I love how Jason gave me hope at the beginning of the video, then ripped my heart out and kept destroying it meticulously into little pieces as the video went along. Very informative though! 😂
The problem is… … if we had to stop creating gasoline/diesel ICE today, the copper & rare earths for batteries becomes a bottleneck for any battery cars & H2 fuel cell cars (ignoring issue with electrical generation & transmission) … if we had to to stop creating gasoline/diesel ICE today, H2 ICE could replace it with relatively little effort (ignoring issue with H2 generation & transmission) The electrical grid issue for EV’s is a huge nut to crack. The spikes in power usage, around rush hour & when people get home, will be immense. Massive local batteries can be used, to mitigate, but that wipes out carbon footprint benefit EV’s offer. Not enough attention is given to this. The hydrogen generation problem is significant, but can be addressed in many ways, from natural gas being used with H2 mix & transport over existing natural gas pipelines, replacing natural gas infrastructure with H2 piping as mix levels grow too high, transportation via truck to fill up sites like existing gasoline/diesel, to local H2 generation (using local solar & wind) into local hydrogen storage, slowly over time, for rapid fill ups. No technology is perfect, but locality & availability & supply chain issues & temporary storage issues must all be considered.
LOL if anyone stops to think, the amount of atmospheric hydrogen you'd have to bring along in the balloon probably has enough buoyancy to life the whole damn car! Mount a prop on it, and fly, fly, fly awaaaaaaaaay.....
@@DavidHalko did you not watch the video? The entire video was about how storing enough hydrogen in an H2 ICE car for long range is impossible. If people are willing to cut their car’s range to a fifth of what it was originally, then they might as well get a short range EV. In fact, if more manufacturers started selling affordable short range EVs, then there wouldn’t be such a demand on batteries as there is currently, which would alleviate the problem you mentioned.
i have a solution which is both perfect for safety and storage space: instead of storing the hydrogen inside the body of the vehicle, you pump it into a giant baloon which you then attach to the car by hose, that way as you drive around the baloon just floats above your car and in case of car crash it just detaches and flies away perfect
Dragging mini hindenburgs without crossing their feeding cables in rush hour, with excellent buoyancy control to keep them a cruise altitude and without extra dragging to the vehicule, yeah it seems legits.....
The fact that they developed it even though it doesn't make much sense, gives me hope. Putting the work, effort and money into an idea that doesn't guarantee profit is something we don't see often these days.
The problem is when physics says you can't be successful. I recommend to first check if success is one of the possible outcomes according to the laws of physics, and then trying to build something within that framework.
It does make sense once you understand how limited Japan is in terms of electricity generation, their unique location puts them un a bad spot that's why they bet on hydrogen and that's why they bet on nuclear. Just because a solution can work in some places doesn't mean it can work anywhere
@@F14Goose37 Being paid to do something doesn't automatically make you right, as someone else said hopefully they knew this and only wanted to develop it for the enthusiast market, it is well known ICEs powered by hydrogen would never be practical
You are very very good at the job of fully explaining this issue with NO CONFUSION! Kudos! to you, sir. Thank you so much. Please keep up the great work. It is very appreciated.
I was surprised. When i looked at my engine on my Toyota Celica GT-Four, with a 3SGTE engine, one of the most powerful engines Toyota has made. It said "Yamaha" on it! Yamaha created the engine... I didn't know that!
So we still come back to either gasoline or diesel - battery hybrid as the most affordable, practical, safe to use and available anywhere with no exotic storage requirements or unavailable fuel infrastructure as a still the most common sense solution for now to move the world.
When I was a kid in my High School engineering class (circa 1985), we watched videos about plastic engine parts in Pintos and Hydrogen ICE, and I thought for sure it was the future. I always wondered why it never came true until I found EE years ago. I still love learning about energy technology, and Jason never lets me down with his channel, making fun videos that explain the math behind what he is talking about.
Yes, futurism, the belief that all problems simply need time and "smart people" working on them to be solved, is a fallacy. Smart people working on a problem can tell you what will _not_ work, and they should be listened to. Of course, that is not to imply that optimism and hope should be eliminated from the scenario, but levity is key.
I agree with your conclusion. My only comment would be that the hatchback in the visual bucket display has a 14-15 gallon gas tank underneath, so approx three of the buckets would take up that space, and not be in the hatch area.
That would have eliminated the 3 buckets he had to lay on top of the others. Remove those, and a driver could almost see over the rest of the storage tanks.
One of the biggest fallacies of the "zero emissions" claim of a hydrogen powered internal combustion engine is that it totally ignores the fact that NOx will still be produced. NOx is a major component of smog and precursor of acid rain. Only claiming zero emissions for carbon is disingenuous. You need to look at the entire story.
Nox does not cause smog, its a clear odourless gas. And in pretty sure in my high school science class we were shown sulphur dioxide needed to be mixed with nox to create acid rain.
@@DanielDaAbadSukarno If you use it in a fuel cell, no NoX. If you use it for combustion, like the Toyota engine, you have NoX. Please read the comment again and see that I was referencing IC engines.
I actually rode in one of those hydrogen 7 Series at the Frankfur motor show. Because the hydrogen eats up oil, the engine more or less ran unlunbricated. therefore it made a horrible rattling sound and had to be rebuilt constantly. Not to mention the fact that all the weight from the colossal hydrogen tanks made it the slowest V12 car on the planet...
@@0TheLastLoneWolf Thank you for your kind words. Like I wrote (reading is hard, I know), hydrogen is highly corrosive and it eats up all the engine oil as the two come into contact with each other. So no matter how big your oil sump, the second your lubricating oil makes contact with hydrogen in the cylinders, it breaks down. This is why the Hydrogen7 still had a few grams of CO2-emission: because of the lubricating oil that is being eaten away by the hydrogen and spewed into the exhaust system.
One of the other drawback of high pressure storage it the limited life expectancy of the tanks. They must be inspected at a service interval and then scrapped when they reach specified age.
I would point out that the three tiny fuel cells in the Mirai is a relatively inefficient means of storage in terms of space, and is not a great benchmark for a method of storing hydrogen. It's bad data to extrapolate from. A larger vessel would be more efficient in terms of space because the three cells have redundant walls. I also find using the 21 buckets in the hatchback comparison a little problematic because you're not using counting for the existing fuel tank in the car. You can cut at least 3 gallons out of the equation, assuming there's a 15 gallon tank underneath. And, as other have pointed out, we can do a whole hell of a lot better than 19MPG on hydrogen, so while it may not be feasible to get 300 miles of range with sports car performance, you can certainly get a car with 300 mile range on hydrogen. That's not to say there aren't salient points and valid concerns, but I"m not throwing hydrogen by the wayside just yet. Trucking, for example, is going to be incredibly difficult to do with EVs because the batteries have to be so large that their weight becomes counterproductive. There's a much stronger chance they go hydrogen, which means the infrastructure should go up while costs go down.
The three hydrogen tanks in the Mirai demonstrate a well-optimized method of packing the hydrogen into a car body. Larger tanks would dramatically decrease the usable space inside the vehicle.
I would be interested to see the storage needs for a 4 cylinder turbo engine. Presumably, on a vehicle which a 4 cylinder would adequately power, there would be less fuel needed for the same driving range. We shouldn't despair that there's not a perfect hydrogen option yet. We're making progress.
I have not studied the data on the subject, so I'm not sure whether turbocharging is viable for hydrogen ICE. Recall that a turbocharger on a gasoline ICE relies on a certain flow rate and pressure coming down the exhaust manifold, consisting of inert atmospheric nitrogen just passing through the system, water vapor, and carbon dioxide. The intake fuel flow rate (by mass) of hydrogen fuel is considerably lower (largely due to the fuel containing no carbon). Thus, for the same engine power output, the exhaust flow rate (by mass) will also be lower, consisting only of atmospheric nitrogen and water vapor. That would mean less mechanical energy to tap from the exhaust stream, that you'd use to run the intake compressor. TLDR: Basically hydrogen engines may not have enough exhaust flow to run a turbo. If anyone with engineering knowledge about hydrogen internal combustion engine exhaust mass, temperature, and pressure happens to scroll through here, please do leave us a word about this, now I'm very curious myself about the viability of turbocharged hydrogen engines.
@@leehenry5764 Well, we could power the intake air compressor entirely with an electric motor (and eliminate the exhaust turbine entirely). However, that electrical power has to come from the alternator, which itself is run by torque from the crankshaft. So in essence we'd be running a supercharger instead of a turbocharger (using the engine's power output to run an intake compressor). Although this would be a supercharger that takes mechanical energy from the crankshaft, converts it to electrical energy through the alternator, and then back to mechanical energy with a motor powering the intake compressor. However, generally superchargers actually reduce fuel efficiency due to the added load on the engine (in contrast with turbochargers, that draw on energy from exhaust pressure that is normally wasted anyway). So for increasing *power*, running an intake compressor with an electric motor might help... but it would be reducing fuel efficiency. (Also, each conversion from one type of energy to another will be lossy, so a fully mechanical supercharger would be more efficient than a mechanical-electrical-mechanical supercharger).
An old boss had a track record at Riverside (now defunct) in an alt-fuel class. He ran a Fiat on hydrogen with water 'injection'. He said hydrogen doesn't knock, so he ran a 16:1 compression.
This is where hybrid gas comes in. Reduce the hydrogen fuel cell to 100 miles, put a small four cylinder with a small battery and great exhaust. Same power no range anxiety cargo space back.
This is where never say never how about we try this new innovation to solve this old problem comes in. There is a solution to this problem, the problem is everyone is saying let’s just use proven tech we have today, and not even attempt to solve this this problem as it’s a waste of time.
@@Tigerex966 why? This video isn't about fuel cells (of which we have passenger cars capable of 300+ miles.) It's about how much hydrogen would have to be carried for this traditional ICE to function in a normal car. Hybrid vehicles are a decent stopgap but not attractive as they have multiple systems to maintain and fuel.
The video demonstrates the problem that's likely the most difficult to solve relating to hydrogen combustion vehicles, though there are other technical challenges. The fueling infrastructure doesn't exist, but it could. Most of today's hydrogen comes from natural gas reformation (hence, carbon emissions), but it can be made cleanly with electrolysis, if the energy source is clean. Making clean hydrogen energy requires tons of energy, but if you're able to generate abundant clean energy, it's slightly less of an issue (efficiency will always matter). Combustion inefficiency makes hydrogen driving quite costly considering it's the equivalent of paying $15/gal. Hydrogen combustion also has NOx emissions, despite no CO2 (okay, a little CO2 from engine oil). NOx is difficult to avoid with combustion engines. Realistically, today's hydrogen engines are less efficient than gasoline/diesel (meaning the bucket situation is very likely worse than shown in the video), but they haven't been perfected as much as gas/diesel. Still, fuel cells & EVs will always be more efficient. And you still need to make sure the 10,000 psi pressure vessel has a safe location in the vehicle. There are many challenges, but it's an interesting subject. Below are related videos, if you're interested in learning more! Gasoline vs Hydrogen Engine Differences - ua-cam.com/video/l6ECwRnJ0Sg/v-deo.html How Toyota's Hydrogen Engine Works - ua-cam.com/video/3IPR50-soNA/v-deo.html Mazda's Rotary Hydrogen Engine - ua-cam.com/video/U-n5L0cXcpg/v-deo.html Why Hydrogen Engines Are A Bad Idea - ua-cam.com/video/1Ajq46qHp0c/v-deo.html How Hydrogen Fuel Cells Work - ua-cam.com/video/0jnZFGx_4kY/v-deo.html
Look up AngeTheGreat's engine simulator. With a sufficiently powerful on-board computer, you could accurately simulate an entire combustion engine and the sounds it produces, and you could simulate the engine vibrations with tactile transducers in the seats. Also, you should talk about other kinds of fuel cells, like Direct Borohydride fuel cells, Direct Methanol fuel cells, and Direct Hydrocarbon fuel cells. Oh, and also the prospect of burning alkali metals (such as sodium and/or lithium) as fuel and their possible environmental impacts.
Bruh, there is literally a hydrogen retrofit system for diesel that uses a 90/10 blend of hydrogen and diesel, bolsters efficiency by 26.2% from 40%, and some conversions generate it on board. Another thing I’ve said to many people as well. As soon as you say that this innovation is impossible, it ages like milk, and the next week or 2 months, something that was supposed to be impossible is now possible.
The thing is that the hydrogen generated from the chemical industry is just burned at this point, it’s called “grey-hydrogen” because it has impurities, therefore it can’t be used in a fuel cell vehicle, the cost of hydrogen is partially the purification, if we’d switch to hydrogen combustion purification is not needed and the price will decrease
I did research in hydrogen fuel cells. Leading researcher pointed the same problems out, energy in (production of hydrogen, transportation, and storage) doesn't equal anywhere near energy out...not to mention platinum being one of the better materials to produce hydrogen with via electrolysis is insanely expensive.
Regarding cost: H may be $15/gal, but without subsidies, gas would be something like $7-10/gal. So while greater, not by many orders of magnitude. Regarding space: EVs started out having a smaller range and were fine. If refueling were as quick as gas, 200mi would be more than enough, so long as there are fueling stations. (Chicken vs egg problem, but solvable) Regarding NOx: would it be possible to use something like DEF to reduce emissions? Video Idea: explain the differences between an ICE that runs on hydrogen vs dinosaurs. It’d be amazing if it were possible to do a retrofit on existing engines. Personally, I love the idea of Hydrogen fuel. No battery packs to wear out, weight savings, ability to move the fuel in a pipeline, I think it would scale more efficiently than electricity even if at a lower well to wheel efficiency. Anything to get away from fossil fuels as fast as possible.
The World Land Speed record for an internal combustion engine was already 394mph at the time (set in 1947), so whoever those engineers were, they'd already been wrong for over a decade. (Actually over 3 decades, Henry Segrave hit 204mph in 1927)
Would have been nice if you mentioned the 2005-2007 BMW 7 still retained their gasoline tanks and were actually dual fuel in 6.0 V12. You could fill up on hydrogen, burn that to zero and not worry about leakage.
@@hollymolly518 yes I agree but think but think back in 60's when they said 4 stroke motocycles can't be powerful... or when honda bring variables timing (vtec). Hydrogen will maybe never be used. But they maybe create or discover something new.
@@hollymolly518 They keep pushing the hazards under the rug too. A 10Kpsi tank is basically a bomb. It will take an expensive tank to store it safely. But then you have the problem of car accidents. So it must further be protected from damage. Then we have the problem of fire safety. If any leaks out, the range of mixtures in air that is flammable is larger than pretty much every other gas. So it will be easy to ignite by comparison. It is good that it is lighter than air though, which will help it dissipate. With all the issues of poor efficiency from energy source to movement, the hazards and the high cost, I don't understand why we are still talking about it. The money and time would be better spent finding low cost, high energy density batteries made of readily available materials.
Research 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.
The take away from this is V8's guzzle fuel regardless of what that fuel is. It would be interesting to know exactly how big (external dimensions) the Mirai's tanks are. That would give you a pretty accurate idea of how much Hydrogen you could carry in a given car.
My 3.0 diesel twin turbo turns in 35mpg. And develops 280bhpBut yes, a big engine turning at high rpm has a lot of friction. That diesel rarely gets over 3000 rpm.
@@noonehere1793 Well it depends on the capacity. And many other things. You would be surprised how much power all that stuff driven off the serpentine belt saps. And how moving to electric power steering and cooling fans improves gas mileage. My V6 is13 years old now. The later equivalent is a twin turbo 2.2 litre straight 4 turbodiesel that develops nearly the same power but gets over 40mpg on a longer run.
The vehicles' total weight when fueled should be an indicator of how much the hydrogen tank can hold (as opposed to a gasoline powered version) as some vary slightly.
The number of cylinders is not one of main contributing factors in fuel efficiency. It’s mostly displacement. The amount of power needed and being used plays a big part as well. A v8 running at 3-4k rpm will get better efficiency than an underpowered 4 or 6 cylinder that needs to rev high to make the necessary power. Electric vehicles powered off the electrical grid is far less efficient. 61% of the electricity is from fossil fuels and 21% from coal. Lots of power is lost in transmission from oil and coal to electricity, more is lost sending it from the power plants to your house, and again more is lost charging the batteries.
Pressurized hydrogen is a pain, it's huge in volume and it leaks.. a lot... :) Storing it in hydride solid crystals works better, the problem then becomes constantly cooling the fuel tank 24/7 - which is easier in cold areas where EVs have issues... I think hydrogen cars may have a use case in cold countries where EVs are unpopular Another problem is stationary storage, which also leaks, is also high volume and is more expensive than a big underground petrol tank, so service stations have to spend a ton of money to convert to hydrogen, which they don't want to do... Natural gas engines are much more manageable...
Regarding increasing engine efficiency, any improvements to a hydrogen-burning ICE are basically the same ones that you would apply to a gasoline-burning ICE. I'm not saying there are no further improvements to be made, but engineers around the world have already been working on improving efficiency for decades already. Any further improvements are likely to be incremental. Meanwhile, something interesting about storing pressurized hydrogen is that the leakage that we're all discussing isn't just due to imperfections in our storage apparatus. Rather, the hydrogen molecule is so small that it physically behaves differently from storage of other gases with larger molecules. For example, there is a phenomenon called "hydrogen embrittlement" due to the pressurized hydrogen literally pushing its way into the atomic lattice of metal container walls. Yeah, under pressure, it actually pushes into the metal itself, and degrades its structural properties. Likewise, hydrogen permeation through materials used for storage apparatus is a problem. Adequate sealing is such an issue for hydrogen, that (unlike storage of other gases/liquids) we basically just accept a certain loss rate due to permeation.
I just saw an announcement that Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki have all agreed to develop hydrogen burning motorcycles. Toyota is contributing to the effort. I'm thinking they're probably a bit further along in solving some of the challenges using hydrogen than what us laymen know.
Hi Jason, Daimler Trucks is currently developing a semi truck with liquid hydrogen as a fuel and a fuel cell called the GenH2 with an anticipated range of more than 600 mi. A prototype is already running on public roads. I'm working for the company that developed the tank. If you need an even closer insight into the technology and why it can make sense for semi trucks hit me up.
