“Battery EV” vs “Hydrogen Fuel cell EV”

[ejeffrey]

I miscalculated once and ran out of gas.  I walked to the gas station with a 2 gallon jug, filled it, and walked back to my car.  That 2 gallons would take me 50+ miles, within the distance to the next gas station.

AAA (USA's largest motor club for road side assistance) would have come with a gallon or two of gas if I was members and called for assistance.

I think AAA (or the likes) has the capacity to carry a fuel cell should they decide to do so.  They usually come in a small pick-up with other equipment, some including a generator for starter-battery and jumping.  I doubt they would be able to come with large enough a generator to charge up your car for another 20 to 50 miles in short duration.  In USA mid-west States, finding a common gas station in the middle of night (1am to 6am) can be iffy within 50 miles.  I doubt charging stations will be more available than common gas stations any time soon.

I think the lack of an easily portable energy source is a huge disadvantage.  In that context, fuel cell at least have some hope, EV's that is plug-in charging only has much less hope...

This is a disadvantage but I think it is relatively minor.  Running out of gas on roads in the US is extremely rare these days.  It is absolutely not something we should be optimizing for in passenger vehicles.

The easiest solution and the one that most people will probably use is just towing.  Certainly that is what would happen today. Tow the car to a service station or the nearest place with a power outlet / charger.  Yes, that means you have to dispatch a tow truck rather than just a guy in a pickup truck, but it's really no big deal.   AAA dispatches plenty of tow trucks for other breakdowns already.

If it were a common problem it wouldn't be hard to fit roadside assistance trucks with 10 kWhr batteries they can give you enough charge to get where you are going.  The charge part will take a bit longer than dumping a couple gallons of gas in the tank, but still less than the amount of time you waited for assistance.  I doubt mobile chargers like this will catch on, but as EVs get a larger market share maybe?

[nctnico]

Thanks, its difficult to find articles accurately detailing what is the cold weather performance of hydrogen cars. (filling time, drive-ability in cold weather, etc)
...woops, just seen your article, ..ok...it looks like cold weather refilling for HEV's is now solved (?)...and it can be done just as fats as at say 20 degc ambient?

Technology is progressing fast. Articles over 2 or 3 years old are likely to be outdated already.

Google also doesnt give stats for percentage of  BEV batteries that get "rogue" cell.
If this is too high, it will be a major downer for BEVs.

That is not a real problem in today's EV batteries. Typically cells are tested / matched before they are used to assemble a battery. On top of that modern EVs are optimised to maximise battery life by using active cooling / heating systems and limiting charge / discharge currents. But still there is a chance a battery pack goes bad which easely could lead to a car being scrap because the cost of a replacement pack is higher compared to the value of the vehicle. This largely depends on how the packs are constructed. Some manufacturers use modular packs in which it is possible to swap out a small number of cells which greatly reduces the cost of repairing a battery pack.

And for those out-of-service-life BEV batteries that get used for the grid storage systems.....what's the rate (total stats)  at which they get "rogue" cell?....i bet its high.

IMHO that is a pipe dream. A Li-ion cell shows exponential wear so using it for grid storage gives a very poor capacity to weight ratio and you'll also need to match used cells and somehow keep quality constant with a supply of cells which vary in quality and chemistry. On top of that you need to disassemble the packs in a way you can recover the cells in a usefull state; in most packs the cells are welded to nickel strips / plates. Recycling to recover the raw materials is a much saner approach.

[rstofer]

IMHO that is a pipe dream. A Li-ion cell shows exponential wear so using it for grid storage gives a very poor capacity to weight ratio and you'll also need to match used cells and somehow keep quality constant with a supply of cells which vary in quality and chemistry. On top of that you need to disassemble the packs in a way you can recover the cells in a usefull state; in most packs the cells are welded to nickel strips / plates. Recycling to recover the raw materials is a much saner approach.

And yet Australia has a huge battery storage system - 150 MW/194 MWh

We need a bunch of those systems in California.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve

It's my understanding that the Lithium is still valuable in depleted cells.  That's important because we're not knee deep in Lithium.

[nctnico]

IMHO that is a pipe dream. A Li-ion cell shows exponential wear so using it for grid storage gives a very poor capacity to weight ratio and you'll also need to match used cells and somehow keep quality constant with a supply of cells which vary in quality and chemistry. On top of that you need to disassemble the packs in a way you can recover the cells in a usefull state; in most packs the cells are welded to nickel strips / plates. Recycling to recover the raw materials is a much saner approach.

