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Nearly all major car companies are sabotaging EV transition, and Japan is worst, study finds (thedriven.io)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml
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[–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

I'll layer on to the other replies which are spot on...

One reason I've soured on hydrogen is that it's overall much less efficient than battery as an energy storage mechanism.

This is a really in depth article about a study that found that "well to wheel" efficiency of battery EVs was 70-80% and with hydrogen it's 25-30%.

I was initially excited about hydrogen as energy storage for renewable sources, but battery tech has improved and is improving.

Also, one of the major advantages of a BEV for me is the ability to charge at home, possibly from energy generated by my own panels. Even if there were solutions for me to generate my own hydrogen, I'd rather lose 20-30% of that energy with a BEV than lose 70-75% with a FCEV.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I've provided a rebuttal for the other replies which you might find interesting.

    In a scenario where you're considering using roof-top solar to produce hydrogen for your car then yes, the inefficiency of cracking hydrogen from water makes it unappealing.

    The thing is, I don't think most of the world has access to roof-top solar and the portion that does will diminish as population and population density increases.

    If you consider for example this project in Western Australia covering 15,000km2 it makes a lot more sense. The land (and associated sun light) is practically free. Hydrogen is a far more cost effective method of energy storage to get the energy from middle-of-nowhere-west-aus to market.

    I guess one way to look at it is that hydrogen is a better option if the cost of the solar energy is less than a third of what it would be if you produced it nearby.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Counterpoint, most of the world does not have access to "middle of nowhere" regions with lots of sunlight, that is just Australia and a few places near major deserts.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    If only there was some way we could transport energy from these areas of the world with cheap land and plentiful sunlight to those areas where the energy was required.

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