, clarkson, and May present this video
This felt like older Donut videos, going back to the roots! I like it
I love that the Jerry the Science Dude intro is clearly just Jerry standing there spinning himself around.
Jerry the science dude 😂
😂
I need more!! hahaa
I smell a lawsuit
Kinda like Bill Nye the science guy .... knowledgeable about BS .... absolutely clueless about science.
I work in an R&D facility used by some of the biggest vehicle manufacturers in the world, the amount of money being spent on hydrogen is massive, specifically for large transport (air/see freight etc) it will be the norm for heavy industries, but it might filter down to the general population as the tech improves but EV's seem to be winning and the next gen batteries will noly solidify that
This is especially the case in Japan, where the government is pushing hydrogen very hard, since they're surrounded by oceans. And as you said, it has a lot of promise in big boats, trains and airplanes. Cars, maybe not so much, but hey Toyota isn't going to turn down free money from the government.
In Physical Science class, 40ish years ago, we produced small amounts of hydrogen gas by placing a zinc ingot into hydrochloric acid in a large test tube. We lit the gas in the test tube using a wooden splint, made a cool bloop noise when it burned, good times. Same teached also showed us how pure sodium metal chips freaks out on water(skittered and sizzled) and phosphorus spontaneously ignites once it contacts air. She took a big spoonful out, placed it on a overturned coffee can, let it dry out while she put notes on the chalkboard, and then FOOMPSH. I now knew why the ceiling over the teacher's lab table had those stains. 💥💥💥 She was a bit crazy, loved science class.
That sure sounds like an exciting class. Thomas Edison had a mobile lab on a train he worked for, he accidentally caused a blaze because his jars of phosphorus broke and the phosphorus started burning. One time he saved the train owners (Or maybe just a rich persons) child from a runaway boxcar. The kid was playing on the tracks and he grabbed the kid away just in time, else the boxcar would've hit them. Think the rich person gave him a job or something
Automotive engineer here who whilst at university did a module during my masters about tech needed to implement hydrogen vehicles into the world. Not only is it expensive to make, but it takes 3kw of energy to get 1kw of output in a hydrogen vehicle (it’s about a 33% process efficiency from production to it being processed in a fuel cell). You’re better off putting that 1kw to get 0.9kw in an EV (33% total efficiency vs 90% efficiency just getting the same energy into a battery). It takes all the problems of grid infrastructure associated with a move to EVs and multiplies it by 3!
Exactly. I feel like im taking crazy pills here watching the dude use electricity to make hydrogen that will be stored in expensive pressure tanks that will then be used to make electricity again. What in the hell is going on? Who signed off on this insane waste of a concept?
The problem is that too many people don’t take into account the whole supply chain when spewing out their “0 emission“ bullshit. And while the fuel cell itself may have a 60% efficiency it’s like you said, the production and storage of hydrogen is incredibly inefficient
The efficienty, the cost, the issues with transport and storage, the problems with generating hydrogen sustainably etc. It just makes no sense.
Especially with the extremely quick development of battery and charging technology and the economies of scale constantly pushing prices down.
Battery power is the obvious solution to this problem.
Now we've got to think about the carbon footprint of making an EV battery, factor that into your EV efficiency.
Learn about metal hydride, it can store hydrogen safely without high pressure necessary and store enough in 4 tanks about the size of a regular gas tank and theres a video by helmholtz zentrum and one by bob lazar where he made his own hydrate. Tho hydride is not dangerous it is illegal to sell (not illegal to make your own) and thous hydrogen cars haven't become available. Change the law.
I know someone that was supposed to be helping build a hydrogen plant in New York. They were there for a year and a half and never even broke soil to start building the plant. Felt like the job kept getting pushed back intentionally until they finally backed out. Seemed like sabotage to me. I hate to sound like a conspiracist, but these big corporations don't want new clean energy sources because then they're gonna lose out on all the money they make through gas.
im with you, i really think oil companies are holding us back on some stuff like this lol
Big corporations love hydrogen way more than battery EVs though as it keeps you in their ecosystem. You've still got to go to a fuel station to get fuel, they still have full control over production and supply.
The problem is it's just not very good.
That would make sense if we weren’t being forced to buy electric cars. Gas cars are priced high as electric cars and having less and less options for gas cars.
@@drunkenhobo8020 I can agree it isn't great but it just hasn't come very far in it's life. The technology needs time and it got greater potential than EV's I think, but it's a matter of time and commitment from more than just Toyota.
rfk all the way
I mean yes. It's a great concept with no infrastructure to enable it.
It would be like saying "did trains deserve to fail?" if we NEVER built train tracks lol. Hydrogen is incredibly abundant but incredibly costly to capture, so hydrogen will never be the way forward until we fix that issue.
There are also massive efficienty issues an problems with transportation and storage in material physics that do not have a real solution.
All while development in battery and charging technology is advancing at lightning speed.
Imagine if we were able to make electrolysis efficient enough that the car could run hydrogen through the fuel cell and capture the H2O on the backend and reprocess it back into hydrogen on board. Imagine if that process could run off solar panels on the roof. But at that point, it would probably be a better solution to just store the solar energy in a battery instead.
@@Kevin_2435 it always comes back to the fact that it would always be easier to just use the electricity to drive the car directly. Hydrogen is just an unnesecary step.
@rogerk6180 no sir, I can tell you with great confidence that battery technology and production is one of the biggest issues we are facing and will become a severe problem if governments keep forcing EVs onto consumers.
(But hey they gotta get that insider trading somewhere🙄)
@@rawkfist-ih6nk you being confident doesn't make it true though.
If you could do the green hydrogen process as Jerry The Science Dude described, I imagine that rather than letting the water leak out onto to road, it might not be a bad idea to recapture that water to at least minimize the need to drain a clean water source. This could be useful in some places where access to clean water (not sure how clean it has to be clean for electrolysis to work) may be limited. Thinking maybe like Las Vegas or other desert areas.
The biggest problem with hydrogen is that storage and transportation require much more energy. Compared to an EV, you're just adding extra steps. Why bother compressing hydrogen and transporting it in specialized vehicles and feeding it into complex power cells to generate electricity when I can just plunk down solar panels and run a standard 12-gauge cable to a charging station? At the end of the day, it's still using electricity to power a vehicle. Hydrogen adds unnecessary middlemen.
it allows for energy storage during peak times
@@davegarneau The same can be done with battery EVs plugged into the grid. Overload on wind/solar (whichever is cheapest in the area) and then dump the excess peak power into EVs, get it back at times of high demand/low production. Its not like cars are always out on the road, most times they'll be parked
Biggest downside is shortening battery lifetime, but biggest upside is that you could be paid by the electricity provider to provide the storage service, essentially the electricity provider would be renting your batteries
In exchange it's much faster to refuel, lasts waaay longer than a battery, is not as ridiculously heavy as a battery, doesn't rely on tons and tons of rare metals (per car) and can't explode / be on fire like an EV can, because there's only so much oxigen in the air the pressurized hydrogen can burn off on, so worst you could get is a little fire coming out of what is essentially a propane tank.
It's just a much more elegant storage solution for energy than batteries.
@@hiya2793 as nice as you made that all sound, mega conglomerate companies like big oil and Toyota don’t want want you to have energy independence.
They want you to stay dependent on them to supply the fuel and everything that goes with it, at a cost to you, and a profit to them. And they will spend enormous amounts of money to disuade you from making sound and rational choices for your own benefit, so they can keep milking you (and others) for money.
The moment you realize you can reduce or eliminate your dependency on endlessly buying and burning a fuel that only they can make, and that you can make your own fuel, practically anywhere, store and use that energy renewably, they lose and you win.
And they will spend lots of money on marketing and propaganda to disuade people from the thing they fear most: your own energy independence.
All of my appliances, heat pump, stove, dryer, vehicles, etc are powered by the same electricity generated by my panels and by my batteries when the sun goes down. I am not affected by grid power outages, and my home powers and refuels my vehicles cleanly, silently, and sustainably. *By contrast I can’t make or store my own hydrogen fuel.*
As long as the sun shines, the earth has an abundance of energy that can be captured, stored, and used cleanly, locally, and sustainably. On the flip side, it requires a *huge* amount of energy to create the fuel needed to power a FCEV, making them far less efficient and far more expensive to power compared to a BEV.
