I love electric vehicles–and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
The claim is made that the batteries only last 10 years. LFP batteries lose about 12 percent over that time period. The batteries will usefully last over 1 million miles. Following that they can be used for grid storage or recycled.
Hydrogen leaks through everything. It is very hard to contain. It makes steel brittle. You can stand next to a hydrogen flame and feel no heat. However, standing IN a hydrogen flame will quickly end you. A hydrogen flame is invisible. A 4% hydrogen concentration is explosive. There is a reason it is used as rocket fuel.
Hydrogen cars, like current gas cars, are only used for transportation. Electric cars can be used to power homes during blackouts.
The infrastructure to support hydrogen cars is essentially the same as current gas stations. If you use your car just to commute there is no need for infrastructure. The average commute is 20 miles. A simple 110 plug generates about 4 miles every hour so if you plug in at night you have a "full tank" every day.
Electric cars don't run when stopped in traffic or at lights. Hydrogen cars do. That's a huge waste of energy in a city environment.
Battery materials can be recycled (https://li-cycle.com/). The process is energy intensive but so is the process to separate hydrogen from water.
A car falls apart, and people need to get to work when mass transit isn't possible (or when a decade of austerity and corporate greed has grinded it to a halt). People are going to buy these imperfect cars until there's a more perfect solution, because they have no choice.