Is electric really the answer?

[oilmagnet477]

I could see the transition of the existing network of road-side filling stations to be able to provide hydrogen as being much easier than providing electric charging from the same.

These locations are usually constrained in size and would not necessarily allow for many multiples of cars to be charged at once. The concept of hydrogen is so close to the way we already operate, it would be a much easier adoption imo.

Sure, there are problems but there are with petrol, it is just that it has been around for so long, we no longer take any notice. I mean, petrol isn't exactly safe in its naked form. Modern fuels also degrade over time if left in tanks/cans. 

There is also a significant issue for me, going forward. With more than 1 acre of grass to keep cut, what future choices do I have? Petrol- nope. Hydrogen - unlikely. Electric - no idea if an electric ride-on would have enough power to provide a 42" cut without a trailer full of batteries being towed behind. I'm sure I'd run over the cable if it were wired!

May have to revert to sheep - they, however, produce huge amounts of Greenhouse gases............but they taste better than grass clippings

[MPx]

6 minutes ago, oilmagnet477 said:

There is also a significant issue for me, going forward. With more than 1 acre of grass to keep cut, what future choices do I have? Petrol- nope. Hydrogen - unlikely. Electric - no idea if an electric ride-on would have enough power to provide a 42" cut without a trailer full of batteries being towed behind. I'm sure I'd run over the cable if it were wired!

This is a good point Ant that I've not heard being addressed anywhere.  I have 6 diesel engines and 8 petrol engines in various bits of groundcare kit (and 1 electric for the sprayer).  If they can produce electric lorries/buses (which I have seen) then presumably they "could" produce electric other stuff, but the point is, as far as I know, no one is developing such kit.  Given the ridiculous costs of current groundcare/agricultural kit (multiples of typical car money) its hard to understand how the Ag industry is going to be able to afford a wholesale changeover to new kit even if it does become available.  My latest compact tractor is 11 years old and cost £20k...  Hopefully rural supplies of red diesel and petrol will continue long after the new car ban.

[C8RKH]

14 minutes ago, oilmagnet477 said:

could see the transition of the existing network of road-side filling stations to be able to provide hydrogen as being much easier than providing electric charging from the same.

These locations are usually constrained in size and would not necessarily allow for many multiples of cars to be charged at once. The concept of hydrogen is so close to the way we already operate, it would be a much easier adoption imo.

Sure, there are problems but there are with petrol, it is just that it has been around for so long, we no longer take any notice. I mean, petrol isn't exactly safe in its naked form. Modern fuels also degrade over time if left in tanks/cans. 

This.

One of the big problems with BEV's is that the infrastructure upgrades and cost for the mass rollout of BEV's as "personal" transport is absolutely mind bending and mind boggling.  If you add to that the issue of street furniture congestion in most UK cities and the parking issues with the legacy housing estate then anyone who thinks it is doable to rollout personal charges for 23m homes and personal vehicles is just frankly smoking dope.  The government wants to see 20m BEV's on the road by 2035 and so we will need, over the next 15 years to rollout and install some 20m charging points. That's 773 ( as we are already 7 weeks into 2020) weeks, or 25,873 charging points a week, or 3,696 per day assuming you work 7 days a week.

To put that in to context we were takes with rolling out 23m smart meters in 14 years, and look how wide of the mark we have been there!

If you take away the emotion (advocates of BEVs get very emotional, evangelical even about them - and yes, some who are equally evangelical in their dismissal of them) the main issues facing BEV's are: the need for a charging solution; range; cost to purchase; environmental impact (full life)

With Hydrogen, the cost will come down (just as it has done with BEV's) rapidly but you are not asking society as a whole to fundamentally change what they do now, for something else. You can easily re-purpose existing filling stations and use those facilities as you do now for petrol, diesel and LPG at a much lower cost, and faster, that the national roll out of charging posts for BEV's.

I don;t understand the fuss being made about the transportation and storage of hydrogen. As with petrol, LPG, and many other chemicals as long as you use the correct vessels it is relatively safe. We could of course talk about the issues of Lithium batteries and burning as also being a major hazard, but there again, safety cells and systems are deployed to mitigate the risk, as would be the case with Hydrogen.