Despite billions of dollars poured into FCEV for decades, BEV’s in a very short period of time have quickly surpassed hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by an exponential scale. Additionally, electricity is already nearly everywhere, and can be generated and stored practically anywhere. The same cannot be said for the fuel needed for FCEV’s, making them as viable and useful as corded rotary telephone. It’s only reason to exist at this point is for companies like Toyota to try and maintain dependency on its hard-to-create fuel and dependence on them to maintain the vehicle. There’s no upside to the consumer.
Hydrogen is light, much lighter than batteries. It doesn't make much sense for cars, but for anything larger - where you could easily store multiple tanks of it - it starts looking better. Trucks, trains, ships, maybe even airplanes.
I see these all over the Bay Area. Didn’t know these customers were so upset.
I'm also in the bay area and the Valero on my street is the ONLY hydrogen pump this side of town, so ofc when these came out, so many people lined up and down my street for the *singular* pump that was installed. On the busiest day the line would be 15-20 cars long just waiting to use one "pump" while blocking access to the gas station from that side.
I definitely think that hydrogen is the future although right now it is dependent on full scale renewable electrification. As soon as we have a surplus of electricity in the power grid that could be used to create hydrogen in its useful form there really isn't a need for more development. It has the potential for the ease of use with ICE cars and the environmental benefits of operating the vehicle.
Also the existence of hydrogen vehicles really makes me believe that any venture into creating electric tractor trailers is useless. On top of not having any of the drawbacks that current heavy duty electric vehicles face it also has the benefit of allowing over the road drivers to idle their vehicle whenever stopped.
Pretty sure they were throwing 0% financing at these the last year or so
I didn't know these were California only. So if you compare that with the bajillion teslas here, it's no wonder mirai customers would be upset with the infrastructure.
@@Trane434_mxyou’re in Fremont aren’t you
The Mirai or FCEVs didn't entirely deserve failure, but Toyota did. Why?
1. Toyota relied pretty much totally on third parties for infrastructure, and when they realized Toyota wouldn't sell enough Mirai's to make their infrastructure profitable, they didn't bother to expand.
2. Toyota didn't make hardly any effort to invest in green hydrogen production, so the majority of hydrogen still comes from fossil fuels, which makes it hard to consider really eco-friendly. This also kept prices high, so once you use up your free miles from Toyota, it becomes more expensive than a gas car to run.
The only reason why Tesla succeeded was because they decided to invest in the Supercharger network early on.
Ah yes, totally Toyotas fault, totally not the agenda behind the EV production ramp up. And Tesla succeeded just because they invested in superchargers. That's totally the case and you're 100% right.
@@haste953 Stop smoking whatever youre having there, lol
I'm pretty sure Tesla is in serious trouble right now with their stupid cyber trucks release. Pretty much all other car companies have battery cars now and a lot of them are much cheaper than any Tesla model.
@@Hide_and_Tweak then why is tesla still number 1 in ev sales
@@AI-qd4vb I'm not smoking anything, it's logic, tesla did not succeed just because they had better infrastructure. If you believe that you're naive. Hydrogen could've been the future but it was made it so it wasn't, it wasn't by chance or because Toyota didn't put enough money into it. Hydrogen cars just were not allowed to exist because of EVs. Blaming infrastructure is the most naive way of seeing this failure.
By my math using the numbers in the video (range, tank capacity, H2 price) it costs between 50 and 75 cents per mile to drive the car. This compares to 8 cents per mile for my Prius and 4 or 5 cents per mile for my Mach-E (charging at home, PA electric prices). Some of the H2 cost is due to limited H2 generation infrastructure but for today it's hard to make an argument in favor of hydrogen.
You can produce hydrogen via solar electrolysis (efficiency of H2 production not discussed in the video, but 60% efficient to use H2) or you can use that solar electricity to chage EV batteries directly (80 or 90% efficient).
The numbers don't add up and the primary advantage seems to be faster refueling.
You only get that efficiency if you use the solar energy to charge EVs during the day. If people charge while they're at work that's good. If they charge at night, they are using other sources of electricity that are less efficient. The question is what is more efficient and sustainable: storing solar energy in hydrogen, storing it in huge batteries or storing it some other way (i.e. pumping water up the dam).
@@jasons5916 Perhaps a big storage battery in their garage or on the grid somewhere.
The point is electrolysis isn't an efficient energy storage medium regardless of what you do with the hydrogen. Offhand I don't know the efficiency of pumped hydro storage.
It doesnt work. There was a test by some European car channel and it cost them 120 euro per 400km of hydrogen, 60 euro for petrol and 40e for EV. Nobody wants to pay that much
You should then factor in the cost of the car, a 3k dollar used economy car getting 38mpg kicks the crap out of the mach-e..
The Bill Nye reference sent me into a nostalgia spiral. Loved it.
I'm an engineer in the hydrogen fuel cell space and I can tell you that, from what I've seen, hydrogen fuel cell cars will not be viable any time soon. The infrastructure is the issue. The viable markets for fuel cells right now are back-up and off grid power systems where hydrogen is stored in large quantities or made on site. These applications prioritize constant power availability over cost, especially considering the fuel cell systems are not meant to be full time, main power systems. Eventually, when the infrastructure catches up to these back up systems, the cost of H2 will come down and H2 cars may be much more viable.
Yepp.. the hydrogen tanks in the new CRV are $30-40k each.. there are two in the vehicle. Insurance companies are going to lose their minds if we keep this up.
What you talking about? I make my own hydrogen at home.
@@RodSumner Is this hydrogen 99.9% or greater purity like modern fuel cells require? Are you compressing it to 2000-5000 psi to have any useful capacity? This is what is needed to make hydrogen reliably useful for power production. The components are still very expensive at this point in time due to the low quantities of systems being made. When the infrastructure starts to grow along with the quantities of these parts being produced, and more manufacturers joining the space, the prices will come down quite a bit.
@@RodSumnernot enough to power a car
There was a time before gas stations and a time before EV chargers. Engineers like yourself in the US, have bought these cars and found a way to produce and store hydrogen to run their entire house and all of their vehicles. The more people switching to hydrogen, the faster the infrastructure grows, the quicker we reduce dependence on fossil fuels...... (but there are those who prefer the status quo)
I'd love to see a video where gas cars are introduced to a world where electric/hydrogen cars are the norm.
Imagine you having to convince people that deep sea drilling to get a liquid that will have to be processed, transported and stored and then transported again to new fuel station that doesn't exist yet because you have an solar/nuclear powered charging station every couple miles
You may see one in the near future. The government of Japan is pushing hydrogen very hard, because Japan is surrounded by oceans. Toyota and many many other japanese companies are getting a lot of subsidies to do research and development of it. It may not make a ton of sense for cars, but it has more promise for boats, trains and airplanes (where constant EV charging and big giant batteries are less than ideal).
@@noseboop4354how does being surrounded by oceans make hydrogen more viable? You still have to split the hydrogen atom from every water molecule.
@@beanapprentice1687 salt water is easier to split. And ocean wave generated power is becoming a thing. Paring those two together and proper storage, which is also a factor they didn't explain in the video. It makes for a decent outcome
This is gold. "Duh how long did it take you to charge? I filled up my car in 1 minute!" Oh yeah, and how many hours did you have to work to pay for that?
@@MrJjuuaann11 sure, but you know how many other countries have a coastline? How does Japan have any more chance of making hydrogen work? And besides, with all that wave power you referred to, they could yet generate electricity to charge battery-electric cars. The country isn’t very large, so it’s not like Japanese people need to go on 1000-km road trips and fill up in a matter of minutes.
The advantage of hydrogen is that it does not need expensive and polluting batteries. Hydrogen can be produced in the Sahara and shipped in container ships to Europe. The tech needs to develop to make it cost effective.
A big disadvantage of hydrogen is that it leaks out of whatever container you put it in. If you were to fill your tank with hydrogen, then leave it parked for a week, you'd come back to find your tank almost empty. That is effectively a huge energy efficiency loss.
I wrote a paper on hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles in college. This video is very accurate, even down to the methods we use to produce the hydrogen fuel. Some recent news in the industry includes the accidental discovery of white hydrogen while drilling for oil. There is also ongoing research into cheaper catalysts.
Granted Japan has only recently finished developing the next gen nuclear reactors, that can sustain temperatures high enough to extract hydrogen, but can I use that paper to wipe my ass?
@@ivoivic2448 wtf is your problem?
