I have one of the more extreme commutes I feel. I drive about 60 miles one way (it was 75 miles before we moved) and I would love to drive a PHEV with an electric range of 100 miles. I would have no problem driving the last 20 miles on gas if I could have run the first 100 on cheaper electricity. And I am sure I could plug the car in at work to get a little boost of power during the day to make it the full way home on EV. I do feel there is a need for either a power distribution system or an onboard power generation plant, be it ICE or some other way of producing power (I like the mr fusion from back to the future).

If Toyota had offered the TCH in the standard hybrid and a PHEV version, I would have paid more for the PHEV version.

As far as pure EV is concerned, I considered it, but the cost is just way to high right now for a vehicle that gives me the range I need.

 

Hydrogen seems to be getting a bad rap. I don't think it should be a focus over the next ten years, but I would not dismiss it over the next 30-50 years either. On the front burner should be work on hybrids, plugins, and clean diesel.

Part of the controversey on hydrogen is wondering if some of the investors are serious about it (i.e. The Freedom Car).

 

Hi,

It isn't dismissal as much as recognition of the physics and chemistry. The saddest part was hydrogen was sold as the reason why hybrids, smart highways and CAFE could be ignored. There is an old proverb that "Perfection is the enemy of good enough" and that was how hydrogen was sold.

It has been almost six years since Al Gore's high vehicle mileage program was defunded for the hydrogen fraud and that included a GM proposed diesel-hybrid, the Precept. Instead, the noted USA mileage improvements have been from us hybrid owners who voted with our wallets. Worse, our decisions were greeted with a great deal of skepticism that was often based upon claims that didn't prove out in practice.

The laws of physics and chemistry apply to hydrogen-based, "Freedom Car" advocates too.

Bob Wilson

 

I've seen a number of posts refering to the "hydrogen fraud". It's not a fraud. It's merely one of the alternatives that has technological hurdles.

Hydrogen, with our current technology, is impractical. It has poor energy density. It's tough to store in significant quantities. And it is a net negative energy mechanism.

There has been some breakthroughs as far as storage and density is concerned, but we're still left with the biggest tech hurdle: getting hydrogen in an energy efficient manner. Right now this requires electrolisis, which requires electricty so it is still a better idea to just pump the electricity into a storage device and use it as opposed to cracking water (which is quite a power hog itself).

If a way were discovered to crack water easily, then hydrogen would become feasible. Even with higher storage densities it wouldn't rival other alternate fuels but you'd be hard pressed to find a cleaner soultion.

But there are still tech hurdles. The tech hurdles for other methods are fewer and are further along.

A pure electric car (as others have mentioned) is feasible with current tech as long as you can get from point A to point B without recharging (and there are only a small number of such vehicles). You simply cannot shove 2+ MW into a battery in 5 minutes with current tech though. You'd vaporize your car, not too mention the battery charging process is not 100% efficient even with the best technologies. Ultra capacitiors could help once they hit the scene but there are tech hurdles there as well.

And this doesn't even address the question of cost and infrastruture. All electric with charge stations would require a HUGE increase in the number of power stations, not to mention a massive increase in cabling that could support such demand without melting it.

As BW mentioned, there are better batteries out there with very high densities, but the problem is the require the metal to be molten. So you'd have a smaller battery pack but it would be full of molten metal. That presents big problems.

For the time being, the best type of vehicle uses the current infrastructure with fuels that are carbon-nuetral. Flex-fuel vehicles or even converted vehicles running biodiesel are the best bet for the near term. As our tech advances, then we can talk about hydrogen/electric/whatever. Baby steps.

~X~

 

Too many times in discussions (and I'm not trying to say this is one of those nasty ones), it degrades to a "one-way" only solution. Stuff like Disels vs hybrids vs fuel cells vs plugins....

If it was not said in my prior post, hydrogen is not a short term solution, but it could be a good option in a few decades. Like EVs, there are no tailpipe emissions, so the source of pollution is narrowed from millions of cars to thousands of power plants (or hydrogen refineries). It's easier to address the pollution of thousands than millions.

My concern with hydrogen projects such as the Freedom Car is it has the appearance of pretending to do something.

A long term theme of mine, the grass roots support to address energy needs to rise to the level dealing with The Great Depression, World War II, The War on Terror.....if it did both business and government would get a lot more done, knowing the public was keeping a close eye on them.