[KAS-118]

1 hour ago, oilmagnet477 said:

I could see the transition of the existing network of road-side filling stations to be able to provide hydrogen as being much easier than providing electric charging from the same.

These locations are usually constrained in size and would not necessarily allow for many multiples of cars to be charged at once. The concept of hydrogen is so close to the way we already operate, it would be a much easier adoption imo.

 

I agree that the Petrol Station Network is the ideal place for Hydrogen refilling - the issue at the moment is the cost of getting it there and storing it - compared to a BEV.

For a Car Charger - all you need is an electricity supply - which most places have. Hence you can find Car Chargers in some car parks and at hotels etc - where you couldn't locate a Hydrogen Filling point. The office where I work in Sweden has a number of electric charging points in its car parks - you would never dream of bunging a petrol station or hydrogen filling station there. 

As a point of interest - according to this article at least https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1165595/petrol-station-near-me-electric-car-charging-points-UK there are now more Public Electric Charging Points compared to Petrol Stations. Whilst it's true it takes considerably longer to Charge a BV,. than fill a fuel tank you also have the fact that BEV's can simply be re-charged at home. 

[C8RKH]

Getting Hydrogen to the petrol station is no more expensive than getting petrol, or indeed LPG, which is a gas after all, there.  With the range of the Hydrogen car being twice that of the BEV - 500+ versus 250 miles customers do not need to charge or fill up as often. My mother lives 295 miles away. That is not a current journey I can do with a BEV car without a lengthy recharge stop whereas I can do in one go in my diesel car and even my petrol 410Sport!

One of the biggest obstacles to the adoption of new tech and ways of doing things is changing peoples habits. Filling up at a Petrol Station (ironic that the US term of Gas Station will become the reality) is what people are used to. Also, during most long journeys people will need to stop for a pee. They would most likely want a coffee/snack etc. So 5 minutes at a Petrol Station is convenient and it is was people are used to. Obviously younger generation coming through are not use to it, but then the numbers of young people buying cars are reducing quite dramatically  - petrol/diesel or BEV/Hydrogen etc.

We get that BEV's can be recharged at home and that it is convenient, when you and the car are at home. Hell, I have 2 x 20ltr petrol cans in my garage so I could argue I can fill up my car at home too when I need to. No one is arguing with the fact that a BEV charger at home is not convenient. 

However, what do you do when you are not at home?

Yes, there are more charging locations than petrol stations - 9300 versus 8400. Are all those locations available for anyone to use?

The average petrol station has what, 6-8 pumps, and the average fill up is what, 5 minutes - so that is 72 fill ups an hour per location assuming the lower pump number of 6.

The average EV charging location has 3 chargers, typically 1 fast and 2 not so fast! It takes 20 minutes on fast charge (about 20% of the charging points) and 40 minutes plus per top up on not so fast. So that's 3 for the fast charge and 1.5 each for the slow charge per hour, so that's an absolute maximum of 6 an hour, per location.

So there are more EV charging points but there is less volume capacity and therefore the chances are your delay will be even longer with a BEV station.

I think we need to change the argument from slugging out stats and stuff to reinforce our pov's.

Are BEV's a good thing?  Yes

Are BEV's the only answer? No

Is Hydrogen viable? Yes

Is Hydrogen going to take over BEV's in the future? Yes (in my humble opinion)

Why?  - Because the cost and the volume of chargers that will need to be installed, on already congested streets in the UK, will be prohibitive, as will the energy grid upgrades etc. when this is compared with the cost of re-purposing existing assets like Petrol Stations for Hydrogen. The cost of the petrol stations upgrades will be a financial cost to the owner operators, not the consumers (public) through their monthly energy bills (Grid asset upgrade costs are always passed back to the consumer for recovery meaning higher energy bills.

As ever, cost of adoption will win over everything else in the UK and Hydrogen will only look better once them old Lithium Ion batteries start to pile up and god help us if a storage facility for those batteries ever goes on fire! But then you could argue it would not be a pretty site if a hydrogen storage tank, or a petrol or LPG one for that matter, went boom!

 

[oilmagnet477]

The current role out of charging is so ad hoc as to be a joke. What we need is a 'national infrastructure project' to ensure, just like the National Grid, that there is an accepted standard.

