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Comment by Hypx_ | Hacker News Reader

The problem is that now it's hydrogen's turn to do the same with batteries. Tesla is facing it's own disruptive threat, something it is completely unprepared to deal with.

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You have made this and similar claims over and over again on HN, but you seem much more interested in making such claims than in supporting them, and your response when challenged has mostly been just to reiterate your statements that hydrogen fuel cells are better (for energy storage in cars) than batteries, or are inevitably going to replace batteries.

It reads more like advertising than like actual discussion.

What evidence is there that should lead us to expect hydrogen fuel cells to win over batteries, given (1) their currently much much higher costs, (2) their lower efficiency in turning electricity at the power station into kinetic energy of the car, (3) the currently much greater complexity of mechanisms required for a fuel-cell-based vehicle?

(2) doesn't seem relevant, as generating hydrogen happens whenever electricity is cheap and charging cars happen whenever the care pulls up.

Other that that, I thought hydrogen was cheaper than batteries. But I don't know much about it.

What I've read lines up with the three points you've made, so I tend to agree. However:

What we're seeing in Australia is federal government support for hydrogen power after over a decade of strong resistance to alternatives (specifically renewables: wind and solar), and no support for electric vehicles at all. I'm definitely mixing together a few different areas of power / electricity / energy here, but the fact the Australian government is seizing upon hydrogen just makes my cynical mind assume that hydrogen manufacture and usage fits better with the status quo and therefore is easier to understand by those in power - ie. centralised / consolidated control as opposed to more consumer-level control.

This could be Hydrogen's killer feature in the end.

There is the possibility that Australia is simply correct in their assessment. They're a long ways away from both Silicon Valley and Brussels, and may be acting as an independent entity that is free from external influences.

Australia is a major suck-up to the US, the government of Australia is infringing on it's citizens freedom and releasing more co2 into the atmosphere per capita than any other country.

I doubt physical distance has much to do with it. Australia is closer to China than the US, for example.

Australia gets a LOT of sunshine and has a LOT of empty space, which is conducive to being solar friendly. Australia also exports a lot of coal and a lot or iron ore (which is then processed using coal-generated heat), which is conducive to promoting its value and suppressing any alternatives.

Electric vehicles, however, work towards solving a specific national security problem for Australia in it's "domestic fuel security"[0][1][2][3]. A problem of which the UK is kindly highlighting the importance.

[0]: https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/a...

[1]: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/australia-must-fast-track-...

[2]: https://www.defenceconnect.com.au/key-enablers/7790-what-s-n...

[3]: https://www.drive.com.au/news/government-scrambles-to-mainta...

In this case it's mental distance. It's not be affected by the politics of other countries nearly as much as others.

One big idea in Australia is the possibility of exporting hydrogen. It might be a factor on their thinking.

the infrastructure bill working its way through the US includes a few $billion in subsidies for hydrogen fuel, too.

there’s a couple takes on why, but the most charitable one is that solar/wind/batteries have enough momentum that they don’t need subsidies, and govt views energy diversity as a valuable thing and is subsidizing hydrogen to achieve that.

The problem with (1) is that complaining about this is usually the last bastion of a dying industry. This is particularly true if the alternative is a completely new idea it would normally be much more expensive to begin with. So it would really just be a countdown until it is no longer true.

The problem of (2) is that all attempts to generate electricity with renewables (and with no fossil fuel backups) have resulted in extreme problems. In short, when it is windy or sunny, you have too much electricity and no way of storing it. When it is not windy or sunny, you have nothing and are forced to resort to fossil fuels. Ultimately, it's being found out that being able to store electricity is far more important than making it efficient.

And (3) is just dumb Ludditism. As if the small increase in complexity is any kind of problem. Fuel cells are far simpler than internal combustion engines after all. Batteries are actually worse from a supply chain standpoint since now you have a much higher need for certain elements that are not widely available.

Your reply feels to me like blustering, and trying to shout down the question.

Some data on why you think systemic hydrogen costs are going to catch up with systemic battery-electric costs, for example, would contribute to (1) far more than your posturing.

You'd be a better advocate if you spoke to the issues.

As it stands now, the biggest revolution in energy right now is the rapid reduction in hydrogen cost: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2021/06/24/low-cost-renewable-hy...

Once things hit their exponential growth curve, things might happen a lot faster than people expect.

I charge my car from my own solar panels. Cost me nearly nothing.

Solar panels cost money. It is not really nearly free. In the near future, you can make hydrogen with your own solar panels too.

