
Japan’s big 3 (Nissan, Toyota, and Honda) may be supporting hydrogen fueled cars but it’s going to lag behind electric vehicles in the foreseeable future.
Why?
Because hydrogen fuel just comes up short in comparison. The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute(UMTRI) published a short snippet titled “The Relative Merits of Battery-Electric Vehicles and Fuel-Cell Vehicles” and even though the authors do see some merit in Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCV), electric Vehicles (EV) still sounds like the better option.
Battery-Electric Vehicles (BEV):
• Accessible charging stations
• More BEV models are available
• Best fuel economy
• Produce the lowest amount of greenhouse gases per mile
Sure the overall drive range is shorter than other types of vehicles and it takes time to charge the battery but this is improving in leaps and bound.
Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCV):
• Limited models
• Underdeveloped hydrogen-refueling infrastructure
• Requires liquid hydrogen and it’s produced using fossil fuels
There are two ways to produce the hydrogen that you pump into your car.
One method is through natural gas steam reformation where factories need to use high temperatures and pressure to break the gas into hydrogen and carbon oxide. This method accounts for the majority of hydrogen produce in the United States but that energy used in production come from fossil fuels.
The second method is electrolysis where an electric current is run through water in order to split it into hydrogen and oxygen. Why not produce hydrogen using this method only? Because that electricity still generated from non-renewable resources, you may as well just directly charge an EV with it. Once made, hydrogen needs to be cooled and stored in pressurized containers which requires even more energy.
My conclusion? Electric vehicles are better for the environmentally conscious. Your thoughts? And feel free to disagree with me.