Honda only offers the Clarity Fuel Cell in California for lease — it offers battery electric power and hybrid versions of the car for lease or sale. Out of the 20, total Claritys sold or leased in , were fuel cell variants, were battery-electrics, and 18, were the plug-in hybrid.
Honda and Toyota have teamed up with a subsidiary of Shell Oil to build new hydrogen fueling stations in California. Two have been built thus far, and five are in the works, Kumaratne said. The company is advocating for stations in the Northeastern United States, with several in development. We all have skin in the game," she said. Hyundai , which currently has hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road in the U. The company just introduced the Nexo to the U. The EPA rates the midsize crossover's range up to miles, longer than any battery-powered EV on the market.
As of Feb. Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk has dismissed hydrogen fuel cells as "mind-bogglingly stupid," and that is not the only negative thing he has had to say about the technology. He has called them "fool cells," a "load of rubbish," and told Tesla shareholders at an annual meeting years ago that "success is simply not possible. Musk found a surprising source of support in , when Yoshikazu Tanaka, chief engineer in charge of the Mirai, told Reuters, "Elon Musk is right — it's better to charge the electric car directly by plugging in.
Toyota chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada told Reuters at the same Tokyo auto show in , "We don't really see an adversary 'zero-sum' relationship between the EV battery powered electric vehicle and the hydrogen car. We're not about to give up on hydrogen electric fuel-cell technology at all.
The auto industry as a whole has not embraced Musk's battery-or-bust vision of the future. A survey of 1, senior auto executives conducted by KPMG found they believe hydrogen fuel cells have a better long-term future than electric cars and will represent "the real breakthrough" 78 percent , with the auto executives citing the short refueling time of just a few minutes as a major advantage.
Sixty-two percent told KPMG that infrastructure challenges will result in the battery-powered electric vehicle market's undoing. In California, debate continues over whether the subsidies offered by the state to jump-start the fuel cell market have paid back the investment as judged by the limited use of refueling stations and lack of profits. And with this kind of interest, manufacturers can afford to plough money into EVs over niche tech like hydrogen.
Another reason the case for hydrogen vehicles is struggling is the existing infrastructure. There are only a handful of hydrogen-fuel stations in the UK, which is nowhere near enough to let drivers operate as they would with petrol and diesel. That said, hydrogen could still be part of the automotive landscape in years to come. Cynics point to the efficiency loss in this process when compared with an electric car in which the electricity comes straight from a battery pack.
But this can be brought significantly down when hydrogen is produced from renewables. This is below the level that EVs will achieve, even when electricity is sourced from renewable sources, because of the environmental costs of battery production.
For truly sustainable mobility, hydrogen is a fuel that cannot be ignored. Hunt says this is particularly applicable in the heavy goods sector, where electric trucks are hampered by battery capacity and having to recharge using the power grid. Yet developing a full hydrogen refuelling infrastructure, with which the gas is produced and then transported to stations, would take billions of pounds and years to develop.
There are currently fewer than 20 operational refuelling stations in the UK, compared with around 36, and rising electric vehicle charging points. The hydrogen is stored in carbon fibre, high-impact resistant tanks. When the vehicle is fueled with hydrogen, and combined with oxygen from outside the vehicle, the chemical reaction that occurs generates electricity. When you press the accelerator pedal, electricity from the fuel cell stack is sent to the motor.
Hydrogen travels from the tanks to the fuel cell stack. There, it goes through a chemical reaction involving oxygen in the air — creating the electricity that powers the vehicle. Uses the same battery from Toyota Hybrid Vehicles and increases the voltage to volts, increasing performance and making more efficient use of the electric motor.
Hydrogen is pumped into the vehicle and stored in carbon-fibre reinforced, polymer lined tanks, designed for safe fuel storage. Advanced safety innovations, specially designed for hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles.
Our multi-patented, carbon-fiber-wrapped, polymer-lined hydrogen tanks, are built in a three-layer structure and absorb five times the crash energy of steel. Tom Baxter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Hydrogen has long been touted as the future for passenger cars. The hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle FCEV , which simply runs on pressurised hydrogen from a fuelling station, produces zero carbon emissions from its exhaust.
It can be filled as quickly as a fossil-fuel equivalent and offers a similar driving distance to petrol. It has some heavyweight backing, with Toyota for instance launching the second-generation Mirai later in The Canadian Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association recently produced a report extolling hydrogen vehicles. Among other points, it said that the carbon footprint is an order of magnitude better than electric vehicles: 2. All the same, I think hydrogen fuel cells are a flawed concept.
I do think hydrogen will play a significant role in achieving net zero carbon emissions by replacing natural gas in industrial and domestic heating. But I struggle to see how hydrogen can compete with electric vehicles, and this view has been reinforced by two recent pronouncements.
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