You drove the point of hydrogen having low volumetric energy density (about 8% of that of gasoline, even when liquified, not counting the tanks themselves) home pretty well 😀 That's one of the reasons Delta Heavy is the only remaining (and not for long) launch vehicle using hydrogen as the first stage fuel. (Be sure to find a video of its launch - it is spectacular. Hydrogen initially venting from engines as they start up engulfs the whole rocket in flames - perfectly normal.) It _is_ still used in some upper stages, such as venerable Centaur, where every additional second of specific impulse gained is critical (specific impulse measures how much momentum the engine imparts on the vehicle per unit mass of propellant spent, and, yes, it is expressed in seconds if you use some consistent system of measures, such as SI.) Centaur's Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10x achieve about 450s of Isp compared to less than 300 SpaceX Merlin (propelling Falcon 9 rockets) does. Other engines, either kerosene (RP1), methane or even hypergolic fueled, are in the ballpark - RL10 gets about 50% better fuel efficiency than any of them. In addition (you perhaps did not stress this enough) hydrogen ICE has less than half of thermodynamic efficiency of fuel cell / electric motor combination. But that V8 _does_ look gorgeous! 😀
Ariane 5, H-II, and Long March 5 all currently use hydrogen in their core stages. The upcoming Ariane 6, H3, and SLS will all do the same. If you're specifically excluding anything using strap-on boosters, then Delta IV is not just the only *remaining* hydrogen launcher, but the only one *ever*.
@@lazarus2691 Yes. all those had most of first stage thrust coming from SRBs. Actually, Hydralox core was more like a second stage, 1.5 th, perhaps, so that high specific impulse requirement counts more than high volume detriment does. Thanks for clarification.
@@bazoo513 With that restriction, Delta IV Heavy is the one and only orbit-capable hydrolox launch vehicle ever built, not just the only one remaining.
"RL10x achieve about 450s of Isp compared to less than 300 SpaceX Merlin" - You are unfairly comparing the vacuum performance of an upper stage engine to the sea level performance of a first stage engine. (Rocket engines are less efficient in air than vacuum because they waste some energy pushing the atmosphere out of the way of the exhaust.) Compare the RL10 to the upper stage variant of Merlin 1D, which has a vacuum Isp of 348s. Or, compare the sea level performance of first stage Merlin 1D, 282s, to the sea level performance of a hydrogen first stage engine like RS-25 (Space Shuttle Main Engine), 366s. The real, apples-to-apples specific impulse difference is large, but not nearly as big as you make it sound.
We should figure out how to use the energy contained in the bonds of an atom to create loads of clean electricity. Imagine if we could do that. Then, maybe we could use the excess power these plants would be producing during the day when it is not needed, due to all the cheap solar on the grid, to produce hydrogen. We could call it pink hydrogen or something so as to not offend the "environmentalists" by calling it blue hydrogen.
@@F14Goose37 Can't tell if you're trying to make a joke about nuclear power here and mistated what the fission process is, or if you just have a fundamental misunderstanding of "the energy stored in the bonds between atoms"
I remember well an article on the liquid hydrogen BMW back in the day. Another important point was that the engine can't use liquid, or even high pressure gas, so it needs to be increased to low pressure. The problem is, as anyone with basic science knowledge knows, decrease in pressure = decrease in temperature. We don't want to cool the already -250⁰c hydrogen. So it needs a super complex, multiple stage decompression system just to make it usable. We are working on a fuel cell powered machine at my work. Huge potential.
Thank you for giving a visual comparison of the volume required. Every source I've seen that touts the energy efficiency of Hydrogen only talks about the energy density by weight, and ignores the space problem.
And with that determination and their expertise, they will do it eventually, against all the odds. Imagine where Hydrogen ICEs would be with the same amount of funds and time invested as EV have had.
As a fellow engineer I am disheartened of how other engineers can believe everything they see on YT. Storage is not the issue with H2 ICE...for certain applications. High NOx, is the main issue that I don't expect to be overcome soon. There should be an asterisk next to the power figure since acceptable NOx cuts power in half. Storage IS the issue for small engines however. You could consider a battery powered cryo cooler to keep your liquid H2 cold, but your overall process would be too inefficient, therefore costly. It won't work for passenger vehicles. But...ASSUMING they can overcome the NOx issue...what if you don't care about venting because you are constantly using fuel? Think long haul trucking or marine. Also large industrial machinery, mining trucks etc with extremely high duty cycles. Or race cars for that matter. H2 could be a feature of track only supercars. There are huge IFs related to H2 ICE (H2 turbines work great btw), but don't write them off based on storage. That's a red herring. Yamaha and Toyota aren't dummies. Look beyond your nose amigos.
@@2hedz77 Just for your info, I work in a marine engine factory, and I am not going to write a treaty on alternative fuels as a comment on yt. There may be a small niche for H2 ICE, even if I strongly doubt it. However, I am convinced that at Toyota, on this topic, they are indeed dummies, fooled by a hatred for BEV, by the typical silos thinking of japanese keiretsu and by the ties with fossil fuel industry.
@@satunnainenkatselija4478 What's wrong with just 540J? Anyway, we don't travel by metres (or yards for that matter). For the same reason, SI unit of mass is kg, not g.
I don’t doubt your point about Hydrogen being impractical as a fuel for a V8 sports car, but I noticed that when you talked about liquid Hydrogen and the 75% reduced space requirement, you went from 21 five gallon buckets, to 12 five gallon buckets. 12 is not 25% of 21??? If I heard you wrong and you meant a 25% reduction of space, then the math still doesn’t equal 12 buckets, from 21 originally used.
So the deal is with liquid nitrogen you can store 75% more energy in the same space. 75% of 12 buckets is 9 buckets. 12 buckets plus 9 buckets = 21 buckets. So you can store the same amount of energy in 12 liquid hydrogen buckets as you can in 21 buckets of gaseous hydrogen
He also forgot to include the re-used fuel tank volume, which he said got you 50miles. Therefore the 'extra' buckets are needed for only 250miles. I get his point, though. In UK we have hydrogen gas buses but they are hybrid electric and use a different system, which I guess is more efficient.
Also like range is pretty moot point since you can fill up your car in a minute compared to an EV where you gotta sit around for an hour. So yeah most of the video is just pointless. Range doenst matter if you fill it up in a minute.
Another space advantage for the battery is, you don't need something the size of a V8 and a drive shaft to produce the power, you just need something about the size of the differential
Yep, and batteries have a lot more flexibility in shape, since they're not containing a super high pressure gas, which leads to the strong, cylindrical design of hydrogen tanks.
Thank you for the incredibly informative video. On May 29, 2023, Toyota took part in a 24-hour endurance race with a GR Corolla equipped with a hydrogen engine, successfully completing 358 laps covering approximately 1,633.5 km. Interestingly, they utilized liquid hydrogen maintained at a chilling temperature of -256°C.
I figured that using liquid hydrogen instead if highly compressed hydrogen gas might solve the range issue, but of course, you now have the difficulty having having to have a tank well enough insulated to maintain such incredibly low temperatures. As noted in the video, there simply is no long term storage of liquid hydrogen for the vehicle owners, and you can't park your car in your garage because venting flammable hydrogen gas into it is _probably_ not a great idea. And then you can imagine the safety issues if your tank ruptures in a collision and splashes liquid hydrogen all over the place. So, I think liquid hydrogen fuel is a non-starter for general consumers.
Research 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.
NO. Toyota is vehemently and politically opposed to the transition to electric vehicles and is willing to spend millions on creating this kind of dead-end nonsense, just as a decoy from their main objective which is to prolong the production of petrol and diesel engined vehicles. The ENORMOUS technical problems of storing and distributing hydrogen to the "gas station" far out-weigh the "size of the gas tank" problem demonstrated here. Then there is the problem of how much energy is needed to produce hydrogen. I'm an engineer and have some understanding of these issues. You proclaim to be a believer in engineering without ANY understanding of what engineering is. Go back to school and pay attention to the physics, maths and chemistry teachers in particular. You are currently not qualified to comment (unless blind faith is an acceptable accreditation).
I'd take half the range but be able to fill up very quickly though. Also, "sporty" is a very relative term when you say that to a car with such large batteries. That comes with quite the weight penalty and the sportiness is pretty much limited to acceleration. I'd be very interested how far they can still improve the technology around Hydrogen combustion engines and storing technologies.
Half the range means half the weight of a battery, and with charging speeds increasing, EVs might not be too far off. It seems like petrolheads just want to keep burning stuff, so synthetic fuel might be the answer, if EE didn't already make a video about why it isn't the answer lol.
@@NewZeroland Honestly, the more research that I do the less I think EV's will go very far. They don't offer the features that they need to to convince people to leave combustion engines. In the future hopefully a battery can be produced which will be much lighter and hold more energy, but until, or if, that ever happens, EV's are not worth the effort. I don't say that lightly. I just think a lot of people kept on hearing how electric cars were the future and they started to assume that they would be without getting all of the facts. The change in infrastructure which would be neccesary is another reason why changing the entire transportation method will probably be slow or not happen.
@@matthewmosier8439 you're right that they aren't the future. EVs are already here, and have been for years. I think the charging infrastructure is the biggest shift in convenience ever, because you can power your vehicle at home. Hydrogen still requires a trip to the refueling station, and they can charge whatever they want for fuel. Meanwhile you could recharge an EV with solar panels. That freedom is worth pursuing.
Storage Technologies, you understand that storing Hydrogen is like rounding up flys with a Tennis Racquet. Hydrogen is a tiny Molecule and it finds it's way through whatever you put it in eventually, this is why nobody pumps Hydrogen, it always manufactured where it's needed and used where it's needed. Also Hydrogen as a heat fuel (car engine) is an absolute waste, By the time you've put a work Fuel (Electricity) in to electrolyse water into Oxygen and Hydrogen, compressed it down so you can move or store the stuff, then use that Heat Fuel in your car to generate a bunch of heat and a little bit of Mechanical Energy , you'd be multiple times better off just using Electrical Energy in the first place. It's just so wasteful. It has it's very good and much needed uses inside industry where it is used for it's chemical properties, Oils, Plastics, Mining etc, and those industries already use the processes they need Hydrogen for in place, but for Transport as a fuel source where we use it as a fuel , it's dead in the Water, possibly from the water it made while trying to get to where it was meant to be used. Look more into the generation and energy used to make Hydrogen, and you'll see how awful it is for Transport. Then you get into the Whole Grey Hydrogen, most of our Hydrogen comes from this and all of a sudden Hydrogen isn't very green at all and in fact worse than just using LNG to power our cars, taxi's busses, trucks etc, which doesn't fix the carbon problem, but it's less of a problem and more efficient than generating Gery Hydrogen and thinking we're doing something good. Blue, Hydrogen, Black or Brown Hydrogen, same problems. Green Hydrogen is great in theory though, until you realise you get multiple times more work done by just using the Electricity generated in the first place to do the work you need, in this case, moving a car.
I just love how he insists on displaying a five gallon bucket with a US flag on it, then proceeds to use metric like a proper engineer for most of his calculations. I hate it when I have to revise an old calculation at work that was done in imperial units, I end up having convert to SI then do my calculations so the next engineer doesn't have to go through pain!
@@anydaynow01 for me (non US), it's pretty difficult trying to map in my head all the imperial units in real time. I more or less remember the exchange, but doing the math all the time is complicated.
Have to give Credits due to YAMAHA Motor for helping to developed so many World Class engines for many other car manufacturers in the world over the decades ... 🌷🌿🌏💜🕊🇯🇵
Personally I prefer the octahedron. Maybe a torus such as a TOKAMAC! Or perhaps even a Klein bottle. Hmmm... Yes, I think a Klein bottle wold be the perfect vessel to store all this -250C H2 at 25,000 atmospheres. And the driver could zoom around all day on a highway built as a Mobius strip.
For a pressure vessel as shown in the video its a simple strength check for hoop and longitudinal stresses. You could make the pressure vessel into different shapes, but those would require a more detail analysis.
@@AidanS99 The issue is the astronomical pressure required to hold an appreciable amount of hydrogen. The weight of hydrogen has almost nothing to do with the strength requirements of The containers.
As an internet/keyboard/armchair scientist, engineer, doctor, lawyer, WWII veteran and Nobel Peace Prize winner I just watched a video pretty much made me an expert on this stuff. I think they figured this problem out by making a three cylinder 1.6 liter hydrogen engine. Dramatically less powerful but it solves the range issue. I must admit I'm sure they made it hybrid to further reduce the tank size. The video said it did in fact have a smaller battery which is what lead me to this conclusion. They made a big V8 version specifically for the guys who couldn't care less about the range. They like noise and power even if it only lasts four minutes. Range be damned! Great video, I look forward to all your uploads. Have a great day
A lot of the issues you mention were faced, to a much lesser degree, with CNG powered vehicles. The range is reduced compared to gasoline, and the pressure in the tank is about 3600 PSI, but with hydrogen, it's about 3x as difficult.
CNG cars also have a petrol tank so having a lower range on the CNG isn't even as much of an issue compared to hydrogen since you can always switch over to petrol when you need the added range
@@reykennedy5716 he means those that have been converted. You can't start (at least easily) a converted CNG car unless you use the original fuel for a bit and then change into gas.
I think condensed carbon capture systems will be what preserves the visceral feeling of driving a gas powered sports car in the future. I see hydrogen being best utilized with fuel cells and electric drive systems for vehicle applications.
Actually there are two solutions. A small amount if H2 could be continually drawn from the H2 tank and used in a fuel cell. The fuel cell would generate electricity to operate a refrigeration system to keep the H2 cold enough to remain a liquid. That would greatly reduce the loss of H2. Or, if external electricity is available, it could be used to operate the refrigeration system so there would be zero loss of H2 through evaporation. The other solution would be to use nitrogen as an H2 carrier so that the H2 could be kept as a liquid at a convenient pressure and temperature, i.e., use NH3, which is ammonia, as the fuel. Of course the NH3 handling systems would need to be carefully designed to prevent its escape since no rational person would want to breathe NH3. Although a conventional gasoline could run on NH3, an engine designed for NH3 would run much better. That's because although NH3 has superb anti-knock properties, it is harder to ignite and burns much more slowly. A long stroke high compression engine, heavily turbocharged, running at perhaps 2000 rpm, could work very well.
I happen to work with some high surface alumina powders and other stuff like it. I was told one application for those white powders was storing hydrogen in zeolites. It isn't bonded to any metals in there but rather absorbed into the tiny pores of the material. Desorption happens as pressure drops so it lets you store large amounts of H2 gas at lower pressure. I'm not sure of the exact numbers but apparently they use 100 bar or something in that range. I don't know how much this tech was developed since i last heard it or how feasible it is sadly. Did you happen to stumble upon references to it in your research?
That pressure is 1/7 the pressure of the tanks he showed. I fail to see how putting other physical stuff in the tank without chemical bonding, helps rather than hurts. Sounds like it's just taking up space.
For combustion, it is going to be either biofuels or synthetic fuels. There is no other way. I just hope that some petrol brands stay around making those fuels in the future, so aficionados can still power these amazing engines. Even if it is just a very small niche.
@@nastynick7125 Bio fuels is anything that burns and is made from living things. People usually think about plants, but whale oil would be a biofuel as well, for example. But for cars, the most widespread today is ethanol (alcohol) because we know how to produce it. But there is also research in using algae to make a more petrol like fuel.
I think the point to use ICE for H2 was to prevent the situation in the full cell that there is not enough noble metals for the electrodes. take into account that the efficiency of burning H2 should be much higher than that of liquid fuels because of no sooting, unburnt sprays, etc... and also due to the very high flame temperature, H2 can be burnt in super lean conditions. that means one can heat air for propulsion just like turbofans.
@@richardggeorge - “Burning super lean can create NOx emissions” In 2022, Arrington Performance showed an H2 1964 Ford Falcon Sprint at 2022 SEMA in Vegas. It reduced NOx with a lean H2 mixture injected with H2O (Ford has a patent.) It was done with a Ford 5.0 Coyote V8 crate engine. This is not the only demonstrated example. In 2018, the production dual fuel Mazda RX-8 achieved lower NOx emissions by running a lean H2. Wherever you are getting your H2 information about is over 1/2 decade old.
Too dangerous to carry a (Hydrogen Bomb) in your car; gas powered Vs Burst into flames when in crashes, just imagine what can happen with a hPd Vehicle...
I work with cryogenic liquids daily. We use them in our laser cutting system. We have a tank for liquid nitrogen that is 2 stories tall and almost never has to vent between jobs. The way it works is that it combines the cryo storage with extreme pressures to keep the liquid nitrogen at a warmer temp than the normal -192C needed at normal atmospheric pressure. Good cryo tanks are almost always huge, just for the sake of insulation... if they could find a way to make that smaller, it might work, but in my opinion it should still be used on fuel cell tech because holy crap can you imagine the range on that thing LOL.
@@TauCu don't worry, it was only a tiny segment, but it did explain well the problem with tiny cryo tanks, now if one has space to put in a 5' tall/long 2' round type like we use for gases we do not use often, results might have been better.
As with EVs and ICEs, what emissions are required to build the HV? High-pressure holding tanks are difficult to construct and require high-grade steel or similar materials. Has a comparative study been made for HVs?
Jason: this was a really informative an easy-to-follow overview. The storage volume numbers don’t lie. I do wonder if your efficiency stats might be off? JCB are getting close to equivalent run times on their heavy equipment with similar H2 storage volumes (at 5000psi, I think)… so real-world examples seem to disprove your conclusions here?
JCB redesigned a lot of it's engine around hydrogen combustion so I'm sure they're getting higher efficiencies. It's kind of unfair for Jason to use this "port" proof of concept as a benchmark for what's possible imo.
@@murffly JCB completely neglected to address the much harder problem of hydrogen production and supply. It absolutely must be green. Unfortunately for JCB that is an order of magnitudes harder nut to crack and it will never be done very cheaply.
@@rogerphelps9939 Why would they address a problem which has nothing to do with their expertise? What do you propose as a better solution? Everything battery powered?
Great info!! Very cool breakdown. I still have hope for hydrogen though! In the this scenario we were trying to make 450hp! LOL I think plenty of quick little 4 bangers can be made like this. At the birth of gasoline ICEs, we weren't setting any pony records!
