That's a wonderful tale-love it-incidentally the Chinese make engines for BMW (motorbikes) and Honda and have their own versions-latest Chinese LExmoto comes with a 5 year warranty!
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I used to work for Toyota before I left the impression I had was Toyota had bet on the wrong horse, their view was that hydrogen power was the way to go, yes they were developing battery electric vehicles too, but I think they were caught out in the short term by the politicians, especially in Europe, going all in for battery electric vehicles. Personally I think Toyota will be shown to be right in the long run when hydrogen will win out once the fuel is widely available. No need to manufacturing batteries which is environmentally damaging, no range anxiety, no worries over battery declining capacity or expensive battery recycling. A key focus will be of course how to generate the hydrogen fuel in a green manner, It reminds me of the old Betamax vs VHS debate, it will be very interesting to see how it all pans out.
It should be WLTP - not WLTC, the new standard tests for car range and efficiency.
The Ora Cat 1 looks brilliant. I am on the waiting list to see how the prices stack up for when orders are ready to be taken. Looking forward to a test drive at Fully Charged Live in April.
The Polestar feels like a very premium product. It's incredibly well finished. The Tesla model 3 build quality went up a couple of notches when production moved from the US to China.
It will be interesting to see how it pans out. But hydrogen (even without the production and distribution issues) is not without challenges. Mineral mining for batteries is replaced by mineral mining for fuel cells. Degradation of batteries (which btw has basically no more of an issue in the real world than the failure rate in ice engines and transmissions) is replaced by degradation of the high pressure hydrogen fuel tanks. Hydrogen is held up a the natural successor to petrol or LPG, but that is ignoring a bunch of issues and a long way from the truth.
Any one watch 5th Gear recharge? Exciting developed inc a 5 min battery swap vehicle coming soon. Our Mini Se battery loses about ten miles range if it's really cold but spped and journey length are affecting factors . Just like an ice. Cold short fast journeys lower economy.
Yes i saw that episode. Pity nothing was said about whether it could also be charged at a Charing station, or at home too, as in a country like UK setting up the infrastructure for battery replacement stations would not be quick. The other thing that was interesting is how highly they regarded the design, fit and finish of the Nio. It made the BMW shown earlier look amateurish.
My grandson was a bit miffed when he saw the episode where the BMW 3 series PHEV 330X touring was 2 seconds a lap slower than lower powered Octavia 2wd PHEV. Also his VIzla can’t stand up in the new BMW as the battery takes up depth in the load area, and a crate is even less useful. I did tell him, but form took over from function.
PS Nio website does mention home charging so I guess they would probably be able to use charging stations too.
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PHEV are compromised in space. Adding a significant sized battery somewhere is a car that was designed to be run by an ICE means losing space somewhere. My V60 PHEV has its battery under the boot floor, partly where the spare wheel well is normally and partly in the fuel tank space. It makes the tank smaller, but also raised the boot floor by about 2 inches, so less luggage space. It’s still a very capable load lugger but smaller than the V50 it replaced.
However an EV requires several large batteries, but a hydrogen fuel cell probably only requires one cell? Overall the hydrogen powered vehicle will damage the environment less because it is lighter so no extensive wear and tear.
I am also thinking that the bonus is that many ICE vehicles can be converted to use hydrogen power and that is the biggest environmental; bonus.
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Converting an ICE fir direct burn of hydrogen is a really inefficient use of energy and most unlikely to be adopted in all but isolated instances, even if the hydrogen is sourced from renewable sources.
There were many cars in this country that were converted to use gas and many still do fill up with gas in addition to petrol.
This was discussed a while back, but the cars converted were running on LPG which in its production and burn characteristics is very different to hydrogen. The ICE engine at best ( a development Cummins truck on diesel ) is only 50% efficient.!! Sure hydrogen is likely to feature on future mobility solutions but it’s not the panacea some think it could be.
Either way converting ICE to gas is a lot more environmentalkly friendly than dumping millions of cars and also helps with unemployment. Agree that it could be a short term solution, but making converting more affordable than buying an EV.
