Hydrogen vs. Battery Electric Cars 

Hello! This is a reupload because some of you expressed the graphs were misleading, and I agreed. The tiny bars were animated not to scale as an artistic choice, but in the interest of accuracy we decided to take the video down and change that. I hope you enjoy learning something from this video, or it at least sparks a desire to research and learn more! Edit: Reuploaded again because the first comment wasn't "first"

On average, Americans drive ~26 miles per day. 95% of trips are under 30 miles. Under those conditions, recharging at home from a 240V charger is more than sufficient.

I guess you need to get a BEV sponsor now and do the opposite pitch so we can compare results.

Interesting theoretical analysis. Would have been nice to see something about what really drives decisions to go EV, Fuel Cell, or stay with carbon (including LNG): COST! What are the comparative costs of ownership and 12K/yr use (for a typical 4 or 5 year period) between these potential competitors?

It will definitely be good to have both of these options in the future, especially if we can heavily reduce the use of ICE vehicles.

I think you missed the elephant in the room which is how hydrogen is actually produced. It is almost all through steam reforming coal, oil, and nat gas. Get the cost of the electrolyzer down and then it becomes an interesting alternative

@10:10 "if you replace all 15 million electric cars in California with battery electric and plug them all in, the grid would fail". But if hydrogen "uses about twice as much to produce/use hydrogen than battery", isn't that still a much better scenario than creating all that hydrogen? Regardless of the path, we're going to need more electricity generation and less fossil fuel generation

a) There's something wrong with the vehicle test weght vs range graph. It does not require 1500 Kg of additional weight to achieve a 400 mile range. b) Fuel cells also have a limited life, which you dismiss with a "batteries lose range, hydrogen fuel cells, not so much". Last time I heard the costs of replcing the fuel cell in a car, it was in the $100k range. c) Hydrogen fuel stations are eye-wateringly expensive to build and maintain compared to charging infeastructure. d) Hydrogen production by electrolysis at the required scale is also expensive. I don't think it will ever happen, except in places of high densiy/demand like California. BEVs have no step change required.

A blended mix as tech grows is intriguing. When we’ve tried hydrogen on diesels as an additive it’s been awesome. Too bad generating power creates the core issue of emissions.

You know what? This hydrogen fuel cell series would be a lot more believable if it was not sponsored by the TOYOTA.

I like how the guy is amazed that a boat can be totally silent ... When we had sail boat for much longer than engine have been a thing 😂

I like that the guy mentioned Nikola at 8:40. We all saw how that one played out..

I really enjoyed this episode. A very balanced and well presented argument in favour of HFC cars. I have also driven the Mirai, and the Hyundai Nexo and the Honda Clarity, they were all really good cars that worked very well. Yes, there are some serious problems with the filling stations, we used to have 12 here in the UK, we now have 5 because they were not used enough to maintain them economically. But reliability issues with H2 filling stations is a fairly simple technical issue which I'm sure can be overcome. However the one question not asked in this video, and for me it is the massive, oversized elephant in a very small room. Where does the hydrogen come from? I know there will be an immediate answer, 'we can split water using excess electricity from renewables ' and that is 100% true, okay, there are massive energy losses, you need 4 kWh of electricity to produce 1 kWh of hydrogen. But even that is nit picking. Where does the hydrogen we use today come from? 98% of commercial hydrogen comes from steam reforming natural gas, it's produced in an oil refinery, it is a fossil fuel derivative. Yes, it's clean, yes, when you pass H2 through a fuel cell the only waste product is water. But when we extract hydrogen from natural gas we 'bleed off' the CO2 into the atmosphere. And yes, the fossil fuel industry are all over this, 'we are going to capture that carbon and sequestrate it in old oil caverns underground.' They have been talking about doing this since 1990, and all the tests have proven unworkable or economically unviable. So to sum up, a hydrogen fuel cell car is a very inefficient fossil fuel car.