I would suggest that the majority of built up, urban or even semi-rural developments would struggle to embed home charging facilities - what % of homes have a private driveway?

I said earlier about 'Harry's Garage' farmer bloke doing a 'current real life' on road experience with (admittedly high end) EVs - couldn't get charged at 3 places and more importantly, couldn't just turn up, tap his debit card and fill up. It is a farce.

However much the Govt get behind this simply puts  me off and makes me want to do the opposite - maybe that's just me being anti-authoritarian but if we are being forced out of Fossil fuelled cars (and I'm not anti that at all) then some MASSIVE decisions have to be made at a very high level.

If you think back 150 years ago and look at the adoption of the 'motor car' it was initially slow and took time to establish - anyone remember roadside AA huts?

Trouble is, like for like, we are not now starting from scratch, with someone threatening ban the horse and cart in a few years. Pretty much everyone outside of busy metropolitan areas is 100% reliant on their own transport. Unless huge re-investment is made into new (replacement) public transport in rural areas, then the powers that be are whistling in the wind.

[KAS-118]

So you have 40ltrs at petrol stored at home|? I know you don't like links - but here's one just for you http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/17548007/what-is-a-jerry-can-a-guide-on-how-to-legally-store-petrol

Yes, Hydrogen is perfectly feasible and I have said on a number of occasions it clearly WILL be the option for some people.

However, I would say that most people who stop for a break  on a long journey do so for more than 5 minutes - I'd say between 30 to 45mins.

Even with current charging technology (yes the Superchargers) you can get a 50% charge in 20 mins - so with 1Nr  20 mins break you can get a 375mile range

As for what do you do when you're not at home - use a public one or a destination charger. Are they enough of these at the moment for everyone to make the switch - no. However, they are considerably more of them then Hydrogen Stations - which only have 16 in the UK at the moment and 200 across the whole of Europe - so the switch is certainly easier than going Hydrogen.

 So if you want to make a point regarding the lack of public chargers - then its even more so with Hydrogen. I also note that Which only got 336miles out of the Hyundai Nexo - Carwow got 270 miles from a Tesla 3 - so the difference isn't as huge as you appear to think. 

Here's the test https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH7V2tU3iFc

Also, your comments seem rather UK-Centric. Monday morning I jumped in an Electric taxi (Tesla S) - it took me to a hotel that was at a distance of approximate  30 miles away - so on your reckoning the poor old taxi driver would only be able to do less than 5 round trips a day what in my mind you'd be hard push to make a living from.  However, they clearly do - so if people who need their cars to earn a living throughout the day can make electric work for them; I'm not sure why its should be so impossible for everyone else?

As to  the Production, Storage and Transportation of Hydrogen being  no more difficult than Petrol - maybe so; the point is that its still very much more difficult than Electricity - where we have a ready made grid for. So why go for something that is no easier than Petrol and furthermore, the overall costs of powering from a hydrogen Fuel Cell is considerably more than an BEV.

Does the grid have to be improved - yes, but as identified previously, the 'shock' may not be as great as you might think - as not everyone will be charging their cars at the same time.

 

[KAS-118]

23 minutes ago, oilmagnet477 said:

I would suggest that the majority of built up, urban or even semi-rural developments would struggle to embed home charging facilities - what % of homes have a private driveway?

 

 

From 2010 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/6748/2173483.pdf

"In 2010, 40% of dwellings had use of a garage, 26% had other off street parking, 32% relied on street parking, and 2% of homes had no parking provision whatsoever. The type of parking provision varied considerably by tenure – 73% of local authority dwellings relied on street parking compared with 20% of owner occupied homes. Similarly, 54% of owner occupied dwellings had a garage compared with just 5-6% of social sector dwellings"

[C8RKH]

2 minutes ago, KAS-118 said:

So you have 40ltrs at petrol stored at home|?

Nope - I did not say that. I know you like exactness in quotes so re read what I said. Thank you for the link.

3 minutes ago, KAS-118 said:

However, I would say that most people who stop for a break  on a long journey do so for more than 5 minutes - I'd say between 30 to 45mins.

