Honda pioneered the hydrogen cell resulting in the Honda Clarity.Sadly due to poor sales and the difficulty finding Hydrogen filling stations production ceased this year. There is still a hydrogen station at Swindon near the old Honda plant.
Hydrogen will be ideal for lorries and heavy industries -where size and weight of container is less important but at the mo not for cars-unless you want teeny range of course! Far worse than an ev.
But a lot more environmentally friendly. In the next 10 years it will probably make EVs redundant as technology develops.
Put £25 petrol in the Rio at £1.42.9. What surprised me was that Esso Supreme E5 was £1.65.9. Never have I seen that price differential even at times of previous fuel price peaks. All I can surmise is that they want to rip off those who have cars not suitable for running on E10.
Actually there has been at least a 20p difference for quite awhile.
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Not around here there hasn’t been that difference, as i regularly put premium petrol in the cars. But not at the moment and this is the first purchase since before the panic buying set in. And it’s 23 pence difference too, not 20 pence.
Presently the methods of producing usable quantities of H2 all require a much larger energy input (mainly Electricity) than the amount of energy the resulting H2 contains. It is therefore far more efficient and enviromentally friendly to put that same energy into a battery in an EV than to convert raw materials into H2, store it, transport it, and set up fuel stations to handle it.
EV's have a massive head start, and the distribution system is already there, and its far easier to set up a charge point than a hydrogen station.
So far there are no inklings of a significantly more efficient H2 production process, and the distribution system is simply not there or being developed at anything like the speed that would be needed to cover the country.
EV's are here to stay for many decades and will continue to outstrip H2 systems until a really practical cost effective way of producing H2 and distributing it is found, and even then the sheer numbers will still show EV's ahead of H2.
Even in the long term fir cars, vans and buses etc a hydrogen fuel cell system is more efficient than burning hydrogen in an ICE. But for large power hungry machines like earth movers the engine is better.
I can see it now. Instead of a caravan you will towing a trailer with solar panels mounted. LOL!
My neighbour has a new Tesla. He drove from Wiltshire to Wallsend Newcastle . On arrival he still had 80 miles in reserve. Impressive. Also he recharges at specific Tesla charging points . 30 minutes maximum to achieve 80% charge. Apparently Li batteries shouldn’t be charged to max only 80% to ensure longevity of battery life. Amazing what you learn !
You can always tell when a Tesla or Ipace etc driver is suffering range anxiety on the motorway...... they are in Lane 1 with HGVs passing them
But admittedly that is a very rare sighting.The batteries need to be slow charged above 80% - the onboard charger will do this but take disproportionally long to get from 80-100% - so for journeys requiring multiple recharge, the range is only 80% of the official figure - even that assumes you don't drive faster than the test regime as that would reduce range even further.
H2 hubs are being used in the UK now, and more are on the way. London and Birmingham Cities are running H2 as well as battery powered buses but, the weight of batteries becomes disproportionately high as vehicles of greater mass are considered. Several UK Councils are running H2 recycling trucks, and JCB's project is not a speculative venture, and not the first in the world. I can see that H2 will be common place for certain types of transport and shipping mentioned in my previous post, partly because over the lifespan of a vehicle this is already likely to be similar in monetary cost to EV, but much cleaner, and at a much lower whole life carbon cost. Since China has become the front-runner in grabbing the world's raw materials with their cunning investments in the poor countries sitting on mineral reserves, battery production could be a real risk. Long-term dependency on batteries alone may be impossible. Mass production of H2 powered passenger cars will have to wait as the infrastructure will be a massive challenge, but it will come later, and the largest manufacturers are already making them in small quantities.
the largest manufacturers are already making them in small quantities.
Who are they? Honda scrapped the Clarity this year due to poor sales and lack of H2 filling stations.
Who are they? Honda scrapped the Clarity this year due to poor sales and lack of H2 filling stations.
I actually saw a hydrogen bus when I was in Canada back in the mid 1980s. It stored its hydrogen in a hydride tank which ensured that in the event of an accident there would be not major event. The company, Ballard, demonstrated its inherent safety by firing an incendiary bullet into the full tank. There was just a little '"phut" and that was it. All very undemonstrative. We were looking at hydrides as a means of storing hydrogen too.
You have related that several times before, but it strikes me there must be some reason why the technology hasn't been adopted elsewhere. Now I admit I haven't gone looking for it, but I would have thought that by now with the pressure to drop dino juice that Hydride storage would have become a significant alternative solution for Hydrogen vehicles. Its absence from the general discussions suggest to me there must be either technical issues or commercial or political shenanigans about its deployment.
I seem to remember you mentioning Mercedes were involved with it.
I think Honda did something similar to Toyota. They did the first phases of product development (the 80/20 rule is that these early phases take 20% of the time needed for 80% of the benefit). Producing a few was probably part of that, and the review which shelved the production found the market wasn't ready for the product yet. I believe Toyota are more advanced and now producing smallish numbers. Hyundai is similar. It's too early, though, as I said before.
It is Ballard teamed up with JCB, and Wright (Buses).
Must be an age thing, talking about the same topic repeatedly. I mentioned JCBs interest in a thread in July 2021, and at #15 of that thread I inserted a link that did mention Daimler Benz had teamed with Ballard Power Systems for transit applications.
My interests were not commercial transit, more fuel cells for a Canadian naval application, and storage of hydrogen.
Here is that thread.
https://forums.practicalcaravan.com/threads/h2-car-is-it-green.63086/
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The official Hyundai UK website. View the latest models, download a brochure, find your retailer and book a test drive.
My nearest hydrogen station is 18 miles away. Need a few more.en
The official Hyundai UK website. View the latest models, download a brochure, find your retailer and book a test drive.mobile.hyundai.co.uk
Precisely why the opportunities at this time for H2 are limited. I think we will see in a while that H2 will take a share of the heavy vehicle sector, which will be a step towards the passenger car sector. I think we will have a mixture of EV/H2 and a long period of existing petrol/diesel phasing out. There may yet be a few twists and turns along the way.
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