Nice video of the Toyota Hydrogen Car production line, oh my, it does look very complex and cumbersome.

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Last edited by AJGalaxy2012 on 27th Dec 2022 2:55pm. Edited 1 time in total

Complex and cumbersome eh, so like an internal combustion engine then……

On a fuel that costs a shed load more to produce and is full of issues. Apart from that it's great. BMW i3 Electric Car
2012 Full Fat RR 4.4 TDV8 (now gone)
2006 VW Touareg 3.0 TDi V6

Well that's it then, no point bothering is there?

If you think Lithium or even Aluminium based batteries are the future, you need to give your head a wobble.

Hydrogen is essentially at the Mk.1 video tape recorder stage, it needs someone to put thought and money into it to get it moving. Personally I'll never consider a BEV to be a viable or sustainable mode of transport - for me. Hydrogen, maybe not this iteration, or possibly the next one - has real possibilities and doesn't rely on a relatively rare resource that is difficult to mine, handle, recycle or dispose of (and could be used as a blunt weapon against us by the producing countries). Aluminium batteries have promise, but still rely upon electrical power generation, not to produce the fuel but to 'be' the fuel. Electricity is very difficult and expensive to bunker, hydrocarbon fuels and hydrogen fuels can be bunkered relatively easily and cheaply - and require a very small amount of electrical energy to distribute - most bunkering sites can be run from <100kW generator in the event of a power network failure, for whatever reason.

The major problem with Hydrogen is it take 3 x the amount of power to obtain it than it creates when it's used. So you can use wind turbines but you may as well just load the electricity into batteries and get 3 x more energy in terms of miles if you use a fuel cell'd vehicle, if you put it into an ICE then its nine times. BMW i3 Electric Car
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2006 VW Touareg 3.0 TDi V6

That may be as things stand currently but future development may, possibly will, change that.
Who knows? Electric vehicles are the current wonder but then diesel was a few years ago. John
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Just watch this from 06:10 professor David Cebon - Cambridge University, he explains all about Hydrogen and why it reall will not and can not work cost effectively.

 BMW i3 Electric Car
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2006 VW Touareg 3.0 TDi V6

Well that's certainly one opinion. The screenshot looks like clickbait TBH
Here's a more balanced view - from 2018, so presumably things will have progressed.

https://www.greencarfuture.com/misc/hydrog...advantages

I think the biggest problem Hydrogen has is the 'back to the caves' eco-mentalists don't like it because it extends the status-quo rather than forcing a step change.

ETA - just looked again at the video in the first post because something was bothering me....
Aside from it being no more complex than a typical BEV build, it is almost certainly a pre-production workshop, a lot of the processes being carried out would/should be automated and the tested assemblies delivered to the line for rolling assembly. Aside from that, Toyota in line with most manufacturers are notoriously controlling of any filming or images from their production or pre-production / testing facilities, as such, they will carefully curate the message they want to send in the video.

Phoenix wrote:

Personally I'll never consider a BEV to be a viable or sustainable mode of transport - for me.

That's an open mind ready to look at all the facts and have a reasoned debate....

I work with BEV's every day and have done for several years - and consequently have completed the training and familiarisation required by several manufacturers, I've learned enough to know that they don't fit my lifestyle out of work, nor am I happy to adapt to the requirements & constraints ownership imposes on people. That's why I added the qualifier 'for me.'

In my experience:-
BEV's have a very low MTBF compared to ICE, not just one manufacturer either, sometimes its an ancillary component that fails, sometimes a core component, repair times are not too bad - once we can get the parts. Possibly we just see a lot of 'friday cars', talking to other network tech's, I don't think so.

Phoenix wrote:

Well that's certainly one opinion. The screenshot looks like clickbait TBH
Here's a more balanced view - from 2018, so presumably things will have progressed.

https://www.greencarfuture.com/misc/hydrog...advantages

I think the biggest problem Hydrogen has is the 'back to the caves' eco-mentalists don't like it because it extends the status-quo rather than forcing a step change.

It's not inaccurate at all, the link presents pro's and con's as they were seen in 2018, I can't see any bias although the information is pretty lightweight in content. TBH it was the first article I came across that didn't appear to have an agenda. By your signature, you've already become convinced by the BEV option, so you're going to have some bias, unconscious or otherwise.

Clearly the efficiencies are based on the known technology in 2018 also, I'd expect the figures to be somewhat different by now.

I do agree on one point, both technologies have a long way to go before they become ubiquitous and reliable.

Weegie wrote:

That may be as things stand currently but future development may, possibly will, change that.
Who knows? Electric vehicles are the current wonder but then diesel was a few years ago.

Phoenix wrote:

I work with BEV's every day and have done for several years - and consequently have completed the training and familiarisation required by several manufacturers, I've learned enough to know that they don't fit my lifestyle out of work, nor am I happy to adapt to the requirements & constraints ownership imposes on people. That's why I added the qualifier 'for me.'

In my experience:-
BEV's have a very low MTBF compared to ICE, not just one manufacturer either, sometimes its an ancillary component that fails, sometimes a core component, repair times are not too bad - once we can get the parts. Possibly we just see a lot of 'friday cars', talking to other network tech's, I don't think so.

SamThomas wrote:

Weegie wrote:

That may be as things stand currently but future development may, possibly will, change that.
Who knows? Electric vehicles are the current wonder but then diesel was a few years ago.

Which is why I am sceptical about the "experts".

What, if they have got it wrong again - the infrastructure required to change to EV's is far more reaching than the shift from petrol to diesel.