I drove 1800 miles in a Hydrogen Car 

Being a chemist, I love it. But, like the others ask, how are we producing the hydrogen?

As a chemist who has done research in zero carbon production of hydrogen (photocatalytic): We are still far from these being our cars, it seems more practical to use FCEV in heavier transportation (larger distances) but I think it's good that toyota is investing in advertising the tech. European green deal seems to recognise that we need hydrogen too (as an addition to batteries getting the largest section of the energy pie) for a cleaner future in transportation.

This is by far one of my favorites of your videos. I find most of your content very interesting and fun to watch but this almost made my eyes well up. I am an electrical engineer and went into the industry to find and aid in the progression of technologies like this to better the planet. Its easy to find arguments as to why we shouldn't read into alternative energies but the fact remains we eventually have to and your exploration was inspiring in a way that it reminded me why I have dedicated so much time and resources to be in the field that I am. I had heard of hydrogen cells in my college studies but to see it in a clean, marketable form is astonishing. Thank you for making this and hopefully more will be encouraged by our efforts to learn and "drive" innovation. Lame puns aside I also love motorcycles and cars so this really hits home. :P

I was debating between a Tesla and a Toyota Mirai and ended up taking the chance on the Mirai because of all the incentives being offered. I liked the the idea of having a car that runs on hydrogen and besides electric battery run cars are not that unique and innovative anymore. I have had my car about 6 weeks and love it. Have gone to Palm Springs and back about 170 miles round trip and no issues. The nearest hydrogen station to Palm Springs is in the city of Riverside. There is another one in Ontario, Ca by the 10 freeway. Diamond Bar has one at the South Coast Air Quality Management. I give my car an A in drive ability, interior and exterior design. Have no regrets.

I would be interested in more technical details. Assuming H2 stations do local electrolysis, how many kWh goes into producing and liquefying the hydrogen per kWh output from the fuel cell?. How many miles does this vehicle typically get per fuel cell kWh?. How long does the platinum last?. Any mention of metal organic framework powders that can a) store gaseous hydrogen and save on the liquefaction energy cost and b) save on weight of the high pressure storage tanks?.

Are you going to cover how the hydrogen is produced? Every time I've looked at the available options, FCEV didn't compare well to BEV unless you use steam reformation of natural gas which produces a huge amount of CO2, defeating the purpose.

Wow, this was so fascinating to watch. Thanks so much for bringing us along!

Also, I remember reading about a Japanese bus company back in the 1970s which converted their diesel buses to run on hydrogen. The advantage of burning the hydrogen in an internal combustion engine is that it would require all of the rare minerals which are used in the above hydrogen fuel cell.

I, and all chemists, diasgree with thumbnail. Hydrogen is in fact a gas at room temperature. All jokes aside, great video. Still not convinced that hydrogen will be better than batteries for cars, but I'm really excited to see it in aeroplanes.

I hope you will talk about these topics in the next videos: - How is dihydrogen produced? - What are the resources of platinum and the impact of its extraction - What is the overall assessment of this change (taking into account the entire production chain) Thanks a lot for this very interesting topic!

Really heartwarming hearing Jackie talk about the setting aside of the competition to focus on the greater good. If only more people could think this way, and especially more businesses could think this way, and just step aside for a moment to focus on how we can make the world more green energy efficient, we could accomplish so much by way of that. I never knew about hydrogen fueled vehicles until watching this. And now I'm actually considering buying one since my 2001 Chevy is basically dying and it's way past time for me to get a new car lol. I definitely was going to go for electric, so this is an interesting option. Thanks Dianna!

I applaud you at taking this daunting task on and be straight about what the real pros and cons are. This is what really helps the avg Joe and Jill.

"Toyota is quietly pushing Congress to slow the shift to electric vehicles" - The Verge Article I can't link because my comments are getting deleted

As a home owner, I will never get an FCEV because charging at home is just too convenient. I don't ever want to go to a "gas" station again. I've been driving BEVs for 6 years and I'm never going back. I'm sure the Mirai is a nice car, but I'm not trading in my Tesla for one any time soon. But for a renter or street parker, maybe FCEVs are a better option? If you can't charge at home, and don't want to burn gas, the fast fill-up time of a FCEV sounds like a good idea. Of course, you will stuck in your home town for many many years waiting for the infrastructure to be built. The elephant in the room is that we just don't have a good way to create compressed hydrogen gas. Natural gas reforming releases greenhouse gases. Cracking water wastes too much energy. When is the magic catalyst going to be found?

