Comment by Youden | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Youden | Hacker News Reader

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Seems like hypocrisy considering Electrek routinely ignores FCEVs (hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles), which are Toyota's apparent future preference.

Among other things, the image at the top of the article clearly shows "FCEV" alongside "HEV" and "PHEV" and Toyota sponsored a small YouTube series by Physics Girl. The indication is that Toyota sees FCEVs as a big part of the future of EVs.

Yet in this article Electrek says "M. Toyoda’s (Chairman of Toyota) [...] has taken a very public anti-EV position worldwide", "the companies and government are scrambling to slow the adoption of EVs in the country and abroad". Clearly Toyota is investing substantially in (FC)EVs, yet Electrek claims a hostile stance.

Electrek even goes so far as claiming that BEVs are "the only real EVs that don’t use fossil fuels". I'm not sure if the intent there is that FCEVs are less "real" than BEVs or if they're somehow injecting fossil fuels into the process somewhere.

This isn't an isolated incident. Just a couple of weeks ago, Electrek called the bZ4X Toyota's "first all-electric car" [0], ignoring the RAV4 and more recently the Mirai.

I don't mean this as an ad-hominem attack, nothing I'm saying necessarily negates other points in the article but it feels like Electrek is attacking Toyota for the very same sin it commits itself. Electrek should take a look in the mirror and consider reporting more fairly concerning FCEVs in the future. They don't have to like them but they shouldn't deny that they exist.

[0]: https://electrek.co/2021/10/29/toyota-unveils-first-all-elec...

FCEV cars (not trucks) are prototypes pretty much. There are way too many problems to solve before they become an actual solution to anything.

A station that can fuel 2 FCEVs every 15-20 minutes costs around $2 million.

The cost of driving with hydrogen is completely bonkers compared to any other power source currently in use (natural gas, electricity, gasoline, diesel).

For long-haul trucks, ships etc. hydrogen might be a good solution.

Currently the best thing we can use hydrogen for is as a battery for renewables. Use excess energy to generate hydrogen and store it on-site. When production dips, convert the hydrogen to electricity on-site and feed it back to the grid.

I think the viability of FCEVs is certainly up for discussion, my point is mostly that Elektrek accuses Toyota of dismissing BEVs, which are Electrek's preference while itself dismissing FCEVs, which are Toyota's preference.

But on the specific points you raise, I agree that FCEVs are at a very early stage. You can buy them and they function but refueling stations are rare and unreliable, so they're not yet very practical.

Regarding the costs of a fueling station, the hope is that as the technology is more mature, the costs will decrease substantially. The equipment isn't anywhere close to being mass produced the way it is for gas stations and BEV charging stations.

But FCEVs are a young technology and if (and I know it's a big if) we can work around their issues, I can see them being a very compelling alternative or compliment to BEVs. For example stick a hydrogen tank in the back of a BEV and you can use the batteries for your daily commute and hydrogen for longer journeys.

> Regarding the costs of a fueling station, the hope is that as the technology is more mature, the costs will decrease substantially. The equipment isn't anywhere close to being mass produced the way it is for gas stations and BEV charging stations.

A good chunk of the costs involved in getting a H2 station running is regulation and licensing. You can't just store 500kg of pressurised hydrogen on any parking lot. You need permits and licenses and all that fun stuff. You also need to maintain it, actually bring the H2 to the station from somewhere etc.

An EV charging station is pretty much a fancy extension cord, you need a HV certified electrician, a backhoe and some cables along with the charger units. You don't need permits from anyone except maybe from the power company. Cost for a 22kW AC charger is maybe 1k per unit, HVDC units are 20-50k a pop, depending on the amount of power.

Wal-mart, for example, could have 40 350kW HVDC chargers (complete overkill btw) on their parking lot for the price of one H2 station, that can serve 2 cars every 5-20 minutes. Or they could electrify their whole parking lot with 22kW destination chargers and still have money left over.

Hydrogen will have its day, but there are WAY too many hurdles for it to cross before it becomes something regular people can have in their cars.

Hydrogen trucks for long haul trips, yes. Hydrogen powered cargo ships, yes. Hydrogen for renewable energy storage, yes.

If we want H2 to become a valid choice for normal family cars, someone needs to put up billions to get a proper refueling network up and running and keep it running. Which needs a reliable, cheap, source of hydrogen and a fleet of trucks.

Maybe a Hydrogen-Musk will appear some day? =)

Most of the those problems are fully solved. In fact the the biggest event in green energy is pushing back from the anti-hydrogen nonsense and just start investing. A good example of this is Fortescue industry and JCB. They've pretty much stopped caring about the criticisms and have begun investing billions of dollars.