@@SlashCampable There's probably a paper on their issues somewhere. It's long.
@@SlashCampable the projectionist is here I see.
@@SlashCampable, Probably he is out of toilet paper??😅
In Europe its a Future, we already have 150 Gas Stations, and more than 60 are Planned to Build. And Price of Hydrogen is nearly the same as Gas. You can already drive Around Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland with a Hydrogen Car without having to worry about filling up Hydrogen. And now with the new Law, every country in European Union need to build/upgrade a Gas Station to have alternatives Fuel such as Electric Charger and Hydrogen every 60km, on Highways that connect other EU Countries.
What's your native language?
I severely doubt it - All the Nordics are decomissioning their hydrogen stations not building new ones. Taking Germany (98) and France (22) out of the equation there is basically nowhere to fill up. The number of stations in Norway,Sweden and Demark has reduced by 60% over 2 years and declining- there are videos of Mirais abandoned next to decomissioned stations in Norway becuse there is nowhere to fill them.
@@TB-up4xi It just makes sense though.
Electric vehicles don't really have anywhere to go, because unless you can completely revolutionize the way we store electricity (unlikely) and fix issues with rare metals / duration of the battery / charging rate / a gigantically obscenely massive energy grid required if everyones driving EV, requiring you to basically refit the entire country-
EV's just don't really have a long term future. Hydrogen is just a much more elegant solution for storing energy.
For hydrogen, all you need is just a specialized tank on fueling stations, and a bunch of trucks with hydrogen tanks which transport it.
And you can produce the actual hydrogen right next to a nuclear powerplant or wind farm or whatever, so you don't have to refit your entire country with a ridiculously gigantic energy grid that'll have huge upkeep costs forever and ever.
@@hiya2793 electrical grids have to upgraded even if BEV is ignored. As most BEV charging happens overnight, a massive grid is not needed. Hydrogen "specialized" infrastructure costs more, to build & maintain vs grid; and that's before factoring in insurance. Norway had a H2 refueling station until June 2019. There have been several attempts to create a new one, it hasn't gone well & even the industry wants H2 generation onsite vs "bunch of trucks". That's how California mostly does it, working so well Toyota being sued by Mirai owners & Shell backed out recently.
@@RoyBoy2019 All these companies backed out because there's no money in Hydrogen.
Also "Every upgrade is the same, because the word is in it"
wat??
There's a difference between "We need to upgrade the electricity grid to add 12 new homes"
vs
"Every household has 3 EV cars, each one of which requires as much electricity as a 5-10 entire households do. So every single household has just been 30 folded in terms of electricity cost."
These two are not the same lmao. Just because the word "upgrade" exists in both of them doesn't mean they both have the same weight lol.
It takes all of about 10-15 minutes of simple Google research to get an idea of why hydrogen was never going to go anywhere as a "fuel" source, but the main points are;
1- Production - elemental hydrogen isn't found naturally anywhere on Earth, we have to make it. Our current best method of doing so st scale requires a lot of water and a LOT of electricity, significantly more electricity is required to produce enough hydrogen to fuel a single car than the amount it takes to fully charge an equivalent electric vehicle.
2- Distribution - There isn't any infrastructure for hydrogen distribution, unlike electricity which is already everywhere. Transport via truck, unlike with gasoline or diesel, is incredibly difficult due to the ridiculously high-pressure needed to compress enough hydrogen to even make transport worthwhile. Vehicles for transport of hydrogen are wildly cost-prohibitive.
3- Fuelling/refuelling - Even if you get past 1 & 2, the actual use of hydrogen as fuel is problematic on it's own. If a vehicle has a simple fuel tank, it has to be built to handle the very high pressure of compressed hydrogen as well as to ensure it's structural integrity in the case of an accident. The fuel stations would need to be similarly over-built, and transfer from the pump to the tank is quite a bit more complex than simply pumping gasoline into a tank. Extra care would need to be taken to ensure no accidental combustion takes place, as hydrogen doesn't really have any smell and the flame it produces is damn near invisible, especially during daylight. If removable fuel cells are used instead this creates it's own complications, are all vehicle manufacturers going to design their vehicles to use the exact same kind of cell? Maybe, maybe not. Regardless there would need to be some kind of fee as well as a deposit for the actual canister itself, similar to how exchanges for propane tanks are handled. Actually producing such fuel cells at scale would also be incredibly costly, and obviously the companies making the vehicles that use them would pass this cost on to the end user, as with any other such products...
At least it foregoes the HORRIBLE environmental impacts of Lithium Extraction
@@aaronlandry3934 True, but that doesn't make it better at all. It's a fact that the most obvious and significant issue that full electric vehicles have is the battery. Material sourcing is really the worst, but issues of longevity and cold weather performance are also problematic.
Having said that, if all the money that is being (and has been) spent on hydrogen was instead put into R&D for battery tech, we would be in a much better position, at least on that side of the equation. The fact that the infrastructure for, and production of, electricity can barely cope with the current number of electric vehicles is also an issue.
It isn't an energy source at all really. You split water to make water. Basic thermodynamics tells us this is not energy positive. Hydrogen here is being used as an overly complex highly flammable battery. Jerry points out we can use solar panels to create the Hydrogen but that's so silly. Solar cells are already making electricity, JUST USE THAT.
People tend to look at hydrogen as if it's just another type of "fuel" similar to fossil fuel. There's a fundamental difference between hydrogen and fossil fuel. Fossil fuel comes out of the ground packed with energy, ready to be released. As for hydrogen, we actually spend more engergy producing it than actually getting out of it. Hydrogen is more of an energy transfer and storage medium than an actual energy source and therefore, it's closer to a "battery" than a "fuel".
Now that we know it costs extra energy to produce, store and transport hydrogen and costs a lot of water to produce, is hydrogen really less environmentally impactful than lithium battery? Lithium battery's carbon footprint is front-loaded but carbon footprint follows a hydrogen car for as long as it runs
Hydrogen fuel production is significantly better for the environment, and our health, than lithium mining, extraction, and disposal. Lithium will become scarcer and price increases will happen. The same will happen to whatever other material comes after lithium. The process to make hydrogen relies on water and electrical generation, something that will be replicable until humans no longer exist. I'll say that in another way - we can make the fuel we need. That in itself is a HUGE selling point.
Infrastructure needs to be built. There wasn't infrastructure for electricity at one point. Should trains never have been built because we didn't have railroads? Should phones never have been established in society because we didn't already have phone lines all over the world? The neat thing is we already have gas stations everywhere all over the world. If we put up for the up front, very costly transitioning of regular gas stations to hydrogen stations, then we already have our hydrogen station locations already established globally. It just take the social and political will to make it happen.
High energy battery storage carries with it a lot of risks and downsides. Google Tesla car battery fires. Tesla car battery fires can be caused by a number of factors, including thermal runaway, exposure to high temperatures, improper recharging, etc. It also adds a lot of weight to the vehicle, and over time has to be replaced, very expensive, because the fuel cell efficiency makes them no longer viable.
Charging an electric vehicle takes way, way too long... and based on the nature of the process, will likely never get down to a time frame even remotely as quick as fueling with hydrogen. Charging from your house is cool, but you aren't always at your house, obviously. Having to coordinate half an hour so your vehicle can charge is a huge waste in time. A world of EV's is a world of people sitting somewhere waiting for their car to charge so they can get back to the trip they were on.
Honda had had the FCX for years now and possibly before Toyota was trying fuel cell. They were even offering a home generator that would pull the hydrogen from the air itself and would be used to fuel your car and could also power your home. That would have been nice. But of course as J.P. Morgan said “if you can put a meter on it, we’re not interested.” So NONE of those devices will EVER go into production.
If one can choose between “Solar > electrolysis > low temp storage/transport > tank > fuel cell > battery > motor” and “Solar > grid > battery > motor”, the latter will always come out more efficient.
An interesting technology, but for cars the BEV will be the best option for most people, IMO.
Yes clearly.
As far as lithium battery are a thing today the hydrogen stuff is just silly!
Not only that, but the vast majority of the electrical infrastructure is already there. Not talking about charging stations, but the fact that we already have electricity running to all modern infrastructure that any BEV can tap into to refuel. Yes it's slower but it is there right now and can serve the vast majority of people's daily driving needs.
