Discotigger wrote:

There's a lot of discussion going on about the reasons why batteries are being used rather than hydrogen fuel cells, I could write an essay here on the topic!
Unfortunately it all comes down to a seriously flawed human perspective. Remember back in the 80's there were two types of video format, Betamax and VHS? Which ended up being the forerunner and why?

Answer - VHS because of better marketing?


Even though Betamax was technically superior. 2010 Range Rover TDV8 Baltic Blue Autobiography (2011 MY) - SOLD
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Did someone mention towing?

TJRL wrote:

If hydrogen could be made cheaply then I am sure it would be the only game in town. But when it costs so much compared to petrol (let alone diesel or electricity) not a chance. However, I seem to recall that one of the Scottish islands has such a surplus of wind energy they installed a hydrogen making plant, that in effect is free to run.

@TJRL & @ Siftah the main reason batteries are touted is because everybody perceives 'portable electricity storage/delivery systems' this way. We are deluded to think of the national grid or batteries as the 'easy' way to transport electricity, in fact at the moment outside of batteries it's the only way to 'transport' electricity...or is it?
As you pointed out, the Shetland Islands produce so much electricity that they use the excess to electrolyse water and produce Hydrogen (and Oxygen) which is then transported to mainland UK and is used (in part) to fuel hydrogen fuel cell cars. The main problems with hydrogen technology are all based on human misconceptions:
Question: Hydrogen is a flammable gas, wouldn't it cause a massive explosion if the gas was released in a car crash?
Answer: It's no more dangerous than gasoline, or even lithium batteries (have you seen some of the video clips of Tesla cars on fire after an accident?)
Question: Hydrogen is expensive and difficult to produce?
Answer: It's only expensive to produce because the demand for it is too low to enable 'mass production' techniques to reduce the costs,
Question: We don't have an infrastructure for hydrogen refuelling.
Answer: What is going to become of the Petrol Stations once Petrol/Diesel is no longer sold. These stations could be easily reconfigured into hydrogen refuelling stations, protecting livelihoods and jobs without having to set up an entirely new infrastructure as will be required for battery charge points.
Question: What makes hydrogen fuel cells better than batteries?
Answer: Quicker to refuel a hydrogen car than recharge a battery vehicle (by a very large magnitude of order), better range with a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, ease of transport of hydrogen (you can transport hydrogen from the Shetlands to anywhere in the UK in a road tanker and it's not dependent on an electrical transmission system), storage of hydrogen is much cheaper than storage of electricity in 'mega' batteries, production / storage / use of hydrogen does not require difficult to mine minerals (cobalt, lithium, etc.) and does not have a 'shelf' life (remember you can only use a battery for so long then it becomes 'spent' and needs recycling, only 50% of a lithium ion battery can be recycled and the rest has to be disposed of!)

So, why did VHS beat Betamax in the video race...human misconception. VHS quality was crap versus Betamax (most television production companies used Betamax for filming), public opinion was swayed by marketing and most importantly it was touted as being the cheaper 'greener' alternative.

One thing I forgot to mention is this...
Ask 100 people at random what a hydrogen fuel cell is and the majority will reply 'A WHAT?' Until people are educated, they will stick to the simple things they know, after all everybody knows what a battery is...even if they don't know the difference between 'Wet Cell', AGM, Lithium-Ion, etc.

There are many benefit for hydrogen:-

1) You can refill your car in about the same time as a petrol or diesel one. So no worrying about hours and hours of recharging times.
2) The range is about the same as a petrol car. So none of "range worry" that many have about EVs.
3) Hydrogen is everywhere, but the materials need for batteries are very limited. In fact there may not be enough lithium etc. to make the batteries for the EU's cars let alone the whole world (and the environmental cost is very high). - NB This may end up being the deciding factor in the long term.
4) Refueling hydrogen cars is just like how we have been refueling our cars for the last 50 years or more. Whereas EVs have all sorts of issues if you only have on street parking with trailing leads etc.
5) Hydrogen cars have a known range per tank that does not drop much during the winter months or with the air con running flat out. EVs can lose half their range (or more) in cold weather

In summary; refill timing, range, abundance, easy of use and range stability.

Of course hydrogen has also a few "Cons":-

1) Many of the points above assume there is a wide spread hydrogen infrastructure, which there isn't! So for now batteries are winning.
2) Storage is at pressure (bit like LPG), so smaller vechicles like motorbikes are harder to make than say an EV bike.

Neither technologies is ready to roll out "full bore" right now so it will be interesting to see how this all plays out.  2010 Range Rover TDV8 Baltic Blue Autobiography (2011 MY) - SOLD
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All interesting points regarding hydrogen. I've certainly seen a few people touting hydrogen as being a better alternative to EV's but haven't yet come across anything that really seems to definitely back it up though.

I'm just about old enough to remember the Tories promoting Diesel in the late 80's/early 90's and forcing the car industry down that route, so I'd not be surprised if there's similar stuff happening nowadays either

@discotigger great example. Even more so as you forgot to include the best of the consumer versions Video 2000. There were actually three VCR standards

Oh and the Betamax used in filming is nothing like the consumer Betamax in recording. Bit of marketing going on there as well. Video 2000 was by far the best.

I wouldn’t mind hydrogen, shame it never took off. In the early days we even looked into having a production station at our property. Mercedes did hydrogen versions of their s class and gl class.

Discotigger wrote:

There's a lot of discussion going on about the reasons why batteries are being used rather than hydrogen fuel cells, I could write an essay here on the topic!

Discotigger wrote:

Unfortunately it all comes down to a seriously flawed human perspective. Remember back in the 80's there were two types of video format, Betamax and VHS? Which ended up being the forerunner and why?

Actually, that is not true at all. Betamax was on the market before JVC launched VHS.

Cost, VHS was much cheaper and recording time, VHS was able to record 2 hours from the start whilst Betamax could only do 1 hour, would arguable have been much more persuasive arguments. Cheaper was because JVC licensed the technology; whilst Sony kept Betamax to themselves, and Philips/Grundig/ITT/B&O did the same with their V2000 format.

As you acknowledged yourself Betamax was good at marketing its superior format, whilst in reality that wasn't true at all for the consumer-grade systems; well about 10 lines more of recording, barely noticeable on those devices.

Super VHS was the only system that recorded broadcast quality, but besides myself and in commercial settings, I don't know anyone else who bought into that.

I had S-VHS and later Hi8, both were great quality, as good as it could be at the time for sure. BMW i3 Electric Car
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Bl4ckD0g wrote:

Oh and the Betamax used in filming is nothing like the consumer Betamax in recording.

Oh gosh forgot about hi-8

I still have a s-vhs recorder 🤣 And minidisc.

And swiftly back to the topic also ICE cars 🤣

I can see the debate has moved on a bit and I have to say I had lost interest but as a Tory myself I realise it is fashionable to blame us for everything - one of the previous posts blames the Tories for diesel, maybe worth reading this -https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41985715 Geoff

Yeah I was thinking that. I thought the diesel revival in the UK was much later under labour. I arrived in the Uk in 1996 and remember distinctly many of my friends making fun of my “tractor”. I used to do about 20K miles and it made sense for me at the time. Never understood this fascination with diesel for the majority of low mileage drivers.