@William Walker, there are two points to using ICEs over fuel cells. #1 ICEs make loud noise. #2 fuel cells are damn expensive and use rare materials. They are quite frankly ass but still waaay better than BEVs
@@connorbingel7134 How is making loud noises a positive? I thought one of the biggest positives from switching over to electric cars is no more noisy roads.
Hi Jason, I own and use an LPG utility (circa 2006), from what I have read this fuel is kind on the environment. I am puzzled as to why this tech is no longer commercially available. A video on LPG powered engines and the pros and cons would be excellent.
I used it too on punto 1.2 16V, and it's still widely used in eastern Europe. You can still buy brand new bifuel cars in Europe with petrol and LPG/CNG. It's cheap. Not sure about emissions. Better CO figure but it raise combustion temp and maybe produce NOX, probably depending on engine configuration, not sure. I would like to hear his opinion also
Renewable propane and DME might actually become a real thing soon in California just as Renewable natural gas is a thing in California. The issue with all of these fuel pathways is just how much the volume can be scaled up. AND the more important issue is how it plays into California’s LOW CARBON FUEL STANDARD CREDITS. The LCFS credits are the major mechanism to fund low carbon fuels. So for example, today California gasoline users pay something like $0.30 per gallon extra so the refinery can buy offset credits. So when Elon Musk says he can deliver electricity for something like $0.07 per kWh, this is because green electricity used as a transportation fuel gets paid a large LCFS credit. This also applies to hydrogen, RNG and some other fuels. Remember, one always have to follow the money. This is how California transit districts basically get near zero cost electricity for their EV buses. The trade off is that the EV buses cost 40% more than the RNG buses but most of that is covered by State and Federal grants. The interesting thing is that the large and detailed engineering reports that are available on line show that the total cost of ownership is higher for the EV buses and it is significantly higher for fuel cell buses.
Definitely I topic I would like to see on the channel, as well. As someone who drives a car that uses LPG, I never thought about it as being "kind" to the environment, to me, the tailpipe emissions still noxiously stink, so I cannot consider it "ecological", but it could, in fact, be better for the environment and for the air quality (I guess it produces less soot than the diesel engine)
Got a few duel fuel vehicles also, and lpg/propane was just a byproduct and they used to burn off as a waste product. Used to be 5c/L when I first started using it, now been high as $1.70/L and cost wise vs the petrol, less efficient to use but now back to 85cish
I think for those looking to hold on to the combustion engine, the new sustainable, carbon neutral fuels that F1 is championing for 2026 will be the way. If the billions of current combustion engines can stay in use with carbon neutral fuels, that's kind of best case scenario for everyone at this point.
@@syed_mamoon99 The increasing likelihood of civil war in the entire western world may rapidly increase the reliance on biodiesel, as the civilian populace would continue to generate power in diesel generators and move troops and other assets via diesel haulers. People who want "alternative fuels" "for the environment" aren't schizo enough to understand that soylent green is on the horizon. Eat bugs, live in pods, shuttle around on government transportation, go outside when you're allowed to, etc. These rules will only apply to the common man. It's only bad when we do it.
So we have to grow fuel, meaning less space to grow food, meaning prices will go up. And this is so your V8 makes noises as you drive around? F1 is a mouthpiece for big oil
No It Is hybrids Just Like the Railroad Has Been Doing For DECADES! Right Now It Is More carbon Friendly Just To Drive Your Old honda Than Buy an EV! We Have To Produce and Refine Petroleum Every Thing in Our Cars, Homes and Offices is A Byproduct Of Refining gasoline! If All Cars Were Electric And We Somehow We Charged Them Without Burning Fossil Fuels It would Only Reduce Our Carbon Footprint By 10% That Is Why The Left Hates Math!! It Exposes Their NONSENSE!!
I just think it's amazing they can create a V8 engine that just emits water, regardless of range and other considerations. It is good that a manufacturer like Yamaha actually put money into this research as it could eventually lead to breakthroughs and give us other options instead of have EVs (as amazing as they are) being thrust upon us without choice. In the meantime, how about instead of 450hp we settle for half that, sacrifice some of the range (maybe 200 miles) and consider mixing with petrol and/or having a smaller auxiliary petrol tank. The main point is that we should continue to allow and actively encourage R&D in multiple areas and not just put all of our eggs into one basket.
And an EV doesn't emit anything, not even water. Yeah yeah, the emissions come from the power plant/source. We know. And the emissions from hydrogen engines ALSO come from the source, where they turn natural gas into hydrogen. So I'm not seeing any benefit.
@@jonclark1288 Actually EVs do emit water, in the production of their batteries. You should look up the devastating ecological impact of lithium mining.
Great video! I would also adds that there are also long term structural integrity concerns with using hydrogen. Hydrogen causes steel embrittlement, and integrity issues for seals and elastomers. Yes, you can engineer an engine using low carbon steel... I am not sure about the long term integrity of a "hydrogen combustion engine" under a cyclical high pressure and temperature system. Agree... The low energy density of hydrogen per unit volume is really the deal breaker. Thank you for posting this!
300mi would be doable on a small turbocharged 3 or 4 cylinder that would get 40+ mpg on petrol. Liquid hydrogen becomes a supercritical fluid at room temperature provided it's stored at >180psi, so much more H2 can be stored at a lower pressure. The additional benefit is that compared to BEVs you now don't need all of the cobalt, lithium, and other such minerals, and you also don't have the issue of battery degradation over time or with low temperatures.
So what's all this container and piping stuff made of? Cardboard? And where do we get the power to compress/liquify and/or cool this hydrogen? Oh- where do we get the hydrogen? Are we drilling many hydrogen wells these days?
@@TonyQKing Hydrogen is extremely easy to get. You can do it at home if you have a battery and some water. The problem has always been storage, not availability.
Thank-you for these insights. I have seen at least one other concurring analysis. It’s not very practical for passenger automobiles. What about semis, buses, and heavy construction equipment? Would love to see your take on that. Stay safe.
Hydrogen busses are definately a thing. The local transport authority where I'm at has a few. But they've had them for 10-15 years now and never rolled it out to a fleet replacement so I can only assume that while they are useful for "Look we are doing an environmental thing!", they might not make a lot of economic sense.
Depends on compression and air/fuel ratios, as with any fuel. Hydrogen burns very hot/fast and isn't suitable for compression ignition so you're unlikely to get the sustained pressures and temperatures needed to form NOx in reasonable configurations.
This is very valuable insight. However, keep in mind that hydrogen refueling takes a fraction of the time that recharging an EV would take. 50 miles might not that bad of a range if you can refuel in a matter of seconds, adding only a few minutes to a long trip. For shorter trips, it's not an issue at all, especially considering that the average car trip is less than 10 miles.
@@paroxysm6437 actually it rarely takes 30 minutes or less. The high speed chargers are rare and mainly in the cesspool big cities. Also let's not ignore the fact the majority of electricity is still powered by natural gas and coal. Then you lose energy as it's transferred across lines and stored. Its a ludicrous concept when we have synthetic fuels coming out, with super efficient engines that produces way less emissions than natural gas and coal.
@@paroxysm6437 Not in the UK or across the EU have that type of infrastructer. The USA is not the only country that you should use as an example. Look at the continent of Africa, that hasn't got hardly any stations that has recharging units. EV (lithium ion batteries / tesla) are more harmful to the eco system than diesels. And they are hideous polluters of the atmosphere. We have many years to go before we will have anything that can be called efficient and not harmful.
@@paroxysm6437 I've worked in the IT industry for over 25 years. I'm a technician, so that means installing a variety gear. And of course I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to tech. The thing I do not like about the lithium ion battery, is that it can't be recycled. By that, I mean the cobalt, lithium, manganese and graphite can not be safely extracted when the battery comes to its end of life usage. The same technology is used in a variety of productes. The biggest user is mobile phones. Of which, over 18 billion have been made. And not 1 battery has been recycled safely, in a cost effective manner. That's not to say that some haven't been recycled, but it's to expensive and dangerous to do at this moment and time. And in the end, it's going into the ground and as sure as eggs is eggs. They will end up polluting the area where they will eventually be buried in. Recent past history of waste in general has not been good. At least here UK it hasn't. I can't comment what it is like the US.
when I was in high school I had the thought, "why not capture the water vapor exhaust and separate it back into hydrogen and oxygen gas for combustion." after playing around with different electrolysis methods I finally realized that you would basically be turning a combustion engine car into an electric car at that point. basically your range would be fully dependent on how much electrical power you could store and carry. The whole experiment did however end up with a small electrolysis system on my old ford pickup that augmented my gasoline system upping my fuel mileage without any negative effects *.cough other than an electrical fire and a custom built alternator cough. without the ability to mess around with the computers in my vehicles, for me the system was only useful on carbureted engines.
Yeah, theres unfortunately no way to do that with a net positive energy output. It’d require you provide it with additional energy to electrolyze the exhaust water, which would turn it into a glorified EV. One that includes a hydrogen fuel cell, a combustion engine, and an electric battery onboard. So you’re packing on a fuckton of weight and requiring both hydrogen fueling and charging. May as well just go full electric.
I love how companies especially Japanese car companies aren't throwing the baby away with the bath water whith the internal combustion engine just yet. There still looking for ways to make them more efficient and better emissions.
Hard to go bankrupt when their cars are still the most popular in the world. With three vehicles in the top 10, on global new-car sales. Until a company starts producing the quality that you get in a Toyota they aren’t going to go bankrupt and can continue to research in whichever direction they so choose!
@@user-221i Actually Tesla will probably go bankrupt before toyota ever will there not even profitable in any way there Actually loosing money they only reason there not bankrupt is because Elon Musk keeps pouring in his own money to keep the company afloat. If anything EV's will make car companies go bankrupt because even though there pushing them and biden is pushing them nobody's buying them.
Hi Jason, greetings from the U.K. So many of my colleagues and friends tell me they don’t want a BEV (I’ve had aBEV since 2019, so people often talk to me on the subject) because they are waiting for hydrogen to take off, after a brief and disappointing conversation, I often send them a link to this excellent video. I’m 58 yo, hydrogen fuelled cars have been on the agenda my whole life; the sad truth is they have a major problem that is impossible to solve - physics!
A fuel cell is probably the way to go for hydrogen powered cars. There may be some applications for hydrogen combustion technology. Perhaps with some smaller 2, 3 or 4 cylinder engines. There are lots of smaller type vehicles with small engines less than 2 liters that you should be able to fit at least four five gallon buckets in and have some trunk space left for a 300 mile range.
Yep! 👍🏼 By keeping H2 internal combustion on the table, the pressure is kept on fuel cells to come down in price, and fuel cell keep pressure on H2 internal combustion to become more efficient. Honestly, this is the right way to go about it.
This assumes that fuel cells can be developed which are cheap and can last +200 000 miles. They must also be scalable to millions of vehicles. Currently it's not going to work and it's unknown whether it will be possible in the future.
@@wombatillo - “assumes fuel cells can be developed which are cheap” car fuel cells existed in production for decades, use rare earth elements already produced for ICE catalytic converters, so the costs will not differ greatly once production ramps up & and existing supply lines shift to new production used “last +200 000 miles” they typically last 12 years - 15 years “scalable to millions of vehicles” The rare earths required for catalytic converters can be used for fuel cells, so no real issue with element availability, should scale since ICE scales for millions “currently it’s not going to work” It has been working, for decades “unknown if will be possible in the future” If not, we start with H2 ICE. This has been working, for decades, too.
Yeah but then you're just driving electric with an extra and wasteful step... Batteries are more energy efficient than hydrogen fuel cells. Not to mention you can't for instance create Hydrogen at home for no cost and then put it in your tank, but I can get energy via solar panels on my roof and put it on my battery via a wallbox and it costs me nothing....
Great informative video Jason. I think it's very interesting to note that my 35 year old 1987 Porsche 944 gets over 35 mpg on the highway and has a 21 gallon tank netting a range of over 700 miles They can keep all this other crap
Very interesting stuff. Ive seen a lot of petrol heads hating on electric cars and saying why dont we invest more into this technology. If only it was that easy.
@@MichaelRei99 Electric is the best solution to the problem. An even better solution is removing our reliance on cars and investing more into public transport and cycle infrastructure. This is easier in Europe as sadly America has built its entire country's infrastructure around the car.
My only real complaints with EV's is that they don't have exhaust notes and that their overall build quality still seems immature, the exhaust note issue likely will just be a thing I have to live with it and future generations won't care and the build quality issues are something that'll improve over time as manufacturers learn what works and what doesn't. Cost is I guess another factor but I could technically afford one today, I realize most cannot though. Other tertiary concerns are that not all charging stations & ports are the same (lack of standardization, which I think is fine for now but something that'll need to be addressed in the future) and what does re-sale value look like considering battery packs can cost somewhere from 8-20k depending on manufacturer. Long-term I think they'll make way more sense, especially once we start seeing 250+ mile range EV's that cost roughly 24-28k; there are also issues with just resourcing which will generally improve over time too. So for my petrol loving self, they just aren't quite there yet; ICE vehicles $ for $ are better in terms of range / comfort / excitement / and feeling and I don't really want to be "forced" into buying an EV by the government; I am all for people getting them and adopting them though, the petrol-head community is a minority and really can be safely ignored. Ah yeah, the last concern; the fact that manufacturers will try to somehow retain rights to your purchased vehicle (Tesla and Ford specifically), not a huge fan of how features can be remotely disabled and how owners can't use aftermarket parts... I hope legislation is passed to give us rights back in regards to that.
There is an obvious fallacy in this video that I'd like to address. The need for extra volume effects efficiency much less than the need for extra weight. As we all know, less weight is better than more power.
Thanks for the video. Of course, there are very difficult challenges in producing, transporting and storing hydrogen in a manner that is carbon-neutral as well.
Hi Jason, thank you for sharing this nicely done video. There is talk to use amonia instead alternatively to progressively mix H2 with LPG in order to come up with more reasonable technology & numbers. Finally H2 technology needs to compete against batteries at least within the passenger car industry sector. Cheers
As for venting hydrogen, a multistage acoustic resonator is capable of getting down to -260 deg C. So, just plug it in and it'll keep liquid hydrogen stored indefinitely.
Sounds like this could work well with trucks. If you consider that typical tool boxs would be roughly the right size for a fuel cell. Engineer some safety i to the fuel cell and it seems tootally playsible that this could work with truck platforms
This is what Nikola thinks, that Semis are large enough to handle the hydrogen fuel cell set-up and I agree. Keep in mind which nation has mastered the art of technological refinement and miniaturisation and place your bets.
You should do a deep dive on Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles vs BEVs. Energy creation costs vs performance vs range vs charging times vs sustainability and environmental impact.
also politically it makes more sense to go hydrogen since your not dependent on China especially now with war going on certainly a important and often forgotten factor
@@r.i.peperoniiiiroh9625 China is focusing on Hydrogen as well. The fact of the matter is Lithium is still a resource that hast to be mined, refined and processed as well. We'll need both technologies to make it through into a sustainable world of energy. I think the hardest thing the U.S. will have to get past is how will big oil make their money when we can literally make hydrogen fuel from the atmosphere using solar panels.
The reason you would want this is that current fuel cells require materials like Iridium and Platinum, but there are not enough of either. In fact, the supply of Iridium is in more of a crisis than just about anything battery electric vehicles use.
Electric or hydrogen. The issue is not just range, is how to refuel. The reason why nothing beats gas, is because no matter my MPGs or range, there is always a station nearby. With EVs you need to plan ahead to find a charging station, which hydrogen, well there are no stations outside of California.
imagine when the price of electricity skyrockets and when you have to wait in a giant line to get a charge in if the world was yo go electric now the focus on gas cars are highly exaggerated by the government and its crazy
Another great video! If there is a way to overcome the challenges of storage/safety of Hydrogen in gaseous, liquid or solid form, there’s still the problem of having to offset the energy required to compress it for storage. I would assume that particular energy requirement wouldn’t graph linearly for each state of hydrogen respectively?
8% out of the total hydrogen cycle efficiency is needed for 10,000 psi compression and the additional necessary cooling, (from US Government study). This is part of the two times more energy (2.3 x) needed vs direct ev use. An interesting hydrogen storage medium is ammonia as a carrier. Thus the significant interest in using ammonia for fueling large ships and powering Japanese power plants. SO WHERE DOES THE CLEAN AMMONIA COME FROM, ASK THE AUSTRALIANS!
Correct me if i‘m wrong, but I think Toyota wants to develop this mainly for racing purposes. I could definitely see this in series that don‘t necessarily want to switch to EV‘s, like Nascar for example.
@@f.f.s.d.o.a.7294 for racing you dont need any trunk so you could have a large fuel tank. Toyota already has a hydrogen powered Corolla where the entire space behind the driver is filled with a gigantic liquid hydrogen tank.
In my judgment, I don't see much of a need for motorsport to switch to clean combustion, or even clean fuel sources at all. Motorsport is a tiny part of motor transport and with carbon capture/carbon offsetting (there would be less need to worry about potential needs to scale carbon capture since motorsport is so tiny), they could keep them as ICEVs while being at or close to carbon neutral. Plus, since it's motorsport and the environment is much smaller and controlled, clean combustion using clean synthetic fuels would likely be well within the realm of possibility since you don't have to deal with having to scale synthetic production and infrastructure to suit hundreds of millions of people. Though, I might've missed something.
According to the available sources, hydrogen fuel with 70% EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) in a combustion engine is more efficient than gasoline due to several factors. One of the main reasons is that hydrogen has a higher energy content per unit of mass than gasoline, which means that it can produce more power per unit of fuel consumed 5 . Additionally, hydrogen combustion produces almost zero regulated emissions, making it a cleaner and more environmentally friendly fuel source 5 . The addition of EGR to the combustion process can further improve the efficiency of hydrogen fuel in a combustion engine. EGR is a technique used to reduce the amount of NOx emissions by recirculating a portion of the exhaust gas back into the engine's intake air. This reduces the combustion temperature and lowers the amount of oxygen available for combustion, resulting in lower NOx emissions and improved fuel efficiency 1 2 3 . Studies have shown that the addition of hydrogen and EGR to a gasoline engine can increase the brake thermal efficiency, which is a measure of the engine's ability to convert fuel energy into mechanical work, by up to 10% at 70% of full load 2 . This means that the engine can produce more power with less fuel, resulting in improved fuel efficiency and reduced emissions. In summary, hydrogen fuel with 70% EGR in a combustion engine is more efficient than gasoline due to the higher energy content of hydrogen and the addition of EGR, which reduces NOx emissions and improves fuel efficiency.