But our grid is not expanding. We’re about to have massive issues as coal and fossil fuels are being transitioned out too rapidly to replace. And I worked on networking for solar and wind farms and unfortunately we are investing in this tech as if it’s a replacement but they are at best supplements. Meanwhile we are also reducing hydroelectric and nuclear which are the best chances we have to replace fossil fuels as they are consistent generators. Solar has the obvious disadvantage of only being able to produce full power for about 1/3 of the day and hope there’s no clouds or lingering weather and wind turbines have had so many issues that maintenance and prevention companies for turbines are making tons of money mostly from governments desperate to keep their operations going since they invested so much starting capital into very expensive turbines by the hundreds.
So I don’t think we can handle more than maybe 20% of the country converting to full time EV use without major grid overhauls which will result in nearly billions of more acres of what should be farmland being used for solar panels and wind turbines and sadly no new investments in nuclear and not much interest in hydroelectric for some reason.
@@rawkfist-ih6nk and how much solar coverage would 20% h2 fleet would need? 3x more than the electric fleet, thats for sure. 6kg h2 for mirai will require 300kWh electricity to go 300mi.
model s gets 300mi range on just 100kWh battery and still costs same as mirai at 67K.
you are using 3x more electricity with hydrogen but sure tell me all about how EVs will destroy the grid.
h2 also requires platinum and palladium which are even rarer and costlier than battery minerals
@@shresthsonkar9207 Put another way ... Hydrogen requires 3 times the area of photoelectric cells and 3 times as many wind turbines to get a fuel-cell vehicle down the road as it does to get an EV down the road the same distance. Another factor often ignored is that refining the petrol that would be required to get a petrol vehicle down the road that same distance, today uses something like half the electricity that the EV would use (because of the electricity used in the process of pumping and refining petroleum), so a switch to EV is only (roughly) half the extra demand that it might first appear (because now you're avoiding what was used to refine the petroleum).
1) Fossil Fuel to make Electricity,
2) Electricity to make Hydrogen,
3) Hydrogen to make Electricity,
4) Electricity to make Torque.
🤔
And in each step there is a loss, so what is the actual real world efficiency of a hydrogen powered vehicle. Thinking much less than advertised and seems in no way cleaner than a ICE powered vehicle.
Or the better alternative, nuclear makes power- car is charged for thousand years
As electricity generation gets more efficient and clean, so does your car, not many gas cars that become less polluting as they get older
Same concern with what it takes to make batteries for EV. I personally think that we just need to invest into these new technologies to perfect them. ICE engines have a 130 year head start with infrastructure in place. We need to give new tech a chance. That is the hard part.. hybrid is probably our option for now but I have high hopes for hydrogen. I don't think full EV is plausible unless we get a battery breakthrough.
@@bintheredoneit Power plants are massively more efficient with their fuel usage, so still very likely more efficient
We have one station in our entire town, that’s constantly going down and the next closet station is 500km away. The 2019 Mira I can’t even make it 300km range on a tank. Not to mention the tanks expires after about 10 years and all lines and tank need to be replaced. Fun car to drive, but was definitely made to make the company look good, less for the consumers.
I didnt know that the tank expires after 10 years. Why does it have to be replaced?
@@dannydaw59 Ask the crew of the Titan submarine why a carbon fibre pressure vessel needs replaced after a few years.
@@dannydaw59 hydrogen is inherently harmful to materials which contain it, it slowly causes the tank to become brittle and eventually break. Not just tanks, all parts tbh, the fuel cell, pipes and pump all have expiry date written on the fuel cap of the mirai. all this info is from user manual of mirai.
Sounds like a safety risk if any owners are too cheap to replace the parts properly. And will they ever be able to overcome the material's lifespan limitations? @@shresthsonkar9207
@@shresthsonkar9207 Also known in science fields as hydrogen embrittlement! It's something never actually talked about with Hydrogen cars.
You can get it at Servco Hawaii too. There is one station at the mapunapuna location on Oahu. You are only allowed to lease it though. Whatever sales person sold it to you has to go out and refill your tank anytime you need it within operating hours.
I lost it at “Jerry The Science Dude” 😅😂😂🤣🤣
$15K in fuel with horrible range💀💀💀💀💀💀
Someone drove 845 miles in a Mirai (56mph avg speed).
@@esaedvika hybrid camry or prius would do
@@DarkReaper-or9elI thought we were talking about hydrogen based 😂 not hybrid
@Daveeeeeeyhowyoudoing yeah but then again can't judge hydrogen as this is how it started with electric we didn't hsve the Infastructure now there is an ok one
@@DarkReaper-or9el Oh for sure. Just saying even the base range of a Mirai isn't terrible. Perfectly fine for 99% of city-dwellers.
Infrastructure availability isn't the only problem, nor is scale - the cars themselves and the fuelling are both challenges.
The car is heavy and limited in space because the tech is heavy and bulky - it's shorter range and heavier and externally larger than a model 3, while having less space for passengers and much less space for luggage, or about the same weight as a model y while having a LOT less carrying capacity. Performance is somewhat limited though this can be mitigated in various ways like being willing to use more battery for short bursts of acceleration or similar so we could see quick cars with hydrogen, if anyone spends the money to develop them.
The infrastructure problem is a big one too - because those fuelling stations are very expensive and high maintenance so even if the hydrogen itself were totally free it would still not be anywhere near cost competitive with electricity. It takes a huge amount more electricity to run a green hydrogen vehicle vs a pure EV also and while there is one seeming advantage (using electricity to create the hydrogen at times of lower grid demand, helping level the grid) this is not what actually happens - hydrogen manufacture is so expensive that they run nearly all the time to try to recoup the costs. This too is not just a question of scale as hydrogen already has many uses so is already produced in large quantities, if not for the vehicle market - though if somehow mass adoption did come along the scale would increase significantly so some gains should be made.
Refuelling itself is also not a clean sweep in favour of hydrogen - it can be very slow as depending on the specific way the station works many need a lengthy repressurisation period between cars, so the first car of the day is quicker than an EV but the second and subsequent are actually slower. With the cost to install being nearly 2 orders of magnitude higher than a supercharger (circa $2mill vs $40k) you're not going to have nearly the same level of availability so queuing is inevitable at peak times. Waiting to start fuelling also means waiting at the car, not going and having a coffee or a meal, so for long journeys even were there infrastructure in place it could (but not necessarily would depending on traffic etc) be a much harder process than with an EV.
Servicing is also an issue as you've got all the EV components plus all the fuel cell ones and that fuel cell stack will need replaced if you drive a lot of miles, much sooner than the battery in an LFP EV or even many NMC batteries. This isn't a huge issue for most people as most cars don't cover all that many miles - but given hydrogen is often compared with EVs which people often suggest are not going to last well it's worth highlighting that these have the same issue but worse. This is one area though that should improve as the technology develops further - though it's worth remembering that this is not new tech and has already had large sums of money invested in it so it'll likely be smaller incremental improvements over longer timescales rather than a rapid improvement.
People often worry about safety with hydrogen cars but I think this one is overhyped - yes, hydrogen is a pain, yes it makes metal brittle and fail, yes it burns - but it's very light and good at escaping so a leak isn't likely to result in a vapour cloud building up. The tanks are very durable and if ruptured the bigger threat is just the pressure release rather than extended burning or fiery explosion, again as a result of how light hydrogen is. There would probably have to be some slightly more stringent car inspection laws than much of the US currently employs and I have no idea what the hobby/self build market would be able to safely do. The stations themselves still have some work to do though with leaks too common. On site electrolysis should help if that becomes viable, though then you're running major electricity to sites on highways - even more work than EV infrastructure again - with about 3x the needed electricity so way worse for the grid.
All of this wall of text to say - I really wanted hydrogen cars to be a thing, but sadly can't see it being successful beyond niche / novelty vehicles unless they get really heavily pushed by legislation - and even then, I think we'll come out with worse vehicles than we would going the EV route. It has a lot more potential in larger vehicles than in small vehicles but without being viable in cars I can't see the infrastructure to serve heavy trucking becoming a reality. Big boats may be the real option.
"tech is heavy and bulky" fuel cells are fairly simple and non-complicated. But in a hydrogen vehicle you need high pressure tanks for the liquefied hydrogen, filters for the air to get the oxygen out of the air and batteries to store the energy since a fuel cell isn't really an immediate source for the motor. So you're bolting on all the existing complexity of a BEV as well. If the vehicle was much larger and a closed system recharging with electrolysis and oxygen stored separately it'd be pretty practical but wouldn't have great range.