It would be great to listen to a discussion about the thermodynamics, and energy efficiency of powering a BEV charged most of the time from a PV array, compared with using the PV array to electrolyse water, separate the Hydrogen and Oxygen, compress the Hydrogen and make it available for filling the tank in a FCEV. The storage losses from the tank would also be interesting.

Very informative video. Thank you! I been looking at getting a Toyota Mirai and wanted to learn more about it so glad I found this video.

Edit: editing this to acknowledge that the videos following this one will most likely address the points raised below. I get that this is a sponsored video, but I wish some actual tough questions were asked or at least acknowledged. Is hydrogen fuel production better for the environment than the alternatives? How are they handling the insane fuel costs not to mention costs of building the refueling stations? Can the industry survive without state government incentives? All we got was a shallow overview of hydrogen fuel cells and an even worse review of a car.

I did a project on hydrogen fuel cells back in my high school geography class... that was like 15 years ago. I was starting to think everyone forgot about hydrogen fuel cells. Glad to see they're actually being tested now

Just found out about this channel I was researching hydrogen powered cars. I was wondering what happens to the hype. I love this channel already!

So my roommate has this car, we live in the bay area, you cannot drive this car to So Cal since it cannot cover the distance to the next fill up station, it may be close or you may end up just reaching. Filling up the car takes a lot of time as compared to a gas car however it is still faster than charging a full electric car. Hydrogen is expensive but the good thing is when he got the car there was a promotion and i think toyota handed out a $15K debit card for fueling (can only be used to fuel the car). The lines at the stations are long, if the station is out of service you need to go to the next location which is what causes the long lines. I feel this technology would be epic for the trucking industry, as electric motors provide max torque at 0 RPM, to improve what the mirai has we need to add a replaceable battery pack (so that when hydrogen runs out you still have reserve and also have a charging system), use the trailer bases as add on tanks that would extend the range depending on the trailers they run. The epic part about this car is it pees while driving, it is a rear wheel drive one can drift :P. Also since it acts like living things since it uses oxygen in the atmosphere will it deplete our oxygen? :O

I saw a video by Real Engineering “The Truth about Hydrogen.” The arguments brought up in the video seem compelling to me and he calculated if I remember correctly something around 75% efficiency for BEVs from Power generation to the electric motor and somewhere around 30% for HEVs. With you running your car, what were your numbers? Are they better than the model calculations by Real Engineering or are they even worse? I’m really curious about your story and data!

Did they explain why the BEV won't be enough to get to a 100% green transportation future? I think hydrogen is a great choice for planes and ships, but ground transport is more efficient with BEV.

I love what Jackie has said about putting aside competition for the greater good! Different companies having a single mission sounds awesome!

Without watching the other video, I would assume fuel cells have a lower carbon emission to make than that of batteries, especially when factoring in the rare metals required for the batteries.

I'd be more impressed if I hadn't heard how Toyota had bet on hybrid and thought full electrics to just be niche for the next while, and now that Tesla et all are making viable electrics they are lobbying against electric vehicles. Very green of them.

The whole "a chemical reaction happens but the electron is forced take the long way around" is how batteries work too

Love your videos. One thing that should be considered is the total emissions from vehicles versus the global industrial emissions from other sources including shipping, trains, etc. It really changes people's perceptive when they learn how little of global emissions is due to personal vehicles.

Thanks for this video. Was very educational. Love your channel, keep up the great work.