"Even startup companies. Hyzon, Nikola" 🤣

95ish% of hydrogen comes from fossil fuel. Electrolysis is too energy inefficient/expensive. How could we produce enough cheap hydrogen via clean sources? I would have liked to see this addressed.

I'm in my 6th year driving an EV and often hear some of these arguments from friends against battery technology. I've never run out of power as I charge every night on 220 at my house. I rarely use the superchargers. In California, many houses have 220 outlets installed in the garage for electric dryers but most dryers sold are gas so the outlet is unused. My EV cost per mile is 3.4 cents compared to 23 cents for my wife's gas car. As a point of reference, my brother leased a Toyota Hydrogen Mirai only because Toyota provided a debit card to fill up for free during the lease. There is only 1 hydrogen station in San Diego County so he has far more planning to make sure he doesn't run out.

Worth noting that not all BEVs need a standalone charging station installed. I just plug mine into a standard 110VAC wall socket in my garage.

Given that this was sponsored by Toyota, it’s still feels like an ad even though she tries to give the other side of the argument, it would have been better if EV manufacturers were also interviewed for their perspective

6:07 - “Batteries lose capacity over time”: that depends mostly upon whether your BEV is a Nissan LEAF or most any other BEV. The LEAF has, practically-speaking, no battery cooling system. With a well-engineered battery-temperature management system, batteries lose only about 15% over capacity over 10 years.

Maybe this addressed elsewhere, but in the short segment on efficiency we get a single statement “if hydrogen is generated by electrolysis…”, but almost no hydrogen IS generated by electrolysis and prospects that that will change aren’t good. In reality, almost all hydrogen is generated by steam reforming of methane, or worse, by steam reforming of coal. While the electric grid is getting greener with the growth of renewables supplanting fossil fuels in electricity - and doing so in an economically competitive way - that is just not currently in the cards for hydrogen.

I appreciate the attempt by Dianna to present a balanced take on things, despite some perceived bias/optimism of Toyota employees. The argument that that BEV's don't work for everyone because of living situation (no garage) vs FCEV is somewhat weak because you can still find electricity anywhere. Coffee shops, mall parking lots. Easy to expand to apartments and more common places. Even street lights have been proposed. Bottom line is the situation is pretty good for a good chunk of people, and getting better by the day. Can't quite put a hydrogen tanks everywhere though, so you'll never be able to get away from making dedicated trips to a station. I agree that Hydrogen can be a part of a healthy and diversified infrastructure, especially for energy storage if you have plentiful excess renewable energy, but I'm still not sold on its use case for commuter vehicles. More specific to car design, hydrogen might have a weight efficiency vs batteries but it's volumetric energy density isn't great whereas battery tech is improving at a much faster rate. Its storage at pressure also makes it more difficult to package, since you can't hide them under the floor of the passenger compartment. The best user experience, from an ergonomic and aesthetic perspective will be found with BEVs.

When I heard Nikola I laughed louder than I should

Love, love, love these discussions, showing how quickly technology development and recent discussions can become a touch dated the new BEV EPA target is now set by Lucid at 520 miles. That aside new advancement in Hydrogen EV will no doubt also improve. Once BEV settles in the 450-500mile EPA rated will remove range anxiety. Recharge times will likely abate once solid state battery tech advances (hint new video opportunity) which should help both HEV/BEV community.

another huge infrastructure issue that wasn't mentioned was the cost of installing new hydrogen refueling stations (1-5 million) vs that of a bev charging station (100k-300k). This is a huge factor!

Correction: High-end BEVs have 500+ miles of range. Also, you mentioned that the cleanest way to produce hydrogen is electrolysis but in reality, the vast majority of hydrogen is produced from natural gas (producing tons of emissions). While fuel cell is superior technology to ICE, I do not think it will ever overtake BEV in widespread adoption.