So far as I can see, literally nothing in your reply has anything to do with hydrogen fuel cells. You could say all the exact same things if what you were proposing was little nuclear reactors in cars, or storing energy in very heavy flywheels, or literal magic, or going back to burning hydrocarbons.

Therefore, nothing in your reply can give us any reason to think that hydrogen fuel cells in particular either should or will win out over batteries.

The difference is that for fuel cells, it has mostly already happened. It's quickly becoming a kind of denial where the haters simply pretend that it doesn't exist or insist on unsolved problems that have long been solved. It frankly reminds me of how Blackberry executives denied the viability of the iPhone even after it launched.

Every one of the three points I mentioned is a thing that has not, in fact, already happened. The vehicles are still more expensive than otherwise similar electric vehicles, and hydrogen is still more expensive than equivalent quantities of electricity; from a given amount of sunlight or natural gas or whatever we can still produce more car-movement via electricity than via hydrogen; fuel-cell vehicles are still more complex and difficult to make than battery-electric vehicles.

You have still not made any actual attempt to address any of these points, preferring to bluster about how people who disagree with you are stupid, ignorant, or insincere.

I am curious. Do you have any financial interest in the success of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, and/or in the failure of battery electric vehicles?

Yes it has happened or is nearly about to happen. FYI, the LR version of the Model 3 is $50k, about the same as the Mirai. By many metrics they've reached cost parity. Even if you angrily deny this, remember that EV are produced in larger quantities and benefit from greater economics of scale. It's pretty obvious the fuel cell cars are going to get a lot cheaper from here.

And as countries invest more into renewable they're are quickly running into a dilemma: Wind and solar are too unreliable to directly replace fossil fuels. This requires seasonal energy storage to solve, which as of today is only solvable by hydrogen energy storage: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/236723/1/Ruhnau-and-...

In short, even EVs will be hydrogen powered to a large extent. You can easily imagine a kind of plug-in hydrogen car that matches EVs on efficiency in broad strokes.

Ultimately, this is not really a difference of opinion but rather a difference in understanding of the facts. You simply haven't realized that fuel cell cars are already here and have already solved the fundamental problems of green energy. Batteries cars have not, and barring a miracle battery discovery will not either.

The difference is, that Tesla's Model 3 LR profit margins are about 30%.

Toyota Mirai... well, while I can't tell it precisely, I think Toyota is making a loss of $100-900k per car.

It wouldn't shock me if the Mirai has even bigger profit margins. Fuel cell systems aren't that much more expensive than internal combustion engines to build.

If the Mirai really had those losses, Toyota would be literally losing billions on the Mirai by itself.

I think Mirai has been a huge loss so far, to the tune of several billions. A ton of research and development and practically no returns.

Toyota does have a very good fuel cell, but what does it actually benefit?

This is very short sighted thinking then. They could end up disrupting the car industry. Especially in heavy industry where they might clean house against companies that haven't invested correctly.

Also, all of the cost is R&D. The cost of building fuel cell cars is probably very low.

In my estimation, the ultimate problem with hydrogen isn't any of those three - it's that it's simply far less convenient than battery.

Once someone has experienced what it's like to be able to "fill up" overnight at home for all their day-to-day driving, the idea of reverting to the old "visit the fuelling station once a week" routine seems decidedly passe.

It could work for long-haul commercial vehicles though.

Except no one drives at home. Every EV fan still complains about lack of public charging stations. I suspect few people really find home recharging as any kind of game changer.

We've owned an EV for two years and charging at home has been a huge deal, especially for my SO.

She needs to get to bed early, so when hanging out with friends she hated having to go to the gas station on her way home. Often resulting in panic the next day. More than once she ran out of gas cause she forgot to look when driving off in the morning.

It takes about 3 seconds to plug in the car when we get back home, and we never have to worry about running out when we drive away in the morning.

Hydrogen would have to be significantly better in price and range to offset this for our future vehicle purchase. A mere 2x range increase over pure EV won't cut it.

This is just post-hoc rationalization. The extra few minutes of refueling time is hardly a problem.

Even so, eventually you likely will be able to refuel at home since home electrolysis is possible.

> This is just post-hoc rationalization.

For you maybe. For my SO I can assure you it's absolutely not.

Having owned an EV for two years now, it's clear that it's been good enough for us. Yes range is a bit limited, but for us it hasn't been an issue. It has some upsides like fairly trivial home-charging if you got a garage.

As such, hydrogen can't just deliver the same to be competitive. Hydrogen will have to deliver more. Longer range at same cost wouldn't be enough for us, the negatives would make it a no-go. So it would have to be longer range for much cheaper.

But I don't see how cost can be significantly cheaper, given the process inefficiencies and infrastructure required.