I've learned to wait and watch. I personally underestimated Tesla for years, and now they have accomplished some incredible feats. Their main issue is materials for batteries and fuel sourcing (i.e. Coal). Toyota has an incredible history of innovation, and it wouldn't surprise me if they manage to massively improve the technology in the years to come. The numbers didn't work for Tesla either at first, but people rode it out. If people truly want zero emission vehicles, they should be rooting for this 6 ways till Sunday. Bring it on, Toyota!
What 'innovation' have Toyota got a history of? In my experience they are a very conservative company, always late with new tech (VVT, turbo, EVs etc), and now they seem to be spending most of their marketing budgets trying to delay the inevitable emissions regulations so their white elephant hybrids make money for them!
The one known for innovation is Honda not Toyota. With toyota you'll end up with the LFA which took way too many years to develop and in the end was inferior to what other car manufactures dished out.
correct me if i am wrong but mirai is a fcev ( fuel cell electric vehicle ) is it right to compare it with the new technology yamaha / yamaha is providing? The internal combustion engine they created may have different stats... all though i agree technology is not ready to accept hydrogen as fuel for ICE, i believe toyota with yamaha just made a big step for everyone with their new technology!
Thank you! You're the only person I've seen pick up on that. Hydrogen fuel cells are very different to hydrogen injection. He also says it's carbon free which is fine, but doesn't mention the NOx emissions which might be a factor for road use. JCB are making hydrogen powered engines for their machines and have successfully retrofitting one to a lorry. Proving that the concept can work in that setting. The diesel cylinder heads and combustion chambers do make it's adaption for diesel -style engines easier
He's only using the Mirai as a reference for the hydrogen storage(quantity, size etc), which isn't any different from an hydrogen fuel cell to hydrogen combustion engine.
Sometimes it’s about doing the right thing rather than continuing to do the easy thing (especially as we can’t continue to burn through petrol and diesel etc) I wonder how much information about hydrogen is being influenced by outside forces to make it seem awkward and not useful.
I converted my 79 grand prix V8 to CNG in the 80's for $700. 2 huge tanks in the trunk cost ~$5 to fill up, range was ~300kms iirc, oil never got dirty but it still polluted. My EV costs the same to charge today!
Jason, Have you looked at what JCB is doing with hydrogen fueled combustion engines based on diesel engines? They are fitting them in existing earth moving equipment and fitting different fuel tanks. The rest of the machine is unchanged! The best thing is the torque and power characteristics are the same as the diesel! The operator will not see a difference! They also have enough fuel to run a full 8 hr shift stored at 350kpa ( about 5000psi same as hydraulic oil pressures) Cheers Warren For more see recent Harry’s farm video
The most exciting thing about the JCB engine is that they apparently use a fuel mix of 1:100 hydrogen to air. If this video is based on pure hydrogen, assuming this v8 can run on that fuel mix (a silly assumption I know, but let's get excited) that's just 0.2 buckets of hydrogen needed for a 300 mile range!
Have you seen what Edison motors does with road tractors? I think mixing JCB’s technology with their electric with a generator would be the way to go, even if we didn’t go electric route, we should stick with diesel based hydrogen engines instead of regular old spark ignition for efficiency and power
@@jacobrozier869 the great thing about what JCB is doing with the same diesel base engine with a new cyl head with spark ignition it allows the rest of the machine be used as is ( different fuel tank). No need to bring in different technology and confuse the issue. The manufacturer can Maintain the same Manufacturing process and assemble line. Maintenance in field is the same etc etc. direct swap. Can’t beat that. The same could be done with expiation diesel cars etc . KISS! Cheers Warren
Good point in mentioning JCB hydrogen engines. They use very lean mixture that allows 25-30% gain in efficiency vs gasoline engines. Thus, a Toyota Camry hybrid or Honda Accord hybrid with over 50 MPG can attain 63 MPG if run on hydrogen, thus would require only 130-liter fuel tank instead of 400-liter tank as Jason mentioned, to travel 300 miles.
Great video. I'm happy that toyota is still trying to find a way to make hydrogen combustion work for us enthusiasts, but it's becoming more and more obvious that it's gonna take a while before we get a production vehicle with that tech (and a hydrogen fueling infrastructure that can support it)
Yes. Now, how do we make hydrogen? We use fossil fuel fired electrical generating plants, that's how. It's made using fossil fuels, refrigerated using fossil fuel energy, transported, stored, pumped, and distributed using fossil fuels. It's a gimmick.
@@lamwen03 I know it's not a clean alternative, but neither is electrification most of the time cause thats dependent on where your grid gets the power and the mining of materials as well. It's cleaner than gasoline though and it would still make bang bang noises unlike a fuel cell or an EV, so I'd be happy.
@@lamwen03 It depends where you live. The UK produced 30% on average last year (and increasing rapidly) from wind , hydro and solar It also produced some 18% from nuclear and also 6% from biomass last year. As I write this, 52.9% is being produced by renewables alone and only 34.9% by fossil fuels. Which is a lot better than 100% fossil fuels. Countries like Norway are close to 100% renewables (mostly Hydro). In addition hydrogen would be an ideal industry for countries like Saudi Arabia with abundant coastline, solar energy and existing pipe lines and infrastructure already in place that could be modified. They just need enough demand to justify the investment (usual chicken and egg).
@@lamwen03 Yeah. It's actually pretty egregious.... You know you can easily determine the dollars worth of oil and gas burned for a product or a project by taking the cost of said project and multiplying it by 0.80
Hi Jason - This got me thinking why would Cummins be working on a hydrogen semi engine. I think your numbers all check out, but it might be slightly misleading since most hydrogen fuel cell cars are like a Prius and the RCF is not very efficient. In a semi, the combustion efficiency is going to be a decent bit higher for an average drive cycle efficiency (larger engine + higher average load both help efficiency). So instead of say 6 buckets, it might be 10-12 buckets (equivalent numbers) in the semi, so only ~2x the tank volume needed. Since this would work well in a regional or local delivery scheme, the math probably checks out to be able to drive 200-300 miles in a day before refueling. And since the engine would be more familiar versus a colossus fuel cell, it might prove to be cheaper in the long run for an emissions free solution. I think the price of fuel is going to be the bigger issue for sure as you mentioned. I still struggle with how this competes with an electric semi in 5 years.
+1 I want Jason to look at the Cummins hydrogen powered "Diesel" engine. They have signed an agreement with Tata to put them in busses and Versertile to put them in tractors (for farming). Maybe looking at a very inefficient v8 petrol raving car engine is not the best way to judge. Large diesel engines are much more efficient so they may not be so terrible. I still struggle to understand why they are building them instead of fuel cells though. They are more expensive but over the lifetime of a semi surely the savings on fuel would be worth it?
Not a sportscar, but V8 hydrogen powertrain seems better suited to pickup trucks and SUVs with body on frame construction. Here in Thailand you often see Toyota Hilux with multiple Compressed Natural Gas tanks underneath. The cream colour of the tanks gives it away. LPG tanks are usually black by contrast. Larger trucks have even more space underneath for tanks. Lots of total tank volume needed for reasonable range with such heavy vehicles. That is fine when fuel is dirt cheap, as CNG is here.
Thanks a lot for the video! However, when I listen to what you say, the space issue doesn't seem that serious to me. I mean, you're saying that you need 400L of space for the hydrogen fuel, but 300L of space for the batteries (both 300 miles of range). 300 to 400 is not that much more actually. Normally I would agree with you that 300 or 400L of space is insane when you need just 50L for the petrol tank. But the battery cars are here and they do have a decent amount of luggage space as well, so I don't think finding an additional 100L somewhere is a big issue.
The problem I think is that a battery can be made flat and cubical to be space-efficient, a pressure tank needs to be cylindrical which is much worse for space management
An EV has a different structure, with less and much more compact subsystems. The battery is located in a space that is not free in an ICE car. A hydrogen burning car is basically a classic car that has to house a fuel tank with a volume at least 8 times bigger than the equivalent gasoline tank.
Battery packs can be of a variety of shape, such as long, wide and thin to fit under the passenger compartment. At 10,000 PSI, that container will have to be either spherical or cylindrical with spherical ends.
Not if they have internal chamber reinforcement. Expand your vision past what has been done in the past to allow for progress in the future. Maybe it is cylinders, but run in series inside a rectangular cage for example. So imagine that someone who went to engineering school was possibly capable of designing a short flat tank with the structural integrity to accomplish the required safety thickness for the tank. Also remember that he is talking about 10,000 PSI gas form hydrogen, while it can be held in lower pressure forms then later converted into gas form, or even produced by electrifying water. Maybe big oil pays him?
@@robertburau1520 "Expand your vision past what has been done in the past to allow for progress in the future" Awesome quote. Whenever I think of BEV vs H2 I always think 15-20 years down the line. It's why I truly believe H2 has no chance for cars. It's simple. Batteries are going to exponentially improve in the coming years. From the chemistries to the charge times to the size and weight. They already improve their efficiency at a rate of 5% per year. It's entirely feasible that in 10-20 years we'll have batteries 30% the size and weight they are today. A 60-70kwh battery 30% the size of what powers a model 3 today is a game changer. In reality the only thing holding EVs back is the charge time, but that will be fixed. Another bonus with BEV is that we'll be able to wirelessly charge similar to the way we charge our phones. Sorry, I know it's a little off topic, but that quote really resonated with me.
I work in H2 production (not as an engineer) and I'm very curious as to why your LH2 density calculation (timestamp @ 8:42) is at STP. I would think that the LH2 would be at a pressure > STP. I'm thinking maybe it's some voodoo magic engineers don't tell us (i.e. liquid pressure being unaffected by head pressure? If that's even a thing?), but would love clarification. (Edit: Sorry, not "STP" but just roughly "standard pressure")
What is "standard" about 10,000 PSI? The Hydrogen is in a state of matter that is a gas phase at 10,000 PSI (in which case it has a certain density) or it is a liquid phase at the same pressure which requires cooling and then has a different density. There is no calculation because these are the properties of hydrogen.
If you were a high school teacher, your class would be filled to the max every semester! Great fun, great delivery, creative explanations using math and visual examples to teach.
The Toyota Murai is advertised to have 650km range with 5.6kg of capacity. Thatcar doesn't use the combustion engine but a unit that converts the hydrogen to electricity of course but is that really 6 times more efficient than this Yamaha engine?
@@jaredjabouri7935 yes but what milage does the H2 GR achieve? If it does only 300km on a Murai sized fuel tank (which is large), it isn't that more feasible than an 50KWh EV unless you look for engine sound. You'd pay about 60 euros for a full H2 charge (6KGs) at Shell, while a 50KWh battery charge averages at about 25 euros. Perhaps an piston engine is not efficient enough at 40% efficiency. They'd have to look into engines with better efficiency. Still, Engineering Explained is way too pessimistic. EVs have much more negative impact on the environment than H2 and Lithium batteries get more dangerous the more they push the capacity and charge speed.
I love how Jason gave me hope at the beginning of the video, then ripped my heart out and kept destroying it meticulously into little pieces as the video went along. Very informative though! 😂
The problem is…
… if we had to stop creating gasoline/diesel ICE today, the copper & rare earths for batteries becomes a bottleneck for any battery cars & H2 fuel cell cars (ignoring issue with electrical generation & transmission)
… if we had to to stop creating gasoline/diesel ICE today, H2 ICE could replace it with relatively little effort (ignoring issue with H2 generation & transmission)
The electrical grid issue for EV’s is a huge nut to crack. The spikes in power usage, around rush hour & when people get home, will be immense. Massive local batteries can be used, to mitigate, but that wipes out carbon footprint benefit EV’s offer. Not enough attention is given to this.
The hydrogen generation problem is significant, but can be addressed in many ways, from natural gas being used with H2 mix & transport over existing natural gas pipelines, replacing natural gas infrastructure with H2 piping as mix levels grow too high, transportation via truck to fill up sites like existing gasoline/diesel, to local H2 generation (using local solar & wind) into local hydrogen storage, slowly over time, for rapid fill ups.
No technology is perfect, but locality & availability & supply chain issues & temporary storage issues must all be considered.
I too was hopeful for more buckets with American flag to be disappointed there is only one. So disingenuous!!
LOL if anyone stops to think, the amount of atmospheric hydrogen you'd have to bring along in the balloon probably has enough buoyancy to life the whole damn car! Mount a prop on it, and fly, fly, fly awaaaaaaaaay.....
@@DavidHalko did you not watch the video? The entire video was about how storing enough hydrogen in an H2 ICE car for long range is impossible. If people are willing to cut their car’s range to a fifth of what it was originally, then they might as well get a short range EV. In fact, if more manufacturers started selling affordable short range EVs, then there wouldn’t be such a demand on batteries as there is currently, which would alleviate the problem you mentioned.
Remember, the car's shape is mostly aesthetic, if the V8 engine vehicle has a form-factor of a Van or an SUV it solved the problem magically.
i have a solution which is both perfect for safety and storage space: instead of storing the hydrogen inside the body of the vehicle, you pump it into a giant baloon which you then attach to the car by hose, that way as you drive around the baloon just floats above your car and in case of car crash it just detaches and flies away
perfect
Make sure you never drive underneath power cables, an overpass... anything actually!
Sounds like someone hasn't heard of the Hindenburg disaster.
@@TickyTack23 Issa joke my guy
Dragging mini hindenburgs without crossing their feeding cables in rush hour, with excellent buoyancy control to keep them a cruise altitude and without extra dragging to the vehicule, yeah it seems legits.....
but all the little kids are gonna cry, when the balloon flies away.
The fact that they developed it even though it doesn't make much sense, gives me hope. Putting the work, effort and money into an idea that doesn't guarantee profit is something we don't see often these days.
The problem is when physics says you can't be successful. I recommend to first check if success is one of the possible outcomes according to the laws of physics, and then trying to build something within that framework.
It's called marketing and it worked on you..
Also: equating "doesn't make much sense" with "doesn't guarantee profit" is pretty funny. Kudos
@@robben4days569 Damn. You are smart. You should go help Toyota and Yamaha figure out how to do their jobs 😉
It does make sense once you understand how limited Japan is in terms of electricity generation, their unique location puts them un a bad spot that's why they bet on hydrogen and that's why they bet on nuclear. Just because a solution can work in some places doesn't mean it can work anywhere
@@F14Goose37 Being paid to do something doesn't automatically make you right, as someone else said hopefully they knew this and only wanted to develop it for the enthusiast market, it is well known ICEs powered by hydrogen would never be practical
You are very very good at the job of fully explaining this issue with NO CONFUSION! Kudos! to you, sir. Thank you so much. Please keep up the great work. It is very appreciated.
flattery will get you nowhere on this channel...
I love that Yamaha is always creating new engines. 🙌💯
I was surprised. When i looked at my engine on my Toyota Celica GT-Four, with a 3SGTE engine, one of the most powerful engines Toyota has made.
It said "Yamaha" on it!
Yamaha created the engine... I didn't know that!
Yamaha are very innovative, but this project was always doomed to fail.
@@VenturiLife you have to start somewhere
i think they will find a way in between
@@VenturiLife Failure will lead to success. It's always that cycle.
So we still come back to either gasoline or diesel - battery hybrid as the most affordable, practical, safe to use and available anywhere with no exotic storage requirements or unavailable fuel infrastructure as a still the most common sense solution for now to move the world.
When I was a kid in my High School engineering class (circa 1985), we watched videos about plastic engine parts in Pintos and Hydrogen ICE, and I thought for sure it was the future. I always wondered why it never came true until I found EE years ago. I still love learning about energy technology, and Jason never lets me down with his channel, making fun videos that explain the math behind what he is talking about.
Yes, futurism, the belief that all problems simply need time and "smart people" working on them to be solved, is a fallacy.
Smart people working on a problem can tell you what will _not_ work, and they should be listened to.
Of course, that is not to imply that optimism and hope should be eliminated from the scenario, but levity is key.
Plastic engine parts definitely exist in VW cars🤣
I agree with your conclusion. My only comment would be that the hatchback in the visual bucket display has a 14-15 gallon gas tank underneath, so approx three of the buckets would take up that space, and not be in the hatch area.
That would have eliminated the 3 buckets he had to lay on top of the others. Remove those, and a driver could almost see over the rest of the storage tanks.
@@WeTubule Not really. Everyone of these beckets needs to be bombproof.
You will need all space in the back and a trailer for all that.
One of the biggest fallacies of the "zero emissions" claim of a hydrogen powered internal combustion engine is that it totally ignores the fact that NOx will still be produced. NOx is a major component of smog and precursor of acid rain. Only claiming zero emissions for carbon is disingenuous. You need to look at the entire story.
Nox does not cause smog, its a clear odourless gas.
And in pretty sure in my high school science class we were shown sulphur dioxide needed to be mixed with nox to create acid rain.
Emm?? but hydrogen fuel cell doesn't produce NOx , aren't they?
@@DanielDaAbadSukarno exactly The byproduct is CO2.
@@DanielDaAbadSukarno If you use it in a fuel cell, no NoX. If you use it for combustion, like the Toyota engine, you have NoX. Please read the comment again and see that I was referencing IC engines.
We should be using hydrogen because it can be produced infinitely, even the minerals for batteries are finite.
I actually rode in one of those hydrogen 7 Series at the Frankfur motor show.
Because the hydrogen eats up oil, the engine more or less ran unlunbricated. therefore it made a horrible rattling sound and had to be rebuilt constantly.
Not to mention the fact that all the weight from the colossal hydrogen tanks made it the slowest V12 car on the planet...
On the bright side, if you parked it in your garage, you might wake up to find you have a Floating House!
Wouldn't need a car then!
But hydrogen weight's much less than gasoline do you mean like only the strong pressure tanks weight's much
@@valtti6039 Yeah, he means the weight of the tanks. High pressure tanks are not light. Even more so when they have to be rated as crash resistant.
@@valtti6039 Yup, they have to be very thick and so they weigh loads.
@@0TheLastLoneWolf Thank you for your kind words.