10:12 - You wouldn't charge the truck for 4 hours or 12 hours though. You would swap out the batteries. And since you know you're gonna swap the batteries, you'd design the system around that, with quick disconnect, carts to get the batteries to and from the charging rack, etc.

the huge inconvenience of hydrogen: 1. volumetric energy density. The gravimetric looks fine, but doesn't consider which volume one kg of hydrogen takes. 2. filling: it's fast when you're one of the first 8 customers at the pump. After 6 to 10 fillings the station needs compressing the hydrogen to 800 or 900 bar, which typically takes 25 to 40 min. So then battery would be faster

Pretty disappointed you mentioned that if every BEV plugged in at the same time the grid would fail, but didn't mention the opportunity for charging BEV's to be paired with excess solar production during the day to relieve strain on the grid. And you didn't mention how much EXTRA energy would be needed to make and transport all the hydrogen instead.

I prefer electric for now since most of the H2 for these car is extracted from natural gas well at a very high CO2 cost so I think electric might be better on emissions

8:39 "Even Start-ups like Nikola" 😂

I really appreciate Mr Sam's hard work and high quality videos. His extremely interesting to listen and I've been learning a lot from him, making a difference into so many lives and I look forward to work with him.

i have been seeing a lot of talk lately around how hydrogen is sourced and its net carbon impact, along with terms like 'grey' and 'blue' hydrogen... and it is clear to me that (as are most things meant for popular consumption these days) these articles are biased towards one particular position or another... i would appreciate a video in this series (or thereafter) that looks at the science behind how hydrogen can be sourced on the scale needed to serve a national or international market for fuel cell vehicles, as well as an objective presentation of the pros and cons for the various methods and sources in terms of net energy, cost, environmental impact and sustainability, etc... i have of course googled for this, but it is difficult to tell what is objectively factual (and complete) and what is slanted by opinion. i would trust you for this information far more than i would any online article. thank you for your continued excellent youtube material!

6:08 "battery loses capacity over time, that doesn't happen nearly as much with fuel cell electric vehicles..." oh yes but it does. Hydrogen is a very small molecule, difficult to keep it contained. This is also one of the main problems to transport hyrdrogen over long distance using pipes. It's also a problem of containment when it's in the vehicle. Basically over time your tank of hydrogen will jus evaporate. So it does also use "capacity".

After watching this, it seems like the benefits of creating consumer-FCEVs doesn't make up for the infrastructure requirements... I still think they'd be great for trucking, or other industrial uses (particularly for electric planes!), but those are all places where you could make specialized refueling stations, rather than making public ones on every street corner.

I heard about hydrogen cars when I was a kid, like still in the concept stages. I always thought they disappeared and wondered why that happened! Now I know they didn't disappear at all! This has been very informative and I totally had the instinct that one should "win" over the other. Really enjoyed the video and I'm glad to see how both sorts of vehicles have clear advantages that both cover the bases our society needs when it comes to green travel.

Being from outside of the cities in Australia, where distances can be vast, hydrogen has always been my favoured choice. I always wished that batteries were designed to be interchangeable, so you could pull into a petrol station, remove depleted battery, and insert a new one. Five minute operation. It would be nice if all electric car companies could come to an agreement on battery tech to make this possible. Battery is great if you live in a city where distances driven are less per day, and chargeable overnight. Unfortunately, the driving done in my area, fuel cell is the only realistic option. Unfortunately, we don't even nearly have the infrastructure yet, but the Western Australian government is seriously investigating improving things going forward, so hopefully soon!!

The problem with hydrogen isn't the weight, it's the volume. Especially since it needs to be stored at very high pressure (or low temperature) and those vessels can't be shaped easily. So the reason hydrogen cars have issues getting more range is the space the tanks use. That's not as much a problem for batteries at this point.

10:08 - "If we replaced all 15.000.000 cars and plugged them in at night, the grid would fail." If we produced all of the hydrogen with electrolysis for all 15.000.000 vehicles, the grid would fail 3 times over.

