- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmit.online
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmit.online
Toyota wants hydrogen to succeed so bad it’s paying people to buy the Mirai::Toyota is offering some amazing deals for its hydrogen fuel cell-powered Mirai. That is, if customers can find the hydrogen to power it.
it is however extremely easy to make from water. Making the switch to green easy and seamless, and it will surely happen if there’s demand.
It might be theoretically easy, but the massive power demands (and loss) make it pretty hard in practice.
And not every car requires a ton of lithium, like it would if everyone wants to go both EV + massive range.
We really need a more nuanced discussion around EV’s.
I see a lot of “gas bad ev good”. While gas IS bad, really bad, we also need to allow into the discussion all the ways ev’s are also bad, not just range, but environmentally.
Hydrogen is really interesting to me
It’s also faster to fill the tank, making it suitable for longer travels. Greenwhashing or not, battery powered is not where its at.
That’s not true. A hydrogen gas station needs to be under a high pressure to be able to fill up just one car. That pressure is gone after 4 or 5 cars. After which it’ll take 45 minutes to build up pressure again.
You’re spreading doubt about EVs while promoting hydrogen while ignoring the known drawbacks of hydrogen.
Simply stated, per mile or km driven it’s significantly cheaper to “fill up” an EV vs hydrogen. That’s due inefficiencies around hydrogen.
Ever heard of pumps? You do realize pump can build up pressure from lower pressure container? Even if the time needed to fill the tank is the same as EV you’d still get higher mileage per joule of energy simply by not having 700kg battery onboard.
Not sure where you got these numbers from but pretty much none of them make sense. I’d love to see some sources on that.
Completely pointless comparison. You are comparing centuries of battery evolution to a technology that started being developed recently. Per whatever price is not comparable. If you want to go that direction, then bicycle is cheapest followed by a public transport and gasoline. This is not a question about price, this is question of finding a solution that’s scalable enough to replace gasoline, and batteries are not that. Lithium is rare enough, batteries weigh a ton and lose performance in the winter. They also take time to charge. Time which you can’t reduce without affecting battery life. Not to mention excess weight wearing down roads faster, wearing down tires. All that affects environment.
To make matters worse, Toyota has released its newest engine which can run on hydrogen, methane and gasoline. Making transition very easy. Sure hydrogen production is expensive at this point, but prices will drop once there’s competition and new greener ways are found to produce it. But change can start happening now. And by the way, am not talking about hydrogen EVs, but hydrogen ICEs.
The problem with all these discussions is they ignore that things improve with research. I fully expect we can find a better battery eventually. Supposedly we’re getting close to extending the maximum capacity and the charging time within the next few years. I also fully expect we can improve the economics of hydrogen.