Like I wrote (reading is hard, I know), hydrogen is highly corrosive and it eats up all the engine oil as the two come into contact with each other.
So no matter how big your oil sump, the second your lubricating oil makes contact with hydrogen in the cylinders, it breaks down.
This is why the Hydrogen7 still had a few grams of CO2-emission: because of the lubricating oil that is being eaten away by the hydrogen and spewed into the exhaust system.
One of the other drawback of high pressure storage it the limited life expectancy of the tanks. They must be inspected at a service interval and then scrapped when they reach specified age.
and that the tanks will weigh more than the H2 in them
15years on the Mirai
@Mitchell Couchman Despite their shortcomings, batteries will always beat hydrogen economically due to the laws of physics.
@Mitchell Couchman they’re safer to have you seen a lithium battery fire the car literally turns molten.
@Mitchell Couchman the cost of electricity for a much more efficient BEV is generally cheaper than the cost of the fuel for a gasser.
I really like Jason, he explains things in a way that is understandable. He also throws in some humor so the material is not dry. Thanks Jason.
It can never be dry with hydrogen engines lmao
Bot
I would point out that the three tiny fuel cells in the Mirai is a relatively inefficient means of storage in terms of space, and is not a great benchmark for a method of storing hydrogen. It's bad data to extrapolate from. A larger vessel would be more efficient in terms of space because the three cells have redundant walls. I also find using the 21 buckets in the hatchback comparison a little problematic because you're not using counting for the existing fuel tank in the car. You can cut at least 3 gallons out of the equation, assuming there's a 15 gallon tank underneath.
And, as other have pointed out, we can do a whole hell of a lot better than 19MPG on hydrogen, so while it may not be feasible to get 300 miles of range with sports car performance, you can certainly get a car with 300 mile range on hydrogen. That's not to say there aren't salient points and valid concerns, but I"m not throwing hydrogen by the wayside just yet. Trucking, for example, is going to be incredibly difficult to do with EVs because the batteries have to be so large that their weight becomes counterproductive. There's a much stronger chance they go hydrogen, which means the infrastructure should go up while costs go down.
Fuel cells don't store hydrogen.
The three hydrogen tanks in the Mirai demonstrate a well-optimized method of packing the hydrogen into a car body. Larger tanks would dramatically decrease the usable space inside the vehicle.
I would be interested to see the storage needs for a 4 cylinder turbo engine. Presumably, on a vehicle which a 4 cylinder would adequately power, there would be less fuel needed for the same driving range. We shouldn't despair that there's not a perfect hydrogen option yet. We're making progress.
We are? Not me. Do you work for these scammers trying to turn cucumbers into sunligtht?
I have not studied the data on the subject, so I'm not sure whether turbocharging is viable for hydrogen ICE.
Recall that a turbocharger on a gasoline ICE relies on a certain flow rate and pressure coming down the exhaust manifold, consisting of inert atmospheric nitrogen just passing through the system, water vapor, and carbon dioxide.
The intake fuel flow rate (by mass) of hydrogen fuel is considerably lower (largely due to the fuel containing no carbon). Thus, for the same engine power output, the exhaust flow rate (by mass) will also be lower, consisting only of atmospheric nitrogen and water vapor.
That would mean less mechanical energy to tap from the exhaust stream, that you'd use to run the intake compressor.
TLDR: Basically hydrogen engines may not have enough exhaust flow to run a turbo.
If anyone with engineering knowledge about hydrogen internal combustion engine exhaust mass, temperature, and pressure happens to scroll through here, please do leave us a word about this, now I'm very curious myself about the viability of turbocharged hydrogen engines.
Obviously this is a non viable technology in practical terms 4 cilynders turbo or what not . FORGETABOUTIT
@@cykeok3525Could you not use an electric motor to spool up the turbo instead
@@leehenry5764 Well, we could power the intake air compressor entirely with an electric motor (and eliminate the exhaust turbine entirely). However, that electrical power has to come from the alternator, which itself is run by torque from the crankshaft.
So in essence we'd be running a supercharger instead of a turbocharger (using the engine's power output to run an intake compressor). Although this would be a supercharger that takes mechanical energy from the crankshaft, converts it to electrical energy through the alternator, and then back to mechanical energy with a motor powering the intake compressor.
However, generally superchargers actually reduce fuel efficiency due to the added load on the engine (in contrast with turbochargers, that draw on energy from exhaust pressure that is normally wasted anyway). So for increasing *power*, running an intake compressor with an electric motor might help... but it would be reducing fuel efficiency.
(Also, each conversion from one type of energy to another will be lossy, so a fully mechanical supercharger would be more efficient than a mechanical-electrical-mechanical supercharger).
An old boss had a track record at Riverside (now defunct) in an alt-fuel class. He ran a Fiat on hydrogen with water 'injection'. He said hydrogen doesn't knock, so he ran a 16:1 compression.
didnt they used to do school bus demolition derbies there? I know its now Six Flags New England but I do remember Riverside existing.
@@filanfyretracker i think he meant Riverside International Raceway in California
This is where hybrid gas comes in. Reduce the hydrogen fuel cell to 100 miles, put a small four cylinder with a small battery and great exhaust.
Same power no range anxiety cargo space back.
This is where never say never how about we try this new innovation to solve this old problem comes in.
There is a solution to this problem, the problem is everyone is saying let’s just use proven tech we have today, and not even attempt to solve this this problem as it’s a waste of time.
@@Tigerex966 why? This video isn't about fuel cells (of which we have passenger cars capable of 300+ miles.) It's about how much hydrogen would have to be carried for this traditional ICE to function in a normal car. Hybrid vehicles are a decent stopgap but not attractive as they have multiple systems to maintain and fuel.
The video demonstrates the problem that's likely the most difficult to solve relating to hydrogen combustion vehicles, though there are other technical challenges. The fueling infrastructure doesn't exist, but it could. Most of today's hydrogen comes from natural gas reformation (hence, carbon emissions), but it can be made cleanly with electrolysis, if the energy source is clean. Making clean hydrogen energy requires tons of energy, but if you're able to generate abundant clean energy, it's slightly less of an issue (efficiency will always matter). Combustion inefficiency makes hydrogen driving quite costly considering it's the equivalent of paying $15/gal. Hydrogen combustion also has NOx emissions, despite no CO2 (okay, a little CO2 from engine oil). NOx is difficult to avoid with combustion engines. Realistically, today's hydrogen engines are less efficient than gasoline/diesel (meaning the bucket situation is very likely worse than shown in the video), but they haven't been perfected as much as gas/diesel. Still, fuel cells & EVs will always be more efficient. And you still need to make sure the 10,000 psi pressure vessel has a safe location in the vehicle. There are many challenges, but it's an interesting subject. Below are related videos, if you're interested in learning more!
Gasoline vs Hydrogen Engine Differences - ua-cam.com/video/l6ECwRnJ0Sg/v-deo.html
How Toyota's Hydrogen Engine Works - ua-cam.com/video/3IPR50-soNA/v-deo.html
Mazda's Rotary Hydrogen Engine - ua-cam.com/video/U-n5L0cXcpg/v-deo.html
Why Hydrogen Engines Are A Bad Idea - ua-cam.com/video/1Ajq46qHp0c/v-deo.html
How Hydrogen Fuel Cells Work - ua-cam.com/video/0jnZFGx_4kY/v-deo.html
Look up AngeTheGreat's engine simulator. With a sufficiently powerful on-board computer, you could accurately simulate an entire combustion engine and the sounds it produces, and you could simulate the engine vibrations with tactile transducers in the seats.
Also, you should talk about other kinds of fuel cells, like Direct Borohydride fuel cells, Direct Methanol fuel cells, and Direct Hydrocarbon fuel cells.
Oh, and also the prospect of burning alkali metals (such as sodium and/or lithium) as fuel and their possible environmental impacts.
Bruh, there is literally a hydrogen retrofit system for diesel that uses a 90/10 blend of hydrogen and diesel, bolsters efficiency by 26.2% from 40%, and some conversions generate it on board.
Another thing I’ve said to many people as well. As soon as you say that this innovation is impossible, it ages like milk, and the next week or 2 months, something that was supposed to be impossible is now possible.
The thing is that the hydrogen generated from the chemical industry is just burned at this point, it’s called “grey-hydrogen” because it has impurities, therefore it can’t be used in a fuel cell vehicle, the cost of hydrogen is partially the purification, if we’d switch to hydrogen combustion purification is not needed and the price will decrease
I did research in hydrogen fuel cells. Leading researcher pointed the same problems out, energy in (production of hydrogen, transportation, and storage) doesn't equal anywhere near energy out...not to mention platinum being one of the better materials to produce hydrogen with via electrolysis is insanely expensive.
Regarding cost: H may be $15/gal, but without subsidies, gas would be something like $7-10/gal. So while greater, not by many orders of magnitude.
Regarding space: EVs started out having a smaller range and were fine. If refueling were as quick as gas, 200mi would be more than enough, so long as there are fueling stations. (Chicken vs egg problem, but solvable)
Regarding NOx: would it be possible to use something like DEF to reduce emissions?
Video Idea: explain the differences between an ICE that runs on hydrogen vs dinosaurs. It’d be amazing if it were possible to do a retrofit on existing engines.
Personally, I love the idea of Hydrogen fuel. No battery packs to wear out, weight savings, ability to move the fuel in a pipeline, I think it would scale more efficiently than electricity even if at a lower well to wheel efficiency. Anything to get away from fossil fuels as fast as possible.
I remember when engineers said in 1958 we would never go faster than 186mph😂
The World Land Speed record for an internal combustion engine was already 394mph at the time (set in 1947), so whoever those engineers were, they'd already been wrong for over a decade.
(Actually over 3 decades, Henry Segrave hit 204mph in 1927)
Would have been nice if you mentioned the 2005-2007 BMW 7 still retained their gasoline tanks and were actually dual fuel in 6.0 V12. You could fill up on hydrogen, burn that to zero and not worry about leakage.
Yeah, a lot of cool facts about the Hydrogen 7, probably worthy of its own video!
@@EngineeringExplained After watching the video, It's silly how Toyota think hydrogen car is the future....
@@hollymolly518 yes I agree but think but think back in 60's when they said 4 stroke motocycles can't be powerful... or when honda bring variables timing (vtec). Hydrogen will maybe never be used. But they maybe create or discover something new.
@@hollymolly518 i’m guessing they are going with a hydrogen electric plug-in hybrid.
@@hollymolly518 They keep pushing the hazards under the rug too. A 10Kpsi tank is basically a bomb. It will take an expensive tank to store it safely. But then you have the problem of car accidents. So it must further be protected from damage. Then we have the problem of fire safety. If any leaks out, the range of mixtures in air that is flammable is larger than pretty much every other gas. So it will be easy to ignite by comparison. It is good that it is lighter than air though, which will help it dissipate.
With all the issues of poor efficiency from energy source to movement, the hazards and the high cost, I don't understand why we are still talking about it. The money and time would be better spent finding low cost, high energy density batteries made of readily available materials.
All I can have out of this video besides the great ability of Jason to communicate is, I need a V8.
We've come full circle. I'm ordering my new Hindenburg blimp. Why get stuck in traffic when you can soar above! Gotta love it!
Do you smoke by any chance?
@@johnmason5626cannabis 🙏🏻
@@johnmason5626 Good question 😂
😂
Thanks for the illustration of how many problems would have to be resolved before it could be used.😮
Research 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.
The take away from this is V8's guzzle fuel regardless of what that fuel is.
It would be interesting to know exactly how big (external dimensions) the Mirai's tanks are. That would give you a pretty accurate idea of how much Hydrogen you could carry in a given car.
My 3.0 diesel twin turbo turns in 35mpg. And develops 280bhpBut yes, a big engine turning at high rpm has a lot of friction. That diesel rarely gets over 3000 rpm.
Actually my new v8 gets 4 miles per gallon minimum MORE than my old v6 same vehicle car manufacturer 2012 v6 2021 v8
@@noonehere1793 Well it depends on the capacity. And many other things. You would be surprised how much power all that stuff driven off the serpentine belt saps. And how moving to electric power steering and cooling fans improves gas mileage.
My V6 is13 years old now. The later equivalent is a twin turbo 2.2 litre straight 4 turbodiesel that develops nearly the same power but gets over 40mpg on a longer run.
The vehicles' total weight when fueled should be an indicator of how much the hydrogen tank can hold (as opposed to a gasoline powered version) as some vary slightly.
The number of cylinders is not one of main contributing factors in fuel efficiency. It’s mostly displacement. The amount of power needed and being used plays a big part as well. A v8 running at 3-4k rpm will get better efficiency than an underpowered 4 or 6 cylinder that needs to rev high to make the necessary power. Electric vehicles powered off the electrical grid is far less efficient. 61% of the electricity is from fossil fuels and 21% from coal. Lots of power is lost in transmission from oil and coal to electricity, more is lost sending it from the power plants to your house, and again more is lost charging the batteries.
I’m sure they’ll figure out a combination of pressurizing and increasing engine efficiency to improve storage vs range
Pressurized hydrogen is a pain, it's huge in volume and it leaks.. a lot... :)
Storing it in hydride solid crystals works better, the problem then becomes constantly cooling the fuel tank 24/7 - which is easier in cold areas where EVs have issues...
I think hydrogen cars may have a use case in cold countries where EVs are unpopular
Another problem is stationary storage, which also leaks, is also high volume and is more expensive than a big underground petrol tank, so service stations have to spend a ton of money to convert to hydrogen, which they don't want to do...
Natural gas engines are much more manageable...
Im am from Brasil... here there are developing a tecnology to transform álcool in hydrogen inside the car....
Search for Nissan Alcool/Hidrogen car
Regarding increasing engine efficiency, any improvements to a hydrogen-burning ICE are basically the same ones that you would apply to a gasoline-burning ICE.
I'm not saying there are no further improvements to be made, but engineers around the world have already been working on improving efficiency for decades already. Any further improvements are likely to be incremental.
Meanwhile, something interesting about storing pressurized hydrogen is that the leakage that we're all discussing isn't just due to imperfections in our storage apparatus. Rather, the hydrogen molecule is so small that it physically behaves differently from storage of other gases with larger molecules.
For example, there is a phenomenon called "hydrogen embrittlement" due to the pressurized hydrogen literally pushing its way into the atomic lattice of metal container walls. Yeah, under pressure, it actually pushes into the metal itself, and degrades its structural properties.
Likewise, hydrogen permeation through materials used for storage apparatus is a problem. Adequate sealing is such an issue for hydrogen, that (unlike storage of other gases/liquids) we basically just accept a certain loss rate due to permeation.
I just saw an announcement that Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, and Kawasaki have all agreed to develop hydrogen burning motorcycles. Toyota is contributing to the effort. I'm thinking they're probably a bit further along in solving some of the challenges using hydrogen than what us laymen know.
Why does Noone bring up the fact that stores hydrogen is more or less a bomb
Hi Jason, Daimler Trucks is currently developing a semi truck with liquid hydrogen as a fuel and a fuel cell called the GenH2 with an anticipated range of more than 600 mi. A prototype is already running on public roads. I'm working for the company that developed the tank. If you need an even closer insight into the technology and why it can make sense for semi trucks hit me up.
I'd like to hear more about that!
Awesome, but know I want a V8 in my semi. 🙃
@@mennovanlavieren3885 Hard to find one that's not an inline-6.
@@wagnerrp Not if you live in Europe and like Scania 👍🏻
Right, those trucks use *fuel cell* technology, not an internal combustion engine.
Always great watching your videos giving pros and cons on new development, thanks.
You drove the point of hydrogen having low volumetric energy density (about 8% of that of gasoline, even when liquified, not counting the tanks themselves) home pretty well 😀
That's one of the reasons Delta Heavy is the only remaining (and not for long) launch vehicle using hydrogen as the first stage fuel. (Be sure to find a video of its launch - it is spectacular. Hydrogen initially venting from engines as they start up engulfs the whole rocket in flames - perfectly normal.) It _is_ still used in some upper stages, such as venerable Centaur, where every additional second of specific impulse gained is critical (specific impulse measures how much momentum the engine imparts on the vehicle per unit mass of propellant spent, and, yes, it is expressed in seconds if you use some consistent system of measures, such as SI.) Centaur's Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10x achieve about 450s of Isp compared to less than 300 SpaceX Merlin (propelling Falcon 9 rockets) does. Other engines, either kerosene (RP1), methane or even hypergolic fueled, are in the ballpark - RL10 gets about 50% better fuel efficiency than any of them.
In addition (you perhaps did not stress this enough) hydrogen ICE has less than half of thermodynamic efficiency of fuel cell / electric motor combination.
But that V8 _does_ look gorgeous! 😀
Ariane 5, H-II, and Long March 5 all currently use hydrogen in their core stages. The upcoming Ariane 6, H3, and SLS will all do the same.
If you're specifically excluding anything using strap-on boosters, then Delta IV is not just the only *remaining* hydrogen launcher, but the only one *ever*.
@@lazarus2691 Yes. all those had most of first stage thrust coming from SRBs. Actually, Hydralox core was more like a second stage, 1.5 th, perhaps, so that high specific impulse requirement counts more than high volume detriment does.
Thanks for clarification.
@@bazoo513 With that restriction, Delta IV Heavy is the one and only orbit-capable hydrolox launch vehicle ever built, not just the only one remaining.
"RL10x achieve about 450s of Isp compared to less than 300 SpaceX Merlin" - You are unfairly comparing the vacuum performance of an upper stage engine to the sea level performance of a first stage engine. (Rocket engines are less efficient in air than vacuum because they waste some energy pushing the atmosphere out of the way of the exhaust.)
Compare the RL10 to the upper stage variant of Merlin 1D, which has a vacuum Isp of 348s. Or, compare the sea level performance of first stage Merlin 1D, 282s, to the sea level performance of a hydrogen first stage engine like RS-25 (Space Shuttle Main Engine), 366s.
The real, apples-to-apples specific impulse difference is large, but not nearly as big as you make it sound.
Please expand this comment into a UA-cam video (use lots of graphics)
Nevermind the initial energy needed to creat the hydrogen at scale.
We should figure out how to use the energy contained in the bonds of an atom to create loads of clean electricity. Imagine if we could do that. Then, maybe we could use the excess power these plants would be producing during the day when it is not needed, due to all the cheap solar on the grid, to produce hydrogen. We could call it pink hydrogen or something so as to not offend the "environmentalists" by calling it blue hydrogen.