And yet Australia has a huge battery storage system - 150 MW/194 MWh

But those systems are using new cells. Not used ones from EVs. Faringdon was asking about using used cells from EVs for grid storage.

[ejeffrey]

When talking about recycling or reuse, its important to remember that the rate of sale of new EVs completely dwarfs the number going off the road due to age.  The oldest Tesla model S is less than 10 years old and most of them are still going strong unless they have been wrecked.  There are older EVs than that but non that sold in large volumes and of course the number of cars Tesla is producing now is way more than back then too.  Aside from some cars like the early Nissan Leafs that had undersized and passively cooled battery packs that died quickly, there just aren't a lot of EV batteries available to recycle or reuse.  So there isn't a huge commercial incentive to improve that technology.   In another 10 years there will be a lot more available EOL batteries and a lot more incentive use them efficiently, but it will take at least another decade after that before recycled materials can be a significant fraction of new battery production.

[TimFox]

In the Earth's crust, lithium has a higher abundance (0.0017%) than, say, lead (0.001%) or tin (0.00022%), but far below silicon (27%).
See  https://periodictable.com/Properties/A/CrustAbundance.an.html

[james_s]

Right now at least there is a strong market for used EV batteries from wrecked cars. People are using them for conversions of older cars and for home energy storage. It will actually be nice as that market expands, there are all kinds of things I can use large banks of lithium ion batteries for.

[james_s]

This is a disadvantage but I think it is relatively minor.  Running out of gas on roads in the US is extremely rare these days.  It is absolutely not something we should be optimizing for in passenger vehicles.

The easiest solution and the one that most people will probably use is just towing.  Certainly that is what would happen today. Tow the car to a service station or the nearest place with a power outlet / charger.  Yes, that means you have to dispatch a tow truck rather than just a guy in a pickup truck, but it's really no big deal.   AAA dispatches plenty of tow trucks for other breakdowns already.

If it were a common problem it wouldn't be hard to fit roadside assistance trucks with 10 kWhr batteries they can give you enough charge to get where you are going.  The charge part will take a bit longer than dumping a couple gallons of gas in the tank, but still less than the amount of time you waited for assistance.  I doubt mobile chargers like this will catch on, but as EVs get a larger market share maybe?

True, I ran out of gas once 20 years ago because I was driving an old truck that had a dead spot in the fuel sender, it certainly isn't something that happens very often. I think it's probably much more common for cars to break down due to mechanical failures than to run out of gas. It really should be easier to avoid in an EV too since most people are going to plug in to charge every night rather than doing what most people do with gas cars and procrastinating until they are nearly empty. I don't know anyone who goes to a gas station every day to top up.

[james_s]

Oddly, that's exactly what I do and have done so for the last 8 years.  A partially charged battery is, well, partially charged - kind of range limiting.

That's what every single one of the EV drivers I know does too, some of them even plug it in at work because they can take advantage of that perk. It's a total non-issue, I don't know why he tries to make a mountain out of that mole hill every time. If EVs had been the norm for decades most people would balk at the idea of having to drive out of their way to a filling station and dispense gallons of smelly liquid into their car every time they need more energy. Why would you ever want to do that if there's any possible way you can fuel up at home? Can you imagine anyone wanting a liquid fueled smartphone that they have to take to a store every couple of weeks to fill up with fuel instead of just plugging it in on the nightstand every night when they go to bed? I find the thought hilarious because virtually nobody would trade the convenience of charging their phone at home for a week or two of run time if it were feasible to do. It's just so easy to plug in, it's no burden at all.

[james_s]

Now calculate the difference in cost between a 150kW generator compared to a jerry can and how that would reflect on your AAA subscription cost.
Why do you think it would need anything like that power ? EVs are pretty good at predicting range, so for the occasional user who runs out, it doesn't matter if it takes 30+ mins to charge enough to get to the nearest charge point. 10-20kW would be more than adequate. And once breakdown vans go electric ( or at least PHEV), they can just charge from their battery.

A jerry can is not much use with an electric vehicle though is it? I'm not arguing that this is needed, I'm only saying that it's a simple engineering solution if somebody does decide it's necessary. I don't really think a genset would be all that expensive in terms of the cost on your membership, a truck with a 150kW genset wouldn't be any more expensive than a tow truck. Now I think a tow truck is probably a more practical solution, but a generator truck is certainly possible, and large generators are not hard to come by. I could drive over to the rental place a couple of miles from me and rent one on a trailer right now if I needed to. https://www.sunbeltrentals.com/equipment/detail/1611/0090120/150kw-diesel-generator/ Buying one outright is what, a few tens of thousands? That isn't much in terms of a business expense, even the non-tow-capable roadside assistance trucks are probably $100k equipped.

