This article from the International Business Times here , written by Lorraine Lorenzo is missing the point by a mile and then some. The technology to use hydrogen for transportation has been around for decades. Actually, Swiss inventor Francois Isaac de Rivaz in 1807 designed the first 4-wheel prototype (pictured) that ran on hydrogen and oxygen gas.
In 2003, George W. Bush announced an initiative to promote hydrogen powered vehicles. As of 2018, there were 40 publicly accessible hydrogen refueling stations in the US, most of which are located in California. Compare this with the 19,000 electric charging stations currently available in the US.
Now the article is using the information from an article published in the AutoExpress.co.uk, which is quoting Dr Felix Gress, head of corporate communications and public affairs at automotive technology firm Continental.
This seems to reflect a conflict of interest in proclaiming that electric vehicles are doomed while at the same time pushing for improvements for hydrogen fuel cells “Through this cooperation, we hope for innovative approaches to the future use of fuel cells in the automotive industry as a building block for the diversity of future mobility,”. After all if it were not for Elon Musk we would likely have about 0 electric charging stations in 2019. So the industry is trying to take away the genius behind an innovative company which they cannot beat their their own products.
This type of negative press will also help the influential oil industry lobby and try to divert attention to supposedly new technology which they can later on easily kill off.
Unless there are real Advantages of using one energy store over another the default will be to revert back to what is a proven technology ( I.e. gasoline ). Electric vehicles have all the advantages and have only one major disadvantage. The time it takes to recharge.
Work on improving the recharge time is going strong and using a ultra-fast 450 kW charger, developed by Siemens, Porsche, and BMW could take on enough electricity to drive an extra 62 miles in just 3 minutes. Now 3 minutes is on average shorter than a standard pit stop at a gas station and further improvements will certainly continue to push the boundaries.
Trying to shift attention to another new technology is simply a distraction and is meant to undermine the value which electric vehicles offer to the user and to society.
Super car producers have been shamed with the torque a EV can produce as opposed to a standard 12V cylinder combustion engine and it is no surprise that hyper cars like the Porsche 918 Spyder as well as Tesla model S boast 2.2 second from 0 to 60 mph. La Ferrari requires about 3.0 seconds, and the Bugatti Veyron dues it in about 2.5 seconds. The hyper cars will cost you anything between 1 million$ to 3 million dollars a pop, while the Tesla model S can be had for only $75k.
In my opinion hydrogen will never get to the point of adoption as EVs have. It would require a person the likes of Elon Musk to push the boundaries and not give up when everyone else is telling you ” it’s impossible”. The infrastructure problems alone will let most companies quit right away. The fact that there are as many recharging stations around should tell you something about Tesla as a company.
So reading the original article just felt like a hit job on EVs in general without a true understanding of the changing of battery and charging technologies and the impressive performance numbers inherent to EVs.
