Before Electric cars, we have heard about Hydrogen Cars. For the carmakers, it is definitely not a new concept. Car developers have spent more years attempting for cracking the code of using efficiently the hydrogen transform into the power of vehicles, the progress was very slow in comparison with electric cars.
Now all the automotive industries’ main goal is to cut carbon emissions, and hydrogen fuel cells technology has already proven that after burning hydrogen fuels the emit of the gases is not harmful to the atmosphere, then what happened to the manufacturing of the car while the UK sold 190,000 electric cars in 2021, and there are just only three hydrogen cars left Toyota Mirai, Honda Clarity, and the Hyundai NEXO, that sold over 15,538 units across the world.
We have discussed after a lot of benefits why the Hydrogen car flopped:
1. Cost of Refuel
The price of Mirai starts at $50,000. The average price of hydrogen fuel is about $16.50 kg. Each hydrogen fuel cell vehicle just holds about five to six kg of hydrogen to cross 400 miles and the cost of the tank is over $80 which is very costly. In the UK there are only 14 hydrogen stations across the world, and many countries have no hydrogen stations, so driving a hydrogen car in the UK would not be a general option. In the country, there are 45 stations only.
2. Efficiency
Hydrogen cars are less efficient than electric cars because the hydrogen need to power the vehicle is not occurring naturally which means it has to be extracted and then compressed for use into the fuel tanks. The hydrogen then definitely mixes with oxygen inside the fuel cell to generate electricity to boost the car. In the car the energy moves from wire to gas to wire to power the car, it is called energy vector transition.
For powering the car the energy is converted into hydrogen mainly by passing water, which is around 75% energy, the produced hydrogen is also compressed, chilled, and transported to the hydrogen station, a process with 90% efficient, the hydrogen needs to be converted into electricity with 60% efficiency. At last, the electricity used in the motor with 95% efficiency as it gives odd energy for heat, and it only put 38 of 100 watts to run the car, that is definitely a worse matter.
3. EVs Market Domination
It is true that hydrogen vehicles are environment friendly, but if you focus closely then you can see the electrolysis process is very complicated, but if you compare it with gasoline cars then you see gasoline cars’ fuel cell is 25-35% efficient, the hydrogen car is better with 38% efficient, in compare with EVs, the hydrogen cars beaten up as the EVs use the electricity directly without any conversion that makes 80% fuel cell efficiency, and that is twice of hydrogen cars, and it means EVs are twice efficient than hydrogen cars.
4. Materials Demand
It is reported that making hydrogen cars, needs more raw materials than electric cars, there indeed has no harmful emissions from the exhaust but hydrogen cars have given an impact on the environment’s life cycle.
5. Convenience
As there are only 45 hydrogen refueling stations in the UK mostly in California. It is very difficult for the buyers outside of California to refuel the car from charging stations, and it is very dissuading for the customers. Infrastructure always give a big effect on convenience as without an adequate infrastructure hydrogen cars are becoming a huge problem.
6. Production
The production of hydrogen is less efficient than the production of electricity. The Hydrogen Fuel cell technology has been riddled with complexities and also has been needing to be extracted from water using electrolysis which is a complicated process. If any company going to make a car then they need a lot of investments.
7. Cost of Hydrogen Storage
Hydrogen is already facing many limitations from many countries, the storage of hydrogen fuels cells is very much more complicated and expensive than the other furl types.
8. Safety Purpose
The fuel cell can be dangerous due to its high flammable nature. If the vehicle crash then the furl become more dangerous for that car.
Future Scopes
Toyota company understands that hydrogen for the time become very expensive and to lure customers they are offering buyers a $15,000 credit towards the duel costs., which will be beneficial for any buyers. California government subsidies offer million towards the construction of hydrogen fueling stations and desires to have a hundred stations in place by 2025.
In comparison with EVs, whose batteries can be depleted faster in cold weather, hydrogen cars are better suited to wintry climates like Zhangjiakou, where the temperatures in the Olympics have gone -17 degrees centigrade, for that case hydrogen cars will be efficient in that regions more than EVs.
A big thanks for source1 & source2.
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