Even with current charging technology (yes the Superchargers) you can get a 50% charge in 20 mins - so with 1Nr  20 mins break you can get a 375mile range

That is correct as long as you do not have to queue for access to the charger which is why I gave the examples of "volume" of customers served per hour.  Already in the UK people are having to start to queue. Also, not all electric vehicles have a range of 375miles so that point is in fact wrong as a generalisation. Granted, some do. But I'm never gonna buy a Tesla at the (in my humble opinion) vastly inflated prices they charge for what it is. I have a Lotus for that :)

6 minutes ago, KAS-118 said:

As for what do you do when you're not at home - use a public one or a destination charger. Are they enough of these at the moment for everyone to make the switch - no. However, they are considerably more of them then Hydrogen Stations - which only have 16 in the UK at the moment and 200 across the whole of Europe - so the switch is certainly easier than going Hydrogen.

So you are saying that it is OK for there not to be enough for BEV's but it's not OK for Hydrogen? Remember, Hydrogen is at the start of the uptake, it's taken BEV's what 6-8 years to make the "slow" progress on charging outlets. My argument is that by converting petrol stations (not the whole thing, just part of it like they did with LPG) will be a faster roll-out as the energy companies have big pockets and and a big incentive to do it.

9 minutes ago, KAS-118 said:

Also, your comments seem rather UK-Centric. Monday morning I jumped in an Electric taxi (Tesla S) - it took me to a hotel that was at a distance of approximate  30 miles away - so on your reckoning the poor old taxi driver would only be able to do less than 5 round trips a day what in my mind you'd be hard push to make a living from.  However, they clearly do - so if people who need their cars to earn a living throughout the day can make electric work for them; I'm not sure why its should be so impossible for everyone else?

Yes, UK centric points. That is the perspective I have been using. I have used Tesla Taxi's in Schipol for about 6 years (they've had them longer than that) and I have also used a local taxi at home that is electric - I got picked up at 2330 from a train from London and my taxi driver did not want to take me the 19 miles to my house as he was not convinced he would have enough charge to get back to his base again!  I told him not to worry as it was all down hill back!  He was genuinely shitting himself re the range the whole journey to my house! Bless.  Taxi's are a bad example as taxi drivers or firms will either have a charging point at home or at their base. So if they need a top up that is where they would go just like a normal taxi would use a petrol station.

14 minutes ago, KAS-118 said:

As to  the Production, Storage and Transportation of Hydrogen being  no more difficult than Petrol - maybe so; the point is that its still very much more difficult than Electricity - where we have a ready made grid for. So why go for something that is no easier than Petrol and furthermore, the overall costs of powering from a hydrogen Fuel Cell is considerably more than an BEV.

Does the grid have to be improved - yes, but as identified previously, the 'shock' may not be as great as you might think - as not everyone will be charging their cars at the same time.

This is where we fundamentally disagree. You have consistently, if I have read your posts correctly, stated that Hydrogen is more difficult/dangerous. No your saying maybe?  Make your mind up.

We have a ready made grid but it is NOT made for the huge demands that both renewable energy and BEV's are going to place on it, specifically in high density areas and you cannot say that people will not all want to charge at the same time, a lot of them will based on their lifestyle patterns.

I have no idea re the situation in the Nordics, which is much less densely populated than the UK. So again, I am being Uk centric.  Also, the roads/pavements in UK towns and cities are congested with street furniture so we have an issue with where to put home chargers for those that live in terraced houses for example. In most UK cities people need a parking permit to park near their house. They are not guaranteed a "spot" and many park "some distance" away from their homes as a result of parking congestion. Finally, how do you deal with 120 families who live in a high rise?  BEV's are fine for people who have the space to park them at home etc, but for many people it will prove to be difficult to put the infrastructure in place.

So, I'm not saying that BEV's are bad. What I am saying is that they are not THE answer to the problem. They will be part of the solution, but not the only part and in my view not the majority part. I guess we just have to agree to disagree that BEV's are the answer. We can push arguments back and forth all day but neither of us are showing any signs of moving closer to the others ideal. No hard feelings though.

34 minutes ago, oilmagnet477 said:

The current role out of charging is so ad hoc as to be a joke. What we need is a 'national infrastructure project' to ensure, just like the National Grid, that there is an accepted standard

Funny you should mention that, believe it or not that is exactly one of the programmes I am working on with the next working group meeting in Manchester on Thursday!  