Yes, and unfortunately most of it today is derived from natural gas reformation. Need lots of energy to make it!
Scoop it from a nearby star
@@EngineeringExplained we can just suck up some hydrogen clouds in the solar system. Plenty of stars we can colonize
@@F14Goose37 Can't tell if you're trying to make a joke about nuclear power here and mistated what the fission process is, or if you just have a fundamental misunderstanding of "the energy stored in the bonds between atoms"
I remember well an article on the liquid hydrogen BMW back in the day. Another important point was that the engine can't use liquid, or even high pressure gas, so it needs to be increased to low pressure. The problem is, as anyone with basic science knowledge knows, decrease in pressure = decrease in temperature. We don't want to cool the already -250⁰c hydrogen. So it needs a super complex, multiple stage decompression system just to make it usable.
We are working on a fuel cell powered machine at my work. Huge potential.
Excellent talk- clear, concise and informative. Thank you
Thank you for giving a visual comparison of the volume required. Every source I've seen that touts the energy efficiency of Hydrogen only talks about the energy density by weight, and ignores the space problem.
I like how Toyota still keeps fighting to make hydrogen popular after so many attempts.
Yep, all that money it wasted promoting hydrogen could have gone to making a great EV.
@@michaelriecher5632 why when everyone has done it and we know what the results will most likely be compared to something new that might not suck
Toyota bankrupt before 2030...
And with that determination and their expertise, they will do it eventually, against all the odds. Imagine where Hydrogen ICEs would be with the same amount of funds and time invested as EV have had.
Thank you Jason. As a fellow engineer, I am disheartened to see how people are getting fooled by some PR offices...
As a fellow engineer I am disheartened of how other engineers can believe everything they see on YT. Storage is not the issue with H2 ICE...for certain applications. High NOx, is the main issue that I don't expect to be overcome soon. There should be an asterisk next to the power figure since acceptable NOx cuts power in half. Storage IS the issue for small engines however. You could consider a battery powered cryo cooler to keep your liquid H2 cold, but your overall process would be too inefficient, therefore costly. It won't work for passenger vehicles.
But...ASSUMING they can overcome the NOx issue...what if you don't care about venting because you are constantly using fuel? Think long haul trucking or marine. Also large industrial machinery, mining trucks etc with extremely high duty cycles. Or race cars for that matter. H2 could be a feature of track only supercars.
There are huge IFs related to H2 ICE (H2 turbines work great btw), but don't write them off based on storage. That's a red herring. Yamaha and Toyota aren't dummies.
Look beyond your nose amigos.
@@2hedz77 Just for your info, I work in a marine engine factory, and I am not going to write a treaty on alternative fuels as a comment on yt. There may be a small niche for H2 ICE, even if I strongly doubt it. However, I am convinced that at Toyota, on this topic, they are indeed dummies, fooled by a hatred for BEV, by the typical silos thinking of japanese keiretsu and by the ties with fossil fuel industry.
@@2hedz77 he's just talking about the modified RCF, which is a 450hp H2 engine in a sports car.
@@satunnainenkatselija4478 What's wrong with just 540J? Anyway, we don't travel by metres (or yards for that matter). For the same reason, SI unit of mass is kg, not g.
@@2hedz77 As a fellow engineer, Storage is always the issue with H2.
I don’t doubt your point about Hydrogen being impractical as a fuel for a V8 sports car, but I noticed that when you talked about liquid Hydrogen and the 75% reduced space requirement, you went from 21 five gallon buckets, to 12 five gallon buckets. 12 is not 25% of 21??? If I heard you wrong and you meant a 25% reduction of space, then the math still doesn’t equal 12 buckets, from 21 originally used.
So the deal is with liquid nitrogen you can store 75% more energy in the same space. 75% of 12 buckets is 9 buckets. 12 buckets plus 9 buckets = 21 buckets. So you can store the same amount of energy in 12 liquid hydrogen buckets as you can in 21 buckets of gaseous hydrogen
Just like freon they are liquid and gas.
High presure H require strong tanks that cost more.
He also forgot to include the re-used fuel tank volume, which he said got you 50miles. Therefore the 'extra' buckets are needed for only 250miles. I get his point, though. In UK we have hydrogen gas buses but they are hybrid electric and use a different system, which I guess is more efficient.
Also like range is pretty moot point since you can fill up your car in a minute compared to an EV where you gotta sit around for an hour. So yeah most of the video is just pointless. Range doenst matter if you fill it up in a minute.
Another space advantage for the battery is, you don't need something the size of a V8 and a drive shaft to produce the power, you just need something about the size of the differential
Yep, and batteries have a lot more flexibility in shape, since they're not containing a super high pressure gas, which leads to the strong, cylindrical design of hydrogen tanks.
And you can restore energy back into the battery when braking, aka regenerative braking. Making the system even more efficient
And a first world power grid. Don't have that in CA
@zee There are noisy gasoline RC cars as well for you to avoid.
Too bad the remote uses batteries, though. Poor child slave miners.
Thank you for the incredibly informative video. On May 29, 2023, Toyota took part in a 24-hour endurance race with a GR Corolla equipped with a hydrogen engine, successfully completing 358 laps covering approximately 1,633.5 km. Interestingly, they utilized liquid hydrogen maintained at a chilling temperature of -256°C.
I figured that using liquid hydrogen instead if highly compressed hydrogen gas might solve the range issue, but of course, you now have the difficulty having having to have a tank well enough insulated to maintain such incredibly low temperatures. As noted in the video, there simply is no long term storage of liquid hydrogen for the vehicle owners, and you can't park your car in your garage because venting flammable hydrogen gas into it is _probably_ not a great idea. And then you can imagine the safety issues if your tank ruptures in a collision and splashes liquid hydrogen all over the place. So, I think liquid hydrogen fuel is a non-starter for general consumers.
Metrics sucks for human measurements.
isnt liquid hydrogen under great pressure also to keep it liquid?
EEE-ghad !
@@blakespower Yes. Dont read comments, youll get cancer.
I do love the visual representations of volume and how it adds up quickly. Nice work!
Research 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 believe the engineering behind the design of this engine would have thought about this at the beginning. And I'm sure they did.
They did. This video is disingenuous beyond belief 😂
@@pedroj3432 yeh i feel that too
NO. Toyota is vehemently and politically opposed to the transition to electric vehicles and is willing to spend millions on creating this kind of dead-end nonsense, just as a decoy from their main objective which is to prolong the production of petrol and diesel engined vehicles. The ENORMOUS technical problems of storing and distributing hydrogen to the "gas station" far out-weigh the "size of the gas tank" problem demonstrated here. Then there is the problem of how much energy is needed to produce hydrogen. I'm an engineer and have some understanding of these issues. You proclaim to be a believer in engineering without ANY understanding of what engineering is. Go back to school and pay attention to the physics, maths and chemistry teachers in particular. You are currently not qualified to comment (unless blind faith is an acceptable accreditation).
A UA-camr thinks he knows more than Toyota engineers 🤦♂️
because the toyota engine uses an hho cell to produce the hydrogen on demand and only requires a small water tank? @@pedroj3432
Yes as the V8 lover those 21 buckets are good enough to weep away the tears ofcourse practicality alone makes sense great demonstration 👍
I'd take half the range but be able to fill up very quickly though. Also, "sporty" is a very relative term when you say that to a car with such large batteries. That comes with quite the weight penalty and the sportiness is pretty much limited to acceleration. I'd be very interested how far they can still improve the technology around Hydrogen combustion engines and storing technologies.
Half the range means half the weight of a battery, and with charging speeds increasing, EVs might not be too far off. It seems like petrolheads just want to keep burning stuff, so synthetic fuel might be the answer, if EE didn't already make a video about why it isn't the answer lol.
@@NewZeroland Honestly, the more research that I do the less I think EV's will go very far. They don't offer the features that they need to to convince people to leave combustion engines.
In the future hopefully a battery can be produced which will be much lighter and hold more energy, but until, or if, that ever happens, EV's are not worth the effort.
I don't say that lightly. I just think a lot of people kept on hearing how electric cars were the future and they started to assume that they would be without getting all of the facts. The change in infrastructure which would be neccesary is another reason why changing the entire transportation method will probably be slow or not happen.
@@matthewmosier8439 you're right that they aren't the future. EVs are already here, and have been for years. I think the charging infrastructure is the biggest shift in convenience ever, because you can power your vehicle at home. Hydrogen still requires a trip to the refueling station, and they can charge whatever they want for fuel. Meanwhile you could recharge an EV with solar panels. That freedom is worth pursuing.
@Mitchell Couchman with the right cells and cooling they do
Storage Technologies, you understand that storing Hydrogen is like rounding up flys with a Tennis Racquet.
Hydrogen is a tiny Molecule and it finds it's way through whatever you put it in eventually, this is why nobody pumps Hydrogen, it always manufactured where it's needed and used where it's needed. Also Hydrogen as a heat fuel (car engine) is an absolute waste, By the time you've put a work Fuel (Electricity) in to electrolyse water into Oxygen and Hydrogen, compressed it down so you can move or store the stuff, then use that Heat Fuel in your car to generate a bunch of heat and a little bit of Mechanical Energy , you'd be multiple times better off just using Electrical Energy in the first place.
It's just so wasteful.
It has it's very good and much needed uses inside industry where it is used for it's chemical properties, Oils, Plastics, Mining etc, and those industries already use the processes they need Hydrogen for in place, but for Transport as a fuel source where we use it as a fuel , it's dead in the Water, possibly from the water it made while trying to get to where it was meant to be used.
Look more into the generation and energy used to make Hydrogen, and you'll see how awful it is for Transport.
Then you get into the Whole Grey Hydrogen, most of our Hydrogen comes from this and all of a sudden Hydrogen isn't very green at all and in fact worse than just using LNG to power our cars, taxi's busses, trucks etc, which doesn't fix the carbon problem, but it's less of a problem and more efficient than generating Gery Hydrogen and thinking we're doing something good.
Blue, Hydrogen, Black or Brown Hydrogen, same problems.
Green Hydrogen is great in theory though, until you realise you get multiple times more work done by just using the Electricity generated in the first place to do the work you need, in this case, moving a car.
The basic of engineering is to solve a problem,and this is what we engineers do btw..great knowledge
I just love how he insists on displaying a five gallon bucket with a US flag on it, then proceeds to use metric like a proper engineer for most of his calculations. I hate it when I have to revise an old calculation at work that was done in imperial units, I end up having convert to SI then do my calculations so the next engineer doesn't have to go through pain!
@@anydaynow01 for me (non US), it's pretty difficult trying to map in my head all the imperial units in real time. I more or less remember the exchange, but doing the math all the time is complicated.
insane info and presentation thank you, very very intresting
I appreciate you compiling all this information, I'll share this at the bar tonight to make myself look smart!
Thank you!
Have to give Credits due to YAMAHA Motor for helping to developed so many World Class engines for many other car manufacturers in the world over the decades ... 🌷🌿🌏💜🕊🇯🇵
Personally I prefer the octahedron. Maybe a torus such as a TOKAMAC! Or perhaps even a Klein bottle.
Hmmm... Yes, I think a Klein bottle wold be the perfect vessel to store all this -250C H2 at 25,000 atmospheres.
And the driver could zoom around all day on a highway built as a Mobius strip.
I think for strength, hydrogen tanks should always be cylinders or spheres. It's probably a bad idea to pressurize rectangular prisms to 10k psi lol
Not only for strength but for manufacturing and quality control.
I mean the fastest way to make a cylinder is to pressurize a prism
For a pressure vessel as shown in the video its a simple strength check for hoop and longitudinal stresses. You could make the pressure vessel into different shapes, but those would require a more detail analysis.
Well duh but it wouldn’t matter since hydrogen is a very light gas. Literally the lightest and least dense gas known to man.
@@AidanS99 The issue is the astronomical pressure required to hold an appreciable amount of hydrogen. The weight of hydrogen has almost nothing to do with the strength requirements of The containers.
Keep up the good work. I was using the video as entertainment AND information so I did not take notes. I think you provide an essential service.
You keep dashing my dreams of driving a combustion engine 20 years from now
You'll probably still be able to drive one, although the fuel will be incredibly expensive by then.....
@@Brian-om2hh what and you don't think electricity is going to get expensive as more and more demand for it is required 😂
As an internet/keyboard/armchair scientist, engineer, doctor, lawyer, WWII veteran and Nobel Peace Prize winner I just watched a video pretty much made me an expert on this stuff. I think they figured this problem out by making a three cylinder 1.6 liter hydrogen engine. Dramatically less powerful but it solves the range issue. I must admit I'm sure they made it hybrid to further reduce the tank size. The video said it did in fact have a smaller battery which is what lead me to this conclusion. They made a big V8 version specifically for the guys who couldn't care less about the range. They like noise and power even if it only lasts four minutes. Range be damned!
Great video, I look forward to all your uploads. Have a great day
Thanks to your comment here, I didnt need to watch that video, a bit tedious.
Thank you, keep commenting.
Yep for the Electric Truck lovers they call that a FORD LIGHTNING
Those guys probably get complaints from their wives for only lasting 4 minutes😂
A lot of the issues you mention were faced, to a much lesser degree, with CNG powered vehicles. The range is reduced compared to gasoline, and the pressure in the tank is about 3600 PSI, but with hydrogen, it's about 3x as difficult.
CNG cars also have a petrol tank so having a lower range on the CNG isn't even as much of an issue compared to hydrogen since you can always switch over to petrol when you need the added range
@@bluemountain4181 huh? Uh no? No they don't..
@@reykennedy5716 he means those that have been converted. You can't start (at least easily) a converted CNG car unless you use the original fuel for a bit and then change into gas.
CNG is fossil fuel with emissions
@@slazerlombardi .... What? You can definitely start a cng converted vehicle on cng.
I think condensed carbon capture systems will be what preserves the visceral feeling of driving a gas powered sports car in the future. I see hydrogen being best utilized with fuel cells and electric drive systems for vehicle applications.
Actually there are two solutions. A small amount if H2 could be continually drawn from the H2 tank and used in a fuel cell. The fuel cell would generate electricity to operate a refrigeration system to keep the H2 cold enough to remain a liquid. That would greatly reduce the loss of H2. Or, if external electricity is available, it could be used to operate the refrigeration system so there would be zero loss of H2 through evaporation.
The other solution would be to use nitrogen as an H2 carrier so that the H2 could be kept as a liquid at a convenient pressure and temperature, i.e., use NH3, which is ammonia, as the fuel. Of course the NH3 handling systems would need to be carefully designed to prevent its escape since no rational person would want to breathe NH3. Although a conventional gasoline could run on NH3, an engine designed for NH3 would run much better. That's because although NH3 has superb anti-knock properties, it is harder to ignite and burns much more slowly. A long stroke high compression engine, heavily turbocharged, running at perhaps 2000 rpm, could work very well.
NH3 produces lots of NOx and is very inefficient.
I happen to work with some high surface alumina powders and other stuff like it.
I was told one application for those white powders was storing hydrogen in zeolites. It isn't bonded to any metals in there but rather absorbed into the tiny pores of the material.
Desorption happens as pressure drops so it lets you store large amounts of H2 gas at lower pressure. I'm not sure of the exact numbers but apparently they use 100 bar or something in that range.
I don't know how much this tech was developed since i last heard it or how feasible it is sadly. Did you happen to stumble upon references to it in your research?
That pressure is 1/7 the pressure of the tanks he showed. I fail to see how putting other physical stuff in the tank without chemical bonding, helps rather than hurts. Sounds like it's just taking up space.
It still has all the complex moving parts and heat output too
Exactly. It's sure going to be a struggle to convince everyone that thousands of moving parts offer an advantage over less than 30....
the ev is a pipe dream pushed for control by the democrat party !WAKE UP & CATCH UP!!!
@@Brian-om2hh Thousands of moving parts? 😂
Heat output is a good thing in the winter. It keeps your car warm.
And oil chsnges
Yes.. do not be RESTRICTED on SINGLE solution.. GO to innovate/improve HYDROGEN and possible NEW TECH. ❤❤❤
For combustion, it is going to be either biofuels or synthetic fuels. There is no other way. I just hope that some petrol brands stay around making those fuels in the future, so aficionados can still power these amazing engines. Even if it is just a very small niche.
can you explain to me more of the biofuels
E85 for the win, you know why
@@jjp9595 why?
@@nastynick7125 Bio fuels is anything that burns and is made from living things. People usually think about plants, but whale oil would be a biofuel as well, for example.
But for cars, the most widespread today is ethanol (alcohol) because we know how to produce it. But there is also research in using algae to make a more petrol like fuel.
@@DrBernon whale oil, dishonored
I think the point to use ICE for H2 was to prevent the situation in the full cell that there is not enough noble metals for the electrodes. take into account that the efficiency of burning H2 should be much higher than that of liquid fuels because of no sooting, unburnt sprays, etc... and also due to the very high flame temperature, H2 can be burnt in super lean conditions. that means one can heat air for propulsion just like turbofans.
Burning super lean can create NOx emissions (it does with gasoline too)
Hydrogen doesn’t contain enough energy per unit volume to make this work.
@@richardggeorge - “Burning super lean can create NOx emissions”
In 2022, Arrington Performance showed an H2 1964 Ford Falcon Sprint at 2022 SEMA in Vegas. It reduced NOx with a lean H2 mixture injected with H2O (Ford has a patent.) It was done with a Ford 5.0 Coyote V8 crate engine.
This is not the only demonstrated example.
In 2018, the production dual fuel Mazda RX-8 achieved lower NOx emissions by running a lean H2.
Wherever you are getting your H2 information about is over 1/2 decade old.
Too dangerous to carry a (Hydrogen Bomb) in your car; gas powered Vs Burst into flames when in crashes, just imagine what can happen with a hPd Vehicle...
I work with cryogenic liquids daily. We use them in our laser cutting system. We have a tank for liquid nitrogen that is 2 stories tall and almost never has to vent between jobs. The way it works is that it combines the cryo storage with extreme pressures to keep the liquid nitrogen at a warmer temp than the normal -192C needed at normal atmospheric pressure. Good cryo tanks are almost always huge, just for the sake of insulation... if they could find a way to make that smaller, it might work, but in my opinion it should still be used on fuel cell tech because holy crap can you imagine the range on that thing LOL.
