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Comment by mullingitover | Hacker News Reader

> Hydrogen supercars and race cars exist

Yes, there are some prototypes that get close to the performance of a decently-spec'd Tesla Model 3.

> Hydrogen buses are already cheaper to operate than battery buses

There are some serious gymnastics going on with the math in that paper. The paper shows FCEV buses cost 3x the maintenance per mile and cost ~30% more per mile for the fuel. A lot of that price difference rides on the assumption that batteries will never go down in price, which is pretty debatable.

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Even though they'd easily run circles around a Model 3, this admission still proves my point.

Almost as much gymnastics as you're using here. Maintenance and fuel costs will drop for FCEVs too. Right now, battery buses are more expensive. More importantly, you can get away with much fewer buses and a smaller refueling footprint since each fuel cell bus has significantly more range and shorter refueling times.

> Even though they'd easily run circles around a Model 3, this admission still proves my point.

Err, no, the Model 3 Performance (which is a real car you can buy right now) does 0-60 in 3.1 seconds. The Forze VIII[1] isn't that fast (they quote "< 4 seconds"), and the Forze IX might be faster but doesn't exist yet. No circles are being run, at best the fastest operating FCEV I've been able to find might be able to keep up with a production family sedan BEV.

If we're comparing cars in development, the Tesla Roadster is quoted as being able to do 0-60 in 1.1 seconds.

[1] https://forze-delft.nl/milestones/forze-viii/

A dedicated race car will absolutely blow away a road car. I don't think you're even aware of much slower the road car will be on a track.

Sure, but that has more to do with the tires/brakes/suspension/etc than the powertrain, and the powertrain is what we're comparing here. All other things being equal, the fuel cell powertrain simply can't produce as much burst power as a big battery can.

Which is why you use an extremely high discharge battery or super capacitor. There’s no real problem with the fuel cell itself. Something that will become even less of a problem when more powerful fuel cells appear.

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