Dianna, none of the big car manufactures are talking about cold weather usage and with good reason. Sure these systems work great year round in the south. In the north it is a different prognosis entirely. I don't have a graph but at 20 below zero F, batteries lose 80% of their charge. The car range is cut 80 % for example 200 miles to 40 miles. My municipality tried LP on all the police squads and they refused to start in the winter time when the temps went below zero. They had to be towed inside and thawed for at least an hour before they would start. I am not sure about hydrogen, but the other problem is filling and ice. The ice jams the nozzle and you are stuck. Well here are a few other things to think about. Even a diesel truck cannot be shut off in the cold and has to be left running 24 hours a day. As an added bonus, you have to add anti-gel to the fuel tanks to prevent the fuel from freezing. So pick your poison carefully. Love your show, your personality and your looks.

Let's be real hydrogen is just a BEV with more steps. Also find it funny the hydrogen proponents were making arguments that their system wouldn't be as affected by the grid. Your fuel source requires more grid energy to generate energy than just charging a BEV. The only good argument for hydrogen I see is using it as a long term energy storage system.

8:52 - not actually zero emissions if the H2 is made from steam reforming CH4+H2O = CO2 + H2...

"move away from petroleum dependance"... By using hydrogen that comes from an energy intensive process stripping it from natural gas, releasing CO2.

Get well soon, we need an update video 😢❤

I drove 50,000 miles in an electric vehicle and never had to charge it away from home. The biggest drawback to electric vehicles is that our electric providers do not have public point of sale receptacles to sell the electricity which is virtually everywhere. If there is a common 110-120 socket that is where a charging point resides; every business ,home and apartment in the world is a charging station.

The overall efficiency really makes me lean conventional battery whenever possible. The place I see Hydrogen being good would be emission-free air travel where the less weight means everything. Also it's much easier to plan infrastructure between a few airports.

At 6:58 the vehicle test weight vs range graph (which is one of your core points) is hugely misleading. It's very outdated, as it's from 2009, and assumes ~150Wh/kg Li-Ion energy density (read the source) when today's batteries are nearing 300. With updated numbers, it will be clear that for *passenger* vehicles, hydrogen no longer has any advantages. Edit: Regarding 10:07 current grid not handling if all vehicles/trucks were battery electric: Sure but this is actually worse for hydrogen as it ALSO requires electricity (if actually green) and it's only ~30% efficient so you'd need 2.5-3x MORE electricity.

Thank you for confirming I'm not getting rid of my gas and diesel vehicles any time soon.

I feel like something that is often overlooked is tyre wear. Studies have shown pollution caused by tyre wear and brakes is up to 1000x higher than pollution caused by exhaust. (The pollution here is particle matter). This is worsened by 1) growth in popularity of SUV's and 2) growth in BEV usage. This is where hydrogen really makes a difference as their lower weight means less tyre wear and less brake wear. Especially in cities this is an important factor to take into consideration.

Japan had no CNG, LPG, Coal, or oil, but it discovered it's exploitable sea floor has an enormous reserve of hydrates. Yes folks that is being developed now. Equipment is developed along with refining and shipping. This produces natural gas and HYDROGEN for transport and industry. Fifty years of availability, makes the government happy.

this vid honestly makes me lean further away from hydrogen.

One major assumption is that we will only ever have lithium-ion batteries. There is an enormous amount of research going into batteries that are safer, charge faster, and have higher energy density.

Just bought a Hyundai Kona ev and I charge it at home. I'm so happy with it. Fun to drive, cost $4.5 to charge, my subaru forester $48 for a full tank

Thx and love this subject. Do we not have an unused (30%) portion of our electric utility grid that is potentially available to those near demand ?.both H2 and battery charging…needs …ie, if we’re losing a chunk of our grid to standby … why not allocate drawdowns based on time (off peak) restrictions?