When you know that Toyota is actively slowing down the adoption of BEV, this video has a different taste

Most auto manufactures put the delivery pump/charger to wheel efficiency of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles at 25% to 30%, and battery electric vehicles at 70% to 90%. 95% of hydrogen is now made from natural gas or coal gasification, so has almost zero pollution or CO2 benefits. Hydrogen fueling stations are very scarce, and it costs on average 16 dollars per kilogram, and the Mirai gets between low 50s to high 60s miles per kilogram, and averages about 265 miles on a "full" tank. Very expensive for a car that can barely be used in California, let alone the rest of the country. And the Mirai still has a battery pack to provide the surge power. Mirai's resale value is from below 9k to 15k dollars for a 2018. Not great for a car that cost 51k to 60k new. It has been estimated that Toyota is losing about 60k to 120k per Mirai sold.

10:25 The gas is actually expanding. The Storage has to be at a higher pressure, otherwise it would not flow. Hydrogen and Helium (unlike other gases) heat up on expanding. It needs to be cooled to -40 C to prevent this from happening and overheating the cars tanks. Joule-Thompson effect .

I, along with quite a few other potential buyers, was invited by Toyota to test drive the Marai, when it was released, IIRC, in 2014. I was truly impressed by every aspect of the car, and we also attended a mini-seminar on the total hydrogen use/production of/cost analysis, comparison to gas and BEV, cost-benefit, pollution (almost not measurable) and more. In my mind it passed the litmus test. The only negative I noticed in the car was it had slightly less power/acceleration than my Camry Hybrid. I understand Toyota has upgraded the electric motor, but have not driven one with the upgrade. The only other negative was there weren't enough fuel stations to drive to S. CA, but that has been remedied also. The pricing of a Marai is a little lower now and there are over 20,000 Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles in CA now, appx 9,000 of them are the Toyota Marai. When fueling nationwide comes into place I will definitely buy a Marai. Thanks for the review.

I totally get this, but 1. making single-molecule hydrogen takes a lot of energy (so constantly, not just during the development of batteries or something), 2. not using the heat energy generated by h2o forming (just the electron flow), it's very much about tradeoffs. And if there are no actual graphs and numbers here, I'm not sure we're gonna get anywhere to attribute to climate change fixing. So I would very much ask companies to share the actual details, even if they're bad at the moment but they see room for improvement.

"It actually requires armor piercing rounds that we can only get in the US" ...of course

Amazing video, I love how technical you get. What a treat.

Jackie seems super passionate about this and explains it super well!

Working for the hydrogen division of M*chelin here in France, it's super interesting because it feels new even though the technology isn't that new at all (60's for space applications, wow) there is still a lot of work and progress to make. The prices of each system is horrendous (looking at 5 digits), it uses ultra rare metals (platinum for example) and because the fuel cell isn't reactive enough and you need a buffer in the middle of that, vehicles still needs a lithium battery. The lifespan of the stack is the main question. Automotive applications are supper harsh because of cold temperatures, vibrations, start and stop usage (the fuel cells likes constant load and temps). But even though, I'm super proud to work in that industry, and I still love my older cars to have fun in the week end 🤙

Hey Dianna! Make sure to present how the hydrogen is being produced.

Wow, I always thought hydrogen cars would have to have lots of tiny hydrogen tanks! I am amazed that they could make the tanks so strong, Your the best Diana! Not really your not the best, your considerably better than that!

this is quality content, loved it

Hey Physics Girl, how much editorial control did you give up to Toyota? You showed us the taped up phones, now please share the limits of your NDA with Toyota.

What was the range of the car on one tank(s) worth of hydrogen? I don't remember it being mentioned in the video.

Putting a fuel tank is sometimes called cooking off. The military will often perform this test on ordnance. The fun of being a test engineer you get to try to blow things up.

Was the 1800 miles the result of a single fill? If not, then what is the driving range of a single full tank and how much did it cost to fill the tank? Thank you.

We've crunched the numbers on this technology. it loses to BEV on every environmental metric, but the real reason hydrogen fuel cell technology will never catch on is because it costs more.

Almost two decades ago, we already thought fuel cells were the future. This is painfully slow.

I'm impressed, very nice video with a lot of background knowledge. I drive this Mirai myself in Germany and do so with enthusiasm. Super nice and cool CAR! Thank you Toyota!🥰

Thanks to this show, I am now a fuel-cell electric proponent. Thanks, Dianna!

