Hydrogen and FCEVs discussion thread

[RegGuheert]

Via GCC:

Lux Research: fuel cell vehicles lag other drivetrains in terms of cost of ownership; ICE and HEV lowest cost

Rest at http://www.greencarcongress.com/2014/11/20141123-luxh2.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It looks more like a bunch of numbers thrown against the wall than actual research. For instance:

A $30,000 price point and hydrogen at $3/kg makes the FCV option less costly than both the PHEV and EV option, and approaching the cost of ownership of ICE and HEV drivetrains.

You can already purchase an EV for $30,000 or less, so that notion is nonsense.

 

[GRA]

Via GCC:

Lux Research: fuel cell vehicles lag other drivetrains in terms of cost of ownership; ICE and HEV lowest cost

Rest at http://www.greencarcongress.com/2014/11/20141123-luxh2.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It looks more like a bunch of numbers thrown against the wall than actual research. For instance:

A $30,000 price point and hydrogen at $3/kg makes the FCV option less costly than both the PHEV and EV option, and approaching the cost of ownership of ICE and HEV drivetrains.

You can already purchase an EV for $30,000 or less, so that notion is nonsense.

As it states, the article is talking about the TCO and not the purchase price alone. Unfortunately, the report requires paid access so we can't see the methodology used, but the title page and summary is here: https://portal.luxresearchinc.com/research/report_excerpt/18191" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[AndyH]

Considering the preferential effect of the CARB traveling provisions for Hydrogen

Can you tell me how CARB's decisions resulted in the production and distribution of FCEV around the world well before they arrived in CA?

 

[patrick0101]

While Electric Cars Remain Popular, Nissan Vows Off Hydrogen Fuel Cells
http://buff.ly/11tuBLf
So if you want to prevent Nissan from making FCVs, just buy more Leafs

 

[Stoaty]

Like this?

9. Why does Elon Musk criticize FCVs so regularly? If Musk is right and FCVs are “fool cells,” than he wouldn’t give them a second thought, right? Musk doth protest too much, don’t you think?

10. Why can’t Tesla and Nissan Leaf fans just relax? What’s with all the hate?

* This list contains personal opinions that are not and cannot be supported with facts or references. Not to be used for planning, problem solving, or any other function that impacts the existence of life on this planet.

Yeah, that looks about right.

 

[AndyH]

There you go! Let's quote magazine writers! \o/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/neilwin...s-but-both-will-be-also-rans-for-a-while-yet/

Renault Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn and Tesla Motors TSLA +0.56% honcho Elon Musk have both been loud advocates for battery-powered vehicles, but their recent bad-mouthing of hydrogen fuel cell powered cars is a reminder that neither of these technologies will make much of an impact any time soon.

Ghosn, leader of the French-Japanese alliance, famously said 10 per cent of all global car sales would be battery-only by 2020. Not many experts buy that now as buyers see battery cars as hugely expensive and with limited and unpredictable range. Tesla Motors’ Model S battery-only car has been very successful, but on a small scale and doubts remain about its range as the car is exported to Europe and exposed to Germany’s high-speed roads.

Ghosn said any move to mass market fuel cell vehicles would be hampered by the lack of refuelling infrastructure, and although this rings true, it also coincided with news Hyundai of Korea, and Honda and Toyota of Japan, have ambitious and imminent plans for hydrogen powered cars.

YEAH! We can't have FCEL because we don't have In-Fra-Struc-Ture! [wait...what? Who's building infrastructure? ah ****...can we retract that?!]

But this renewed attack on fuel cells by battery power advocates might mean they are worried.

“If the (fuel cell) technology can eventually be mastered in terms of cost, quality, reliability and perhaps most crucial, with cars that are affordable to the public at large, today’s conventional battery powered cars could be destined to go the same way as the dinosaurs,” said Automotive Industry Data editor Peter Schmidt said.

“The future probably is going to be electric, but probably not a battery-powered one,” Schmidt said.

[giggle]

“I expect by 2020 the percentage of global sales for fuel cells to be very tiny, with still less than one per cent by 2025, and 2030 still less than a few per cent. By 2025, battery-only will still be less than five per cent, although there is a possibility that technology advances might emerge between 2020 and 2025 which improves battery energy density by about three times. If that kind of technology is launched, I think battery-only vehicles might be much stronger in volume terms – more than five per cent,” Nagashima said.

Oh well. Since we need to get off fossil fuels by 2050, and since the 'experts' at Forbes and other places say that'll never happen, we might as well all group together, sing a couple of rounds of Kumbaya, and kiss our asses goodbye. So long, Earth, and thanks for all the fish...

 

[lorenfb]

Great job, Reg.

Agree, great job!