You're stuck in the world of ten years ago. Absolutely none of that is true. Refueling is the same as a gasoline car. A fuel cell car also costs about the same as a SUV to own and run. It fully makes sense to begin the transition to hydrogen cars now.

So there's no need to re-pressurise the station after every few cars anymore? At least a year ago this caused queues in Californian H2 stations, people had to queue for 30-40 minutes waiting for their turn.

Hydrogen price in Germany, with government support, is around 9.5€/kg. Toyota Mirai's consumption is about 1kg/100km, making the cost to drive 100km 9.5€.

You can drive the same distance with an EV for a third or half of the price, depending on where you charge. (0.20€/kWh for public charging, consumption around 15-20kW/100km = 3-4€/100km)

The Mirai, without the insane Californian rebates and subsidies, is around 80k€ in Europe. You can get a fully loaded (FSD and everything) Tesla Model 3 LR for 10k€ less.

No. How hard is it to have faster pressurization and/or extra tanks? For any of the newer stations this is solved.

Gasoline is approaching 7€ per gallon in Germany. Cost per mile is cheaper with a hydrogen car. Public charging is more like 0.40€/kWh in Germany too. Cost per mile is is not that different between EVs and hydrogen cars.

The Mirai starts at 50,000€ before subsidies in Europe. It is nearly as cheap as the cheapest Model 3. Depending on the subsidies you get it could be even cheaper.

Future hydrogen will be cheaper and so will be fuel cell costs. People's mentality on this subject is entirely out of date.

> How hard is it to have faster pressurization and/or extra tanks? For any of the newer stations this is solved.

Is this a fact or speculation? I haven't heard of faster pressurisation systems.

You can't just pressurise highly flammable gases "faster" all willy-nilly, stuff tends to heat up and boiling point lowers when pressure goes up.

Even at 0.40€/kWh it's still about 6 euros / 100km. Still 1/3 lower than H2. And with the car prices being similar or lower, there isn't really any point for H2.

Gasoline is reaching parity with subsidised H2 though, let's see how that goes in Germany since exactly zero German manufacturers are doing FCEV cars.

It's a fact. Pressurization is a very simply physics problem and it's just delusion to think this will always be slow. The simplest solution is just have bigger or more tanks.

Again, it's a solved problem.

As electricity prices are still going up, and with hydrogen coming down we're not far off from cost parity. People really need to foresee a day where FCEVs are cheaper than BEVs.

EVs in general are heavily subsidized. By the time we switch to hydrogen fuel taxation it's likely gasoline will have already been displaced. Many German manufacturers are making hydrogen vehicles, albeit not passenger cars. That said, this is the most obvious disruptive event in recent memory. It wouldn't be a surprise if all of them went bankrupt due to the arrival of hydrogen cars. It's also something of a surprise as many UK companies are investing in hydrogen cars.

Is it a solved problem in relation to hydrogen vehicle refueling?

In theory, yes, we can pressurise things very very fast. It does cost money and space (larger tanks), which makes it impractical for everyday solutions.

I still don't get how hydrogen can be cheaper than electricity, since creating green hydrogen via electrolysis takes around 4-5 times more electricity than it can actually produce. Blue/grey hydrogen is just natural gas, which doesn't make it any more environmentally friendly than just running a straght-up CNG car.

In my country the electricity price could quadruple and it's still cheaper than gasoline or diesel. The closest H2 refueling point is in a neighbouring country. And no one is rushing to put up a comprehensive network of $2 million a pop H2 stations.

An example from Sweden: https://www.h2euro.org/whats-h2appening/sweden-more-than-tri...

News from 2017 about how Sweden will TRIPLE their number of H2 stations from 4 to 12 by 2020!

It's now 2021, almost 2022 and the number of stations is... still four.

(Meanwhile a single supermarket chain in Finland has opened 222 new charging points during Q2-Q4/2021)

This is a huge chicken and egg problem. Someone needs to front up truckloads of cash and bureaucracy fighting time to put up a comprehensive network before regular people will shell up cash for H2 vehicles.

Large tanks do not cost that much. It will be no worse than compressed natural gas. This entire argument is an imaginary one with very little reasoning backing it up.