Where is the hydrogen for the cars coming from. At present most hydrogen is produced by steam reformation of methane or natural gas, this releases vast quantities of CO2 and if you catalyse water with electricity where is that electricity coming from and would it be more efficient to put that electricity into batteries.

An electric car is 2.4 times more efficient than a hydrogen car.(source Wikipedia) Why? You have electricity.(hopefully generated via solar or other renewable way) You use it to separate hydrogen via electrolysis(or other methods) and pump it into your car. Your car turns then that hydrogen into electricity. See the problem? We could have just use the electricity to charge an electric car directly. Also we already have vast and fundamental electric grids versus a non existent 'hydrogen grid'.

I enjoy the enthusiasm. Are the refilling stations supplied with green hydrogen or grey?

My favorite so far! So interesting. Hilarious edits too.

You mentioned a couple of times the source of energy of these vehicles, the fact that it's "renewable", or that it would be green in some way. I am very sceptical. Would you care to make a follow-up video on this topic? From what I understand, there is a theoretical limit to the efficiency of the conversion of electricity to hydrogen which is fairly low, in other words turning electricity to hydrogen is kind of a waste. Thus the only way to produce hydrogen from electricity that makes sense is to produce it with electricity coming from renewable, green, sources (that's a given, right?) which would be otherwise wasted, because there is almost always a better usage of the electricity produced than storage as hydrogen. An example of a good "source" of energy would be a wind turbine working during the night, when people sleep and the demand on electricity is low. If you combine the poor efficiency and the low availability of these renewable sources, I don't see how it's possible to imagine replacing even a tiny fraction of all the vehicles of the world with hydrogen vehicles. Of course you can produce hydrogen with hydrocarbons, but that's not renewable, and it produces a massive amount of CO2

As charming as Physics Girl is, she finally asked the most important question in the very end, “where is the hydrogen coming from?”

The nozzle doesn’t freeze because of hydrogen gas expansion from high to low pressure sense Hydrogen has a negative Joule Thompson coefficient which means the gas heats up as it expands. This is the opposite of all other gases expect Helium. They actively cool the compressed gas to allow it to be pumped more efficiently and more quickly at pressure.

wait 100 years and maybe we could have little spaceships with fusion reactors on the backs of them and you could still fill them up with gas.

I'd like to hear about the carbon footprint of H2 production. My impression is most of our hydrogen production comes from scraping it off of fossil fuel molecules.

There were a few Mirai's driving around on Oahu with the only hydrogen station on the island being just down the road from where I worked. Toyota promised free hydrogen to Mirai lease holders for a few years as an incentive.

I love that Jackie was and probably still is a "Total" gear head. The Passion

Thank you for the great informative video. I shared it with my wifes sister and her husband as they are considering an electric car in the future. Perhaps my next new vehicle for us also.

I was hoping to hear "where does the hydrogen come from?"

"Road trip" made me chuckle a little, since there are only about 50 HFC refueling stations in the entire country and almost all of them are in California. So if you live in California, HFC vehicles ALMOST make sense. But otherwise, not so much. Way too many issues to be resolved, and they are resolvable issues but the problem is that lithium ion BEVs have progressed so much in the past 10 years in terms of performance and especially cost (about 1/10th as much as they used to be) that there is no way HFC can catch up now even if those issues were resolved, which it doesn't look like. Think about it: Toyota and Honda have been producing HFC cars and trying to get them off the ground for more than 10 years now and yet still there are only a few tens of thousands of them in existence, with only about 50 refueling stations in all of the US. They have invested billions of dollar in the technology and understandably don't want to abandon it, but it's time for them to see the writing on the wall and move on. Lithium has won.

I work in a "warehouse" that is 100% hydrogen / electric powered. I literally, as IT, sit beside the compressors. It is awesome and safe.

It would be really interesting to hear what Joseph Romm says at this point. He wrote the 2004 book "The Hype About Hydrogen." His main point was that there were too many challenges to make the hydrogen economy worth pursuing. As Dianna says, there still are many challenges. But we've made significant progress. I remember when blue LEDs were regarded as out of reach, and when everyone said manufacturing LCD displays was so difficult that laptops with 17-inch screens would be prohibitively expensive. Now look where we are...