Agreed, Reg - great job. The quote formatting looked good, each quote had a response, and the overall readability was decent. To make it better, I recommend adding a disclaimer at the top along the lines of "this response contains personal opinions that are not and cannot be supported with facts or references. Not to be used for planning, problem solving, or any other function that impacts the existence of life on this planet."

Yes! Especially this one:

"Battery technology has not stagnated. Any belief that batteries will not improve steadily is not founded on reality."

 

[AndyH]

Yes! Especially this one:

"Battery technology has not stagnated. Any belief that batteries will not improve steadily is not founded on reality."

Has anyone said or implied that battery dev has stagnated or will stagnate or should stagnate? Or has anyone poked pins into tiny battery-shaped voodoo dolls anytime, anywhere?

 

[mbender]

9. Why does Elon Musk criticize FCVs so regularly? If Musk is right and FCVs are “fool cells,” than (sic) he wouldn’t give them a second thought, right? Musk doth protest too much, don’t you think?

While Electric Cars Remain Popular, Nissan Vows Off Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Two "random" comments:

1. In Musk's defense, I would hardly characterize his criticisms as "frequent". I don't keep track, but I suspect that he has only made that (kind of) comment a few times. The message then gets (got) magnified by multiple reprints throughout the media. Second, his comments also hardly qualify as a 'protest'. I'm not sure if he has actually protested any bias (perceived or real) in CARB and their rules, but I doubt it. Finally, and I'm not 100% sure of this either, but I think SpaceX uses fuel cells in their rockets, so his negative opinion of them is only in regards to passenger vehicles (earth-bound, lol).

2. I'll believe that Nissan is "Vowing Off" HFCVs when they drop out of the California Fuel Cell Partnership. There are probably too many political, financial and 'PR' benefits to keeping that membership intact for them to ever do that. Can you imagine the waves it would make if they did, though?!

 

[RegGuheert]

As it states, the article is talking about the TCO and not the purchase price alone. Unfortunately, the report requires paid access so we can't see the methodology used, but the title page and summary is here: https://portal.luxresearchinc.com/research/report_excerpt/18191" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes, but you can see clearly from the chart that the purchase price for the EV option is much higher than for the $30,000 FCV.

 

[RegGuheert]

Yes! Especially this one:

"Battery technology has not stagnated. Any belief that batteries will not improve steadily is not founded on reality."

Has anyone said or implied that battery dev has stagnated or will stagnate or should stagnate? Or has anyone poked pins into tiny battery-shaped voodoo dolls anytime, anywhere?

Yes. It was point six from the article which GRA linked and which I quoted:

Since I've previously linked to GCR's "10 Questions on Hydrogen Fuel-cell cars to ask Toyota, Honda and Hyundai" and the replies, it seems appropriate to list a fuel cell advocate's similar list of questions for BEV advocates, also mentioned at GCR. Basically all the points we've covered here ad nauseum, but for the sake of completeness:

10 Battery Electric Car Questions For GreenCarReports

http://partsblog.olathetoyota.com/7219/10-battery-electric-car-questions/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ten easily-answered questions:

6. Why don’t BEV advocates acknowledge that battery chemistry has stagnated?

In any case, I'm pretty sure lorenfb was agreeing with you.

But I have provided clear evidence in another thread that Li-Ion capacity doubled between 1991 and 2001 and again between 2001 and 2009. In other words, it seems to have accelerated from about 7%/year to about 8%/year, which is the number that Carlos Ghosn was quoted as saying a few years ago. If battery development has stagnated since that time, then someone who believes it has stagnated will need to provide the evidence of that. For reference, we have an entire thread on this forum which tracks the ongoing development efforts in battery technology.

 

[lorenfb]

There has been no implication on my part that battery development has stagnated.
But it appears that some in this thread can predict the future and forecast
how battery development will occur and how the EV market will evolve, right?

 

[RegGuheert]

There has been no implication on my part that battery development has stagnated.

Well, there has been none if we all ignore your previous post.

But it appears that some in this thread can predict the future and forecast how battery development will occur and how the EV market will evolve, right?

Since battery technology has sustained 7%/year improvements in energy density for over twenty years, it is hardly a stretch to claim that it will not immediately drop to 0%. As far as EVs go, the battery improvements which are currently being designed into the next-generation EVs have ALREADY been made, but there is a three-to-four-year lag between commercialization of the battery technology and it's appearance in a mass-produced automobile. So there is no doubt that next-generation EVs will contain better battery technology than the current-generation.

I also have confidence in the sustained, long-term improvement in EV range and costs which comes from basic knowledge of the history of how technology advances. The tripling of the range of the Boeing 737 over a fifty-year period is my favorite example of how technology marches on in the transportation arena.

