Yearly since 2000, notable pundits and real firms have claimed that subsequent yr is the Hydrogen’s year. It certainly appears good on television.

Real car corporations like Honda, Toyota and GM produce a couple of thousand hydrogen test vehicles (so called FCV’s or Fuel Cell Vehicles) and make slick commercials with pure water dripping out of tail pipes in entrance of endless green fields:

The promise of hydrogen is indeed intoxicating. It is rather easy to overlook its large problems and count on science will clear up them… next year.

Unfortunately, the reality is way harsher and con’s far far outweigh the pros:

Hydrogen Pro’s:

hydrogen offers a far denser energy than batteries, about 200 occasions more dense, which means you don’t want a lot for lengthy distance journey

hydrogen is probably the most ample ingredient in the universe

refueling a hydrogen automobile takes about 4 minutes

hydrogen automobiles only direct outputs are electrical energy and water clean sufficient to drink

Hydrogen Con’s:

the cost of hydrogen is about 800% more expensive than what’s used in traditional electric vehicles

about seventy five% of the energy produced by hydrogen goes to waste in a single form or one other

it takes a VAST quantity of energy to separate hydrogen from other parts making it’s net environmental cost fairly high

it is rather costly to make hydrogen

hydrogen vehicles are very advanced particularly compared to the magnificence and ease of battery powered vehicles

there may be little to no hydrogen infrastructure anyplace on the globe with exception of some test markets like Iceland and parts of California

“first responders” like fireman, police and EMT’s will not extract a driver from a severely damaged hydrogen vehicle for fear of setting of an explosion

battery electric vehicles have made monumental efficiency enhancements in recent years while hydrogen has seen few breakthroughs in the technology

What this video that explains the technical reasons Hydrogen just isn’t going to work anytime soon:

We think hydrogen powered vehicles will not make either economic or environmental sense for decades. But don’t take our word for it. Purveyor of all things future, Elon Musk, calls hydrogen powered vehicles are “incredibly dumb”. … and don’t take Elon’s word for it. Toyota admits “Elon Musk is right – it’s higher to cost the electrical automobile directly by plugging in”.

Many seemingly new technologies are actually just derivatives of old technologies. Breakthroughs do happen and it appears they occur more and more lately so we must always not abandon hydrogen. However, to be aggressive, hydrogen be needs many breakthroughs and wishes them at a faster rate than batteries/storage; that just hasn’t been taking place in latest years.…