The Hydrogen Fueled Rasa By Riversimple

johnsnownw said:

The biggest issue with FCEVs aren't with the technology, but with the fuel. The infrastructure costs are in the hundreds of billions, and right now the burden has been laid on taxpayers. Then, even if you get the infrastructure funded, the cost of H2 at the pump is 3-4x that of gasoline, and 5-6x that of electricity. All of the predictions for lowering the cost of hydrogen involve some technological breakthroughs, subsidies, and un-taxed fuel.

Now, the current state of the technology isn't great for light-duty vehicles either. The Mirai has the performance of a Prius, and costs Toyota well above what they are selling. The only way to increase the performance is to build a larger FC (increases cost), or install a larger battery...which would essentially mean making the vehicle a Plug-in EV, with a H2 range extender. The issue with this, of course, is that if you give an FCEV an all electric range similar to the GM Volt, 90% of it's miles would be electric. This would create sporadic demand for the H2, and make it unlikely that any companies could profit from building the stations.

Riversimple's design is interesting, but doesn't appear to be economically feasible. While they'd be the ones funding the stations and paying for fuel, the costs of each are rather expensive. The only way to make the investment back is by passing the bill onto the consumer, and doing so would make their car leasing service vastly more expensive than current alternatives.

Hydrogen really only works if light-duty vehicles are a secondary market for hydrogen. As in, there needs to already be huge demand for hydrogen in another sector, so that it wasn't vehicle consumers driving the demand. There is just no way to bring costs down, at least in a timely manner, if the main driving force has a chicken and egg problem.

It makes far more sense to use hybrids/PHEVs/Elio's...than try and make FCEVs work.

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floydv said:

California is taking a deliberate approach to building out a hydrogen fueling station in line with its growing fleet of fuel cell vehicles, targeting those regions where modeling indicates early adopters of FCEVs are likely to reside. Thus, the build out of fueling stations needn't follow the gas-station-on-every-corner model. In fact, California's modeling indicates 100 strategically located hydrogen stations would support the needs of over 34,000 FCEVs. The state has committed to addressing the chicken-and-egg issue by helping to fund the building and operation of stations just ahead of the vehicle manufacturers' roll out the FCEVs.

For more reading: http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/ab8/ab8_report_2015.pdf

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Marshall said:

It's easier to flee a burning car than an exploding one.

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johnsnownw said:

Right, but that right there should tell you something of the issue. It takes 100 stations to support 34k vehicles. If we go with the stations averaging $2M a pop, that's $200M. That doesn't sound like a sustainable model, to me. After all, CA can't just keep funding these stations, especially when they aren't getting a return on the investment.

That aside, building the stations doesn't guarantee that people will buy the vehicles, and even if people wanted to their subsidized cost is WAY above the Avg. new car purchase price. Then the fuel is going to be spendy.

There is a limited market for a vehicle that costs the same as a luxury ICE vehicle, while performing similarly to a Prius.

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floydv said:

I get what you're saying, but it's an apples and oranges comparison. ICEs are a fully mature technology with fully mature infrastructure. FCEVs and EVs in general deliver environmental and public health benefits across the board; they are a mid- to long-term solution to a variety of environmental and public health issues resulting from fossil fuel combustion in vehicles. California has decided to take a leadership role in developing FCEVs and its infrastructure, even if it is years ahead of the rest of the nation and the cost will be $200 million. I would also note that various countries are ahead of California in both infrastructure and vehicular development for FCEVs, and several vehicle OEMs are projecting FCEVs as the light duty vehicle platform over the coming decades.

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floydv said:

Your typical gasoline car is much more likely to explode than a fuel cell vehicle, especially with the over-engineered and multi-redundancies built into current FCEVs. And burning hydrogen produces only water; burning gasoline produces toxic fumes because of the incomplete combustion.

https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/npre470/web/readings/Hydrogen safety issues.pdf

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floydv said:

California is taking a deliberate approach to building out a hydrogen fueling station in line with its growing fleet of fuel cell vehicles, targeting those regions where modeling indicates early adopters of FCEVs are likely to reside. Thus, the build out of fueling stations needn't follow the gas-station-on-every-corner model. In fact, California's modeling indicates 100 strategically located hydrogen stations would support the needs of over 34,000 FCEVs. The state has committed to addressing the chicken-and-egg issue by helping to fund the building and operation of stations just ahead of the vehicle manufacturers' roll out the FCEVs.

For more reading: http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/ab8/ab8_report_2015.pdf

Click to expand...