Most hydrogen isn’t obtained through electrolysis, it comes from fossil fuels and is crazy expensive. The graph showing range is still misleading because the way you increase the range of a hydrogen cell car is by installing a bigger fuel tank. You could drive hundreds of miles on a single tank, but you’ll have little storage space and your head will hit the car ceiling. Hydrogen fuel cells only make sense on the larger vehicles: trucks and boats.

2:31 The first hydrogen station in CA... "dispenser unavailable". That doesn't inspire much confidence. XD

Thanks for all the work you put in in your videos and the space to discuss solutions. 1. Hydrogen cars have been developed in the 1990s. So it is not correct to claim that this is newer technology. 2. We have public chargers around here and I am absolutely sure that this will also come in California. 3. Most trips with cars are done under 20 km one way. It might be longer in the US, but the further away the longer the commute. 4. Also cars are not the solution to transport and mobility in densely populated areas, as the whole system uses too much resources for its purpose (however, this is outside the scope of your video). 5. You correctly stated that there are way more losses in H2-EVs than in BEVs. This also implies that we have to produce 3 times the energy with renewables (all other options contribute either directly to CO2 emissions or bet on CO2 storage, which does not work safely and efficiently). Unfortunately, we cannot build up so much renewables in short time. WE need the hydrogen for steel production much more than in cars. 6. There are some niche areas where H2 can be helpful. In areas where you have a lot of wind or solar energy production which cannot be stored otherwise or transported. There you can use the "waste" electricity and produce H2 for e.g., trains. So I would agree that there are some areas where H2 makes sense, but I highly doubt that this will be in private cars. In makes more sense in long haul freight, preferably by rail due to its 5-10 higher efficiency for transporting goods. It makes sense in long distance ships. We have some harbor ferries that run on batteries just fine so there you do not get many benefits from H2, but ferries between Norway and Germany this could actually a good idea.

For me, living in the far North, diesel or gasoline then hydrogen then battery. The loss of energy to keep the battery or fuel cell stack thawed to the point of usability, essentially rules them out for half of the year. There are 2 Nissan Leaf cars in the area. They are not operated in the winter, kept in heated garages. Good thing we have our own 250 MW hydro plant 30 km up river. Best wishes from 55.75°N.

It's all about infrastructure. The availability of it is the winner for me. In my area there isn't any hydrogen. However, EV charger are plenty and so far they're free of charge!

I get that not everyone can charge at home, but for those who can: damn that's convenient! No hydrogen car can beat that.

Honda has had a Home Generation Station for years--it's operational, but not in production. It uses natural gas as a feedstock and produces hydrogen at home to fuel your FCEV, along with meeting your home's needs for electricity and hot water. It is about the size of a large refrigerator and could be installed in your garage. Better, IMO, is the system designed by the gentleman in NJ (he's on YT) who powers his home, car, lawn mower, etc via hydrogen produced and stored on site using PV cells to crack water into hydrogen. He uses tanks formerly used to store propane to store the hydrogen and then feeds it back into the fuel cell stack to produce electricity as needed. All of his home's electrical needs are met by the system as well as being able to fuel his vehicles. He's commercialized the process in a shipping container-based form factor for remote area use. Both are greener than mining lithium to make the batteries needed for battery-powered electric vehicles and then charging them with coal and gas fired electrical plants as is currently being done. (Although if we made LFTRs powered by the thorium mined along with the lithium, we'd have all the green power we needed for the next 100,000 years--also on YT, see Kirk Sorenson's video about Thorium.) Best would be to have enough PV and Thermal solar capacity at your home to power your house, heat your water, make hydrogen to store for the night/fuel your HFC vehicle, and use the stored hydrogen to power your home via fuel cell at night. No need for a bunch of lithium batteries (that eventually need replacing) or large electrical generation plants. Also removes the pesky tendency of the grid to act as a giant antenna for CME events and EMP attacks, but that's just gravy.

This was a very informative video. Thank you for the great content

Diana, what is the life span of the hydrogen fuel cells? I was involved in a project about 15 years ago where back up electricity was provided with hydrogen. With that technology the fuel cells need maintains every 1500 hours. I'm sure it's a lot better now, but how much? Will the fuel cells last as long a the car, or will they need to be replaced periodically? And what will the cost be?

