Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

ABrass

JKenH said:

ABrass said:

JKenH said:

Now can you imagine if Elon Musk decried to hedge his bets and do hydrogen as well? The infrastructure would probably be there in 3 months.

I still think there is time to develop hydrogen as electric cars still only constitute a very small percentage of the cars on the road. Hydrogen vehicles may be an easier sell than electric to a world brought up on gas guzzlers. There is no shortage of raw material and with solar and wind becoming cheaper and more abundant hydrogen plants might have an important part to play in soaking up excess generation so the hydrogen is produced at minimal cost. 

I think the biggest obstacle to Tesla doing hydrogen though is that Nikola has gone down the dual fuel route first and Elon would lose face. 

The biggest obstacle would be cost. HFCs are very expensive, more so than a battery for a similar BEV. Adding both in one car would be the worst of both worlds.  Redesigning their existing cars to add a range extender is also a lot of money. Plus there's no need.

Edit: sorry, just realized you meant an entirely separate HFC line. As other people have mentioned that's not going to happen. Musk is just as likely to invest in an ICE car line as HFC.

No need to redesign the Tesla cars, they are just fine. I see a long term future for electric cars, particularly for commuting with home charging. I just think it might be a bit too early to rule out hydrogen vehicles completely, especially longer range commercial vehicles. 

Twenty years ago would we have expected EVs to be the practical proposition they are now? Never say never.

To fit a Fuel cell and more significantly the tank into a Tesla you'd have to start again from scratch. There simply isn't room for a large spherical tank in the cars at the moment.

Hydrogen might, might, make sense for long distance HGVs. It might even be possible they'll make up a portion of the car market some day, but there's no reyto believe they're going to be more than an afterthought for the next five years. Just like the last five years.

JKenH

ABrass said:

JKenH said:

ABrass said:

JKenH said:

Now can you imagine if Elon Musk decried to hedge his bets and do hydrogen as well? The infrastructure would probably be there in 3 months.

I still think there is time to develop hydrogen as electric cars still only constitute a very small percentage of the cars on the road. Hydrogen vehicles may be an easier sell than electric to a world brought up on gas guzzlers. There is no shortage of raw material and with solar and wind becoming cheaper and more abundant hydrogen plants might have an important part to play in soaking up excess generation so the hydrogen is produced at minimal cost. 

I think the biggest obstacle to Tesla doing hydrogen though is that Nikola has gone down the dual fuel route first and Elon would lose face. 

The biggest obstacle would be cost. HFCs are very expensive, more so than a battery for a similar BEV. Adding both in one car would be the worst of both worlds.  Redesigning their existing cars to add a range extender is also a lot of money. Plus there's no need.

Edit: sorry, just realized you meant an entirely separate HFC line. As other people have mentioned that's not going to happen. Musk is just as likely to invest in an ICE car line as HFC.

No need to redesign the Tesla cars, they are just fine. I see a long term future for electric cars, particularly for commuting with home charging. I just think it might be a bit too early to rule out hydrogen vehicles completely, especially longer range commercial vehicles. 

Twenty years ago would we have expected EVs to be the practical proposition they are now? Never say never.

To fit a Fuel cell and more significantly the tank into a Tesla you'd have to start again from scratch. There simply isn't room for a large spherical tank in the cars at the moment.

Hydrogen might, might, make sense for long distance HGVs. It might even be possible they'll make up a portion of the car market some day, but there's no reyto believe they're going to be more than an afterthought for the next five years. Just like the last five years.

Sorry, I wasn’t suggesting Tesla make an EV/HFC hybrid, rather if they went into HFCs as well as EVs they would soon have the infrastructure in place to support them.

silverwhistle

I just think it might be a bit too early to rule out hydrogen vehicles completely, especially longer range commercial vehicles.

I'd say it's short range, depot based fleets that would benefit from hydrogen: buses, urban delivery vehicles and the like. There is absolutely no way that an infrastructure for cars will develop, and if longer range vehicles are to be seen it'll be on a restricted basis, along major trunk routes.

zeupater

Martyn1981 said:

Hi Z, in fairness to Joe, perhaps he's referring to the 2016 launch event of the Nikola One HFC semi. I watched that launch and the claims and opinions made were incredible. And the truck did have "H2 Zero Emission Hydrogen Electric" written on the side of it, so that's a great start. Hopefully by now they will have gotten around to actually fitting the 'fully working vehicle' with gears and, oh what was that other thing, oh yes, a fuel cell. I'm sure they just accidentally forgot those bits and pieces on the truck that they said was not a 'pusher' (can't move under its own power).

And now they're about to open the order books for the Nikola Badger pickup, which will do up to 300 miles on its 160kWh battery, and be capable of being upgraded 'any time after purchase' with a HFC range extender.