[KAS-118]

3 minutes ago, C8RKH said:

1) So you are saying that it is OK for there not to be enough for BEV's but it's not OK for Hydrogen? 

2) You have consistently, if I have read your posts correctly, stated that Hydrogen is more difficult/dangerous. No your saying maybe?  Make your mind up.

3)  We have a ready made grid but it is NOT made for the huge demands that both renewable energy and BEV's are going to place on it, specifically in high density areas and you cannot say that people will not all want to charge at the same time, a lot of them will based on their lifestyle patterns.

1) No - I specifically said that there weren't enough chargers - not that was good.

2) There's nothing to make my mind up about; hydrogen, to refuel a Fuel Cell,  is considerably more difficult to store and transport -than electricity is to re-charge a BEV. It is considerably more expensive to power a vehicle as well. 

3) Odd - I thought renewable energy assisted powering the grid - not making demands upon it. There a possibility that an excessive amount of people may want to charge at the same time - but then that could be managed by smart charging (see previous link). Some people may be happy to drive to work, plug there car in there, whilst others may be happy to charge at home over night. Clearly the matter does need to be addressed - but equally it is not an insurmountable problem.

We actually both agree that Hydrogen and BEV will still be developed and increased. You think Hydrogen will prevail. This time last year I would have agreed with that - but now I'm not so sure; and I can see that as Batteries improve then the advantages that  hydrogen has will become diminished. Time will tell on that one.

 

[C8RKH]

13 minutes ago, KAS-118 said:

I thought renewable energy assisted powering the grid - not making demands upon it.

Nope. Renewable is an intermittent energy source and as such it presents a range of issues to the grid through frequency moderation, demand management and also depending on its source it creates the two way movement of energy when almost all energy grids were designed and have been optimised for one way energy flow. This is part of the issue with micro-gen as well as renewable. Hence the demands it places are in its intermttancy (if that is a word) and the additional issues this causes around supply v demand and frequency management. The grid frequency needs to be actively balanced, if it gets out of sync it can crash the grid.

You would be amazed at how much electricity has nowhere to go (no demand) and is therefore "dumped" to earth at times of over supply.  This is why we are now starting to see negative feed-in tariffs (i.e. you pay for putting your electricity into the grid as opposed to being paid for it) in not just the UK, but Bavarian and other markets

If you want a case study on the impacts then look no further than the blackouts in the South East of England in Q3 last year which was caused by failures in the supplies from offshore wind.

22 minutes ago, KAS-118 said:

Some people may be happy to drive to work, plug there car in there, whilst others may be happy to charge at home over night. Clearly the matter does need to be addressed - but equally it is not an insurmountable problem.

Most places of work in the UK struggle to provide enough parking for their employees (stupid UK planning laws) so providing enough chargers may be a challenge too (not one for each employee granted).  I agree the problems are not insurmountable but I do feel they are "brushed over".

Good debate though.

[Mysterae]

On 16/02/2020 at 11:16, C8RKH said:

I stick to my belief that BEV will be the Betamax, Hydrogen the VHS.

Hey now just wait a minute!  .... Betamax was the superior quality format, apparently it was the porn industry's adoption of VHS (because it was dirty and cheap) that led to it's rise and dominance. Perhaps your comparison is fair after all!

The electric vs hydrogen vs anything else is a fascinating subject. An additional thought is which technology best suits the home mechanic, the tinkerers such as ourselves? Working on petrol cars isn't without it's risks (fire, explosion, emissions). Electric cars could be shockingly fun to work on and hydrogen fuelled cars a real blast. Or perhaps the days of folk working on their cars will be a thing of the past, treated as white goods or locked down to prevent modification. 

I'm really surprised that the big oil companies aren't pushing hydrogen hard as it fits their modus operandi; refineries, distribution and service stations. Also surprised at the government as it'll be easier to tax the shit out of the hydrogen driver (like current fossil fuels) whereas electric car drivers not so much, not without affecting everybody that uses electricity. The tax loss from the decline of fossil fuels (82p for every litre I think) has got to be recouped somehow. Smart meter anyone?  .