[tom66]

In fact, a good hydrogen EV will take about 25-30 minutes to refill at -10C ambient.

Thas a good point, i looked into it, and it seems to be because having  the water in the fuel cell ice up causes major problems...
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/automobiles/fuel-cells-in-the-deep-freeze.html
..however, the above article seems to suggest that they think they might be able to solve this , "might".

That is a 17 year old article  Toyota's Mirai works down to -30 deg. C https://newsroom.toyota.eu/the-new-toyota-mirai/

Works != is a good performer.

Hydrogen vehicles still struggle to fuel when very cold - it's an unsolved problem with the technology.

Meanwhile a Tesla EV with a preheated battery can supercharge just as fast at -10C ambient as it can at 40C ambient.

Opportunity charging at a supermarket or other public place also makes you a target for <insert something bad here>.  I can see places of employment because many are behind fences but I'm certainly not going to charge right next to an ATM machine.

Can't see an AC charge while getting cash out being worthwhile (what, 250Wh, for 5 minutes at most?)  But at a supermarket you might be there for 45 minutes - 1 hour every week (depends how efficient you are I suppose.)  And I don't see why charging would make you any more of a risk, especially given it's more and more common.  I guess a moron could try cutting the live electrical cable.  Let's see how that goes for them.

Were I still working, I would have been the guy building out multiple charging stations for our employees.  As we were essentially an engineering division of some 10,000 employees (far less in later years), how many stations would I need?  10% of current headcount?  We had enough incoming power (115kV 28MVA easily) but I would have had to dig up a lot of pavement to get the 12kV over to a dedicated substation (or several) to provide 240V for the chargers.  It would have been a monster project but the company would have just considered it a cost of doing business.  Charging would have been free.  I don't know what it might cost but I know I would take a flogging every day for a) it isn't done yet and b) it costs too much.  Such is the life of a project manager.

Workplace charging is a good example of somewhere where 2-3kW chargers are perfectly adequate.  Cars are typically parked up for between 8-10 hours per day, so even 2kW would get you 16kWh and for a five-day week, that's nigh on 80kWh - few people would use that much for their commute. 

It's my understanding that many old car parks in the USA had 'block heater' supplies in the colder states, at least at one point.  I think EVSE supplies in workplaces could be like this - 115V 15/20A single phase (and in Europe, 230V 10A.)  Unfortunately, regulations mean that EVSEs are a lot more expensive than just supplying power, what are you gonna do... but, despite this, they're still much cheaper than the actual cost of installing the parking space in the first place. (An average 'space' in a tarmacked parking lot is ca. $8,000 -- so a $400 EVSE isn't really going to blow the budget.)

[nctnico]

It's my understanding that many old car parks in the USA had 'block heater' supplies in the colder states, at least at one point.  I think EVSE supplies in workplaces could be like this - 115V 15/20A single phase (and in Europe, 230V 10A.)  Unfortunately, regulations mean that EVSEs are a lot more expensive than just supplying power, what are you gonna do... but, despite this, they're still much cheaper than the actual cost of installing the parking space in the first place. (An average 'space' in a tarmacked parking lot is ca. $8,000 -- so a $400 EVSE isn't really going to blow the budget.)

And then the tax collector comes around and fines the employer for handing out freebies to the employees. In the NL 'free' EV charging for employees is an administrative nightmare.

[not1xor1]

Hydrogen vehicles is mainly a matter of greenwashing. They get hydrogen from methane, so why not using just methane as fuel?
Taking into account the energy involved in producing and storing hydrogen and fuel cells, methane cars would pollute much less.

On the other side EVs are rapidly improving and costs are getting lower and lower while new battery technologies are appearing (like Na-Ion batteries).

Unlike fuel cells, in future EVs batteries might also give energy back to the grid integrating with solar and wind energy, taking excess production and giving it back when there is no wind or sun.

Electricity is everywhere while an hydrogen grid is nowhere.

Hydrogen, when coming from solar of wind, might have a future as a partial or total replacement for methane in the methane grid.
IMHO its use in vehicles is a dead end.

[Faringdon]

in future EVs batteries might also give energy back to the grid integrating with solar and wind energy, taking excess production and giving it back when there is no wind or sun.

Thanks, i believe this has been tried, but from what i hear, its not the way forward for the solar/wind/battery world. To suceed with a solar/wind/battery  business, you really need to use high quality , new,  matched batteries. Its a long story why..but has to do with payback times etc etc . (unless of course, its for a hobbyist who wants to do it for fun)

Hydrogen vehicles is mainly a matter of greenwashing. They get hydrogen from methane, so why not using just methane as fuel?

