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by ffhhttt 1079 days ago
> every single vehicle on Earth with BEVs, then the goal is already a dead one.

We might replace small/personal vehicles with BEV and larger ones with hydrogen.

It’s not a very good fuel source for small vehicles because of how unstable it is. You need significant amounts of energy to stop it from evaporating.

For large commercial vehicles that and distribution would be much easier.

> . We can see 85% efficiency and above pretty much right now

Multiply that by production efficiency and we’re just a bit above the level of ICE.

1 comments

You mean something closer to every short-ranged EV with BEVs, and long ranged ones with FCEVs? That could work, although it would be admitting that most cars will be FCEVs. Though honestly, we'd be better off with more mass transit than short-ranged vehicles.

Hydrogen is not unstable for transportation purposes. It is safer than gasoline.

No. Wells to wheels efficiency, at least for large installations, would be not far off from what is possible with batteries. The fact that you even think that FCEVs are even close to ICE on efficiency shows that you've swallowed a lot of BEV propaganda. A fuel cell is 3x the efficiency of a conventional gasoline engine. BEVs simply are not that much efficient, and the gap continuously shrink.

> you've swallowed a lot of BEV propaganda

Right. That’s my cue to stop.. arguing with people who say stuff like this is always pointless

> a. A fuel cell is 3x the efficiency of a conventional gasoline engine

If you include production efficiency, storage and transportation losses and fuel cell efficiency itself it’s only a bit higher than diesel if not on par.

Diesel has their own upstream losses. People are constantly using a double standard where they only include upstream losses for hydrogen while ignoring them for everything else. In reality, you are going to get closer to battery-levels of efficiency with fuel cells than with any other currently available idea. It's not even debatable given that fuel cells are far more efficient than ICEs.

Furthermore, given the needs of energy storage, in particular long duration energy storage, there are situations where you will be charging BEVs with hydrogen power. So it is not even a guaranteed that BEVs are more efficient than FCEVs, with the average case likely half-way between commonly claimed numbers. A gap that will shrink over time too, since efficiency of fuel cells can significantly improve.

The reason why I say "BEV propaganda" is because the arguments are totally ridiculous. Between the absurd fearmongering and claims of massive efficiency advantages, all while ignoring any and all limitations of li-ion batteries, it is clearly just a misinformation campaign. After all, since FCEVs are also EVs, why are there so many attacks on them from other EV enthusiasts? It is mostly a defensive strategy of misinformation and FUD. It is because more than anything else, FCEVs represent a disruptive threat to BEVs.