Hi

It'd be slightly more than generous to accept that considering that the thread of conversation was revolving around payments to Tesla from Fiat Chrysler in order to dilute their passenger car carbon intensity in order to meet EU fleet emission standards and avoid punitive levies ... I've got no real problem with this happening - at least it ensures that ICE sales are directly subsidising BEVs as opposed to being lost somewhere deep within the opaque coffers of the EU and likely diverted to a random form of bureaucratic administration somewhere along the line  ...

HTH - Z

#Edit : Having read through subsequent interactions it's pretty clear to conclude that reference wasn't being made to the HGV market segment at all ... as expected!

zeupater

joefizz said:

zeupater said:

Hi

Which countries are holding back on BEVs & specifically waiting for hydrogen? ... I can't seem to find any source to support that claim! ....

Misrepresenting what I said again MrZ. Did you not learn your lesson the last time? ;-)

Nobody is holding back BEVs waiting for hydrogen, what they are doing is staggering different rollouts waiting for not an all encompassing winner but the balance of future usage. No point going all in on EV charging if a lot of it has to be ripped out in 5 years time and vice versa.

Hi

Congratulations!, what a display of educational achievement, social interaction skills & class, your ancestors must be so proud! ... and there was me thinking that having expended so much effort in convincing everyone that your educational & professional background provided you with an exceptional viewpoint on such things, you'd actually have the logical & objective answer to hand, after-all, being interested in the position posed & having looked at various sources to gain further insight in developments it was found to be very hard to substantiate, hence the simple question, from which a simple objective answer was expected ....

... what a surprise to find that a reply which was expected to be based on a claimed vast experience in solution based logic & objectiveness in related fields actually came through as emotive & subjective deflection involving misrepresentation, which there was absolutely none, neither made or intended !! .... check the text !!

Now, again, having an interest in the point you made I'll repeat the question: do you have a substantive source as to which countries are holding back on BEVs & specifically waiting for hydrogen, or was it simply a remark based on personal opinion? (which you are, of course, entitled to hold, be it true or not!) ...

Just asking a simple question which should be really simple to answer without resorting to any form of personalisation, deflection or even significant effort on anyone's behalf, especially so for one having raised the point in the first place!!

HTH - Z

silverwhistle

Bit heavy on the sarcasm there Z, even if I think JF was talking UB*.

I'd also observe that within the EU with 27 nations keeping an eye on things that this is also a bit unfair: "- at least it ensures that ICE sales are directly subsidising BEVs as opposed to being lost somewhere deep within the opaque coffers of the EU and likely diverted to a random form of bureaucratic administration somewhere along the line".

Frankly I suggest that there are more checks and balances in the EU than within our own wonderful monarchy..

* unmitigated ..

Martyn1981

JKenH said:

ABrass said:

JKenH said:

Now can you imagine if Elon Musk decried to hedge his bets and do hydrogen as well? The infrastructure would probably be there in 3 months.

I still think there is time to develop hydrogen as electric cars still only constitute a very small percentage of the cars on the road. Hydrogen vehicles may be an easier sell than electric to a world brought up on gas guzzlers. There is no shortage of raw material and with solar and wind becoming cheaper and more abundant hydrogen plants might have an important part to play in soaking up excess generation so the hydrogen is produced at minimal cost. 

I think the biggest obstacle to Tesla doing hydrogen though is that Nikola has gone down the dual fuel route first and Elon would lose face. 

The biggest obstacle would be cost. HFCs are very expensive, more so than a battery for a similar BEV. Adding both in one car would be the worst of both worlds.  Redesigning their existing cars to add a range extender is also a lot of money. Plus there's no need.

Edit: sorry, just realized you meant an entirely separate HFC line. As other people have mentioned that's not going to happen. Musk is just as likely to invest in an ICE car line as HFC.

No need to redesign the Tesla cars, they are just fine. I see a long term future for electric cars, particularly for commuting with home charging. I just think it might be a bit too early to rule out hydrogen vehicles completely, especially longer range commercial vehicles. 

Twenty years ago would we have expected EVs to be the practical proposition they are now? Never say never.

Twenty years ago people were talking up HFC's as the future, but that dream has steadily faded over that time period with their development. This seems highly logical given that a HFC is basically a small battery BEV with the addition of all the H2 technology. Since BEV's now don't really have range issues thanks to larger batteries and faster charge speeds, there seems little call for the expensive HFC technology and the need to generate around 3 to 4 times as much leccy to power them.

Nikola, the HFC cheerleaders, have steadily moved away from HFC only vehicles to hybrids and BEV only versions. The fact that their latest 'open to orders' vehicle the Badger comes as a BEV, with the ability to add a HFC Rx later, is a pretty clear clue as to the direction of travel ...... over the last 20yrs.

So, whilst there may be opportunities for larger H2 powered vehicles, don't expect them to take a majority of any market, and that in itself is a problem, as the H2 infrastructure needs to be built out, and the less demand, the more troublesome that becomes, perhaps leading to specialized routes at best.

