Are hydrogen tanks superior to batteries?

Yes, indeed. $20M a year allocated but not necessarily spent. So far there are only ~30 H2 stations in California, each at a cost of $1M - $2 M. So not all the allocated funds were used. The number of stations are going to double by next year, making the H2 cars more accessible for even a larger number number of middle and higher class of people in California.
I live in SF bay area and the station locations are enough for me. So far in about 10 days, I don't feel a need for more stations.
As the range of H2 cars increase, there is a lesser need for too many stations. It's not like you need a 50 stall supercharger so 50 cars can sit there for hours, as each gets less charge due to sharing the same electricity supply line.
What's more important is to have the stations always operational and ready to dispense.

The AB 8 annual evaluation from CARB published Nov 2017 is worth a read for anyone who claims to be an investor gathering information from the internet. But of course, there are also the closed minded investors who pretend to listen but resist any view that is different from his own.
https://arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/hydrogen/hydrogen.htm

Fun fact: Until 2015, there wasn't even a way to measure dispensed hydrogen correctly, a prerequisite for any retail sales.

 

Hey Martin sorry to bother u again but what r your Thoughts on this stuff from Hytek real or vapour ? My knowledge of what is possible with hydrogen isn't the best

 

Hi Martin,
I have started a new thread here to document my experience and for others to learn/exchange information about H2 cars, as there are so few fuel cell owners, and even fewer posting on forums.
https://insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/clarity-fuel-cell.1156/page-2#post-11953

To answer your question: It takes same time as a gas car, or may be little less. I filled 2 times by myself; actual fill up of 3.263 kg and 3.6 kg took 2-3 mins. Then, few secs to connect the hose and swipe the card and enter the zip code.

About benefit of longer range: What I meant is that with longer range, I will be filling less often. So, I have to make a detour of 2 miles every week instead of, say, every 3-4 days with a shorter range. The other thing is that the station needs to be along the commute or other frequently used route of the driver. With longer range, the chance is higher that some station is along the route that is traveled in this car. My actual detour is a mile.

BTW, I also have an 80 mile electric car. I could never use it for long distance (even 120 mile RT), since finding fast charging stations and then spending even 30 mins is too much when I am already short on time. Over the last few years, I saw its range decline from 105 miles to ~75 miles in mild weather. In winter, it is down to 70 miles. Even then, as soon as I start driving, the range drops 7 miles when I drove just 3 miles I still haven't sold it. It is good for nearby errands.

H2 station cost: I think it is highly dependent on source of H2 and capacity. With higher capacity, initial outlay is higher but H2 cost is lower; and vice versa. It may also depend on whether it just dispenses, or also produces its own H2.

Also, you are wrong about H2 cars costing more. The Clarity is really Acura quality on steroids. I don't feel that I'm paying more for the powertrain. Similar gas cars lease for similar prices without any incentives. But they are also more versatile (can go outside CA) and people have accepted them for decades and can fill up anywhere.

 

Not even remotely close. Between 92% and 95% of Tesla car charging is done at slow chargers, mostly at home or at work, where Tesla pays for none of the charging.

The Supercharger network was intended only to support long-range driving, and Tesla has taken steps to limit its abuse by those using it for everyday charging. To put it more succinctly: The Tesla Supercharging network was built to fight the perception of range anxiety, not to provide the equivalent of "free fuel". And it has been pretty successful at both fighting the perception of range anxiety for Tesla cars, as well as promoting sales of those cars.
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And yet, you were quite pleased to use the term "clean diesel" back when it fit your agenda. Are you actually arguing it was acceptable for you to use a dishonest, falsely positive term for one fuel type, while it's not acceptable for someone else to use an honest and accurate, if negative, label for another fuel type?

You like to use sophistry and other deceptive, mendacious, and subtly fallacious arguments, but this isn't one of your better ones.
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Here, Martin shows what his true purpose is in posting to this forum. It's not to promote EVs, it's not even pretending to promote fool cell cars; it's to bash BEVs in general and Tesla, specifically. It's the same reason he pretended to promote "clean diesel" on TheEEStory forum.

It's pure FUD to say that Tesla "subsidized" the manufacture of its cars. A much more honest, more objective (but still kindergarten-level) analysis would be that Tesla spent more on expanding its production plus its sales and service network than it earned in profits selling its cars.

