[chrisbolt]

The market is mature enough to have standards for charging, but is nowhere near being mature for battery swaps. The charging problem will be solved long before battery swaps get close to being a thing, especially with the recent convergence on NACS.

[brnt]

I'd call the charging market far from nature. Installing random apps, practically per charging point? Or requiring a second wallet for all the 'network' cards?

Wake me up when I need nothing more than the payment card I already carry.

[petre]

It only works with Teslas, forget the other ones. That's part of why the others have failed to deliver a useful EV: only Tesla has a reliable charging network. The others are reliant on half assed solutions made by third parties.

[nsteel]

Some supercharger stations can be used by non-teslas with a CCS port. And it seems there's a big move coming for more to adopt.

https://www.motortrend.com/features/tesla-nacs-charging-port...

Edit Although I should add, even if they work, they may not support the full power charging. My Kia works, but nowhere near 250kWh.

[petre]

Yes, that's why most of the other brands have announced the will use the Tesla port, to be able to use their charging network. There are still issues with that approach because all Teslas have their charging port on the back left side and their Supercharger cable is quite short, while other cars do not necessarily maintain this. Also they might not charge at full power. It's still a better solution than the half assed ones.

[nsteel]

> their Supercharger cable is quite short

It really is! My port is on the front centre and depending on how others have parked, it's quite tricky to get the angle required to be close enough.

But these are just niggles. We absolutely need standard hardware.

[brnt]

Im in Europe, so that doesnt matter.

And even if they had then here top, they'd be useless to me, because Teslas are too large for me.

[robertlagrant]

Maybe you'd be a 2025 Model 2[0] customer?

[0] https://www.whatcar.com/news/tesla-model-2/n25636

[closewith]

It really is a shame that Musk has tarnished the Tesla brand so much, because this looks like a great car.

[robertlagrant]

I think outside of the "is speech good or evil"-osphere, most people would still aspire to have a Tesla.

[brnt]

Maybe! Didn't know that was coming!

But since Tesla is leading the bottom in reliability scores, it's still quite unlikely I'm getting one.

[petre]

Which part of Europe? See the map. If it's SE Europe, Cyprus or the Baltics, you are basically screwed. Western, Central and Northrn Europe (the populated areas) not so much.

https://www.tesla.com/en_eu/findus

Model 3 is a normal sized compact car, but if you live in Italy or on an island, it could be too big.

[closewith]

This a case where the markets are so different that the names diverge.

The Tesla Model 3 is a Medium car by NHTSA standards and a Compact by EPA standards.

However, in the EU Euro Car Segment standard, the Model 3 is a D-segment or "large car".

[DoesntMatter22]

It's solved because you just use Tedla super chargers and that's it.

[brnt]

These don't exist in Europe.

[nsteel]

Rubbish.

> The stations are primarily deployed in three regions: Asia Pacific (over 2,000), North America (over 2,000), and Europe (over 1,000).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Supercharger

Some supercharger stations also work with other cars. I used them over Christmas with my Kia. Surprisingly they were faster and cheaper than anything else in the area.

[baud147258]

1000 stations is nothing. Like there's more than 10000 gas stations in France alone, with just a fraction of a 1000 you won't get anywhere (or at least nowhere near as easily as with an ICE).

[DoesntMatter22]

You can still get anywhere you need to go with them and they are adding more locations all the time

[brnt]

Those in Europese arent what they are in the US, they're just, of ten individuap, stations with the common plug, just like the other ones.

[nsteel]

What are they like the in the US? I've searched and on the face of it they look just like the ones I used in the UK with two types of connector (like in the picture at https://thedriven.io/2022/02/27/where-can-you-charge-a-tesla...)

[b112]

Which is why h2 is the answer. h2 that is shown to work, regardless of all the hyperbole and reckless claims battery fans make.

[brnt]

Storage of H2 is a challenge in space and weight constrained devices such as cars. Plus, any well to wheels analysis shows H2 coming up behind the alternatives in efficiency.

There aren't claims, these are physical constraints. For heavy vehicles such as trucks and busses (and trains) there might be a market, provided the H2 is an otherwise unused byproduct of some process and needn't be produced, but for the majority of personal mobility major breakthroughs are required to make it competitive.

