The New Hydrogen Car That Travels 2k Km with a Single Tank | Hacker News Reader

The New Hydrogen Car That Travels 2k Km with a Single Tank

hydrogen-central.com

39 pointsredbell63 comments

This is fake. The article switches part-way through from claiming a 10x improvement in range, which would be a transformative breakthrough but which would fundamentally require doing something other than storing hydrogen gas in a pressure vessel, to talking about about improvements in the fuel cell, which is not the bottleneck for hydrogen-vehicle range. Hydrogen continues to not be a viable fuel for cars, because it isn't dense enough.

The Nexo and Mirai are hydrogen cars on roads today. What about hydrogen volumetric density causes problems for them?

Assuming hydrogen engines become viable, does hydrogen have any feasible distribution mechanism comparable to electricity? With the rollout of EVs, charging stations can be placed pretty much anywhere but we can’t say the same for hydrogen. Are we assuming existing gas stations can be converted or Will natural gas distribution improve to allow people to fill up at home?

This is the biggest argument for me why EVs are the superior technology.

Thinking further with renewable energies, heat pumps and more, soon we'd only need infrastructure for electricity and internet.

You can download water??

Moisture vaporators...

Only if you can speak bocce

Big cloud helps

Real programmers don’t need water.

Naturally, from the CLOUD :)

From what I Understand, hydrogen is fiendishly difficult to transmit.

It can be stored OK, but getting it from Point A, to Point B, is difficult, because of the small atoms. Couplings tend to leak like hell.

Yep, hydrogen is so small it can diffuse through most solids and find the tiniest of gaps, and it requires high pressure or cryo double walled storage. Very cool if it can be made to work though!

The distribution mechanism for electric vehicles isn't a solved problem either though: during holidays, with millions of people driving their cars on the highways, we're going to need really beefy charging stations with electric power supply comparable to small cities, and that means building lots of infrastructure that doesn't exist yet. This isn't a theoretical problem (we know exactly what to do), but is a serious practical one.

Petrol stations. There are a few available in the uk. Sadly i could only find one hybrid car for sale, a toyota mirai.

It’s basically the same idea as natural gas. Pressure is higher and you need to be more careful with material compatibility. But otherwise everything is the same in principle.

Ultimately, it’s pretty laughable to think that a society capable of making modern semiconductors cannot figure out basic material science. People who keep bringing these issues up are not debating in good faith.

YouTube's Engineering Explained channel took a close look at the hydrogen engine Toyota recently unveiled and in doing so explained a lot of problems you can expect with hydrogen engines - including distribution and storage issues.

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJjKwSF9gT8

"A thinly veiled advertisement for Kraftwerk Tubes, whose founder Sascha Kühn has at least once before completely failed to deliver."

See a recent dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33395796

Their claims about a ceramic membrane for the fuel cell, and the elimination of the platinum electrode, are certainly interesting on the side of fuel cell technology. In the past, fuel cells had a real lifetime problem (i.e. imagine having to replace the vehicles engine once every three years under normal use, at similar cost, i.e. at least several thousand dollars).

However, without knowing the vehicle's mass and performance characteristics, the 2000 km claim isn't very illuminating. Maintaining the hydrogen fueling system is also problematic. It'd be interesting to see what the numbers are for fully loaded semi trucks hauling goods from point A to point B, that seems like a more realistic use, and whether they'd be more economically and energy efficient than electric semi trucks.

Hydrogen 1.0 engines are very exciting to see!

https://www.britannica.com/technology/gasoline-engine/Develo...

Hydrogen was used in 1820 when gasoline engine 1.0 came about in 1823.

Interesting stats in the linked video, but we'll see what happens with hydrogen 2.0/3.0 engines in a few years instead of with retrofitted types. Diversification still works fine in the 1st world.

https://youtu.be/3IPR50-soNA

Two thousand Kelvin metres. Impressive.

The metric prefix kilo should indeed be abbreviated with a lower case k instead of upper case K. But if using metric prefixes correctly is the goal, then the submitter should have used 2 Mm ("megameters") :-)

If we're being pedantic, the "2k Km" is simply incorrect.

See 6.1.5 here: https://www.nist.gov/pml/special-publication-811/nist-guide-...

If it were Kelvin-meters, it would either be written "K m" or, preferred, "K·m"

Reading the article this seems really amazing. Hydrogen technology that seems to be a drop in for solid state batteries without all the issues of using what seems to be water? This seems like a destiny changing game changer. Whats the dream bubble popper with this one? It even seems like volkswagen solved the issue of using rare metals.

Storing the hydrogen. You need an extremely well insulated high pressure tank, that is either prohibitively heavy, expensive, large or all of the above.

Also, the consequences of that tank puncturing are a lot worse than a regular gasoline tank.

OR to change that hydrogen into something that stores and transports easier... Ammonia is one way, I have also read that the germans have developed something called powerpaste that essentially makes it inert for safe and simple transport.