Thanks, i think there's other ways to produce hydrogen...and if those ways are powered 100% by renewables, then hydrogen is just as eco friendly as BEVs.

That's important because we're not knee deep in Lithium.

Thanks, this to me is one of the mains points for Hydrogen

Hydrogen vehicles still struggle to fuel when very cold - it's an unsolved problem with the technology.

Thanks, im trying to find more on this...it does seem that if the water in the fuel cell turns to ice, then its a major downer for that fuel cell.....then again, some of the newer fuel cell stacks are  small and easy to replace if say their pre-heater (or whatever)  fails and they do get ice damaged.

[nfmax]

AFAIK most hydrogen fuel cells still use platinum-group metal catalysts, though research is underway to replace them. But as it is, If I had a hydrogen car, I would be very wary of chavs with cordless angle grinders, given how prevalent catalytic converter theft has become. Don't want to get too close to Darwin in action, either

[mikeselectricstuff]

Thanks, i think there's other ways to produce hydrogen...and if those ways are powered 100% by renewables, then hydrogen is just as eco friendly as BEVs.

Only if there's literally nothing else you can do with that electricity. Electron-to-wheel efficiency of hydrogen is still only about 30% that of BEV

[nctnico]

Unlike fuel cells, in future EVs batteries might also give energy back to the grid integrating with solar and wind energy, taking excess production and giving it back when there is no wind or sun.

Now calculate the price per kWh for doing that. Storing electricity in Li-ion gets expensive quickly especially when using a battery which isn't designed for that purpose. The power company would need to pay you tens of dollar / euro cents per kWh to cover your costs and someone else has to come up with that money.  After a couple of hours it becomes more economical to use hydrogen as a storage medium. The worst mistake to make here is to focus solely on efficiency. Think about how much a mains adapter would cost if it where 99.9% efficient. It just doesn't make sense from a financial point of view.

Electricity is everywhere while an hydrogen grid is nowhere.

Actually there is. Especially if there is a natural gas grid. In the NL the natural gas infrastructure is being modified for use with hydrogen for a while now. The pipes are already suitable for hydrogen and whenever connecting hardware (valves, bends, couplings, etc) need to be replaced they are replaced by models that are suitable for hydrogen.

[Faringdon]

AFAIK most hydrogen fuel cells still use platinum-group metal catalysts, though research is underway to replace them.

Thanks, i will look into how much of this is needed, as platinium is very rare.
In any case, if both BEV's and HEV's are reliant on rare materials,  then it still means its a good idea to not be too dependent on either BEV's or HEV's, ..but that a mixture of both is needed. Platinum being rare, therefore does not, IMHO, mean that HEV's should be discarded.
(i must admit i dont know how much platinum goes into a fuel cell, apparently its something like 50 grams?)

Also, i am not convinced that either platinium or lithium , or cobalt, are really rare, maybe its just that we as a human race havent yet spent much time looking for them?

The following
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/bosch-ev-fuel-cells-less-platinum-report/
actually says that Bosch's new prototype fuel cells use less platinum , 3 to 6 grams.

A BEV battery contains a whopping 10Kg of Lithium...thats a lot of a metal that is rare, and where the worlds deposits of it could get bought up by a single company/country.

[TimFox]

See my reply #55 above:  lithium is not terribly rare.
Fuel cells use platinum, which is rare, but it does not react chemically with the fuel, therefore thin layers work.
In batteries, the metals do react with the electrolyte and bulk quantities are required.

[rstofer]

Unlike fuel cells, in future EVs batteries might also give energy back to the grid integrating with solar and wind energy, taking excess production and giving it back when there is no wind or sun.

Many years ago, there was a movement to get vehicles powered by natural gas.  Some utility companies bought into it as did many municipal bus systems.  The public never did and that's why it is nearly impossible to find a filling station.  I see fuel cells going the same way.  Municipalities and utilities will buy into it (because they are forced to) but not much else.  You can see that pattern in the California initiative to install 250 hydrogen stations and 250,000 battery charging stations.

As to powering a house with a pickup truck:  Ford is already doing that:

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/2022-ford-f-150-lightning-electric-pickup-intelligent-backup-power-house/

I think they are leaving out a few details like not back-feeding the grid.  I'm almost in the market for a new truck, maybe I'll look into this idea.

[Faringdon]

See my reply #55 above:  lithium is not terribly rare.