[multjoy]

We had a hydrogen powered Toyota in our fleet for a while and it was great, but we were also down the road from the National Physics Laboratory at Teddington where they had a hydrogen filling station…

[robertlagrant]

This could be solved by regulation. Just start tracking National Physics Laboratory deserts to ensure that no house in the US is more than 300m from a National Physics Laboratory.

[b112]

Yet there are 3 separate car manufacturers, with h2 passenger vehicles, all with 500km+ range, all being sold for 1/2 a decade. Seems like it isn't a physical constraint?

[postingawayonhn]

Being sold in absolutely tiny volumes.

The biggest issue is the need to build out an entirely new fueling infrastructure with a highly explosive fuel. EVs can piggyback off of the existing electrical grid.

[defrost]

EV's are still in relatively tiny numbers.

To replace fossil fuel transport will require an entirely new infrastructure regardless - if it's electric the existing grid will essentially have to be built out by a substantial factor.

A hybrid future is entirely feasible with long established city to city truck transport routes using hydrogen from dedicated planned end points and mid points along with lighter EV vehicles and non standard route EV trucking.

[brnt]

I did some (academic) research in a group working on storage (tanks and metal hydrides), so yeah, I know why it's only 3 and they all did it 20 years ago. Sources for such into aren't private, but I have the feeling you've never looked at them.

[b112]

20 years ago? These are sold now. Today.

So much denial in the anti h2 crowd.

[brnt]

It's the same cars, from the same companies, using the same tech (structural use of metal hydrides isnt commercially viable yet).

I'm not anti H2, why would I? I'm not part of any crowd. I just did part of my physics training on the subject.

20 years ago, while there were more H2 vehicles on the road, nobody in the H2 storage fields thought it would last. On a basc level, the physics of getting electrons out of a material is better than getting protons out. And then there is an already preexisting infrastructure for free.

[Balero]

I've seen a very good take that it is the ideal renewable fuel for large machinery such as farming or construction equipment. Batteries wouldn't work due to the cost and charging time (when you're using them you need them for long stretches), but weight (and therefore some of the complex/heavy containment). These places (at least in the UK) have their own diesel logistics infrastructure already.

[klodolph]

Just need to solve that pesky little storage problem and it will all be coming up roses…

[hedora]

H2O is a pretty robust storage solution for H2.

The bigger issue is scaling down cracking stations so you can use stranded electricity from solar and wind to generate the H2.

[klodolph]

That doesn’t make any sense at all. The point of storing H2 is to use it as a way to store energy. If you store it as H2O, you’re not storing energy any more, it’s just water.

It’s like saying, “It’s easy to ship fragile glass sculptures. You just smash them into little bits and put the bits in an envelope, I don’t see why people use all that styrofoam.”

[7speter]

>It’s like saying, “It’s easy to ship fragile glass sculptures. You just smash them into little bits and put the bits in an envelope, I don’t see why people use all that styrofoam

You’re obviously not a New Yorker

[b112]

And here we go. If the storage problem is an issue, how are all these h2 cars getting refueled? And how is the h2 getting to them? And how is it stored before shipping?

It's not a problem. At all.

[klodolph]

“It’s a problem” is not the same as “it is impossible.”

Likewise, “It’s possible to ship and store H2” is not the same thing as “it’s not a problem to ship and store H2”.

[b112]

Meanwhile, the presumed "problem" was "preventing adoption", yet my counter point invalidated your statement. H2 is a success. It's stored. It's usable, in consumer driving applications. It's being refueled by consumers, right now, world wide.

It's not a problem. At all.

[Dylan16807]

The more of a problem something is, the less it gets used. Showing some use doesn't disprove it being a problem. At all.

And nobody said "preventing" adoption, since that's easy to misinterpret.

It's reducing adoption a lot, compared to what it would be if hydrogen was as easy to store as butane or kerosene.

[coderenegade]

I think green methanol is more likely, since that's what global shipping seems to be converging on. Methanol is really just a vector for H2, but you can make it without having to first synthesize H2 (although you can do that too if you want). Depending on the method of production, I've seen efficiency numbers around that of producing LH2, but you get a product that is liquid at STP conditions, which is a huge advantage.