[Barrykearley]

VHS and Betamax...... everyone is forgetting Video2000

 

[C8RKH]

1 hour ago, Mysterae said:

Hey now just wait a minute!  .... Betamax was the superior quality format, apparently it was the porn industry's adoption of VHS (because it was dirty and cheap) that led to it's rise and dominance. Perhaps your comparison is fair after all!

When I was young I could only afford one device for the porn I bought. I like the majority went for VHS as I was cheap!  

I think though that if you look whole life, you'll see that Hydrogen will be "cleaner" than BEV's, but shush, don't say it to loudly as Mr. Musk will get upset. View the story as in two parts, this time it's - "Betamax v VHS the sequel - This time the better one wins"

8 minutes ago, Barrykearley said:

VHS and Betamax...... everyone is forgetting Video2000

 

Video2000 was the V8 version - looked great, but never worked and cost a fortune to fix!

[KAS-118]

13 hours ago, C8RKH said:

Nope. Renewable is an intermittent energy source and as such it presents a range of issues to the grid through frequency moderation, demand management and also depending on its source it creates the two way movement of energy when almost all energy grids were designed and have been optimised for one way energy flow. This is part of the issue with micro-gen as well as renewable. Hence the demands it places are in its intermttancy (if that is a word) and the additional issues this causes around supply v demand and frequency management. The grid frequency needs to be actively balanced, if it gets out of sync it can crash the grid.

You would be amazed at how much electricity has nowhere to go (no demand) and is therefore "dumped" to earth at times of over supply.  This is why we are now starting to see negative feed-in tariffs (i.e. you pay for putting your electricity into the grid as opposed to being paid for it) in not just the UK, but Bavarian and other markets

If you want a case study on the impacts then look no further than the blackouts in the South East of England in Q3 last year which was caused by failures in the supplies from offshore wind.

Most places of work in the UK struggle to provide enough parking for their employees (stupid UK planning laws) so providing enough chargers may be a challenge too (not one for each employee granted).  I agree the problems are not insurmountable but I do feel they are "brushed over".

Good debate though.

Interesting - I had understood the power cut was due to a failure of a wind turbine - and would have thought that had a non-renewable source  failed, a similar result would probably have arisen.

I agree that there is an issue concerning intermittent supply of energy - and that on a few occasions last year (primarily Sunday afternoons0 there were negative tariffs - but that suggest the UK needs a better way of storing the energy - so it can be used in times of high need.

But that then suggests that there is a need 'now' for better energy management - and hence the advent of electric vehicles per se is not the cause, and that it won't be something so 'new' to consumers when that need becomes even more apparent from the increase in BEV's.

It also suggests that  the need for an increase in power generation won't be as great as perhaps first thought.

Edited February 18, 2020 by KAS-118

[C8RKH]

Agree that better demand management is needed now. The utilities are working hard on that but they require a good "mix" of energy sources that can be spooled up quickly (e.g. hydro, gas, battery) or provide a strong reliable baseload (e.g. nuclear).

1 hour ago, KAS-118 said:

It also suggests that  the need for an increase in power generation won't be as great as perhaps first thought

Not necessarily. Storage (hydro, Battery, and even Hydrogen) is the key and where in the UK we are lagging.

[mdavies]

Apologies for intruding on a serious discussion between well-informed people, but informative re EV's.  And, for me anyway, a bit of a laugh this morning.

tiny.cc/gkr5jz

https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2020/02/how-to-stop-cold-weather-decimating-the-range-of-your-electric-vehicle/

 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

When I was a kid, my parents bought a second hand Sony Betamax VCR. It was the only electronic gizmo from a reputable manufacturer in the whole house. They too had been seduced by the claims of better quality. That didn’t really wash with my brother and I when we had to suffer the ignominy of telling our school friends that we hadn’t seen the latest Hollywood blockbuster because our local video library didn’t have it on Betamax.

[oilmagnet477]

One of the criticisms I have heard regards hydrogen is the amount of electricity that it takes to produce.