Looking at the concepts[1] I can't imagine them being cheaper than a home EV charger, which is about 1000-1500 USD installed. Never mind that we don't have any space for such a huge thing.

And I'm doubtful as to how much H2 we'll be able to generate here in Norway during winter.

[1]: https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/home-hydrogen-fuel...

Then I will have to disagree. I insist that it is still post-hoc rationalization.

Sooner or later, hydrogen cars will be cheaper to own than a battery car. Once this happens, none of this reasoning will hold up to scrutiny.

Should be noted that you can have hydrogen delivered in the same way propane/LPG can be delivered. In fact, gasoline/petrol could have been delivered since the first days of the automobile. None of these ideas really mattered in the end.

> Once this happens, none of this reasoning will hold up to scrutiny.

My point is it can't just be say 20% cheaper to own. It'll have to be much more than that to offset the pain of having to refuel.

Sure, if it's 20% cheaper including having the H2 delivered at home, then we're approaching something that can be considered.

As we are talking about a large ticket item (cars), a 20% difference is a big deal.

As with all fuels, this shouldn't be much more expensive than from a fueling station.

My experience is that complaints about lack of public charging stations tend to be more from those considering buying an EV than those actually with one.

(Those who drive an EV tend to complain more about the maintenance of the public stations than the number of them).

Same thing. Everyone uses public stations all the time.

They really don't. Pretty much anyone with the ability to charge at home, charges at home for all their day-to-day driving, with stops at charging stations used only for infrequent longer trips.

Only because they have to. If there was a way to recharge within 3 minutes publically, the home charging solution would be rarely used.

Why do you think so? The convenience of taking a few moments to plug in when you park for the night, over taking a specific trip to a charging destination, seems pretty hard to beat (and that's before factoring in that home electricity rates are in general considerably cheaper).

In the Northeast, people often use fuel oil delivered to their house for heating. Except that this fuel oil is basically diesel/kerosene, meaning we already had a system of delivery fuel to people's houses. And yet there was never an outcry for home refueling for their cars. It clearly wasn't something that people wanted even when they had it. So it's hard to see why now all of a sudden this is a real selling point.

Probably because the idea of "you have to be home with the car waiting for the fuel guy to turn up" destroys a lot of the convenience, and the fact that car fuel tanks are more than 15 times smaller than typical heating oil tanks means you'd be paying a lot more overhead.

You have a big tank of fuel that can be stored up until you need it. It also takes a few minutes, not the hours you have to wait until a battery is full.

I don't see how this follows as a response to the previous comment.

(The time required by home charging is not particularly relevant if it's happening while you're sleeping or the car is otherwise idle, anyway).

To clarify: Considering how popular it is to get other frequently-used consumables home delivered, like food and alcohol, it is on the face of it somewhat surprising that the same is not true of liquid vehicle fuel. My prior comment was suggesting some possible reasons this might be so.

Thinking through it some more, the objection around the vehicle needing to be home at the time the delivery is made can be overcome by having the deliveries made late at night, as long as there was some way to give the delivery driver access to the car's fuel tank. At the end of the day it may just be too inefficient to have liquid fuel delivered weekly in 30-60 litre quantities, the overhead being too great.

Home charging was one of the primary reasons I bought an EV in the first place, I hate going to gas stations especially when they're out of the way or when I'm not driving through a great area.

Everyone says this but they still talk about public charging all the time. It's mostly just a rationalization.

They do? I've never had a problem the handful of times I needed to charge on the road.

The point is that they talk about it. Either positively or negative, it means that they're using the public chargers.

What do you mean by public chargers? Does that include superchargers?

Yes, all of the above.

I do a lot of driving and still I have only had to use public chargers a handful of times over 2 years. Even if not staying at home I can usually at least plug into a 110v outlet somewhere or I stay at a hotel that has an EV charger.

Even a 110V plug still counts as a public charger. The point is that you still care about them. Even if you go out of your way to not think about them, you're still forced to use them from time to time.

When do hydrogen roof panels come out? Will they be competitively priced with electric?

Actually they exist now. You can generate hydrogen directly for sunlight and a photocatalyst. Although we don't know how cost effective this is right now, and the traditional way of having a separate electrolyzer might be cheaper for the time being.

How easy is it for someone handy to set up? Can the home hobbyist install a hydrogen refueling system in their garage with some panels up on the roof? (related: Does conduit handle hydrogen at 10,000psi or do I have to build it out of black iron?)

Possible. In fact a company called LAVO is building a home hydrogen battery for energy storage. Although compressing it to 10,000 psi at home is not quite ready yet, although companies are working on it.

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