The really wild extrapolations in this thread are the ones which proclaim that somehow FCV technology will overtake EV technology even though it is still massively more expensive and significantly less efficient. The insertion of mutiple low-efficiency energy conversion steps in the FCV chain ensure that per-mile costs of renewable-powered FCVs CANNOT go below that of BEVs. Such proclamations of a future victory by FCVs in the area of personal transportation are certainly based on unrealistic extrapolations of rapid improvements far into the future.

 

[lorenfb]

There has been no implication on my part that battery development has stagnated.

Well, there has been none if we all ignore your previous post.

But it appears that some in this thread can predict the future and forecast how battery development will occur and how the EV market will evolve, right?

Since battery technology has sustained 7%/year improvements in energy density for over twenty years, it is hardly a stretch to claim that it will not immediately drop to 0%. As far as EVs go, the battery improvements which are currently being designed into the next-generation EVs have ALREADY been made, but there is a three-to-four-year lag between commercialization of the battery technology and it's appearance in a mass-produced automobile. So there is no doubt that next-generation EVs will contain better battery technology than the current-generation.

I also have confidence in the sustained, long-term improvement in EV range and costs which comes from basic knowledge of the history of how technology advances. The tripling of the range of the Boeing 737 over a fifty-year period is my favorite example of how technology marches on in the transportation arena.

The really wild extrapolations in this thread are the ones which proclaim that somehow FCV technology will overtake EV technology even though it is still massively more expensive and significantly less efficient. The insertion of mutiple low-efficiency energy conversion steps in the FCV chain ensure that per-mile costs of renewable-powered FCVs CANNOT go below that of BEVs. Such proclamations of a future victory by FCVs in the area of personal transportation are certainly based on unrealistic extrapolations of rapid improvements far into the future.

Historical data are not always a good predictor of the future. Additionally, correlating advancements
in different technology sectors is problematic too.

"The really wild extrapolations in this thread are the ones which proclaim that somehow FCV technology will overtake EV technology even though it is still massively more expensive and significantly less efficient."

Few if any, really claim the above.

 

[WetEV]

The really wild extrapolations in this thread are the ones which proclaim that somehow FCV technology will overtake EV technology even though it is still massively more expensive and significantly less efficient. The insertion of mutiple low-efficiency energy conversion steps in the FCV chain ensure that per-mile costs of renewable-powered FCVs CANNOT go below that of BEVs. Such proclamations of a future victory by FCVs in the area of personal transportation are certainly based on unrealistic extrapolations of rapid improvements far into the future.

Sure, but don't forget that the future will be rather different than the past. Quite possible that FCVs will be used for some applications, even at higher cost and lower efficiency.

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

There are only two public H2 stations in New England right now, soon to be three. Between Toyota and SunHydro, maybe another dozen in a couple years. But there would need to be hundreds more before a significant amount of people would opt for a FCEV, even if they were affordable. How long for that? Five to ten more years? Unlike BEVs, the stations have to built first, there's no viable home fueling option. So then what? They spend all that time and money to build stations and hope people buy the cars? That's a pretty high stakes gamble.

 

[RegGuheert]

Sure, but don't forget that the future will be rather different than the past.

In the case of batteries where we are very far away from theoretical limits, sustained incremental improvements should be expected. In the case of FCV, it is unreasonable to expect sustained large year-after-year improvements. Rather, the rate of improvement will likely slow to a much slower pace as the technology matures.

Quite possible that FCVs will be used for some applications, even at higher cost and lower efficiency.

Agreed. In fact, they already are!

 

[RegGuheert]

There are only two public H2 stations in New England right now, soon to be three. Between Toyota and SunHydro, maybe another dozen in a couple years. But there would need to be hundreds more before a significant amount of people would opt for a FCEV, even if they were affordable. How long for that? Five to ten more years? Unlike BEVs, the stations have to built first, there's no viable home fueling option. So then what? They spend all that time and money to build stations and hope people buy the cars? That's a pretty high stakes gamble.

It's a lot like CNG stations except that the H2 stations cost quite a bit more to build. I've considered purchasing a CNG car several times in the past, but they have never built a single CNG station near me.

 

[GRA]

As it states, the article is talking about the TCO and not the purchase price alone. Unfortunately, the report requires paid access so we can't see the methodology used, but the title page and summary is here: https://portal.luxresearchinc.com/research/report_excerpt/18191" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes, but you can see clearly from the chart that the purchase price for the EV option is much higher than for the $30,000 FCV.

Presumably for the same range, but again, without knowing the assumptions or the methodology it's all speculation on our part.

 

[RegGuheert]

Presumably for the same range, but again, without knowing the assumptions or the methodology it's all speculation on our part.

Yeah, that's probably it. But for many applications, an EV with a smaller range is equivalent.