I've got one of those BEVs. I charge it up in my garage; turns out that electricity is nearly ubiquitous so basic charging infrastructure is already everywhere. Faster charging is only needed on longer trips, and is already in a usable (could be better) state for most of the US. I think these details will prevent FCEV from wide spread adoption, except maybe for some unusual markets, because BEVs have plenty of infrastructure already in place. Then there is the whole issue of how the hydrogen is produced and how much carbon dioxide the production releases.

Thanks soo much for highlighting FCEV technology! Although I think the best application is for heavy duty vehicles and equipment (replacement for diesel fuel and aircraft engines), it DEFINITELY has a strong place in the green future economy. Much faster to fill up. No need to dig into the Earth (for Green Hydrogen). And nearly 5x the power density of latest mass produced batteries for cars!

Great video. I assume you will cover how Hydrogen in made, how much energy is required to make the hydrogen and where does that energy come from ( renewable or non-renewable). Also, what is the mileage and cost per 100km compared to petrol. Thanks for the great introduction

Love it! How would graphite hold up compared to platinum?

It's so hard to know if this is a positive move, environmentally, when you hear statements like, "0 emission vehicle." We've moved the emissions to another location, but not eliminated them. I understand that it's a long and nuanced conversation and the numbers aren't small. Laymen (like me) don't know what those numbers mean without context of other industries. I'd love to hear your perspective on how to make sense of all these options from a big picture view.

One answer to the "why hydrogen?" question is "because the people who transport petroleum/natural gas/diesel around the world are used to transporting fluids so they'd really like the replacement for gas to be a fluid that needs transporting", also right now hydrogen is mostly made from those same things so they can keep selling natural gas to you in a green washed format.

Great video. Loved the knowledge and your enthu!

@10:25: Unlike most other gases, hydrogen gets warm by expansion, not cold. That's why the fueling stations cool down the hydrogen to minus 40 degree Celsius. To avoid too much heatup of the tanks. That's why the nozzle gets so cold.

I always enjoy seeing your work, thank you for doing this wide-ranging series!

I can charge my electric car at home, always ready when I need it. Also, I have chosen to automatically charge when the power has the lowest cost that day. I cannot see how H2 fuelcell can compete with the availability of electric charging as long as the prices are as they are atm. H2 vs. Electric power and the investment of buying the car itself.

The things is it took 5 mins to put charge into the vehicle and you drive away, that alone is increasable. Next water vapor comes out the other side, image all them cars make water vapor. Really cool.

12:04 omg i JUST watched a video on how in America there isn't a standardized plug for electric cars. Thanks you SO much for not falling into the same trap with Hydrogen that detail for refueling is going to help infrastructure and adoption of hydrogen vehicles SO much, bc that means they might be the vehicle to stand in the gap until electric infrastructure catches up, bc MAN is it outdated and diverse in America rn.

12:20 I wish Toyota would have remembered the "common good" when they were lobbying congress to slow down electric vehicle development and adoption (look it up) because they've invested in fuel cells instead

Thumbnail: "Not gas" So they're fuelling hydrogen cars with liquid hydrogen? :O

When speaking to some Dow folks, their biggest concern is that if H2 gets big, we will want a pipeline, and it would be very difficult to keep H2 leaking from a pipeline given that it's essentially the lightest molecule. Seems like carbon-based fuels from sunlight are more desirable bc you dont have to pressurize (theyre already liquid) and they're made from atmospheric CO2.Thoughts?

When I was a child (some 40+ years ago) I dreamed of filling my car with a two nozzle contraption. It had a red and a blue nozzle that fit into my cars corresponding openings under a flap. I interpreted the setup as one nozzle for hydrogen (the red one) and one for water that had been created by burning the hydrogen and capturing the output into a additional tank, the blue one was a vacuum that pulled the water out to be broken down again. I don't recall having any real knowledge of chemical composition or electrolysis, I just dreamed it out of the blue.

Most Hydrogen is currently produced from natural gas and even making Hydrogen from water loses quite a lot of energy compared to charging an electric car. Because of this, Electric cars will always be better for the environment. But hydrogen cars might be a bit more convenient for people who want to have a high range and don't want to wait for it to charge.