Thanks, from that link Lithium is 1700e-6 % of the earths crust.
Platinium is 3.6e-6% of the earths crust.

A BEV needs 10,000g of lithium
A HEV needs 4.5g of platinum (according to Bosch)

It also seems that its easier to recycle platinum out of a dead fuel cell, than to recycle all that 10kG of lithium out of a dead BEV battery(?)

...So its pretty even result for HEV and BEV here....thats assuming that the following  link has the percentages accurate, which it may not(?) since up untll recently, lithium and platinum havent been required in bulk , so were possibly not investigated much?
https://periodictable.com/Properties/A/CrustAbundance.al.html

[wraper]

See my reply #55 above:  lithium is not terribly rare.

Thanks, from that link Lithium is 1700e-6 % of the earths crust.
Platinium is 3.6e-6% of the earths crust.

A BEV needs 10,000g of lithium
A HEV needs 4.5g of platinum (according to Bosch)

According to Bosch for what? Catalytic converter? HEV is not a hydrogen powered vehicle. Fuel cells require 10-20 times more platinum.

[nctnico]

See my reply #55 above:  lithium is not terribly rare.

Thanks, from that link Lithium is 1700e-6 % of the earths crust.
Platinium is 3.6e-6% of the earths crust.

A BEV needs 10,000g of lithium
A HEV needs 4.5g of platinum (according to Bosch)

According to Bosch for what? Catalytic converter? HEV is not a hydrogen powered vehicle. Fuel cells require 10-20 times more platinum.

Not according to the latest developments where the amount of platinum required for the fuel cell approaches the amount needed for a regular catalytic converter for a gasoline car. Actually, according to the reports I've read: the less platinum used in the hydrogen <-> water converters, the more efficient it is.

In the end it doesn't make sense to compare how rare materials are. It comes down to cost of mining, processing and the amount needed which are very different. For a good comparison you'd need to make a detailed analysis. On top of that you can also add more or less emphasis on political stability and the work environment for the miners.

[TimFox]

See my reply #55 above:  lithium is not terribly rare.

Thanks, from that link Lithium is 1700e-6 % of the earths crust.
Platinium is 3.6e-6% of the earths crust.

A BEV needs 10,000g of lithium
A HEV needs 4.5g of platinum (according to Bosch)

It also seems that its easier to recycle platinum out of a dead fuel cell, than to recycle all that 10kG of lithium out of a dead BEV battery(?)

...So its pretty even result for HEV and BEV here....thats assuming that the following  link has the percentages accurate, which it may not(?) since up untll recently, lithium and platinum havent been required in bulk , so were possibly not investigated much?
https://periodictable.com/Properties/A/CrustAbundance.al.html

Chemistry is not my subject, but why would it more difficult to recycle lithium out of a dead battery than to extract metallic lithium from the lithium salts that are mined to produce lithium?

[ejeffrey]

Unlike fuel cells, in future EVs batteries might also give energy back to the grid integrating with solar and wind energy, taking excess production and giving it back when there is no wind or sun.

Now calculate the price per kWh for doing that. Storing electricity in Li-ion gets expensive quickly especially when using a battery which isn't designed for that purpose. The power company would need to pay you tens of dollar / euro cents per kWh to cover your costs and someone else has to come up with that money.  After a couple of hours it becomes more economical to use hydrogen as a storage medium. The worst mistake to make here is to focus solely on efficiency. Think about how much a mains adapter would cost if it where 99.9% efficient. It just doesn't make sense from a financial point of view.

Electricity is everywhere while an hydrogen grid is nowhere.

Actually there is. Especially if there is a natural gas grid. In the NL the natural gas infrastructure is being modified for use with hydrogen for a while now.

A few programs to upgrade distribution is not the same this as hydrogen being everywhere, or even much of anywhere.

While 100% hydrogen is claimed as a goal, most of those efforts are blended with 10-20% hydrogen for combustion purposes.  This is relatively easy to do although it is currently  a considerably worse environmental profile than straight natural gas even with "green hydrogen"  it's fine for an r&d demo but deploying 20% hydrogen blends today would set decarbonization programs back years.

You can't use 20% hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles so until these pipelines go 100% hydrogen they can't be used for that purpose.  That is a lot harder as 100% hydrogen is a much bigger explosion and fire risk and is incompatible with existing equipment.  Given the rate of leaks from natural gas systems I'm very skeptical that hydrogen distribution to residential and light commercial properties will ever be practical although it is not impossible.

Electricity on the other hand has been reliably delivered to hundreds of millions of houses and businesses for decades.  So yes, hydrogen is currently nowhere.