The argument that hydrogen is inefficient is itself a massive exaggeration. Fuel cells are more efficient than anything except batteries, and come with the upside of much less weight and resource requirements. For hydrogen to be cheaper than electricity, all it needs is an infrastructure that is moderately cheaper than the grid, as energy costs are only a minor portion of the total cost. It is not even that far off as cost per mile between EVs and hydrogen cars is around 50-75% in most places. Fuel cell cars are cheaper than diesel cars now in many countries, and will get cheaper as hydrogen infrastructure expands.

I don't know where you come from, but electricity costs has skyrocketed in countries that are trying to switch to renewable energy, and still going up by 10-20% annually. The low cost of electricity was entirely due to cheap existing sources, mainly coal or natural gas, with some regions with hydro or nuclear. Take away the reliable and dispatchable power generate and the grid becomes a nightmare of unpredictable power. In fact you need hydrogen to balance out the grid and make it stable. In all likelihood electricity will be expensive enough such that EVs no longer have any kind of cost advantage. Especially if they start to tax EVs like they tax other cars.

A lot of that is due to a lack of investment. As countries fall into the battery fad while ignoring real green energy (like nuclear), green policy in a lot of countries have become a joke. Sweden is an example of this as they are shutting down their nuclear power. They will use coal or natural gas as a replacement. EVs will actually get more polluting and not less. Although Sweden has ignored hydrogen for the last 5 years, they will have no choice but to invest billions in hydrogen now because they have other path to zero emissions.

The biggest event in green energy investment is the massive surge in hydrogen investment: https://ihsmarkit.com/research-analysis/hydrogen-project-ann...

It's pretty obvious that the world is moving past batteries in the same way it moved past previous obsolete green ideas like biofuels or diesel engines.

Maybe there is the thing that hardly any hydrogen is created from non-fossil sources.

Given the challenge of bringing enough green electricity online, producing enough green hydrogen for industry, it is extremely unclear how we can afford to waste a lot of green electricity in producing green hydrogen for cars.

Of course, by the time customers find out about the price difference they will dump their FCEV cars.

So at the moment, hydrogen is produced from methane. And indirectly produces as much CO2 as ICE cars.

Due to their enormous efficiency, BEV cars can indirectly produce less CO2 even is electricy is generated from fossile fuels. And with enough nuclear, wind or solar, CO2 can be a lot less.

But in many regions, you can say the same about electricity. Renewable energy is ~29% of world electricity generation [0]. Just like there's ongoing work to increase the share of electricity generated from renewable sources, there's also ongoing work to increase the share of hydrogen generated from renewable sources.

Regarding energy production and costs, if FCEVs can be made to work near-term, they'd actually be a valuable tool to aid in the transition. From [1], if you're using natural gas to power a car (which we will, for years to come), you can use 1.18 to 1.77 MBTU to carry a conventional BEV 300mi, or you can use 0.81 MBTU to carry an FCEV 300mi. That means the fuel can be cheaper and the emissions substantially lower than a BEV during the transition period. By the time the transition period is over, FCEVs may be more mature.

And I think the idea that people will dump FCEV cars assumes too narrow an idea of what an "FCEV" will be. Imagine, for example, a BEV with a hydrogen tank in the back. You can use the batteries for short trips like commuting and hydrogen for extra range when you really need it. This way, people could buy a car with batteries for say 100mi (driving down the cost and weight of the car substantially) knowing that if they need to drive further, the hydrogen tank can carry them a few hundred miles more.

[0]: https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2021/renewa...

[1]: https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2014/03/f9/thomas...

Any FCEV is basically a hybrid EV. The obvious reason is that the fuel cell doesn't generate enough power. So you need a battery as buffer.

When it comes to fossil fuel, any ICE is cheaper than FCEV based on grey hydrogen. It is very unlikely that governments will ban regular petrol or diesel any time soon and at the same time allow grey hydrogen. As long as you can buy ICE vehicles, it is extremely unlikely that anyone will invest in a fine grained hydrogen distribution network. Governments are not going to massively subsidize (distribution of) grey hydrogen.

When it comes to green hydrogen, green electricity is cheaper. Fast chargers compete well with filling up with hydrogen. And don't require the extremely delicate distribution structure of hydrogen.

In short, FCEV was a thing before Tesla. Before Tesla is was not clear how we would do long range driving, who take initiative to install chargers, etc. Now all of that is sorted out. We also know how to scale the production of batteries.

FCEV can go on display next to steam engines.

FCEVs will end up being far cheaper than BEVs. Hydrogen production doesn't not have the same uptime requirements that directly electrification requires. It's quite likely that green hydrogen will be cheaper than grid electricity pretty soon. I think people will find out that make green hydrogen is easy, but green electricity is not.