This highlights the need for supportive infrastructure for such cars to thrive. It's clear that the transition to such futuristic vehicles needs a more structured approach.
the biggest issue with hydrogen is to 'refine'it is amazingly energy intensive, and here in Cali, all the eco policies have made any attempts at building any refinery or power plant unless it's a wind or solar, extremly hard
you can use renewables, and you have the issue of when they are produced vs when they are used. Sun is very abundant during the day when the usage of energy is not at his peak and there is no sun during the peak hours of energy consumption. So we have to come up with solutions to store the excess energy produced during the day, like getting water up some hill to have it come day in the evening to produce electricity, that's certainly not very efficient. This would be a great use case for that, generate hydrogen with it.
Yeah you need electricity to "refine it" what if we use that electricity to directly charge something so there's less energy lost?
@@taktuscat4250 because there's periods when production is much greater then consumption, it's not a flat line, they don't always match, and you don't have a way to storage that excess electricity.
Japan has it figured out already and they're not even using electricity.
@@Jeffcrocodile using electricity directly in a BEV appears significantly more efficient (almost 2-3 times) than using electrolysis to create hydrogen for an FCEV (ignoring additional losses during compression, transportation, and storage). This is because the FCEV process has multiple energy conversion steps, each with its own efficiency losses.
You have to consider all factors when talking about efficency. Producing, transporting, storing and pumping hydrogen makes it very inefficent compared to all other fuel sources or energy mediums.
Wrong. Fuel cell and water and you are good.
Look at this car that runs on electricity. When it’s electricity stored in a battery at 90% efficiency it’s BAD, when it’s electricity generated in the vehicle from fuel stored in very high pressure tanks, itself made from electricity somewhere else, at 33% efficiency it’s GOOD.
I can’t wait for my first hydrogen powered mobile phone.
It has to do with pyschology of the people. In order to oppose something, they start promoting its competitor in good light to show the former down. Same is happenning with EVs. In order to playdown EVs, people are praising hydrogen as future. The same people who hated hybrids before are now defending it as alternative to EV. So in future, they may do the same with H2. Who knows..
Thanks for the video! You can think of a fuel cell stack as basically an alternative to an ICE range extender for an EV, but a large scale actually. It's nothing more to that. The drivetrain is EV, and the vehicle still has electic motors, inverters and a battery. Of course, the capacity of the latter is substantially smaller (as modern FCs have a much greater power output than at the dawn of the technology), but still, you have that extra weight and complexity. Speaking of which, you have multiple of high pressure tanks under your butt, which is quite a safety concern. Furthermore, those are have to be made of composite - pure hydrogen can basically leak out of a metal tank through the crystal grid of the metal. It also does through the composite, but at a slower rate. So, as a FC car, basically you have an EV with a electricity generator that uses hydrogen (which is pretty difficult and expensive to produce) instead of regular gasoline/diesel, which requires top-edge complex technology to produce and function properly, as well as take up more space and weight than a ICE range extender with its auxiliary equipment (fuel tank, lines, intake-exhaust system). Only time will tell if it becomes viable, but right now the odds are drastically against the full-scale implementation of hydrogen-powered means of transportation and the needed infrastructure. Take care!
As he's my favorite all-time NASCAR driver, just gatta give Nolan a "hell yeah!" on the Mark Martin shirt!
Mark Martin Vs Dale Earnhardt races was the peak of NASCAR racing. When Dale died I quit watching.
Part of the problem is compressing hydrogen takes a significant amount of energy. This makes a lot of sense for trucks and towing as well as airplanes. Batteries make a lot more sense for smaller vehicles. Small fuel cells are also really inefficient, like less than 60%, and they're _really_ expensive. Might as well just stick a cheap internal combustion engine in there and burn the hydrogen that way.
Uhh no, an internal combustion engine would be _even more_ inefficient than a fuel cell stack.
@@beanapprentice1687that and hydrogen burns faster and hotter so your metal engine gets brittle and cracks. To modify an internal combustion engine to burn hydrogen is quite the engineering challenge. I’m also nervous about everyone rolling around in little Hindenburgs.
@@beanapprentice1687 Yeah, obviously... The point is, not by much.
@@pixiepaws99 A fuel cell is ~60% efficient. A combustion engine is ~20% efficient.
I mean, till now it isn't really a good option for airplanes either. Airplanes should be as light as possible, so putting heavy hydrogen tanks in them will diminish their payload drastically. Also fitting those kinds of tanks into planes is challenging. Usually the fuel is stored in the wings and with the need of circular pressure tanks, this will have to be put into the fuselage, rather than the wings. Sure, Airbus is developing some hydrogen planes, but they are planned to be released in 2035 and those are just the modified versions of conventional airliners like the ATR 72. The blended wing body design (which would be perfect for installing tanks and maximizing space efficiency) is still in its early stages and by Airbus estimates will only be ready in around 30 years, if they actually end up producing them, as it is only a concept.
Everyone worried that the grid can't handle EV charging, imagine if that energy went to producing hydrogen instead! Not only is the propulsion system less efficient, but you also get significant efficiency losses making the fuel itself. Maybe instead of giving owners $40k+ in incentives/fuel, they should just BEV swap the remaining cars and call it a day.
Umm the grid can’t handle it. It’s being strained as it sits now. I’m not sure how you go from EV hurts the grid but hydrogen is worse so we might as well convert all cars to EV?
@@rawkfist-ih6nkEfficiency. Hydrogen is at about 30%, BEV is at 90%.
@@rawkfist-ih6nkso your idea is to transport the energy using high pressure tanker trucks or new high pressure pipelines instead of aluminium transmission cables. Sounds great 👍🏽
@@PranavSinganapalli people fear change
gas is familiar, cables aren't
You can make hydrogen at home with the sun and water.
1:05 I'll double check, but I think that's wrong.
It depends on what you mean by "mass market" but the Honda clarity was actually in it's second generation by the time the Mirai had hit the market.
You could be correct if you meant "able to be purchased" because early FCEVs were often lease only because the manufacturers wanted them back for study.
So, small possible technicality.
3:04 I will say the fuel cell if an FCEV is less risky to work on because it doesn't store energy. If there's no hydrogen in it, a fuel cell is just a box.
Now the high pressure hydrogen is a different scenario entirely, and I f course most FCEVs have a small high voltage battery. But it's roughly hybrid sized.
1980s solutions for a 2020s problem.
OH HELL YEAH! Donut has a LPOTL fan? Glad to know you're getting your podcast inspiration from a solid place.
Came here looking for an LPOTL mentioned. Hail yourself and Scungilli Man!
@@FunkMasterWood Hail yourself!
That Mark Martin shirt is fire
As a kid, he became my favorite non-Jeff Gordan NASCAR racer because he was somehow tangentially related to WCW. I can't even remember how at this point, I just know because of that I started calling him my favorite driver.
Feel like I can relate to the fueling struggles with renewable diesel in Washington right now… main pump I use in Seattle has been out for a couple weeks now.
Its a great concept, limited by current tech. You're 100% right, that the hydrogen production adn distribution are the major pain points. All things being equal, they have a great opportunity to replace combustion vehicles. They can recharge quickly, produce water and could just replace pumps at a gas station in the future over time. But we're still quite a few years from that possible future, if at all.
They don't need to replace ICE. ICE can be converted to run on H2 directly.
Also I think the fact the government is not trying to shove hydrogen cars in our throats like they do with battery cars could make it easier to get familiar with and not force companies to invest massive amounts of money with no guaranteed results.
@@Hide_and_Tweak Yep, and keep in mind the massive amounts of subsidies, and grants, etc have gone to EV. Hydrogen tech is simply a much riskier tech to develop and invest in right now. Its way better, feasible. Practicalities can be mitigated, and improved. It doesn't happen if no one invests in it.
@@threezerol944t Germany is one of the exceptions - they have about 100 refuelling stations and plan to build 100 more.
But the cars still aren't selling. 263 hydrogen cars sold last year across the entire country. Around 2,400 on the roads in total in Germany.
So 24 cars per station.
The word "just" in your phrase "just replace pumps at a gas station" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Gasoline and diesel fuel are stored and dispensed near atmospheric pressure. Hydrogen requires 700 bar (10 000 psi) which means totally different storage tanks and distribution hardware ... and fire safety. You can't re-use natural gas distribution, either, because hydrogen leaks through practically everything, the materials and construction methods are different. Basically the only thing you can keep from the gas station is the credit card reader. Everything else, start over, and it is not cheap. We can piggyback EV charging infrastructure on top of what we already have (and that's already happening). Hydrogen requires starting from scratch.