5:35 What about the fact that 95% of H2 is currently being produced in steam reforming of CH4 process that outputs CO2 and more of it than if a car was driving just on the CH4...

As you showed there is a factor of ~3 in efficiency between fuel cells and battery. This gap can not get much smaller because of thermodynamics. If you want green hydrogen its gets produced by the grid. This means you need ~3 times the amount of solar, wind and nuclear additions to get rid of for your vehicle fleet on the grid. And this also means fuel per mile costs for (fuel cell electric vehicles) FCEV are more then 3 times larger compared to BEVs. Most likely around 5 - 8 as studies have found. There are additional costs and profit margins asociated with a hydrogen production and distribution network. Driving 100 miles with an average BEV car is around 5$- 8$ in electricity in America today. So realistically you are looking at 25$ - 40$ minimum for 100 miles in a FCEV. Maybe this could somehow work out if FCEV could be sold much cheaper. But the economics here also will never work even if FCEVs where cheaper then BEVs. There is no way around this factor and therefore FCEV are never going to make sense economically and are never going to catch on large scale. There might be some niche applications of such vehicles, but the rest of road transport is absolutely going electric.

I believe the ultimate end game for Personal vehicle propulsion will be Fuel Cells Electric Hybrid Vehicles - Optimal EV method with no range anxiety - add plug in and you have it freaking all but more cost and weight UNTIL Hydrogen stations are a prevalent as gas pumps are today

Although I have criticised the first two versions I really hope you don't take it down again. Let's discuss openly, Dianna(+team)! :) I'm glad the video is back with improvements! :) I'm aware these videos are Toyota-sponsored but I think there should be more critical views on hydrogen-electric cars/vehicles. For them to go the same distance as purely battery electric cars we need about 2-3 times as much energy in ‚production‘. (~55kWh/kg for 100km range in a car vs. 15-25kWh/100km). German scientist Volker Quaschning and economist Claudia Kemfert regularly call hydrogen the ‘champagne of energy resources‘. I think for a rapid reduction of emissions we need to preserve green hydrogen and e-fuels mainly for the energy-intensive industry and planes/ships/maybe heavy duty trucks. We shouldn't ‘waste‘ green electricity to H2-cars. Also H2-cars and green hydrogen will stay too expensive for many people for many years, which further delays our energy/mobility transition. Regarding 6:51 : And yet BEVs need way less energy than hydrogen-electric cars. Again: Yes, there are use-cases for hydrogen, but in cars not so much, I think. 8:09 & 8:41 Volkswagen is aiming for BEV-trucks as well, not so much for hydrogen-electric, but I'm not well-informed enough in trucking. 8:39 I'm sorry, has anything changed with Nikola or is it still a disastrous scam? 10:06 And if we tried to fill all these vehicles with hydrogen at the same time that probably wouldn't work as well. At least with BEVs we have a decentralised refilling infrastructure and many people can recharge at home. (Yes, not everybody) 10:13 Some(!) trucks can charge while (un)loading, but for now I agree, trucks might work better with hydrogen-electric technology. 11:35 No, Without electricity you cannot use the electrical pumps at hydrogen stations. Or am I missing something?🤨 P.S.: Had to edit this comment I posted unter the previous two versions because of slightly changed video length. :)

Toyota, maker of the hydrogen fuel cell car used in the video, sponsors video about comparing hydrogen fuel cell vs battery charged vehicles. Nope, nothing concerning about that.

I'd like to see a study comparing the production of batteries for BEVs vs the production of hydrogen for FCEV's and the impact on the environment, especially regarding the extraction of lithium and other minerals and metals needed for both technologies.

You have some cool vids... I sub'd Port of LA/LB has a serious fuel/power issue. When the Long beach Robotic Container Terminal started up, being electric...it caused alot of serious untold power outages.