That is unlikely because cheap hydrogen can be used to stabilize the grid.

So with green hydrogen, the grid consists of cheap green energy or electricity from hydrogen. In areas with lots of solar, you can charge your car during the day and forget about more expensive electricity during the night.

In contrast, a FCEV always pays a higher price because hydrogen needs to be produced from green electricity and the fuel cell also has significant losses. So with hydrogen you can never be lucky.

If you're making grid electricity with hydrogen, it will be as expensive or more so than something that directly uses the hydrogen. You also are going to be forced to charge during the day, the exact opposite of how people use their EVs. Finally, hydrogen will make up the majority of power production for those long stretches of low wind and cloudiness. In all likelihood, grids will be built around the existence of hydrogen storage, not the other way around.

People will quickly figure out what is cheaper. And that is using electricity as it is generated. Second best, if it is predictable, store electricity in batteries. Most likely a home that has enough solar panels, can store energy temporarily in a house battery and then transfer it to a car cheaper than having the car run on hydrogen.

Any FCEV has a battery that in theory can be charged from the grid. So FCEV owners are also interested in charging their cars at work.

Making grid electricity with hydrogen is expensive, but is only need for a fraction of the time. So on average you come out ahead.

There may in the future be an interesting difference in regions. Some regions can combine hydro, wind, solar, etc. and have cheap electricity. Other regions are not so lucky.

Which is going to be hydrogen, not charging from the grid, for long stretches of time if not all the time. The cost of solar panels plus batteries will add significant cost and make it less cost effective than large-scale production of hydrogen. Not to mention that only a minority of people will have access to this.

Plug-in FCEVs exist. They can react flexibly to energy costs if hydrogen suddenly gets more expensive. They make more sense than a car that only runs on electricity.

If by "fraction of the time" you mean upwards of 100% of all grid energy for weeks on end, then yes it is a fraction of the time. In reality this is such a large factor that it will drive hydrogen costs to below grid electricity for very long periods and over large areas. Some communities might even think of getting off the grid and generate all electricity from hydrogen directly. In such cases hydrogen will always be cheaper.

While it will make sense for some communities to stick with direct electrification, this is going to be the rare case where dependable renewable electricity exist. It will also likely force BEVs into driving "islands", as it would not make sense to drive a BEV outside those specific regions. Ultimately, BEVs will end up mostly as commuter cars intended for short range trips. This will also drastically reduce the problem of battery e-waste and eliminates the need for vast numbers of fast charging stations.

I think you underestimate how much green hydrogen is going to cost. Yes, it would be great if green hydrogen is going to be as cheap as petrol today. No need to worry. However, that is just very unlikely. Just basic physics how much energy you need to put in.

Solar panels are cheap. Batteries are cheap if you can use them every day. Indeed not everybody has a drive way.

Weeks on end sounds very dramatic. But the important number is what fraction of the year. Combining solar and means that a very large fraction of the year there will be green electricity.

If you need to produce large amounts of green hydrogen, then you need to massively overbuild green electricity production. And this increases the fraction of time that there is green electricity.

With respect to islands of BEV. That is a bigger risk for FCEV. It is very unlikely that a BEV island would have a hydrogen infrastructure. On the other hand, in an area dominated by hydrogen, it is still cheap to provide a few fastchargers. Maybe the elctricity won't be cheap but the charger setup is not that expensive, so you can expect them on major highways. Which will make FCEV the car for commutes.

In any case, I'm curious which country will actual role out a fine grained network for green hydrogen. I very much like to know what green hydrogen will cost 'at the pump' if there are no subsidies.

Green hydrogen will be cheaper than petrol. The goal is to make it from curtailed renewable energy which will cost <$0.02/kWh. You can't go around talking about cheap solar and not realize it means cheap hydrogen too.

It will be a significant fraction of the year that will be powered by hydrogen as the primary energy source. Just creating more green electricity will mostly end up wasting it as there is no other way of capturing and storing it.

All regions must have hydrogen available. For things like industry, shipping, trucking, grid energy storage, etc., it is basically unavoidable for a country to not hydrogen. BEV islands will be small and not an alternative to widespread deployment of hydrogen-related infrastructure. But the reverse is not true, as it is fully possible for a country to reach zero emissions with no BEVs.

The biggest change in environmental policy is the widespread deployment of hydrogen and related technologies. Many countries now like the UK, Germany, Australia, Japan, etc., have very significant hydrogen expansion policies. These policies will accelerate rapidly going forward.

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