The problem is because there's not enough hydrogen stations out there because the oil companies don't want to lose their money
It's the oil companies who pushed for hydrogen and who built the fuelling stations. It kept people within their ecosystem.
The oil companies want to produce hydrogen. It’s the government that has been subsidizing EV’s to the tune of billions of dollars that don’t want adoption. They claim to care about the environment but with the advent of the hydrogen powered internal combustion engine, the carbon footprint argument goes out the window.
You cannot claim to care about human rights and the environment, then turnaround and say you want EV’s instead of the new hydrogen powered cars with traditional engines.
It isn’t a coincidence that as soon as these hydrogen cars came onto the market that stations went offline. Stations in California that are controlled, in part, by government.
The kickbacks from lobbyists in EV legislation is huge and that’s what we are seeing.
@@Ericsaidful when you mention the downsides of EV, are you mostly talking about E-waste and child slaves mining for cobalt? i never heard about toyota mirai until today and it's pretty neat. im impressed with toyota for even attempting that. of course i myself drive an altima (a high end sports car produced by nissan)
@@violarulez Slave labor, electronic waste, and just the overall C02 footprint. The crossover point in emissions doesn’t even occur until after 100,000 miles between an electric and gas vehicle. Most people who can afford a new electric vehicle are going to trade it in before that mark, and a new battery will be needed before then.
I also don’t see climate change as an existential threat. Where I live now was under the ocean in the last few thousand years, a few thousand years before that the shoreline was out 30 miles away from where it currently is.
But I’m going to make a prediction, this year is the 14th year of the solar output cycle. We are in a solar maximum right now and I imagine temperatures will return more so to normal over the next few years. Of course scientists will say it’s because of emissions reductions but the reality is that it will be due to the suns cycles.
Again, climate change is happening, but it’s always happened, and humans have survived and even thrived over several massive changes.
Maybe if it got the excessive push by the gov and immense founding it would go somewhere
In major cities of India, you can find a lot of cars running on CNG (Compressed Natural Gas). Almost all cabs and buses run on CNG in cities like Delhi, India. But these cars have a normal IC Engine and run on CNG rather than gasoline.
You can also retrofit your car with these CNG kits for about 600USD.
It's obviously not as cleaner as Hydrogen but still cleaner and cheaper than Gasoline and the filling process is kinda similar to how it was for the Mirai too!
The difference between CNG and H2 is the pressure required. CNG is stored between 8 and 12 bar, hydrogen needs 700 bar to have enough of it to be useful. I've seen a CNG cyllinder fail, and it wasn't pretty. Don't want to know what a 700 bar failure looks like.
You did not touch on the cost of replacing a fuel cell or their longevity. Should have made the car some feet longer to fit the hydrogen tanks.
Compressing hydrogen at the production and dispensing stages also adds to station capital and operating costs. Typical 35 MPa and 70 MPa H2 compressors cost $50,000- $140,000 each and consume 2-4 kWh/kg of electricity (compressing 20-350 bar)
Just what every home owner needs! A $150K pump to go with his solar roof. Your NOT Going to make hydrogen and fill your car at home! That was a non truth.
10K PSI is 69 MPa.
Donut frequent dumps on stuff that works much better than this.
Why are you not going to fill at home? That’s like saying no one is going to buy a $80k+ Tesla. Yet now they are everywhere and not 80k.
@@gabrielrousseau_NM To fill at home you will need a solar roof, maybe battery, and the compressor. Just skip the compressor and go BEV.
@@danharold3087 Lots of things to consider. Both should be available everywhere. Hydrogen will make winter places happier.
@@gabrielrousseau_NM
BEV sales percentages have more to do with incentives than cold weather. There are a lot of BEVs in cold countries.
People are wasting money on hydrogen because it is there for the taking.
They didn't even touch how difficult it is to store hydrogen. Like the Mirai is 5,000lbs due to the tanks alone, and those tanks will loose hydrogen over time because no matter how air tight you can store hydrogen that well, it'll always leak out. "Infrastructure" isn't the limiting factor for hydrogen cars, its simply not better than EV examples or ICE examples in any way. The technology to develop it further could be used to develop the other two further for greater results.
Though battery electric vehicles are hecka heavy too
@@zzoinks yeah, but they at least make power
don't break a sweat mate. nobody seriously thought hydrogen will replace lithium cars. its just due to trade war between japan and china their government asked manufacturers to seek out an alternative to the lithium, which is controlled by china. so the hydrogen and derivatives are not better - just a way to escape china's dependance.
EVs do have battery end of life issues. Which we are simply not prepared for.
The fuel cells have end of life issues too (though its basically the same as the catalytic converters, so we are geared for it) and the tanks will need dealing with at some point (but again we have things there already), but EVs batteries don't have an end of life plan and it is something we haven't dealt with since consumer electronics started using batteries.
@@smalltime0This is false lol. Almost all EVs batteries are rated for above 200k miles or 7+ years. You’re insured in case the battery goes bad before the expected time you’d replace your ice vehicle
If the cleanest way to get fuel is to literally use electricity to separate hydrogen from oxygen, why not just use an electric powered vehicle. You are just adding an extra step in the middle. Plus if we had more efficient solar panels that made the process cheaper and easier, the process to charge way more efficient electric cars would be cheaper too. The only offset I can think of is the lack of battery cells, and to be fair, batteries are incredibly harmful to the environment, so potentially that is an effective argument.
It isn't really a problem with passenger cars. It's a problem with semis, cargo ships and airliners. No ones even thinking about the latter two and the semis could actually have the economics set to want fleets of lithium ion semis which would completely trash passenger car prices. Again it's not a problem with coming up with the lithium in the worlds supply it's in the technical details about the scale of these industries. Individuals will not buy enough of these cars fast enough to justify scaling up production. This is why I argue for building out catanary wires now making it a much more obvious switch for commercial vehicles. It's be incredibly expensive and obviously we should be building more trains too but it'd be far more effective than letting capitalism shit itself over and over. The third of all farm land currently going to ethanol could be considered for cargo ships. Airliners would require an even more expensive synthfuel. Good luck Earth.
And now honda is trying the same with semi trucks, huge fuel cell behind the cab adding extra weight to it, its a day cab truck as well, so it'll be roaming in the 32k lbs weight plus the load it picks up it'll immediately shoot it over weight fast
Ever since Tesla decided to build a robust charging network alongside their cars, and properly maintain that network, it was game over for hydrogen. Simply because of the cost to implement the infrastructure supporting each of these vehicles and improve upon it.
This comment is slept on!
nah, EVs have a hard limit because power drain and limited resources and we are close to it, hydrogen cars could be made with the exact same tech as ICE cars.
Also when making Hydrogen from water you need 3 kW of electricity for every 1 kW of Hydrogen produced making BEV 3x more efficient.
Tesla was able to do that because the US government gave them money to do so. But yes, their charging tech and facilities is leaps above hydrogen stations and other types of EV chargers.
I think the best way to own an electric car is to have a charger at home, so you can charge your car overnight before your commute, or having a level 2 charger at your workplace where you can charge for free.
@@soldat88hun hydrogen and ICE has a hard limit on efficiency
As a mechanic in baltimore, I HAVE NEVER came across a hydrogen car and I'm quite upset about it. I find them fascinating
I find that there's 3 types of a car person. The not really a car person, but pretends to like them to look manly or cool. The "car person" that likes only one type of vehicle, or specific types of engines, or a single manufacturer. There is also a true car person, those who appreciate every type of innovation or quirks in any car, they will take time to analyze every car they haven't seen before, and will comment on unique ways someone tackled a specific problem.
Thank you for being one of those, electric, piston, diesel, hybrid, wankel, hydrogen... They are all fascinating!
because they freeze
City fleet vehicles have them. We have almost no public pumps though.
Say “Aaron earned an iron urn” right now
@@LingLing1337WE DONT ALL TALK LIKE THAT. it’s mostly the kids from over west that don’t annunciate their shit. We all do say balmore though
You would probably need some sort of pump heater for New England weather
Your vibe is infectious, love watching your content!
