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Hydrogen fuel-cell cars are an interesting alternative to battery-electric cars, as they can be refuelled quickly, have a longer range and demand no compromise in terms of space or practicality.
Furthermore, the only emissions from the tailpipe are water, and if the hydrogen is created using 100% renewable sources, it’s entirely sustainable. But while the technology exists to convert cars to hydrogen, the refuelling infrastructure required is still in its infancy.
There are only two currently available in the UK: the Toyota Mirai saloon and the Hyundai NEXO SUV, while at the 2019 Frankfurt Motor Show, BMW showed an X5 with a hydrogen fuel cell that it says won’t be available to buy until 2025.
Where can I find a hydrogen refuelling station and how much does it cost?
According to ZapMap, which provides information on the electric-car recharging and hydrogen-car refuelling points, there are only 13 hydrogen stations in the UK.Five of these are located within the M25, with others in the Southeast and Midlands. There are only two hydrogen refuelling points in Wales, one in the north of England, one in Scotland and none in Northern Ireland.
A kilogramme of hydrogen costs around £10 in the UK. As a guide, the Mirai’s fuel tank holds five kilogrammes, so it isn’t that much cheaper at the moment to use hydrogen compared to petrol or diesel – and it’s a lot more expensive than recharging an electric car.
How do I fill up a hydrogen car?
Hydrogen cars are as easy to fill as a petrol or diesel. It takes around five minutes to fill a tank. The pumps are similar to those you at a conventional fuel station, and you plug the nozzle into your car in the same way.The only person who got all his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe.
Anything i post over three lines long please assume it is an article lol.
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From that list it looks like I could get a hydrogen car, living 10-15mins away from a station
You would have very limited choice of locations if you wanted to take it on holiday, especially in Scotland and Wales lol.
Closest station to me is 40+ miles away. Bit too far, really. However, I could be well tempted by one of the three H2 powered cars available. The Rasa is made by a small Welsh outfit. It’s a small 2-seater meant to be a runabout city-car. It’ll just about hit 60mph but accelerates “briskly” on its 4×4 electric motors. Thus not very quick but engineering wise and environmentally it ticks all boxes. What’s more, it really looks the business. Original, a bit eccentric, and very stylish. Has that same sort of futurism about it as the original Citroen DS.
Sexy doors too…
Does anyone actually think electric is the way forward for cars or will something like hydrogen take over?
Azzy are you living on a different planet lol.
Electric is the only way forward for cars there are no ifs buts or maybes its a done deal.
Reckon you’re right there, Brydo. But it would be nice to persuade someone to make the Rasa an all-electric job. Anyone at BMW Mini watching..?
Azzy are you living on a different planet lol. Electric is the only way forward for cars there are no ifs buts or maybes its a done deal.
In what way is it a done deal? Lots of things can change in the future. I still think electric cars are the short term before hydrogen vehicles become more common over the next few decades – especially with large vans & trucks where the low range of electric vehicles will continue to be an issue.
Electric is definitely not the way forward for cars as lithium and cobalt are a limited resource(although not anytime soon) , batteries are not enviromentally friendly, hydrogen make alot more sense but the infastructure is the problem, plus the government and energy compaines want you to go electric
Alan, Atiq of course anything can happen in the future but as it stands, and for the foreseeable future, EVs will be the car of choice between the two.
There are problems with both choices with regard to their green credentials but nothing is perfect.
Hydrogen will have a part to play in the green revolution but probably as a means of storing energy.
So as it stands governments and manufacturers world wide are pouring £billions into battery tech and infrastructure, most of which would be useless for hydrogen cars, so unless all of this is to be thrown away in favour of hydrogen EVs have won, if won is the correct word.
Indeed it seems some are living with there heads stuck up in the clouds and only believe what they are bombarded with by the propaganda machine. They see electric as the newest viable thing and will not consider any other alternative or accept the negatives and insult people who dare to suggest otherwise..
Diesel was cleaner once or so we was told by scientists and still is pretty clean if you adblue. The planet earth had an ice age and warmed up before and is on a larger cycle than we have any records for and thus we are looking at such of small snipet of time in the evolution of this planet.
