hitbycar’s Recent Comments

• Click here to view comment in original post

  In Response

  @ jabailo:

  What is clearly needed here is a little bit of thermodynamic and engineering education.  lets run through why, to say it politely, these points fall down.
  

  1. Sourcing of hydrogen -  you cant drill for it, you need to make it.  Electrolysis is not 100% efficient, in fact its 50% at best.  Automotive fuel cells currently convert at about 54%.  Ignoring transportation, that is a system efficiency of 27%.
     
  2. Transportation -  Hydrogen can't be transported easily.  It embrittles metals, and requires expensive stainless steels and high pressure tanks for containment.  is everyone going to generate hydrogen at home for personal use?  I doubt it.
     
  3. Usage efficiency? Hydrogen fuel cells are not 100% efficient, and neither are hydrogen ICEs.  If we are going to have electric cars powered by fuel cells, why change electricity to hydrogen, and then back to electricity when every conversion wastes energy?

  in favor of PHEVs
  
  1. Efficiency - the grid is an existing transport mechanism for electric power, it is efficient and has off-peak capacity to power most of our vehicles.  so there, i just save probably a trillion dollars of infrastructure, and a lot of electricity lost in conversion inefficiencies.  Transmission efficiency is 80%, decent batteries are roughly 90%, and electric motors at least 90%.  that is a system net efficiency, including transportation, of 65%.  More than twice the efficiency of fuel cells.
     
  2. Availability - people can make their own PHEVs in a garage with existing technology, and all the major automakers are developing PHEV vehicles for release in the next few years.  dont tell me i will be able to buy a cost effective fuel cell vehicle first.
     
  3. Cost - do you know how much a fuel cell costs? Lets just put it this way, a lot.

  It is claims like yours that make environmentalists seem like off-their-rocker nut cases. Education and discretion will go a long way in furthering our cause.

  Thank you and good night
  On Electric-car visionary would overhaul the way we get around posted 1 year, 3 months ago 12 Responses