The "brutha euueh" at @ 16:36 made me wake up the whole house laughing
Main disadvantage of this vs any EV (leaving aside the lack of infrastructure, insane cost of hydrogen and low power) is missing the option of charging/refuelling at home (it is super convenient to leave home every day with a full "tank" and never visit gas stations). Majority of people charge their EV where it parks most of the day and rarely visit DC chargers. Batteries will most likely stay for the personal transportation, but hydrogen could make sense in trucks, buses and other larger vehicles, where large tanks are less of an issue and refueling needs to happen relatively fast en route.
Why do you need to charge at home when Hydrogen can be refuel as fast as a normal gasoline vehicle nowadays.
@@martinqizeaq Cause its easier, cheaper and you even has a chance to do it with your own solar panels
@@martinqizeaq because people go to home to rest and sleep after work, they dont sleep at gas stations????
@@shresthsonkar9207 wth do you mean by that. You think ice cars sleep at gas stations?
@@martinqizeaq people come home and park their cars which charge while they sleep overnight. If the commute is short, they may even be done by the time one eats dinner - as in my case.
Home charging is done because it is convenient and the car is already going to stay parked there for 12h+
And because it is free for me with home solar. Why would I pay $200 for 300mi when I can pay zero for EV charging?
4:51 sponsor skip
Hydrogen has no infrastructure and just plain expensive
So are EVs. Swapping a fuel station to hydrogen is a lot cheaper than building car lots for fast chargers. Our infrastructure can handle hydrogen, not so much for EVs.
So is carbon influenced climate change.
@@vr6one How is it cheaper? You cant use the same storage tanks, the hydrogen has to be under very high pressure. You have to literally swap out every piece of equipment. All that and you are still effectively driving an EV. Not to mention you have build the same amount of hydrogen stations. I have an EV and I have used a fast-charger once in the last year.
@@LoganX00Yeah and the energy that is needed to collect and liquify hydrogen is intensive enough and it's much better to just directly charge something off of it
@@LoganX00ev is only “green” when you charged it with renewable energy which isn’t always available hydrogen can be made any time there is more power available then used and later be put in your car
- "It's an infrastructure problem."
- ok, so not in the US.
Honestly, hydrogen-powered cars are a much more advantageous option than battery-powered ones. Of course, today there is the problem of the difficulty of finding a hydrogen pump, but this is only a matter of incentive.
When you think about the ease of recharging, especially considering long trips, they are better. Likewise, they don't have the problem of batteries getting bad as you use them in the long run. And also, there's the issue of weight, a hydrogen cylinder is much lighter than a battery with the same capacity.
And they also have a structural advantage for the city. The increase in battery-powered cars can generate several problems in the grid of a city, since it was not planned to have this high voltage demand coming from several homes at the same time. Hydrogen is a counterpart, it can be produced in plants on the surroundings of the city near substations and then distributed to the city's pump stations, not generating an overload on the city's electrical system, and avoiding long-distance transport, as in the case of fossil fuels that need to be extract from specific places.
Recharging an EV on a road trip is easy (as long as there are sufficient charging stations - and we, collectively, are working on that). Pull off the motorway, plug in, tap the phone or RFID card if the vehicle doesn't do it automatically (simple), go have a coffee. When you come back, the car is good to go. YES, there's a ways to go, in both the number and reliability of charging stations - but it is improving, and rather quickly.
The Mirai is a 5000 lb vehicle. The new just-announced Chevrolet Equinox EV is a 4800 lb vehicle and the real world range is probably going to be about the same, and I betcha the Equinox has more interior space. Fuel cells aren't light, and the 700 bar (10 000 psi) pressure in the storage tank restricts their size and shape and makes them awkward to package. The Mirai has a huge central tunnel and the rear seat bases are high up (low rear seat headroom) because there's another tank underneath there. Awkward interior packaging.
Battery tech is improving, too.
@@bikeaddictbp You say this as if all EV charging stations are fast charger. Most aren't, and outside of the big urban centers good luck trying to find one.
On a day-to-day basis, it's fine, but for those who like to take a long road trip it's unfeasible. After all, a full charge in a standard charging station takes about 3h. So if you want to put on the charger, have a coffee, and go, you'll have to stop at each station on the way to have a coffee. Because your car won't charge even 5% of the battery in that time.
@@ZizoMass No issues in Australia, I drove the 1200mile round trip Sydney to Melbourne 3 times between Christmas and the end of February. It was both faster and cheaper in my EV than my previous ICE car - 2 x 20 min stops in each direction is all it takes, I would stop 2 times no matter what car I am in to eat and use the bathroom - by the time I'm done I have plenty of charge to continue.
There are very few distinations, even in a very large and sparsely populated country like Australia where I couldn't even find a 50kw charger (the slowest paid public charger available) - the vast majority of public chargers are 120kw to 350kw chargers, the slowest 50kw charger would give me enough to continue in about 45min not 3 hours, 3hours would be a Level 2 charger like a free destination charger at a hotel meant for overnight guest charging.
At the extremes there are 6 fully electric cars per day (4300+ annual crossings) traversing the Nullabor in Australia in each direction, if you are unfamiliar with this location look it up.
@@ZizoMass When you're going on a roadtrip with an EV you'll obviously only be using the fast chargers.
Wtf is this 3 hour charging station you're talking about?
Last summer I drove 13,500 kilometers through Europe with my Tesla model 3. EV fast chargers are everywhere, it's just no longer a problem.
They still need batteries, so no benefit in longevity - the opposite is true. The tanks only have a 10 year lifespan, they actually have a expiration date stamped on them. Neither are they lighter, the tanks + battery+ fuel cell is heavier than a pure EV. the Mirai is heavier than a Tesla model 3, with less space and range.
Good and balanced video. No useless bashing, pros and cons clearly outlined. Well done guys
I read about a guy here in North Carolina that bought a hydrogen car from California and uses solar to create the fuel. He's a big proponent for the fuel, but the east coast has laws about moving tanks of hydrogen through tunnels and double stacked bridges. That keeps those cars from spreading easily here, but as my son said when I told him about this, "but car tanks full of gas are ok?". I'd like to see this technology spread, but I'm sure some people wouldn't like the idea of people making their own fuel at home (who's going to buy the slurpees?).
Just use the solar to charge your EV battery. Safer and more efficient, and you can charge any where where there is a plug.
Have you ever seen a gas leak vs a hydrogen explosion? Takes a lot for a big kaboom to happen with a gas car, but something fails or pierces that 10,000psi hydrogen tank...KABOOM
@@budderbear I have seen crash tests of those hydrogen tanks, they can take a full on impact from a semi and still not puncture.
Using solar to make hydrogen to fuel a car seems stupid, when one can eliminate the "making hydrogen" step, and just use solar to charge a car directly.
@@budderbear Plus the flame of hydrogen is colourless, so you cannot see it.
The problem with green hydrogen: once we have clean electricity to do hydrolysis, why not hook it up to the grid and use it to run EVs instead? Efficiency is nearly 100% and it builds on existing infrastructure. Green hydrogen may have industrial applications in the future, like steel making, but not transportation.
Hydrogen is a great way to store and transport energy....
@@Tallnerdyguy the only issue is that it has massive storage and transportation problems. Mostly the fact that it is hydrogen, the smalles molecule in existence and that no other material can hold it inside itself without leaking out to the atmosphere.
@@rogerk6180 it's still more efficient to store than in batteries that lose charge and wires that have resistance
@@Tallnerdyguy no it just isn't.
In Peter's voice. "Why are we not funding this?"
Because it sucks, that's why.
The garbage quirks of a gas engine and the garbage quirks of an EV and it's own unique garbage of hydrogen.
Toyota needs to get a grip
Hydrogen has this problem called containment. Being the smallest atom it will just leak overtime. It also has the lowest energy density per volume. If you do make liquid hydrogen you must keep it very very cold and under lots of pressure.
Because generating electricity to create hydrogen to create electricity to power a car will always be more inefficient than just generating the electricity and using it charge an electric car’s battery directly.
Doesn't the video exaplim why not pretty well?
My dad recently got a 2021 model for around 17k. I don't know how it compares to other new-ish cars around 17k, but I felt it was a very good car for the money. we will definitely have to re-evaluate after his $15k/3yr fuel card expires, but I feel very safe letting my elderly man drive this car with all the safety features and cameras. It's not spacious bc off the tanks, but it's not cramped and claustrophobic either.
It's not fast like a Tesla, but it's quiet and comfortable like one. 10/10 would recommend for a daily driver, but prepare to rent or have an ICE if you want to go on road trips.