What do humans really know.
They so good at eradicating history. No one really knows do they, some just believe because some say so and then it’s adone deal. laughable imo..
Planes and trains already looking to hydrogen. Aerospace giant Airbus has unveiled plans for what it hailed as the first commercial zero-emission aircraft. The company said its hydrogen-fuelled passenger planes could be in service by 2035. I deffo do and maybe they also do, that just a plane will not get off the ground with the amount of batteries it will need to power it..
The nasa rockets sent into space use hydrogen. It will be the poorest in society who pickup the green agenda tab. Who it seems always have to pay the ultimate price for it all, whatever it is.. That they come up with.. The uk debt is 2 trillion now and that’s without going on this surge of engery creation we will need to roll this all out.. Just how electric bills have risen because of smart meters, they won’t go back when everyone has one. Likewise they will never allow something to happen they cannot monetise.
Generating electricity and heat by burning fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and oil produces more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than any human activity, accounting for at least one quarter of all global emissions. CO2 emissions from electricity and heat have increased as coal has been the fastest growing energy source since 2000, reports the International Energy Agency.
Rox you are correct, people only beleive what they are fed, kids in schools are now being taught that internal combustion engines are is there worst enemy meanwhile the real polluters of this planet don’t get a mention, battery powered cars are not the way we should be heading, but the agenda is pushing car manufacturers that way rather than hydrogen powered cars
What was worse was lead in the fuel, they also teach you to save money in bank accounts, not in assets that are a hedge against inflation, but in ones that devalue over time like currency. which only really any good as a medium of exchange and spending in the now.. I do think the longer you spend in eductaion the more conditioned to the system you become, who so smart they worked it allout and have no need to share the data to back up the claims. like how global warming is now climate change.. like how you die with covid not of covid.. But it’s us the people that cause it all and the problems.
I teach my kids Critical thinking to offset what they taught at school and to question everything and everyones motives and not justaccept anything they told, to do there own research.
Alan, Atiq of course anything can happen in the future but as it stands, and for the foreseeable future, EVs will be the car of choice between the two. There are problems with both choices with regard to their green credentials but nothing is perfect. Hydrogen will have a part to play in the green revolution but probably as a means of storing energy. So as it stands governments and manufacturers world wide are pouring £billions into battery tech and infrastructure, most of which would be useless for hydrogen cars, so unless all of this is to be thrown away in favour of hydrogen EVs have won, if won is the correct word.
Have just been reading your post about the new VW car coming in 2 years time with a 700km battery pack…staring to think I may be wrong about the need for Hydrogen except for trucks maybe that need to do very long distances…700km is 434 miles which I think would suit the majority of people.
Alan when EVs routinely go in excess of 400 miles on a single charge no one, surely, could argue they are not suitable for their needs.
There are many scientists looking at battery tech and I have no doubt the batteries we have now will bare little resemblance to those 5 – 10 from now.
Brydo, lol.
As much as I think electric is good, it has its limitations as does everything.
soon there will be mass campaigning to stop trying to get fossil fuels out the ground etc.
Diesel was pushed to the masses and now it’s apparently less toxic than petrol so why is the diesel agenda still being pushed. Will the same happen with electric.Will Electric charging stations have back up generators for when there’s a power cut?
I don’t have all the answers, tbh I don’t think I have any but I think hydrogen looks an interesting option going forward.Azzy fossil fuel will still be used for many years to come. Industry uses lots of the stuff and they will not stop anytime soon.
Brydo, lol. As much as I think electric is good, it has its limitations as does everything. soon there will be mass campaigning to stop trying to get fossil fuels out the ground etc. Diesel was pushed to the masses and now it’s apparently less toxic than petrol so why is the diesel agenda still being pushed. Will the same happen with electric. Will Electric charging stations have back up generators for when there’s a power cut? I don’t have all the answers, tbh I don’t think I have any but I think hydrogen looks an interesting option going forward.
