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Comment by endisneigh | Hacker News Reader

It would be quite ironic if hydrogen vehicles ended up beating electric. Though it seems sort of silly given that hydrogen must be converted into electricity, but who knows.

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We’ve been working on hydrogen cars for a long time. George Bush funded them, for example, in 2003:

https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/ceq/hydrogen_090...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/george-...

I wouldn’t say ironic. Japanese automakers like Toyota were accused of being caught off guard by electric cars but the truth is that these companies have been developing hydrogen drivetrain and vehicle technology for a long, long time. Those that wonder why Toyota introduced the Prius and seemingly stopped short of an electric car after that haven’t been paying attention to what Toyota’s vision for transportation looks like.

They just didn’t think that governments would be so willing to subsidize battery electric.

> Though it seems sort of silly given that hydrogen must be converted into electricity

I would actually be curious to know if using an electric drive-train in a semi truck with a battery + diesel generator attached to it would be more efficient then a traditional truck anyways

I've noticed the suprising absence of hybrid trucks too. They do exist but generally don't get talked about about much.

I'm guessing that if you have a fleet, then a hybrid fleet makes more sense than hybrid vehicles in your fleet. Use the BEV for the tasks they are good at, and slowly edge out the diesel trucks as the BEV tech improves.

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