The biggest benefit of an EV over this, is that you can get an EV charger installed at your home, or even just plug it into a regular outlet. Can't do that with hydrogen
Im curious as to what the infrastructure is like for this thing in Japan 🤔
you can google...
@@ivoivic2448 no you google and tell us, I'll be back in one hour and you better have all the answers!
@@ivoivic2448no
The infrastructure is nonexistent because people use trains or EV. Hydrogen cars are awful
its funny how companies compare sales to previous years but the year aint even over yet
We must immediately beat the previous record!! Growth is so important!!
I think vehicle years are different they go from june to june
Model year ≠ Fiscal year ≠ Calendar year
Japans ki or year is April to April not January to January
I've never wanted a Maserati. But this guy is a good salesman. He managed to make a Maserati sound reliable.
Imagine thinking hydrogen cars are the way to go when there are so few hydrogen stations and literally every building and every house is already wired for electricity. You have to produce electricity in order to make hydrogen. Why add a step when you can just send the electricity directly to the car? You’d still have to drive to a hydrogen station to refuel too so it would be no more convenient than owning a gas car is. Do people just really like having to drive somewhere to refuel their cars?? Makes no sense to me. Most people buy their cars based on cost of ownership and ease of use. People want convenience and nothing will ever be more convenient than having a car that can refuel at your house while you’re asleep.
I think it’s funny that the same people who say EVs won’t work because there aren’t enough fast chargers also push for hydrogen cars. I’ve had an EV for five years and have yet to use a public charging station. Let’s just admit that you only want hydrogen cars because they still have an exhaust pipe so they can make noise if you want them to. Because the hydrogen infrastructure will never be as vast as our electrical infrastructure already is right now and you’d never be able to refuel a hydrogen car at your house while you sleep.
"But why would I ever want to spend 5 seconds every night plugging in my car at home, instead of the much more convenient once a week driving 10 minutes to a hydrogen station, filling for 5 minutes, then driving back???" - HFC proponents (probably)
@@chrisc1140 and while sitting in a land barge with less interior space than an econobox
really is it even more practical for long trips as they claim? they are visibly annoyed by the interior layout, surely it can't be comfy for a cross country trip. Not like you can do one in an FCEV anyways due to lack of filling points, compared to tens of thousands of DCFC stations.
Not to mention the pisspoor boot space, ensuring that you never make a road trip in that car even if you have stations on the way. 320L on a full size sedan is a joke. just get a model s for 70K, 300mi range, 750L boot, and a performance which needs no introduction
@@shresthsonkar9207”it gets more range than EV”
💀 yeah mainly because almost all car space goes to the hydrogen tank. could make a 1000mile range car if they dedicated that much space to a battery.
@@paroxysm6437 exactly
I really searched for "hot cars" 🤣🤣
PLEASE, 5 CATFISH PER FISHERMAN...C'MON MAN.
The Gen 1 Mirai is a smaller car with a slightly larger interior because of the additional fuel tank. They really should piggy back on CNG for the fuel cell. There is substantially more infrastructure around the Compressed Natural Gas. The larger problem would be the pressure differential. CNG is typically at 3600 PSI vs 10,000 PSI for Hydrogen.
Being able to charge your car at home at night when when power costs are cut is just way to convenient. Hydrogen is cool and all, but its pretty inconvenient.
Do not my friends get addicted to (exhaust) water, it will take hold of you and you will resent it’s absence!
You can say lack of infrastructure for the hydrogen cars, but, we have a lack of infrastructure to support EV's. Our grid system cannot handle the energy demand that the EV creates
I forgot how much I enjoyed Jerry dishing out the engineering summaries. He needs his old show back.
Jeremiah tapping his fingers together like a “villain” always gives off creep vibes 🤣
The mirai did not deserve the hate that it got
A slow, very heavy, very expensive car that you can't drive anywhere?
@@drunkenhobo8020bingo at least I can drive my ev cross country sure it takes longer but at least I can 😂
would be cool with proper advertisement and if it was cheaper
no even then the lack of infrastructure and high costs of hydrogen it unfortunately does not make it worth it
No amount of advertising will make this car a true success until the infrastructure gets built. The problem is the infrastructure is more expensive than even building a new EV charging station is
I could see this doing well in Japan which was its intended market (long story short there isn’t enough electricity to charge electric cars in Japan, so hydrogen is their solution) Japan is a relatively small country so it would be easier to install infrastructure compared to the US. This could also work is similarly sized countries such as Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, etc
Only problem is that Japan (and the vehicle manufacturers) thought about the "using" side of the hydrogen situation, but they never thought about the "producing and distributing" side of it. If they're short on electricity generation capacity for EVs, they're really, really short on hydrogen production capacity if they want to do it in an environmentally tolerable manner.
Technology is still extremely experimental, toyota themselves say the car is a "pre production" so saying its failed is stupid because it hasn't even started yet
One thing that isn't talked about often is how we source the H2. Most H2 is sourced from Natural Gas making this just as much of a fossil fuel. Sure it burns clean but the process of getting that H2 isn't clean.
"Green Hydrogen" isn't sustainable or efficient at all.
So Hydrogen cars are EVs with more complexity and less room? EVs are simpler, and clearly won this war. The Anti-EV propaganda from Big Oil is crazy effective though, people think its cool to diss an electric motor and battery. Weird.
I am a fire fighter, in the fire house we are very heavy on tradition and very anti change. For example the basic fire helmet that commonly wore by many fire department such as the FDNY is extremely old and out dated in fact newer helmets are arguably much safer however I and many other fire fighter still refuse to swap out for those safer helmets despite logically it being the better decision, but some times you just can't change the mass's opinion. Their something about gas cars that I and many others love it has to long of history for many to accept it. It's not propaganda. Add in the reasonable concerns about the car it not going to ever replace the gas cars.
EV will never work for such a long time worldwide, unless they managed to beat the efficiency of going into a station and get a full tank in 5 min
13:30 I don't know, but I do know it has a replaceable fuse, a separate ground and neutral (mainly for older appliances that needed it), the ground pin is now used as a safety feature for little shutters on +/- in sockets (outlets), it fits behind a cabinet quite well as it's pretty flat... Oh, and it hurts like &*!? when you stand on it at 6 am. (type G plug btw) :)
Oh, also a British dude made a plug in 1883. What a mad lad. American plugs are pretty cool too though, they look cute.
Something yall missed is that Toyota made the Murai for Japan. Japan can’t get much petrol/gasoline because of them being an island. To add, they have many outages due to struggle with electricity. Thus hybrids being the best in Japan efficient wise. So they tried hydrogen but not enough infrastructure is the main failure behind these. Still doesn’t make sense as to why they brought these to California
This is something people don't look at. And slave labor, mining destruction, etc to make EV batteries. The "bigger" picture.
This is something people don't look at. And slave labor, mining destruction, etc to make EV batteries. The "bigger" picture.
their electricity woes are their own undoing, shutting down nukes and not investing enough in solar and wind. seeing the amount of hot springs in japan, one would think they exploit geothermal like the icelandics, but they dont
@@shresthsonkar9207 I don't think they have the land to support solar and wind. Shutting down nukes was due to world fears from my understanding. Geothermal sounds cool, but would it be able to support Japan's population. Iceland population isn't huge compare to Japan.
I still believe in this car as the future of car. Mirai is still the future. I hope Toyota doesn’t give up on it.
Why did I keep seeing a donut media Allstate ad while watching this
Because fuel cells operate as electrolyzers if you run current through them directly, it begs the question: why not have FCVs that plug in and electrolyze their own H2 and O2 when they do?
The result would be indistinguishable from a driving experience standpoint from a full battery EV but without the lithium overuse.
There's a few issues with that.
1. FVECs still need batteries to store the output of the fuel cell, so they still need Lithium.
2. Lithium is pretty common and easy to get (you can extract it from sea water), it's other metals like cobalt that make batteries so expensive.
3. Fuel cells require platinum, which is very expensive and hard to get.
4. (This is the big one.) Hydrogen is just an inefficient battery anyways. Turning electricity into hydrogen and then turning it back into electricity wastes a lot of energy compared to just using the electricity directly. Because of this, FCEVs will _always_ be much more expensive than BEVs to run.
4:58 When you get your own Bill Nye intro, youve made it!
Thanks Big Brain Jerry!