Martyn1981

Perhaps I'm becoming a BEV geek, but I actually found this article on chargers (warning - reads a lot like an advert) very interesting.

The Kempower S-Series Fast Charging System Is Amazing

JKenH

Martyn1981 said:

JKenH said:

ABrass said:

JKenH said:

Now can you imagine if Elon Musk decried to hedge his bets and do hydrogen as well? The infrastructure would probably be there in 3 months.

I still think there is time to develop hydrogen as electric cars still only constitute a very small percentage of the cars on the road. Hydrogen vehicles may be an easier sell than electric to a world brought up on gas guzzlers. There is no shortage of raw material and with solar and wind becoming cheaper and more abundant hydrogen plants might have an important part to play in soaking up excess generation so the hydrogen is produced at minimal cost. 

I think the biggest obstacle to Tesla doing hydrogen though is that Nikola has gone down the dual fuel route first and Elon would lose face. 

The biggest obstacle would be cost. HFCs are very expensive, more so than a battery for a similar BEV. Adding both in one car would be the worst of both worlds.  Redesigning their existing cars to add a range extender is also a lot of money. Plus there's no need.

Edit: sorry, just realized you meant an entirely separate HFC line. As other people have mentioned that's not going to happen. Musk is just as likely to invest in an ICE car line as HFC.

No need to redesign the Tesla cars, they are just fine. I see a long term future for electric cars, particularly for commuting with home charging. I just think it might be a bit too early to rule out hydrogen vehicles completely, especially longer range commercial vehicles. 

Twenty years ago would we have expected EVs to be the practical proposition they are now? Never say never.

So, whilst there may be opportunities for larger H2 powered vehicles, don't expect them to take a majority of any market, and that in itself is a problem, as the H2 infrastructure needs to be built out, and the less demand, the more troublesome that becomes, perhaps leading to specialized routes at best.

I am not suggesting HFCs will wipe out electric cars. What I am saying is we don’t know how the future will shape up. Twenty years ago we seemed a long way away from a practical EV capable of 400 miles range and a charging infrastructure like we have now.  EVs have only a very small % of the total vehicle market but already we have a working infrastructure in place. That could happen yet with Hydrogen. 40 years ago we would have said the mobile phone technology we have now was science fiction We can’t base the future solely on what we see now. We just don’t know what’s around the corner.

It just takes a visionary to come along and make things happen like Elon Musk did with Tesla and the supercharger network. It might be HFC, it might be something else (but don’t ask me what). 

Martyn1981

JKenH said:

Martyn1981 said:

JKenH said:

ABrass said:

JKenH said:

Now can you imagine if Elon Musk decried to hedge his bets and do hydrogen as well? The infrastructure would probably be there in 3 months.

I still think there is time to develop hydrogen as electric cars still only constitute a very small percentage of the cars on the road. Hydrogen vehicles may be an easier sell than electric to a world brought up on gas guzzlers. There is no shortage of raw material and with solar and wind becoming cheaper and more abundant hydrogen plants might have an important part to play in soaking up excess generation so the hydrogen is produced at minimal cost. 

I think the biggest obstacle to Tesla doing hydrogen though is that Nikola has gone down the dual fuel route first and Elon would lose face. 

The biggest obstacle would be cost. HFCs are very expensive, more so than a battery for a similar BEV. Adding both in one car would be the worst of both worlds.  Redesigning their existing cars to add a range extender is also a lot of money. Plus there's no need.

Edit: sorry, just realized you meant an entirely separate HFC line. As other people have mentioned that's not going to happen. Musk is just as likely to invest in an ICE car line as HFC.

No need to redesign the Tesla cars, they are just fine. I see a long term future for electric cars, particularly for commuting with home charging. I just think it might be a bit too early to rule out hydrogen vehicles completely, especially longer range commercial vehicles. 

Twenty years ago would we have expected EVs to be the practical proposition they are now? Never say never.

So, whilst there may be opportunities for larger H2 powered vehicles, don't expect them to take a majority of any market, and that in itself is a problem, as the H2 infrastructure needs to be built out, and the less demand, the more troublesome that becomes, perhaps leading to specialized routes at best.

I am not suggesting HFCs will wipe out electric cars. What I am saying is we don’t know how the future will shape up. Twenty years ago we seemed a long way away from a practical EV capable of 400 miles range and a charging infrastructure like we have now.  EVs have only a very small % of the total vehicle market but already we have a working infrastructure in place. That could happen yet with Hydrogen. 40 years ago we would have said the mobile phone technology we have now was science fiction We can’t base the future solely on what we see now. We just don’t know what’s around the corner.

It just takes a visionary to come along and make things happen like Elon Musk did with Tesla and the supercharger network. It might be HFC, it might be something else (but don’t ask me what). 

As previously mentioned, over the last 20yrs, and with the development of HFCV's, the dream of HFCV's has collapsed, and BEV's have come through as the superior product.