Current ICE vehicles can be converted to use hydrogen in the same way that current ICE vehicles can be converted to be BEV. It’s possible but prohibitively expensive. With LPG conversations you need a simple fuel tank and filler, and a switch to feed the gas into the existing petrol injection system. Hydrogen needs completely separate set of injectors, requiring a new cylinder head, as well as a new injection system, hydrogen tank and filler system. The tank it’s self is bigger than the LPG equivalent for less fuel density. Can it be done? Yes. Is it worth while? Perhaps- if you are trying to preserve some rare fuel burner and give it a new life, but for general motoring? Not so much.
I really don’t get the obsession with EV weight. Is my EV heavier than a petrol or diesel car if the same size? Yes. But it’s still lighter than the car it replaced (an XC90). And far more aerodynamic. And far less heavy wear on he brakes.
No one's dumping ice vehicles Buckman. I aim to be keeping ours till the sensible time comes to change and as for my kwak z900 rs it's a keeper
There are already millions of cars scrapped each year, but just because someone switches to a EV or PHEV etc doesn’t mean their ICE car is scrapped. Both my daughters and grandsons cars have gone to new homes. As new EV come in the ICE cars will pass down the chain until they come to the ends of life. So why any unemployment?
I was referring to the next 20 - 30 years and not immediately. If millions are presently being scrapped every year, it may add to the already existing piles . Many scrap yards have car shells that are stripped, but the body sits in the year for decades and is not recycled for some reason
But that’s just the lifecycle of a product. Cars are scrapped because they become uneconomic to repair and run. Of course, if adding hydrogen to a petrol car makes it once again economical to run, then that’s all good news. But I can’t see anyone spending thousands (or even 10s of thousands) on adding hydrogen to a car to allow it to pass some future emissions barrier, when switching to a used EV would have lower running costs and longer lifespan.
However by converting a car that is only a couple of years old to hydrogen surely that will help reduce emissions sooner and is probably cheaper than buying an EV of a similar age?
Well maybe - but where do you buy hydrogen? Where do you buy a hydrogen conversion kit? If it costs 10K to convert your car, and then 25p a mile to run, vs changing to an EV for an extra 10K and 2p a mile to run, which are you going to go for?
What use is comparing a large IC SUV with a medium EV car? That really is apples and bananas.
It's only irrelevant if you consider medium SUVs (XC90 is small compared to Disco, Range Rover, Landcruiser, G-Wagon and other "real" 4x4s - as their owners used to tell me) to be too heavy for the the roads. If you don't (and I don't see ICE supporters clamouring to ban SUVs for being "too heavy") then its not.
To say an EV is bad for the environment because it's too heavy, but to then continue to promote ICE cars that are just a heavy AND have more polluting drive trains and fuelling ecosystems is simple hypocrisy.
Science or politicians. Don't trust the latter but I do think evs are the future. Converting an ice to run on hydrogen is fraught with issues. Even the two hydrogen cars on sale now are fuel cells and not conversions.
I think thats one view - and it's not a bad one, but is really based on the (understandable) cynicism over the miss-judged rush to diesel and dieslgate.
Another view is that continued used of fossil fuels is causing harm to our environment, and as a result ICE engines (as we know them - H2 versions may help in future as Buckman points out) have had their day. All the major car manufacturers are delivering BEV based cars, and we can see a transition occurring in the way new cars are purchased. Many of those manufacturers have already committed to eliminating ICE from their productline before 2030 and as early as 2025.
2030 is not a sudden switch over. ICE cars will not be forced off the road. The transition will not be political, it will be economic. By the time we get to 2030, buying a new ICE car will be an anachronistic as buying a rotary dial land line phone. The science - and engineering - will continue to evolve, but we can be sure that the cars of 2030 will likely make anything you can buy today look old fashioned. Just as cars of today make 2012 cars look old fashioned.
I wonder how much the government will be taxing EVs in 2030 onwards as they need to recoup billions lost in taxes which is used to fund organisations like NHS etc? Plus of course the cost of a kwh of electric?
Just to add although I am not keen on EVs the above post is just a normal question that none of us can answer.
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