It's as absurd as saying Joe the barber "subsidized" his customers' haircuts because he took out a loan to upgrade and expand his barbershop, and the loan was worth more than he earned in haircuts for the year.
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When reading a claim for a revolutionary new power source, our first question should always be "Where is the energy coming from?" It's very useful to think about energy in terms of thermodynamics. I find it helpful to think of the flow of energy as an analogy to water flowing always downhill, and never uphill! Just where does the energy come from; the energy used to produce H2 onboard a vehicle, and what process is used to cause that energy to "run downhill" to produce useful power?

As far as claiming they can store H2 "in a liquid form with no big compression", that's not possible if it's actually H2. Now, it might be possible to generate some sort of liquid hydrocarbon fuel onboard, or some fuel requiring only low compression (such as methane), but it's physically impossible to store H2 as a liquid without (a) cryogenic cooling, which takes a lot of energy, and (b) compression on top of that, which again takes a lot of energy.

And if you carry enough energy onboard to generate all that fuel, then why waste so much of it by using it that way? Why not use that same energy to generate electric power for an EV drivetrain? That would take your car much farther on the same amount of energy!

Without reading the details of this claim, I don't think it's fair to label it a scam; that would be jumping to a conclusion. But at best, the claim as described is highly misleading.
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Are you actually pretending to question that California and other States have spent many, many millions of dollars to subsidize the construction of hydrogen fueling stations, just to support an absurdly small number of fool cell cars? A cost which comes to $1 million for only a dozen cars filled per day?

I think you know better. If you know enough to write intelligently about the subject, then you're just "playing dumb" here.

Here's a relevant quote:

in 2013, Governor Jerry Brown signed a new law that provides $20 million a year to build at least 100 hydrogen refueling stations in California by 2024.
​

Source: A PBS News Hour article: "Which comes first, hydrogen-powered cars or the fueling stations?"

I'm sure that Big Oil is quite happy at getting the citizens of California and other States to pay many millions of tax dollars to support their "hydrogen economy" scam!
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That's the fallacy of false equivalency. It's like arguing "there is room for the idea that the Earth ls flat, as well as the idea that the Earth is spherical."

No, there is no room in an educated person's mind for such science-denier claims. There is no magic way to convert the hydrogen molecule into something which will make a practical fuel.
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I'd be interested to see if you can find any post of mine which said that, or something close to it. I think you're mischaracterizing what I said.

Let me very clear on one thing: What attracted me to the idea of EEStor's EESU "magic supercapacitor/battery" was the claim that it would become the "holy grail" for EV battery tech. If you describe an ideal battery for BEVs, the EESU would have been pretty close to that! In a similar fashion, I am attracted to the idea of solid-state batteries, or Ionic Materials' plastic battery, or those revolutionary organic supercapacitors you recently described in glowing terms. I'm very attracted to (and "enthusiastic" about, if you want to put it that way) the idea that any of those might finally produce the "holy grail" of EV batteries!

I did spend a lot of time on TheEEStory forum arguing with those who were sure that the EESU "magic supercapacitor/battery" couldn't possibly work, just as I spent a lot of time arguing with those who were sure it did work. True skepticism, in the scientific sense, means that in absence of conclusive evidence, the scientific-minded person must -- absolutely must -- maintain a neutral viewpoint. If you were actually the scientist you claim to be, Martin, then you wouldn't need to have that explained to you!

Now, it's certainly true that I did maintain a "glass half full" viewpoint towards the EESU, as opposed to a "glass half empty" one, so long as I could justify that viewpoint in a rational manner. I thought -- and still do -- that if I was going to spend a lot of time on a forum, then it was best to adopt a positive attitude toward the subject under discussion, or at least as positive as it was possible to take while remaining skeptical about the claims.

Otherwise, Martin... I would have been posting like a curmudgeon, rejecting reasonable arguments, and stubbornly clinging to arguments even after they were utterly debunked. Rather like the guy who started this thread, innit?
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There are a number of battery storage systems available, now.

How many hydrogen electrolyzer storage systems are available for sale, now?

 

Charging batteries is much better than electrolysis / compression / fuel cell round trip.

The lowest wall-to-wheel efficiency is about 15%, and that includes the motor. So, a battery pack to battery pack efficiency is probably at least 90% efficient.

There are several home battery storage systems available today - the best known is the Tesla Powerwall. Your knowledge is lacking, apparently.