My BEV has virtually no maintenance. Check tires for wear, top up the washer bottle and check brakes for wear. That’s about it. How does an HEV compare for maintenance?

Love the Truckla reference…Simone Giertz is awesome.

Conclusion (since Toyota probably told you not to do one..): Fuel cells only start to make sense in larger vehicles since BEV's are a lot more efficient, also everyone has electricity at their home and can simply use a plug for charging since most cars only move 1 out of 24 hours.

In Ontario, we have most of our excess power at night actually. A big part of our grid is nuclear power (from emission-free CANDU reactors), which is great for baseload power but takes forever to turn on and off. We also have lots of hydro. At peak times (typically evenings), Ontario has to turn on its natural gas power stations to top up for hydro, nuclear, and a little wind and solar. Coal power (by the way) does not exist in Ontario and will be banned in Canada soon

One misleading part of the refueling comparison, most BEV owners are able to charge their cars at home. Yes it can take 8 hours to charge but that's overnight. I've had a BEV for 3 years and haven't had to stop at a gas (refueling) station since. The only time you would need a super charger is on a road trip or you can't charge at home or work.

If to many battery electric cars overload the power grid, and hydrogen cars need double the amout of electricity per mile. Then aren't hydrogen cars a bigger problem?

There is one major factor that is hardly ever mentioned any videos: The material usage. Im surprised its never mentioned because thats the biggest issue in the EV production now. Shortage of lithium and semiconductors. This factor alone can be the deciding factor that tips the scale to hydrogen passanger cars. All the other parameters becomes meaningless if there arent any materials to make BEVs in the first place.

Would be cool if both hydrogen and electric vehicles coexist.

I wish you had investigated the energy requirements for creating the hydrogen fuel. Fossil fuel companies are creating hydrogen fuel from natural gas, a process that releases methane, which defeats the whole purpose of FCEV. I’d like to know who else is in the hydrogen business (electrolysis processes at industrial scales?) and how we are going to provide clean hydrogen fuel moving forward.

Electrolysis is the only way used to produce green hydrogen......and its just 4% of total how world produces it ...... Before shifting to FC we have to do something about green hydrogen's production!!!

That is a very good mind provoking subject. I can't wait to see. How both technologies mature over time. Who knows, maybe something else might come along.

Hi Bev, do you think hydro vehicles could ever get to 80% efficiency and if petroleum stations take up most property, if you purchase a hydro vehicle how long does it take for hydro charging stations to appear in a country like South Africa?

The one thing she left out is most Tesla charging station especially in California are solar powered.

"Losing capacity over time" - FCEVs still need a small battery, which will deteriorate over time. How long does a fuel cell last ? Also Hydrogen tanks need replacing every 10-15 years due to embrittlement.

From what I understood talking to a Hyundai engineer a few years back, the miles per tank of Hydrogen depends on the pressure in the tank (higher psi more gas) he told me that in Germany where the car came from it was regular to fill the tank to 800psi giving a range of about 800 kilometeres.

There are universal 120v EV chargers you can plug into a standard outlet. No special wiring. It will take a little longer to charge, but unless you deplete the car fully every day (and I doubt you will), then you'll remain fully charged every morning.