Assuming this is correct (I have to declare large scale ignorance!!) I don't necessarily understand the down side. EVs use batteries in numerous forms. These use metals that to produce in big enough quantities, have big time negative and costly impact on the planet. They also require charging - with electricity. When new EVs are supplied, those batteries come pre-charged (I assume) - which can be done remotely from the end user. Further re-charges are done by the end users from where-ever is convenient. There is a massive unknown for me with the future of electricity supply and the hidden demon of tax - suck everyone in with the concept of cheap 'motoring', make them dependent and then wallop would be my prediction.

Hydrogen (or maybe an unforeseen solution) can be created, where the electric required to make H is centralised - completely removing the need for individuals to set up ad-hoc charging mechanisms and worry about how charging at home (or otherwise) works in the real world. All that is needed is to develop the means to safely use and store H, utilising the existing (modified) network of outlets that already exist.

Imagine some motorway services on the M6 (or where ever) - can anyone second guess how many concurrent fast charging points will be required - 50? 100? What power supply is going to be needed to service say 50 fast chargers all being used at the same time. Will there be different rates at different times of day? There are just so many unanswered questions, with as far as I can see little scope for answers within a reasonable timeframe. Yet the general population are expected to jump on this bandwagon at extortionate cost....

I appreciate I am probably considered a dinosaur (and that may well be true) but can any one tell me what the lifetime net effect would be of me either:

1. driving 6000 miles pa in my yr 2000 4lt V8 Rangerover doing 17mpg

or

2. Scrapping my perfectly usable 20 year old car and buying a replacement EV - how much of the production pollution of new EVs is accredited to their overall lifespan - not sure I've seen any figures on that.

I don't want to appear dismissive of the general drive towards cleaner, less environmentally damaging motoring and I think the debate is fascinating - but, a bit like (dare I say it) Brexit, people run the risk of becoming encamped on o ne side of the argument or the other and dismissing anything that the 'other side' says just on principle. To me, that is crazy - there are ALWAYS 2 or more sides to a debate.

If you compare motoring with other tech developments - I use mobile phones as a comparison, it strikes me that motoring is way behind the curve. What do I mean by that - well, simply that the acceleration of tech has meant your mobile phone becomes redundant with ever increasing monotony. With cars, apart from (significant) improvements in economy and safety, the general principle has remained remarkably similar for over 100 years. Are we now reaching the point where we are going to see inbuilt obsolescence becoming normal? Sure, I currently run a 20 year old car and have a 44 year old car in bits but I fear that in 60 years time (probably less) - no one will be running a 20 year old car...I guess time will tell. For me, the 'throw away' society has far more overall impact on the environment or climate change.

[KAS-118]

I hadn't seen this page before.

Interesting that Lotus say they've have  experience with Hydrogen Fuel Cells https://www.lotuscars.com/en-GB/en-GB/engineering/propulsion/

[Bibs]

They engineered the hydrogen powered taxis for the Olympics. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10836132

[PAR]

Maybe they should do a hydrogen version of the Evija, it cannot be that much work more!

[USAndretti42]

I would have thought that, in an open space, a hydrogen-powered vehicle would be very safe as any hydrogen that leaked would float away.  However, in your garage or an underground car park, any hydrogen leakage would lead to a build up of the gas near the ceiling where an electrical spark could set it alight and hydrogen does have a habit of passing through materials as its molecules are so small.

What would be the effect of the mass introduction of autonomous cars which you rent as you need them, a bit like self-driving taxis?  I would expect that scenario to move the scales towards the BEV rather than fuel-cell vehicle or, even, hydrogen or ammonia fuelled ICE.  Am I right or am I being too simplistic?

[C8RKH]

As with any fuel the containment methods would be adequate and safe. It's 2020 now not 1920 so I don't think there is much to fear. However for balance just remember that if your BEV was to catch fire that Battery is going to burn like a blast furnace and ain't nothing going to stop it!

Your point re autonomous vehicles is spot on and will be widespread in cities and large towns for a variety of reasons. Park and ride facilities will exist for those rural dwellers and before you know it no cars in the centres, massive air quality and congestion improvements etc.

[oilmagnet477]

"Your point re autonomous vehicles is spot on and will be widespread in cities and large towns for a variety of reasons. Park and ride facilities will exist for those rural dwellers and before you know it no cars in the centres, massive air quality and congestion improvements etc."

That'll be me never going into the City again then lol - only increasing the demise of the high street and encouraging agoraphobia and on line shopping!