These are just the beginning. I am bullish on Hydrogen. I suspect it going to be very big in the future. It may not be a silver bullet (or THE solution) but its definitely going to be a big player.

Disolving hydrogen in ammonia has been discussed, in Australian media anyway, as a way that Australia could 'export it's sunlight' to the world.

I also believe it's best to have at least a couple of option branches as there are a very wide number of use-cases, to all of which a single option is unlikely able to cater.

> the consequences of that tank puncturing are a lot worse than a regular gasoline tank

Are they? Hydrogen should float up, up, and away. Just don’t store it indoors.

The very, very large problem comes when it ignites.

Article is currently erroring out so I can't see what it says, but hydrogen isn't super easy to store or transport. It's also a whole other infrastructure system to have to set up, where the already-popular electric cars are already struggling.

https://smartgrid.ieee.org/bulletins/february-2021/green-hyd...

Hydrogen production is still very costly and energy inefficient. If we had excess renewable energy, this may not be a problem, but today it's an issue, especially if you're producing hydrogen using non-renewable energy sources.

assuming we can make the cost something more affordable: Regions of the world DO have excess amounts of renewable energy, they have no way to move that energy to locations that dont have excess renewable energy. thats why turning it into hydrogen might be a part of the solution.

on top of that, there are lots locations around the world that are underdeveloped but do have the potential for turning their renewable resources into an export. That would be an almost silver bullet. to uplift developing nations by selling developed nations green energy.

If we can get the conversion cost effective, and the transport and storage reliable and cost effective then we can change the world for in a bigger way than the internet has.

If HFC vehicles ever become mainstream, hydrogen is going to have to be produced on-site at filling stations. Hydrogen is extremely difficult and dangerous to transport. If you try to use pipes, the hydrogen will be able to leak out of even the smallest of cracks, and can even diffuse through metals. It's extremely difficult to compress and becomes a serious explosion hazard.

I'm somewhat optimistic that HFC will play a role in the future of transportation, but there are still a lot of issues that need to be ironed out.

Call me naive but if such a viable hydrogen engine such as the one being described in the article is here, wouldnt it be just as easy (or easier) shift focus to building out more renewable energy infrastructure than to try and mine the earth for the lithium required to power everybody’s car?

If anything, this hydrogen technology should be the excuse we need to immediately focus on renewable power buildout.

The question is who will pay and will those entities be willing to accept the risk?

Whose gonna pay when all the people living in miami are displaced by it being under water and New York City becomes New Miami?

And whose gonna pay when marine life collapses and shellfish cant make shells because the all of the oceans’ ph is off? Hell there might not even be a need for money because there might not be anyone left!

Graphene supercaps will become viable before hydrogen fuel cell infrastructure.

Edit: nevermind the archive.today is 404 too

Made a new one with an added URL param: https://archive.ph/heHOE

How large is this tank?

http://opensfhistory.org/Download/wnp27.6626.jpg

Kidding.

Yes that's the real question, the recent Engineering Explained video on hydrogen cars gave me a good amount of concern that viable hydrogen cars require careful consideration of how much hydrogen they can store on board, and so they can easily be compromised.

Now I want someone to attach a large blimp shaped balloon emblazoned with explosive hazard warnings with a fake line going into the car labeled "prototype hydrogen car" and drive around and film it.

What immediately came to mind was a dirigible. I'm hoping that's not really the case.

Well, smaller than the envelope of the car, but that's all we can guess at this point.

Rough guess (based on info here: https://demaco-cryogenics.com/blog/energy-density-of-hydroge...) if stored at 700bar is 400L.

Which doesn't sound right. Can someone correct me please?

This is really promising. But I usually sense some pessimism from the EV crowd about the viability of Hydrogen. I personally hope for a Hydrogen future.

IMO because hydrogen is less efficient (by a factor of two, I believe) than using the electricity directly. So given that we are going to have less energy in the future (because fossil fuels are not unlimited, e.g. we passed the production peak of conventional oil back in 2008), then we should use it wisely. And we need hydrogen for other applications (steel, methanol, fertilisers), so probably we should keep it for those.

We'll be making hydrogen from saltwater with sunlight and wind energy in ~15 years or less. There's a race to own these industries right now.

The same sunlight and wind energy could be used directly as electricity in homes and EV batteries. There is a significant cost to storing the energy as hydrogen, and there's no benefit.

Installing battery banks to last longer and longer has an increasing cost, so you start to run out of batteries to fill during high production times. At a certain point hydrogen should get cheaper per watt to soak up production.

For countries that import LNG as source of power now, there's a future in shipping h2 as ammonia and converting it to hydrogen on the other end. Places with lots and sun, lots of ocean and existing LNG infrastructure are in a good place to assist in this transformation.