*This is just gasoline with extra steps*

@Physics Girl, You say something like, if we plugged in all the BEV's at the same time the grid will go down.... But if we generated all the hydrogen for a third of the amount of FCEV at the same time the grid would go down. The fact that people use most power during the day and charge during the night means a more distributed load. Using tech that charges at time where the rate is the lowest means that you not only get the cheapest power, but BEV's would actually help stabilize the grid usage. Another huge point is that the main purpose of EV's is to help the environment. If vehicles take 3 times more power to run it is going to take a lot more infrastructure to produce that extra power, until we get rid of carbon burning power plants this is going to mean we are using fossil fuels. Also we are much more likely to use the cheapest way to produce hydrogen, which is basically the using modified fossil fuels but less efficiently than burning them directly, so it is likely to be worse for the environment than an ICE vehicle unless that is made illegal which is currently not on the table in any country to my knowledge. The comments on some of the issues with BEV's are also not really accurate anymore. Most Tesla batteries will not have to get replaced for the life time of the car and I am sure other companies will be similar, if not now then very soon. I do agree that FCEV's may have their place. They may work better for big rigs or boat's, but even that is still up for debate since there is no significant independent statistics to go on yet. I had such respect for you and the videos that you do, but to get sponsorship for a significant debate from one of the car companies that is lobbying the governments to slow down the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and then come to the conclusion that it is that their tech is the best approach while stating reasons that it is not is sad. I would love to understand how this is anything other than a purchased ad for Toyota more than a science video.

I just want to add a little point concerning efficiency/breaking (hope I didn’t miss it). I think you can’t recuperate with a fuel cell. So every breaking would be mechanical (->dirt)or wire heating (->life span). So bevs efficiency would be improved a little bit.

waiting for ages for a battery car to recharge is a stopper for me.

I'm a french engineer that works in a start up that has develloped a carbonless way to produce hydrogen, and let me say that hydrogène is in no way the solution to transports : producing hydrogen without cracking méthane is sooooo inefficient it's painfull, you say about 30% efficiency for it, i say about 5% with the actual numbers that we have before modification to make them public. Currently, and it's no way near changing, 99% of the hydrogène that is use in the World (most of it is used in ammoniac production for agricutur, not for power cell transportation) is produce by cracking methane and therefore 1g of H2 produce 10g of CO2, so encouraging the use of hydrogène for transportation while we don't even produce it "greenly" for agricultur is quite ironic i'd say

Should be a lot clearer that this is an ad. Especially coming from an educational channel.

You may not be able to install a full on Tesla charger but I have to imagine the landlord will be ok installing a 30 or 50amp outlet if you're paying for it. It has its benefits outside of BEV charging. Also, you can just use the dryer outlet to get 22 mi/hr

With the current technology and infra structure I vote for none of the above. I drive a Prius Prime and went for 12 consecutive months (during the Pandemic) without buying gasoline. Every place I went during that time was withing the battery range (25) of the car. I only found out I hadn't bought gas when I went to fill up for a trip from San Diego to SLC Utah! I could not imagine making said trip in an EV or Hydrogen car! During said trip I only stopped in St. George, Utah. Same thing on the way back. Except for one tank coming back, SLC - SG I got around 50MPG at 70 MPH. SLC-SG I went up to 80 (in sections where that is the limit) for an entire tank and got 44. This of course is all in the mountains.

This video is just a Toyota Fuel Cell ad and it still reaffirm my opinion that hydrogen fuel cell is the wrong technology to focus on.

The argument that hydrogen has less of an impact is contradicted with how inefficient it is.

Can this truly be an impartial video when it is sponsored by Toyota and its Mirai ?

I agree. I see the best use for hydrogen in commercial vehicles. For average consumers you have to have stations everywhere to be sustainable. But for commercial vehicles you can put stations in more centralized spots. Semi trucks, EVTOLs, boats, planes etc. I’m interested in hydrogen in applications like these.

The low efficiency really is a deal braker in my opinion. If we want to reduce emmisions losing more than half of the power created is not a good plan.

Where is the hydrogen being sourced from? From what I understand it's sourced from the fossil fuel industry. Electrolysis isn't ideal from what I've read as it takes a lot of energy. How do we ensure the source is green?

The problem with battery charge times can be overcome with a swappable battery. The large battery in the floor can be kept for long duration charging, but have a portion of the Frunk where a swappable battery like the Gravely 4kw FusionCore batteries can be placed for quick swaps at a station that specializes in keeping them charged. Each battery is equal to about 10 miles (based on my Sorento PHEV getting about 30 miles on a 10KW battery). In any case, the infrastructure needs to be upgraded across the board.