Some of the charging stations already have back-up, some of the Tesla ones accumulate energy ready for when the demand on the chargers is greater than the connected grid capacity, possibly some of the others such as the new Gridserv EV stations as they want to generate lots of solar electricity from nearby and sell off the excess to the grid at peak times. There’s so much innovation going on with these things it’s hard to keep up. These developments are still in their infancy though.
People are also putting in “powerwalls” to store their solar electric, and it’s possible to charge an EV from some of those, although capacities of powerwalls are currently very limited and a return on the investment is something like 13 years or more (longer than the lifetime of the batteries? an unknown). It’s been suggested that people store cheap Octopus Agile electric (when the price goes to zero or negative), but the wise on speakev have already worked out that it’s uneconomic to do so & it’s better to simply charge your car with that.
Hydrogen is what I’d currently choose if I were living in the US & it was widely available, where people drive great distances, but in a few years time will Tesla have cracked the longer range batteries?
As for answers, I think everything is unclear at the moment, I now drive an EV & there’s a balance between the limited range, the charging times, and the very low cost of electricity at home. I can currently go for a drive in the countryside down to the coast, have a walk along the beach (OK, wade through the pebbles in a wheelchair…), then pick some shopping up on the way home, arrive home & plug the car in for an overnight cheap charge…. possibly even get paid a few pennies to charge some nights…. so I’m relatively happy. This won’t suit everyone, it doesn’t suit me for those rare times I want to drive the 250 miles to see my parents, but it’s a couple of 1/2 hour charges to each leg of that journey (new multiple ultra rapid chargers going in at a BP station just after Thelwall viaduct off the M6/M62 will help there but the north is still grim for chargers).
Hydro is electric, so them pumping money into electric cars makes no difference as fuel cells (for hydrogen fit in same place a battery can, the bad thing about hydrogen is the cost of the tech) but the good news is merc have signed a partner deal with a few other brands to develop the tech and get it cheaper, they also have the backing of major oil companies who still want you to pull in and fill up, not charge at home. So really it is the future.
Rico the link below shows how hydrogen fuel is produced.
https://spectra.mhi.com/what-are-the-three-colors-of-hydrogen?I remember James May in an ancient, original Top Gear going on about hydrogen as his preferred fuel of the future after testing a prototype in the US. Mind you, I don’t think fuel cells were involved. Unless memory defeats me, this used liquid H2, allowed to turn into a gas and burned in ICE engine. Went like a very smooth rocket he said.
Hyundai and Ineos announce hydrogen co-operation
Hyundai and Ineos have teamed up to explore new ways to accelerate growth in hydrogen technology, especially with regards to creating a hydrogen fuel cell version of the upcoming Ineos Grenadier off-roader.
The non-exclusive agreement means that Ineos will be able to tap into Hyundai’s knowledge around fuel cell technology in cars, a field the Korean firm has been at the forefront of, as seen with its Nexo SUV.
Equally, Hyundai will benefit from Ineos’s vast experience around the infrastructure of hydrogen and how to produce it cleanly.
Mark Tennant, commercial director of Ineos Automotive, told us: “What we really like about Hyundai is that we’re bringing together both sides of Ineos: the vast petrochemical side that already produces hydrogen as a byproduct, along with investigating more into the specific application with regards to the Grenadier.”
As a long-term solution, Ineos is focusing on hydrogen fuel cell technology for the Grenadier, rather than battery power, because of the nature of where the car will spend most of its time.
Tennant continued: “We’re looking to build a very functional, utilitarian 4×4 that can work in the middle of nowhere. To take up a useable payload with a battery pack that would make the range adequate for those sorts of applications doesn’t make sense. That’s why we’re looking at hydrogen fuel cells.”
As for the Grenadier, he said: “We’re still on track and happy, with a view to production starting at the end of 2021. We’re testing now and have got prototypes running around. We’re looking to put 1.8 million aggregate kilometres on the vehicles during the testing.”
Some 20,000 expressions of interest have been received so far, with most coming from Europe, the US, Australia and South Africa.