You're probably right about the currently known processes. But there are companies working on chemical engineering processes that are more efficient.

Here is one : https://hazer.wpmudev.host/about/#hazerprocess

The fact is that you need energy to produce hydrogen, and then car engines are less efficient with hydrogen than with electricity.

And the other points remain: we need hydrogen in other important fields (probably more important than cars, right?), so we should keep it there. If we get more efficient at producing hydrogen for those applications, that's good. No need to add cars on top.

I think it's interesting to see how much most people around here and reddit are convinced hydrogen personal vehicles won't work out while at the same time the largest carmaker seems very much to believe it will be the future.

Hydrogen inherits a lot of infrastructure problems without the advantages of batteries.

Charging an EV at home is slow, but it's a reliable fallback you can use all the time. With no EV infrastructure, I could happily own one today.

With no hydrogen infrastructure...I'm just stuck. There's no path forward at the moment to refueling with H2 at home.

For who can't have home/parking charger, it's not happy to own EV today, though no hydrogen station is far more problem.

> the largest carmaker seems very much to believe it will be the future

Tesla are arguably a long way ahead on electric cars, so it would make sense for the, currently, largest carmaker to be touting something else.

It maintains a 'normal' that's more similar to the status quo than electric cars, and being the largest carmaker, change would not be something they'd like to encourage. This being closer to the current status quo could help it greatly if fossil fuel logistics and infrastructure could be minimally re-worked to cater to hydrogen.

It also could end being stupidly fiercely politically aligned where democrats are all supporting and driving electric and republicans hydrogen.

Don't most of the major automakers electric vehicles compare reasonably to Tesla?

Like Tesla likely has better costs on their batteries, but that doesn't represent a whole lot when the other automakers have only recently started to invest in that production.

And for example, the F-150 Lighting isn't at huge volume, but it's more available than ye olde Cybertruck.

Yes, absolutely. EV's have a lot of limitations. The batteries degrade in capacity and are toxic. They're quite heavy and can explode (things have improved a lot).

The chemicals used in the batteries are toxic. Countries that are still dependant on fossil fuel for electricity, aren't going to reap much environmental benefits out of these EVs that need to be charged from the grid. And last but the most obvious one is the time it takes to charge batteries.

The race is won in many regions, at least for cars. But in regions with low uptake of EVs, such as Australia for example, the race is still on. There are significant problems that still need to be addressed for EVs to reach their tipping point, and they will be addressed. But HFC cars could surprise people and come out ahead if a way can be found to transport fuel efficiently. Especially if the tech to convert diesel engines to run on 90% hydrogen can be done cost effectively, meaning large fleets could be converted without waiting for vehicles needing to be replaced.

Assuming it is running on green hydrogen, how far could a Tesla Model 3 go on the electricity used to generate the hydrogen to go 2k km?

About twice as far for a given amount of energy input, BUT that's leaving out the energy density of hydrogen fuel cells vs li-ion batteries. For grid storage purposes, batteries might be more efficient. But for automotive purposes, for an EV to go as far as a hydrogen vehicle, it'd have to be much bigger & heavier.

In a sense, hydrogen makes the grid work harder, but once it does, you can squeeze it into a smaller/lighter package that can go much further than a similarly sized EV.

Edit: A readable primer: https://www.theautochannel.com/news/2021/11/03/1066723-toyot...

A hydrogen Mirai is heavier than a Model 3 of comparable range.

I'm assuming you're asking because the electricity required to generate the hydrogen to power the car would be (much) more efficiently used to directly power the car. ie. electricity is being used as a process mid-point rather than end-result.

I hear a bit of cynicism about hydrogen being touted by traditional automotive and fossil fuel companies because the business case around it is essentially the same as fossil fuels, where re-charging an electric car can be done at home "for free" (pending a number of dependencies being met), and I agree that it could be a half-step forwards rather than a full-step. But I also believe that it's best to have more than one option, and there are likely to be wildly varying use cases in which each option can an obvious stand-out for different use cases.

What other trade-offs are there in hydrogen vs electric engines? (dependence on rare-earths being one negative on the electric side, but are there also rare-earths required for hydrogen engines or the generation of hydrogen?)

What are the use cases? city driving, country driving, buses, trucks, towing, rail, light aircraft, passenger aircraft, military.

Here's another trade-off: performance in cold weather. This coming from someone expecting a low of -18C tonight, and winter doesn't officially start for over another month.

"The manager also points to another advantage that will save costs in the manufacture of vehicles: the fuel cell generates heat that can be used both to replace the car’s heating and air conditioning, which would also mean greater energy savings"

Cold weather is really hard on batteries and can significantly impact range. On top of that is the extra draw on the batteries to run the heater necessary to keep the occupants from freezing. The one upside of the gasoline engine's inefficiency is harnessing the heat it gives off to keep the interior warm. The amount of heat that requires at highway speeds on a -35C day is... substantial.

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