My bad for not finishing the vid before spouting off.
They don't store it cryogenically.
They just keep it under immense pressure.
@@TauCu He did talk about one cryo storage tank, but it was unable to keep temps down without venting, likely due to its size
@@minotaurbison Oh, I mustn't have caught that.
@@TauCu don't worry, it was only a tiny segment, but it did explain well the problem with tiny cryo tanks, now if one has space to put in a 5' tall/long 2' round type like we use for gases we do not use often, results might have been better.
As with EVs and ICEs, what emissions are required to build the HV? High-pressure holding tanks are difficult to construct and require high-grade steel or similar materials. Has a comparative study been made for HVs?
Something I saw on an Industrial Blog is the problem of Leaking past the Seals on any Hydrogen Storage. Not as easy as it seems.
Jason: this was a really informative an easy-to-follow overview. The storage volume numbers don’t lie. I do wonder if your efficiency stats might be off? JCB are getting close to equivalent run times on their heavy equipment with similar H2 storage volumes (at 5000psi, I think)… so real-world examples seem to disprove your conclusions here?
I’d just like to get 500 miles on one gallon of fuel
JCB redesigned a lot of it's engine around hydrogen combustion so I'm sure they're getting higher efficiencies. It's kind of unfair for Jason to use this "port" proof of concept as a benchmark for what's possible imo.
Boy it's totally exhausting it's easier to give up. hope his maths are in order
@@murffly JCB completely neglected to address the much harder problem of hydrogen production and supply. It absolutely must be green. Unfortunately for JCB that is an order of magnitudes harder nut to crack and it will never be done very cheaply.
@@rogerphelps9939 Why would they address a problem which has nothing to do with their expertise? What do you propose as a better solution? Everything battery powered?
Great info!! Very cool breakdown. I still have hope for hydrogen though! In the this scenario we were trying to make 450hp! LOL I think plenty of quick little 4 bangers can be made like this. At the birth of gasoline ICEs, we weren't setting any pony records!
"Quick little 4 bangers" are only quick when they're light. Hydrogen storage itself isn't anywhere near light.
It's dead in the water man.
or just use fuel cells. I didn't know we were even using hydrogen as a regular motor fuel.
@William Walker, there are two points to using ICEs over fuel cells. #1 ICEs make loud noise. #2 fuel cells are damn expensive and use rare materials. They are quite frankly ass but still waaay better than BEVs
Don't worry hydrogen is the fuel of the future, it just needs to be used in the right way. 👍
@@connorbingel7134 How is making loud noises a positive? I thought one of the biggest positives from switching over to electric cars is no more noisy roads.
Truth backed up by professional demonstration makes this guy is worth listening to!
Hi Jason, I own and use an LPG utility (circa 2006), from what I have read this fuel is kind on the environment. I am puzzled as to why this tech is no longer commercially available. A video on LPG powered engines and the pros and cons would be excellent.
I used it too on punto 1.2 16V, and it's still widely used in eastern Europe. You can still buy brand new bifuel cars in Europe with petrol and LPG/CNG. It's cheap. Not sure about emissions. Better CO figure but it raise combustion temp and maybe produce NOX, probably depending on engine configuration, not sure. I would like to hear his opinion also
Renewable propane and DME might actually become a real thing soon in California just as Renewable natural gas is a thing in California. The issue with all of these fuel pathways is just how much the volume can be scaled up. AND the more important issue is how it plays into California’s LOW CARBON FUEL STANDARD CREDITS. The LCFS credits are the major mechanism to fund low carbon fuels. So for example, today California gasoline users pay something like $0.30 per gallon extra so the refinery can buy offset credits. So when Elon Musk says he can deliver electricity for something like $0.07 per kWh, this is because green electricity used as a transportation fuel gets paid a large LCFS credit. This also applies to hydrogen, RNG and some other fuels. Remember, one always have to follow the money.
This is how California transit districts basically get near zero cost electricity for their EV buses. The trade off is that the EV buses cost 40% more than the RNG buses but most of that is covered by State and Federal grants. The interesting thing is that the large and detailed engineering reports that are available on line show that the total cost of ownership is higher for the EV buses and it is significantly higher for fuel cell buses.
@@vzr314 also widely used in portugal, not sure about spain tho
Definitely I topic I would like to see on the channel, as well. As someone who drives a car that uses LPG, I never thought about it as being "kind" to the environment, to me, the tailpipe emissions still noxiously stink, so I cannot consider it "ecological", but it could, in fact, be better for the environment and for the air quality (I guess it produces less soot than the diesel engine)
Got a few duel fuel vehicles also, and lpg/propane was just a byproduct and they used to burn off as a waste product.
Used to be 5c/L when I first started using it, now been high as $1.70/L and cost wise vs the petrol, less efficient to use but now back to 85cish
I think for those looking to hold on to the combustion engine, the new sustainable, carbon neutral fuels that F1 is championing for 2026 will be the way. If the billions of current combustion engines can stay in use with carbon neutral fuels, that's kind of best case scenario for everyone at this point.
Yeah, I feel synthetic fuel will be a possibility, before hydrogen takes off.
@@syed_mamoon99 The increasing likelihood of civil war in the entire western world may rapidly increase the reliance on biodiesel, as the civilian populace would continue to generate power in diesel generators and move troops and other assets via diesel haulers.
People who want "alternative fuels" "for the environment" aren't schizo enough to understand that soylent green is on the horizon. Eat bugs, live in pods, shuttle around on government transportation, go outside when you're allowed to, etc.
These rules will only apply to the common man. It's only bad when we do it.
@@syed_mamoon99 but then that means they can still control our fuel. That's the goal is to escape from their agenda to control us more.
So we have to grow fuel, meaning less space to grow food, meaning prices will go up. And this is so your V8 makes noises as you drive around? F1 is a mouthpiece for big oil
No It Is hybrids Just Like the Railroad Has Been Doing For DECADES! Right Now It Is More carbon Friendly Just To Drive Your Old honda Than Buy an EV! We Have To Produce and Refine Petroleum Every Thing in Our Cars, Homes and Offices is A Byproduct Of Refining gasoline! If All Cars Were Electric And We Somehow We Charged Them Without Burning Fossil Fuels It would Only Reduce Our Carbon Footprint By 10% That Is Why The Left Hates Math!! It Exposes Their NONSENSE!!
I just think it's amazing they can create a V8 engine that just emits water, regardless of range and other considerations. It is good that a manufacturer like Yamaha actually put money into this research as it could eventually lead to breakthroughs and give us other options instead of have EVs (as amazing as they are) being thrust upon us without choice. In the meantime, how about instead of 450hp we settle for half that, sacrifice some of the range (maybe 200 miles) and consider mixing with petrol and/or having a smaller auxiliary petrol tank. The main point is that we should continue to allow and actively encourage R&D in multiple areas and not just put all of our eggs into one basket.
yeah hopefully ice engines stay because we should not feel forced all because of the government wants us to go ev
Exactly. There seems to be an all or nothing mentality in the government policies.
@@TML34 lol.. and going on 3 years of nothing ..
And an EV doesn't emit anything, not even water. Yeah yeah, the emissions come from the power plant/source. We know. And the emissions from hydrogen engines ALSO come from the source, where they turn natural gas into hydrogen. So I'm not seeing any benefit.
@@jonclark1288 Actually EVs do emit water, in the production of their batteries. You should look up the devastating ecological impact of lithium mining.
Wow! I think that old man in Toyota has lost it!
Great video! I would also adds that there are also long term structural integrity concerns with using hydrogen. Hydrogen causes steel embrittlement, and integrity issues for seals and elastomers. Yes, you can engineer an engine using low carbon steel... I am not sure about the long term integrity of a "hydrogen combustion engine" under a cyclical high pressure and temperature system. Agree... The low energy density of hydrogen per unit volume is really the deal breaker. Thank you for posting this!
Not just Japanese are working on hydrogen. Even Korean are working on Korean tech
yeah, but how long we talking?
300mi would be doable on a small turbocharged 3 or 4 cylinder that would get 40+ mpg on petrol. Liquid hydrogen becomes a supercritical fluid at room temperature provided it's stored at >180psi, so much more H2 can be stored at a lower pressure. The additional benefit is that compared to BEVs you now don't need all of the cobalt, lithium, and other such minerals, and you also don't have the issue of battery degradation over time or with low temperatures.
I would purchase an Hydrogen fueled car vs a electric vehicle. No brainer all day.
mercedes solved that problem decennia ago
So what's all this container and piping stuff made of? Cardboard?
And where do we get the power to compress/liquify and/or cool this hydrogen?
Oh- where do we get the hydrogen? Are we drilling many hydrogen wells these days?
I mean, Hyundai already has it working in multiple vehicles. The Vision 74 gets 600km, 372miles. It has storage... no large bulky tank etc.
@@TonyQKing Hydrogen is extremely easy to get. You can do it at home if you have a battery and some water. The problem has always been storage, not availability.
Thank-you for these insights. I have seen at least one other concurring analysis. It’s not very practical for passenger automobiles. What about semis, buses, and heavy construction equipment? Would love to see your take on that.
Stay safe.
Hydrogen busses are definately a thing. The local transport authority where I'm at has a few. But they've had them for 10-15 years now and never rolled it out to a fleet replacement so I can only assume that while they are useful for "Look we are doing an environmental thing!", they might not make a lot of economic sense.
Or even environmental sense given how the hydrogen is currently being produced.@@shayneoneill1506
Hydrogen buses use fuel cells.
Still makes more sense to do hydrogen fuel cell because you waste a lot less
Hydrogen powered buses are now on the road in the UK Midlands.
What about nox? the air is 79% nitrogen, will their be a NOX problem??
Depends on compression and air/fuel ratios, as with any fuel. Hydrogen burns very hot/fast and isn't suitable for compression ignition so you're unlikely to get the sustained pressures and temperatures needed to form NOx in reasonable configurations.
This is very valuable insight. However, keep in mind that hydrogen refueling takes a fraction of the time that recharging an EV would take. 50 miles might not that bad of a range if you can refuel in a matter of seconds, adding only a few minutes to a long trip. For shorter trips, it's not an issue at all, especially considering that the average car trip is less than 10 miles.
Plus if they just make it 100-150 miles, its not a problem as long there is enough refueling infrastructure
@@paroxysm6437 Hundreds of miles of rush hour traffic? What kind of hell hole do you live in? :D
@@paroxysm6437 actually it rarely takes 30 minutes or less. The high speed chargers are rare and mainly in the cesspool big cities. Also let's not ignore the fact the majority of electricity is still powered by natural gas and coal. Then you lose energy as it's transferred across lines and stored. Its a ludicrous concept when we have synthetic fuels coming out, with super efficient engines that produces way less emissions than natural gas and coal.
@@paroxysm6437 Not in the UK or across the EU have that type of infrastructer. The USA is not the only country that you should use as an example. Look at the continent of Africa, that hasn't got hardly any stations that has recharging units.
EV (lithium ion batteries / tesla) are more harmful to the eco system than diesels. And they are hideous polluters of the atmosphere.
We have many years to go before we will have anything that can be called efficient and not harmful.
@@paroxysm6437 I've worked in the IT industry for over 25 years. I'm a technician, so that means installing a variety gear. And of course I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to tech. The thing I do not like about the lithium ion battery, is that it can't be recycled. By that, I mean the cobalt, lithium, manganese and graphite can not be safely extracted when the battery comes to its end of life usage. The same technology is used in a variety of productes. The biggest user is mobile phones. Of which, over 18 billion have been made. And not 1 battery has been recycled safely, in a cost effective manner. That's not to say that some haven't been recycled, but it's to expensive and dangerous to do at this moment and time. And in the end, it's going into the ground and as sure as eggs is eggs. They will end up polluting the area where they will eventually be buried in. Recent past history of waste in general has not been good. At least here UK it hasn't. I can't comment what it is like the US.
when I was in high school I had the thought, "why not capture the water vapor exhaust and separate it back into hydrogen and oxygen gas for combustion."
after playing around with different electrolysis methods I finally realized that you would basically be turning a combustion engine car into an electric car at that point.
basically your range would be fully dependent on how much electrical power you could store and carry.
The whole experiment did however end up with a small electrolysis system on my old ford pickup that augmented my gasoline system upping my fuel mileage without any negative effects *.cough other than an electrical fire and a custom built alternator cough.
without the ability to mess around with the computers in my vehicles, for me the system was only useful on carbureted engines.
Yeah, theres unfortunately no way to do that with a net positive energy output. It’d require you provide it with additional energy to electrolyze the exhaust water, which would turn it into a glorified EV. One that includes a hydrogen fuel cell, a combustion engine, and an electric battery onboard. So you’re packing on a fuckton of weight and requiring both hydrogen fueling and charging. May as well just go full electric.
I love how companies especially Japanese car companies aren't throwing the baby away with the bath water whith the internal combustion engine just yet. There still looking for ways to make them more efficient and better emissions.
They are going to be bankrupt
Hard to go bankrupt when their cars are still the most popular in the world. With three vehicles in the top 10, on global new-car sales. Until a company starts producing the quality that you get in a Toyota they aren’t going to go bankrupt and can continue to research in whichever direction they so choose!
@@user-221i Actually Tesla will probably go bankrupt before toyota ever will there not even profitable in any way there Actually loosing money they only reason there not bankrupt is because Elon Musk keeps pouring in his own money to keep the company afloat. If anything EV's will make car companies go bankrupt because even though there pushing them and biden is pushing them nobody's buying them.
@@lachmcalister8007 That's not the way business works. The margins on passenger vehicles are razor thin.
Hi Jason, greetings from the U.K. So many of my colleagues and friends tell me they don’t want a BEV (I’ve had aBEV since 2019, so people often talk to me on the subject) because they are waiting for hydrogen to take off, after a brief and disappointing conversation, I often send them a link to this excellent video. I’m 58 yo, hydrogen fuelled cars have been on the agenda my whole life; the sad truth is they have a major problem that is impossible to solve - physics!
A fuel cell is probably the way to go for hydrogen powered cars. There may be some applications for hydrogen combustion technology. Perhaps with some smaller 2, 3 or 4 cylinder engines. There are lots of smaller type vehicles with small engines less than 2 liters that you should be able to fit at least four five gallon buckets in and have some trunk space left for a 300 mile range.
Yep! 👍🏼
By keeping H2 internal combustion on the table, the pressure is kept on fuel cells to come down in price, and fuel cell keep pressure on H2 internal combustion to become more efficient.
Honestly, this is the right way to go about it.
Fuel cells cost alot
This assumes that fuel cells can be developed which are cheap and can last +200 000 miles. They must also be scalable to millions of vehicles. Currently it's not going to work and it's unknown whether it will be possible in the future.
@@wombatillo - “assumes fuel cells can be developed which are cheap”
car fuel cells existed in production for decades, use rare earth elements already produced for ICE catalytic converters, so the costs will not differ greatly once production ramps up & and existing supply lines shift to new production used
“last +200 000 miles”
they typically last 12 years - 15 years
“scalable to millions of vehicles”
The rare earths required for catalytic converters can be used for fuel cells, so no real issue with element availability, should scale since ICE scales for millions
“currently it’s not going to work”
It has been working, for decades
“unknown if will be possible in the future”
If not, we start with H2 ICE.
This has been working, for decades, too.
Yeah but then you're just driving electric with an extra and wasteful step... Batteries are more energy efficient than hydrogen fuel cells.
Not to mention you can't for instance create Hydrogen at home for no cost and then put it in your tank, but I can get energy via solar panels on my roof and put it on my battery via a wallbox and it costs me nothing....
Great informative video Jason.
I think it's very interesting to note that my 35 year old 1987 Porsche 944 gets over 35 mpg on the highway and has a 21 gallon tank netting a range of over 700 miles
They can keep all this other crap
I don't use Telegram, is there an email I can send to ?
V8?
@@tonydiesel3444 it is a 2.5 liter 4 cylinder
Goddamn my 944 only gets 26 highway, though it is an S model
@@christopherkast8045 don't reply to those Telegram comments, they are a scam.
Very interesting stuff. Ive seen a lot of petrol heads hating on electric cars and saying why dont we invest more into this technology. If only it was that easy.
“Throw more money at it” shouted those who don’t understand math or physics
There is good reason for hating on electric cars . You just fail to acknowledge it.
@@MichaelRei99 Electric is the best solution to the problem. An even better solution is removing our reliance on cars and investing more into public transport and cycle infrastructure. This is easier in Europe as sadly America has built its entire country's infrastructure around the car.
Or they just say "hydrogen is the future" without thinking beyond "EV bad".
My only real complaints with EV's is that they don't have exhaust notes and that their overall build quality still seems immature, the exhaust note issue likely will just be a thing I have to live with it and future generations won't care and the build quality issues are something that'll improve over time as manufacturers learn what works and what doesn't. Cost is I guess another factor but I could technically afford one today, I realize most cannot though.
Other tertiary concerns are that not all charging stations & ports are the same (lack of standardization, which I think is fine for now but something that'll need to be addressed in the future) and what does re-sale value look like considering battery packs can cost somewhere from 8-20k depending on manufacturer.
Long-term I think they'll make way more sense, especially once we start seeing 250+ mile range EV's that cost roughly 24-28k; there are also issues with just resourcing which will generally improve over time too.
So for my petrol loving self, they just aren't quite there yet; ICE vehicles $ for $ are better in terms of range / comfort / excitement / and feeling and I don't really want to be "forced" into buying an EV by the government; I am all for people getting them and adopting them though, the petrol-head community is a minority and really can be safely ignored.
Ah yeah, the last concern; the fact that manufacturers will try to somehow retain rights to your purchased vehicle (Tesla and Ford specifically), not a huge fan of how features can be remotely disabled and how owners can't use aftermarket parts... I hope legislation is passed to give us rights back in regards to that.
There is an obvious fallacy in this video that I'd like to address. The need for extra volume effects efficiency much less than the need for extra weight. As we all know, less weight is better than more power.
Thanks for the video. Of course, there are very difficult challenges in producing, transporting and storing hydrogen in a manner that is carbon-neutral as well.
Who gives a crap about carbon.