[toast0]

I don't think the US is ready for a compressed gas powered car. Natural gas vehicles are basically gone except for some fleets, and there was already extensive distribution of natural gas. The fuel tanks on compressed gas cars expire, and chances are it won't be economical to replace them; it certainly wasn't economical to replace natural gas tanks when I was looking circa 2016. When cars are lasting longer and longer, having a 15 or 20 year ceiling on the life of a vehicle that's not connected to the amount of use is a problem. EV batteries might wear out over time, but that's more connected to number of charge cycles than how much time has passed.

Maybe it took too long, but we've got a single standard for high powered charging going forward, and I think J1772 is universal for PHEVs and slow charging of EVs. Eventually, people running charging networks will figure out how to keep their machines working and add card readers. My favorite broken charger is the wireless ones --- someone has run off with the cable, but hey the advertising display still works.

[wenyuanyu]

Honestly, H2's got a long long way (if viable at all) to go as the future of clean cars. There is not much natural H2. In a way, H2 acts like a battery as well using electricity to produce from H2O, and discharge as electricity to H2O. Producing it cleanly, like with green power, isn't efficient yet – it's only around 70% efficient. Plus, getting H2 from the factory to the customer is way way pricier than just using our current electricity grid for charging stations... Converting it to electricity is only about ~30% efficient(?) It will cost a few times more than electricity in the foreseeable future. It will be definitely much harder than have charging stations everywhere.

Not to mention the technical challenges (assume we can handle) of the low volume density, low temperature..

[b112]

There's no clean power for cars at all. Every extra joule of energy used by cars, should be considered coming from the dirties of fuels... because the first thing we do, when we have an excess of power generation, is turn off the dirty plants.

But outside of that, these things will improve, although your numbers are a bit out there.

[tonyedgecombe]

> There is not much natural H2

There may well be, we don’t really know because we haven’t been looking for it at any scale.

[andoma]

One of the biggest upsides of an EV is that you charge at home. Always start in the morning fully charged. No "Dang, need to go to the station". H2 is definitely not a step in that direction so for me it's DOA.

[b112]

Indeed, for you this seems to be the case. For many, it's a royal pain to charge an EV. Maybe your apartment doesn't have plugs, for whatever reason. You work from home. You have to go somewhere to charge, and then wait.

For such people, and there's a lot of these people, h2 is less work (quicker fill up) than electric charging.

Right now, electric cars are targeting the wealthy. Wealthy people tend to have houses. That could certainly change, but even if it starts to target those with less fiscal fortitude, many such live in apartments with no charging infrastructure.

What then?

[tsimionescu]

That is one of the least efficient solutions possible - making hydrogen gas from water is at best 50% efficiency, and then you get to burn that hydrogen in a thermal engine with 30% efficiency.

[brohee]

Fuel cells have much better efficiency no?

[b112]

This is the problem with the anti-h2 crowd. It's almost all based upon lack of understanding.

One person in this thread, was talking about cars, with no knowledge or understand that 3 separate manufacturers have h2 products on the market. Not 3 cars. 3 manufacturers. Another was discussing things as if it's an insurmountable task, that having h2 in cars is "really hard", yet these cars are being sold and used all over the world, with loads of adoption in Japan.

People make up weird claims about efficiency. About storage. About where h2 comes from. On and on and on. It's so ... absurd.

This isn't a 'my team your team' thing, yet it seems like, especially americans, are wired this way. "It's not thing $x, thus evil! wrong!! We must, absolutely must destroy any hope of this other thing existing.

h2 is the future for many application and usage spaces, and I can see batteries the same way too. It's not either or, and made up claims won't help the green movement at all.

[tsimionescu]

They're a maximum 85% efficiency, with a range of 40-60%, and then you're supplying electricity to a 90% efficiency electric motor. So, overall, you have 90% of 85% of 50% of the generated electricity going into moving your car, so at best around 38.5%.

In contrast, an electric car uses electricity to charge a 99% efficient battery, and discharge to the 90% engine. So, 89% efficiency - much, much better.