Personally I'd like to see a battery/hydrogen hybrid. A battery with say an 80 mile range as that would cover 95% of my weekly travel without having to recharge every day. Then a hydrogen backup granting an additional 200 mile range for when I have to make longer trips. It would give me the best of both worlds - direct electric efficiency and no range anxiety courtesy of hydrogen refueling.

I was very excited to drive a hydrogen car in 1974. There were working prototypes at UCLA in 1969 when I went into the military and the word was that we would have production models available by 1972. I left the country but I was back and even stationed in northern California in 1974. Although I had a VW I was looking for a hydrogen car. There were none. When do they expect to have viable vehicles and fuel stations across the country? I'm still waiting.

I'm a chemistry guy with undergrad degrees in physics, math, and of course chemistry. I also worked at NASA for a bit. This is fascinating.

To add to the comments I've already seen around the production of hydrogen, there are real questions around the hydrogen distribution network, which is basically non-existent at the moment. Sounds like they've done great work with the tanks in the car, but a nationwide distribution network for hydrogen would be hugely expensive... BEVs have an existing distribution network, which goes all the way to everyone's home. I think it's neat to see the video, but I really think BEVs are a better technology.

Is she going to talk about how hydrogen is an energy carrier, nearly always produced from methane (which is *by far* the least wasteful method), not a fuel source? It's thus not green at all.

I remember several years ago there was a Toyota test project involving driving a Toyota from Alaska to California.

9:07 - CNG crew here, I've been managing range anxiety for far longer then FCEV drivers have been.

"Toyota is not responsible for the operability of third party fuel stations or the availability of hydrogen fuel". Well, of course they don't they don't want to be responsible for the part that dictates why we'll never have hydrogen cars. Battery EVs immediately answer your questions about range. Sure, there might be more or less superchargers in a certain area, but worst case scenario you can just charge it at home or on any regular outlet, and things will get better with time. Meanwhile, Hydrogen has a *severe*, so far *unsolved* problem with availability. And the problem is fairly simple: Hydrogen is expensive and *slow* to manufacture. The two ways this could work is either each gas station makes its own hydrogen, or hydrogen is centrally manufactured and distributed, just like gas. The first case would *never* work, first because the initial investment is *massive*, and there are no customers, and second, because when there are enough customers, a gas station can't make hydrogen fast enough to supply them. What about centrally manufacturing it and distributing it like gas? Well, there are again no answers here. There isn't enough hydrogen production to go around for any significant amount of vehicles, so you're guaranteed to see prices fluctuate UP the more hydrogen cars there are. Just like gas. And there's no WAY that supply could keep up with demand if there was any serious demand. So, basically, the only way hydrogen cars could work is if there was only a few select vehicles with a steady, predictable requirement, such as the buses on a city or trucks.

How does the fuel cell behave when in high altitudes and low oxygen rate? And is it possible to compress more air in the intake increasing the reactions and generate more power output, like turbo chargers in combustion engines?

I drove a hydrogen production vehicle 12+ years ago. Hydrogen production and distribution was then and it still is an unresolved problem.

I wonder if the water is worth catching and recycling? I wonder if it's drinkable right out of the purge valve?

"We can only get AP rounds in America" is the most coolest thing I heard. 7:38

That quick release nozzle is really cool A minute later and that statement is even more relevant

This is what I hope the future of electric cars looks like. Not having to wait 30 minutes to an hour at a charging station, or wondering if the charging station will even work.

We have many in the Coachella Valley in an near Palm Springs that are available for the public to use. Our local public transit SunLines offers it to the community to use.

Still strikes me as really unfortunate that America has such a dependency on cars. Having good public transportation would go a huge way in reducing carbon emissions.

Thanx for putting this info out there! Did you know that the APUs (Auxiliary Power Units) on all the Space Shuttles were hydrogen fuel cells, and that the by-product, pure H2O, was the water the crew drank.

That map of hydrogen stations was interesting - the only one I know of wasn't on it. (Shell station on 190th Street in northern Torrance. Yes there's usually a bunch of Mirais there.)

I’ll confess that I also thought the hydrogen was burned like petrol. Thank you for this