Hi Jason, thank you for sharing this nicely done video. There is talk to use amonia instead alternatively to progressively mix H2 with LPG in order to come up with more reasonable technology & numbers. Finally H2 technology needs to compete against batteries at least within the passenger car industry sector. Cheers
It’s still a fossil fuel that you removed the carbon containing the most energy, still a bad idea
Just stack the buckets to get almost infinite range! Or does it not work that way… Great video.
Just pull a big trailer filled with buckets. Problem solved.
Buckets clearly work that way. And then put the pressurized buckets into a pressurized vessel for double the space efficiency!
As for venting hydrogen, a multistage acoustic resonator is capable of getting down to -260 deg C. So, just plug it in and it'll keep liquid hydrogen stored indefinitely.
Sounds like this could work well with trucks. If you consider that typical tool boxs would be roughly the right size for a fuel cell. Engineer some safety i to the fuel cell and it seems tootally playsible that this could work with truck platforms
This is what Nikola thinks, that Semis are large enough to handle the hydrogen fuel cell set-up and I agree. Keep in mind which nation has mastered the art of technological refinement and miniaturisation and place your bets.
This is what Honda is doing with hydrogen fuel cells. Not this pipedream combustion BS.
You would need a hydrogen tank the size of that on a tanker trucks to power that truck 😂
@@39rbn61 The fuel cell car example in the video was also a Toyota .. the Mirai.
it does. rednecks have them all over the place
You should do a deep dive on Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles vs BEVs. Energy creation costs vs performance vs range vs charging times vs sustainability and environmental impact.
also politically it makes more sense to go hydrogen since your not dependent on China especially now with war going on certainly a important and often forgotten factor
@@r.i.peperoniiiiroh9625 China is focusing on Hydrogen as well. The fact of the matter is Lithium is still a resource that hast to be mined, refined and processed as well. We'll need both technologies to make it through into a sustainable world of energy.
I think the hardest thing the U.S. will have to get past is how will big oil make their money when we can literally make hydrogen fuel from the atmosphere using solar panels.
@@conradaleshire4428 it’ll happen just not overnight. Everyone needs to calm the f’ down. Earths gonna be just fine ..
The reason you would want this is that current fuel cells require materials like Iridium and Platinum, but there are not enough of either. In fact, the supply of Iridium is in more of a crisis than just about anything battery electric vehicles use.
Electric or hydrogen. The issue is not just range, is how to refuel. The reason why nothing beats gas, is because no matter my MPGs or range, there is always a station nearby. With EVs you need to plan ahead to find a charging station, which hydrogen, well there are no stations outside of California.
imagine when the price of electricity skyrockets and when you have to wait in a giant line to get a charge in if the world was yo go electric now the focus on gas cars are highly exaggerated by the government and its crazy
That wasn't the case when ICE started out, you had to buy from hardware stores etc. Its early days for there being loads of BEV charging stations
Yes, because it makes more sense to use tanker trucks to move gasoline to hundreds of thousands of remote gas stations all over the country.
Another great video! If there is a way to overcome the challenges of storage/safety of Hydrogen in gaseous, liquid or solid form, there’s still the problem of having to offset the energy required to compress it for storage. I would assume that particular energy requirement wouldn’t graph linearly for each state of hydrogen respectively?
8% out of the total hydrogen cycle efficiency is needed for 10,000 psi compression and the additional necessary cooling, (from US Government study). This is part of the two times more energy (2.3 x) needed vs direct ev use.
An interesting hydrogen storage medium is ammonia as a carrier. Thus the significant interest in using ammonia for fueling large ships and powering Japanese power plants.
SO WHERE DOES THE CLEAN AMMONIA COME FROM, ASK THE AUSTRALIANS!
Correct me if i‘m wrong, but I think Toyota wants to develop this mainly for racing purposes. I could definitely see this in series that don‘t necessarily want to switch to EV‘s, like Nascar for example.
Pit stop every 10 laps?
@@f.f.s.d.o.a.7294 for racing you dont need any trunk so you could have a large fuel tank.
Toyota already has a hydrogen powered Corolla where the entire space behind the driver is filled with a gigantic liquid hydrogen tank.
@@f.f.s.d.o.a.7294 Gotta pit stop at least one in ten laps then recharge the battery for 15-30 minutes 🤣
In my judgment, I don't see much of a need for motorsport to switch to clean combustion, or even clean fuel sources at all. Motorsport is a tiny part of motor transport and with carbon capture/carbon offsetting (there would be less need to worry about potential needs to scale carbon capture since motorsport is so tiny), they could keep them as ICEVs while being at or close to carbon neutral. Plus, since it's motorsport and the environment is much smaller and controlled, clean combustion using clean synthetic fuels would likely be well within the realm of possibility since you don't have to deal with having to scale synthetic production and infrastructure to suit hundreds of millions of people.
Though, I might've missed something.
Drag Racing would do well with hydrogen!
According to the available sources, hydrogen fuel with 70% EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) in a combustion engine is more efficient than gasoline due to several factors. One of the main reasons is that hydrogen has a higher energy content per unit of mass than gasoline, which means that it can produce more power per unit of fuel consumed
5
. Additionally, hydrogen combustion produces almost zero regulated emissions, making it a cleaner and more environmentally friendly fuel source
5
.
The addition of EGR to the combustion process can further improve the efficiency of hydrogen fuel in a combustion engine. EGR is a technique used to reduce the amount of NOx emissions by recirculating a portion of the exhaust gas back into the engine's intake air. This reduces the combustion temperature and lowers the amount of oxygen available for combustion, resulting in lower NOx emissions and improved fuel efficiency
1
2
3
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Studies have shown that the addition of hydrogen and EGR to a gasoline engine can increase the brake thermal efficiency, which is a measure of the engine's ability to convert fuel energy into mechanical work, by up to 10% at 70% of full load
2
. This means that the engine can produce more power with less fuel, resulting in improved fuel efficiency and reduced emissions.
In summary, hydrogen fuel with 70% EGR in a combustion engine is more efficient than gasoline due to the higher energy content of hydrogen and the addition of EGR, which reduces NOx emissions and improves fuel efficiency.
I've learned to wait and watch. I personally underestimated Tesla for years, and now they have accomplished some incredible feats. Their main issue is materials for batteries and fuel sourcing (i.e. Coal). Toyota has an incredible history of innovation, and it wouldn't surprise me if they manage to massively improve the technology in the years to come. The numbers didn't work for Tesla either at first, but people rode it out. If people truly want zero emission vehicles, they should be rooting for this 6 ways till Sunday. Bring it on, Toyota!
Agreed i believe heavy industries will benifit the most even if the domestic family car market is electric think mining and shipping.
What 'innovation' have Toyota got a history of? In my experience they are a very conservative company, always late with new tech (VVT, turbo, EVs etc), and now they seem to be spending most of their marketing budgets trying to delay the inevitable emissions regulations so their white elephant hybrids make money for them!
The one known for innovation is Honda not Toyota. With toyota you'll end up with the LFA which took way too many years to develop and in the end was inferior to what other car manufactures dished out.
correct me if i am wrong but mirai is a fcev ( fuel cell electric vehicle ) is it right to compare it with the new technology yamaha / yamaha is providing? The internal combustion engine they created may have different stats... all though i agree technology is not ready to accept hydrogen as fuel for ICE, i believe toyota with yamaha just made a big step for everyone with their new technology!
Thank you! You're the only person I've seen pick up on that. Hydrogen fuel cells are very different to hydrogen injection.
He also says it's carbon free which is fine, but doesn't mention the NOx emissions which might be a factor for road use.
JCB are making hydrogen powered engines for their machines and have successfully retrofitting one to a lorry. Proving that the concept can work in that setting. The diesel cylinder heads and combustion chambers do make it's adaption for diesel -style engines easier
Something seems off with his calculation. Too lazy to check where he is wrong. The Mirai is able to get 1000km from one filling. So, there is that.
He's only using the Mirai as a reference for the hydrogen storage(quantity, size etc), which isn't any different from an hydrogen fuel cell to hydrogen combustion engine.
@@PhilippBlum the highest range Mirai has a range of 402 miles, which is 646.956 km. I don't know where y'all get that 1000 km figure.
@@HCkev Search it.
Sometimes it’s about doing the right thing rather than continuing to do the easy thing (especially as we can’t continue to burn through petrol and diesel etc) I wonder how much information about hydrogen is being influenced by outside forces to make it seem awkward and not useful.
True
I converted my 79 grand prix V8 to CNG in the 80's for $700. 2 huge tanks in the trunk cost ~$5 to fill up, range was ~300kms iirc, oil never got dirty but it still polluted. My EV costs the same to charge today!
Jason,
Have you looked at what JCB is doing with hydrogen fueled combustion engines based on diesel engines? They are fitting them in existing earth moving equipment and fitting different fuel tanks. The rest of the machine is unchanged!
The best thing is the torque and power characteristics are the same as the diesel!
The operator will not see a difference!
They also have enough fuel to run a full 8 hr shift stored at 350kpa ( about 5000psi same as hydraulic oil pressures)
Cheers Warren
For more see recent Harry’s farm video
The most exciting thing about the JCB engine is that they apparently use a fuel mix of 1:100 hydrogen to air. If this video is based on pure hydrogen, assuming this v8 can run on that fuel mix (a silly assumption I know, but let's get excited) that's just 0.2 buckets of hydrogen needed for a 300 mile range!
Have you seen what Edison motors does with road tractors? I think mixing JCB’s technology with their electric with a generator would be the way to go, even if we didn’t go electric route, we should stick with diesel based hydrogen engines instead of regular old spark ignition for efficiency and power
@@jacobrozier869 the great thing about what JCB is doing with the same diesel base engine with a new cyl head with spark ignition it allows the rest of the machine be used as is ( different fuel tank). No need to bring in different technology and confuse the issue. The manufacturer can Maintain the same Manufacturing process and assemble line. Maintenance in field is the same etc etc. direct swap. Can’t beat that.
The same could be done with expiation diesel cars etc .
KISS!
Cheers Warren
Good point in mentioning JCB hydrogen engines. They use very lean mixture that allows 25-30% gain in efficiency vs gasoline engines. Thus, a Toyota Camry hybrid or Honda Accord hybrid with over 50 MPG can attain 63 MPG if run on hydrogen, thus would require only 130-liter fuel tank instead of 400-liter tank as Jason mentioned, to travel 300 miles.
h2 powered internal combustion engines have similar and greater range than diesel vehicles
Great video. I'm happy that toyota is still trying to find a way to make hydrogen combustion work for us enthusiasts, but it's becoming more and more obvious that it's gonna take a while before we get a production vehicle with that tech (and a hydrogen fueling infrastructure that can support it)
Yes. Now, how do we make hydrogen? We use fossil fuel fired electrical generating plants, that's how. It's made using fossil fuels, refrigerated using fossil fuel energy, transported, stored, pumped, and distributed using fossil fuels. It's a gimmick.
@@lamwen03 I know it's not a clean alternative, but neither is electrification most of the time cause thats dependent on where your grid gets the power and the mining of materials as well. It's cleaner than gasoline though and it would still make bang bang noises unlike a fuel cell or an EV, so I'd be happy.
@@BlackOnyxC4 But fossil fuels are now the majority of our power generation. To ignore the production cost of the fuel is being dishonest.
@@lamwen03 It depends where you live. The UK produced 30% on average last year (and increasing rapidly) from wind , hydro and solar It also produced some 18% from nuclear and also 6% from biomass last year. As I write this, 52.9% is being produced by renewables alone and only 34.9% by fossil fuels. Which is a lot better than 100% fossil fuels. Countries like Norway are close to 100% renewables (mostly Hydro).
In addition hydrogen would be an ideal industry for countries like Saudi Arabia with abundant coastline, solar energy and existing pipe lines and infrastructure already in place that could be modified. They just need enough demand to justify the investment (usual chicken and egg).
@@lamwen03 Yeah. It's actually pretty egregious....
You know you can easily determine the dollars worth of oil and gas burned for a product or a project by taking the cost of said project and multiplying it by 0.80
Hi Jason - This got me thinking why would Cummins be working on a hydrogen semi engine. I think your numbers all check out, but it might be slightly misleading since most hydrogen fuel cell cars are like a Prius and the RCF is not very efficient. In a semi, the combustion efficiency is going to be a decent bit higher for an average drive cycle efficiency (larger engine + higher average load both help efficiency). So instead of say 6 buckets, it might be 10-12 buckets (equivalent numbers) in the semi, so only ~2x the tank volume needed. Since this would work well in a regional or local delivery scheme, the math probably checks out to be able to drive 200-300 miles in a day before refueling. And since the engine would be more familiar versus a colossus fuel cell, it might prove to be cheaper in the long run for an emissions free solution. I think the price of fuel is going to be the bigger issue for sure as you mentioned. I still struggle with how this competes with an electric semi in 5 years.
+1 I want Jason to look at the Cummins hydrogen powered "Diesel" engine. They have signed an agreement with Tata to put them in busses and Versertile to put them in tractors (for farming). Maybe looking at a very inefficient v8 petrol raving car engine is not the best way to judge. Large diesel engines are much more efficient so they may not be so terrible. I still struggle to understand why they are building them instead of fuel cells though. They are more expensive but over the lifetime of a semi surely the savings on fuel would be worth it?
Not a sportscar, but V8 hydrogen powertrain seems better suited to pickup trucks and SUVs with body on frame construction. Here in Thailand you often see Toyota Hilux with multiple Compressed Natural Gas tanks underneath. The cream colour of the tanks gives it away. LPG tanks are usually black by contrast. Larger trucks have even more space underneath for tanks. Lots of total tank volume needed for reasonable range with such heavy vehicles. That is fine when fuel is dirt cheap, as CNG is here.
Yes this video is about Hydrogen which is quite different beast than generic LPG.
Yes, I think hydrogen have more future so far in large vehicles, than small, family vehicles.
Thanks a lot for the video! However, when I listen to what you say, the space issue doesn't seem that serious to me. I mean, you're saying that you need 400L of space for the hydrogen fuel, but 300L of space for the batteries (both 300 miles of range). 300 to 400 is not that much more actually. Normally I would agree with you that 300 or 400L of space is insane when you need just 50L for the petrol tank. But the battery cars are here and they do have a decent amount of luggage space as well, so I don't think finding an additional 100L somewhere is a big issue.
The problem I think is that a battery can be made flat and cubical to be space-efficient, a pressure tank needs to be cylindrical which is much worse for space management
An EV has a different structure, with less and much more compact subsystems. The battery is located in a space that is not free in an ICE car.
A hydrogen burning car is basically a classic car that has to house a fuel tank with a volume at least 8 times bigger than the equivalent gasoline tank.
EVs don't need engines, and batteries can be built in any shape. Hydrogen needs an engine and is limited with what storage shapes.
Battery packs can be of a variety of shape, such as long, wide and thin to fit under the passenger compartment. At 10,000 PSI, that container will have to be either spherical or cylindrical with spherical ends.
Not if they have internal chamber reinforcement. Expand your vision past what has been done in the past to allow for progress in the future. Maybe it is cylinders, but run in series inside a rectangular cage for example. So imagine that someone who went to engineering school was possibly capable of designing a short flat tank with the structural integrity to accomplish the required safety thickness for the tank. Also remember that he is talking about 10,000 PSI gas form hydrogen, while it can be held in lower pressure forms then later converted into gas form, or even produced by electrifying water. Maybe big oil pays him?
@@robertburau1520 "Expand your vision past what has been done in the past to allow for progress in the future" Awesome quote.
Whenever I think of BEV vs H2 I always think 15-20 years down the line.
It's why I truly believe H2 has no chance for cars.
It's simple. Batteries are going to exponentially improve in the coming years. From the chemistries to the charge times to the size and weight. They already improve their efficiency at a rate of 5% per year. It's entirely feasible that in 10-20 years we'll have batteries 30% the size and weight they are today. A 60-70kwh battery 30% the size of what powers a model 3 today is a game changer. In reality the only thing holding EVs back is the charge time, but that will be fixed. Another bonus with BEV is that we'll be able to wirelessly charge similar to the way we charge our phones.
Sorry, I know it's a little off topic, but that quote really resonated with me.
@@robertburau1520 No, big oil are paying to stop EVs. Hydrogen is their next major project.
I work in H2 production (not as an engineer) and I'm very curious as to why your LH2 density calculation (timestamp @ 8:42) is at STP. I would think that the LH2 would be at a pressure > STP. I'm thinking maybe it's some voodoo magic engineers don't tell us (i.e. liquid pressure being unaffected by head pressure? If that's even a thing?), but would love clarification.
(Edit: Sorry, not "STP" but just roughly "standard pressure")
I think liquids cannot be compressed, so LH2 has to be at standard pressure.
What is "standard" about 10,000 PSI? The Hydrogen is in a state of matter that is a gas phase at 10,000 PSI (in which case it has a certain density) or it is a liquid phase at the same pressure which requires cooling and then has a different density. There is no calculation because these are the properties of hydrogen.
You can check out the three phase diagram of hydrogen, the "hottest" liquid hydrogen still need to be under -239.96C
If you were a high school teacher, your class would be filled to the max every semester! Great fun, great delivery, creative explanations using math and visual examples to teach.
Would love to see a reaction video from the engineers who made that engine
The Toyota Murai is advertised to have 650km range with 5.6kg of capacity.
Thatcar doesn't use the combustion engine but a unit that converts the hydrogen to electricity of course but is that really 6 times more efficient than this Yamaha engine?
The reaction is a massive face palm. This dude don't know fluid mechanics.
The hydrogen GR Yaris is their reaction... and it puts this whole video to shame.
@@jaredjabouri7935 yes but what milage does the H2 GR achieve? If it does only 300km on a Murai sized fuel tank (which is large), it isn't that more feasible than an 50KWh EV unless you look for engine sound. You'd pay about 60 euros for a full H2 charge (6KGs) at Shell, while a 50KWh battery charge averages at about 25 euros.
Perhaps an piston engine is not efficient enough at 40% efficiency. They'd have to look into engines with better efficiency.
Still, Engineering Explained is way too pessimistic. EVs have much more negative impact on the environment than H2 and Lithium batteries get more dangerous the more they push the capacity and charge speed.
@@a.m.5439 What does fluid mechanics have to do with the math here?