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The amount of money every vehicle brand is putting into EV’s, it is the future. The people living under rocks are only ones not seeing the captain obvious things.
The main reason car companies are directing the current amounts of R&D to EVs is government policies are forcing them to. There may be a niche for electric vehicles in the marketplace and there may even be a lot of room for that niche to grow with or without government meddling, but batteries will never come close to competing with liquid fuels for energy density and everyone knows it. Major gains in range equal major gains in weight which in turn offsets some of the range gain potential of more onboard energy storage. Liquid-fueled cars don't have that problem.
Most hydrogen comes from hydrocarbons, which is to say it's just fossil fuel in another form. But there's still a lot of potential upside in pollution control by containing and controlling pollution from a handful of production facilities instead of trying to contain and control it from hundreds of millions of vehicles. Incidentally electric cars have this same advantage.
No one knows for sure if something is “the future”. I’m all for alternative technology to give consumers more choices. However, what is the better choice isn’t always the one that wins the technology battle. Sometimes I think the alternative power vehicles are like Sony Betamax and the gasoline ICE are the VHS. While Beta offered better quality audio and video, they were limited in recording space and higher price. VHS offered more recording space and a lower price. VHS became the one for the masses while Beta was for the enthusiast. For those who are hard core electric fans, imagine the price for electric vehicles if everyone was required to drive one instead of ICE vehicles. Such a situation would result in a shortage in the materials needed to build the batteries for such vehicles. The price for those materials would be through the roof and thus would also greatly increase the cost of the vehicle. Thieves would find ways to steal these vehicles just for the batteries alone. The price for these electric vehicles would become far too expensive for the middle to low income earners. I’m not saying there’s no market nor future in electric vehicles. Perhaps in the future battery technology will improve and not require such materials. Perhaps they will come up with a way to recycle the materials from used or expired car batteries. GM had a great hydrogen concept of a fuel cell platform that allowed various bodies to be plugged into the skateboard including sports coupe, sedan, and van. That was over ten years ago.
Most hydrogen comes from hydrocarbons, which is to say it's just fossil fuel in another form. But there's still a lot of potential upside in pollution control by containing and controlling pollution from a handful of production facilities instead of trying to contain and control it from hundreds of millions of vehicles. Incidentally electric cars have this same advantage.
Err. You normally make hydrogen from water. When you burn hydrogen, it reverts back to water. If you use a renewable source to make the electricity that is used to convert water to hydrogen and oxygen, it's pollution-free.
CNG already fuels a lot of bus fleets. With fracking, it's a dirt cheap local fuel source in many places. For something like a bus or taxi fleet that operates 24x7, the cheapest fuel source wins.
The Toyota Mira and Honda Clarity seem pretty interesting and being manufactured by Experience established car companies GM is working on one as well quite fascinating technology
Err. You normally make hydrogen from water. When you burn hydrogen, it reverts back to water. If you use a renewable source to make the electricity that is used to convert water to hydrogen and oxygen, it's pollution-free.
CNG already fuels a lot of bus fleets. With fracking, it's a dirt cheap local fuel source in many places. For something like a bus or taxi fleet that operates 24x7, the cheapest fuel source wins.
Water is hard to split into hydrogen and oxygen, and probably can't be done at a vehicle level. There are companies working on vehicle sized reformers that would split natural gas or other gases like propane and butane into hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, storing the carbon for disposal, venting the oxygen, and using the hydrogen for either fuel cells or burning in an engine. Far less pollution, and probably very feasible for large trucks in the not too distant future.
The day we can figure out how to get hydrogen for free or very cheap, it will become a popular fuel. For now... too expensive to extract.
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