Jalopnik 
Enter your username and password.
Detroit, 8:23 AM
Wed Dec 2
30 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors:
Editor-in-Chief:
Ray Wert | | AIM
Road Test Editor:
Wes Siler |
Weekend Editor:
Murilee Martin |
Associate Editor - Houston:
Associate Editor - Detroit:
Editor-at-Large:
Contributors:
John Krewson |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
08/28/09
Or are they using the Li-ion battery to power the hot plate?
08/28/09
If you want to spend the money, buy a diesel car, with a manual. Heck, VW sells a wagon like that stateside.
This globar warming crap is ticking me off. To 99% of Americans, what is going to make them buy a car is how much it will cost now and in the future. Hybrids have little resale value after 150,000 miles because the battery needs to be replaced. Now, go check Craigslist and type in TDI. See how much some of those cars are going for and you'll see what I mean.
Fuel cells work due to a very expesnive catalyst: platinum (okay, you can also use paladium, but the fuel cell needs to be bigger). While your car also uses this same material for the catalytic converter, the amount needed for a fuel cell is much higher.
Now, let's talk about infrastructure. How much CO2 emmissions will be required to dig holes for new holding tanks? How much for refridgeration? How much to MAKE hyrdrogen?
Let me remind everyone that, at best, generators are about 30% efficient once you count in transmission losses over the lines (the generator can be upto 50% is somecases, but losses in the transmission lines are almost 50%, especially in the west). Sure, localized pwoer generation is easier to clean and regulate, but is it worth the hassel to completely revamp 100 years of infrasturcture?
I vote no.
/end typing, rant still continuing in my end. Must restrain self...
08/28/09
You're right to hate hydrogen for the complex expensive non-existent inefficient infrastructure, but relax. For years most car makers will make hybrids that have less emissions overall than the hydrogen pipe dream. As battery technology improves you'll have more reason to plug your hybrid in as the cheapest and most efficient way to go the first 5-10-30-... miles before using fossil fuel. (Hydrogen is the wet dream of fossil fuel companies facing that future.)
You're wrong about transmission and distribution losses, DoE says they were 7% in 1995. Power plant generator efficiency is about 35% (more with cogeneration that uses the waste heat), still better than car engines. And people who bring this up never factor in all the inefficiencies and losses of refining gasoline and the gasoline distribution system. You can drive a car further using the electricity it takes to make a gallon of gasoline than you'd travel on the gasoline itself.
08/28/09
No, that's the warranted life for California, most are lasting much longer. When it does need replacement it's a $2300 cost for a Prius (down $700 in 5 years). Meanwhile you've saved about $5000 in gasoline costs (45 vs 30 mpg at $3/gal).
FWIW, KBB prices a 2004 150,000 mile Prius at $8705 in good condition and a Jetta TDi wagon at $8205 in fart-sniffing California.
08/28/09
08/28/09
The Civic Kid demands justice!
08/28/09
Fixed.
08/28/09
08/28/09
...Must...Not...Feed...Troll...Must...Not...Tell
...To...Turn...Off...AM...Radio...And
...Read...Book...And...Or...Peer...Reviewed
...Scientific...Journal...
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
There sure have been a lot of nasty personal attacks around here lately.
08/28/09
08/28/09
Now, electrolyzing it from seawater seems as environmentally benign as harnessing unicorn farts until you look at how to go about the electrolysis. And that electricity has to come from somewhere. Sometimes from coal-powered plants, which brings coal back into the equation, or from nukes, which brings Yucca Mountain onstage. It's all fun and games until the check comes.
And even then, the efficiency of energy in as electricity vs. energy out as hydrogen is pretty poor. Better to run the car on long extension cords.
08/28/09
@Elhigh: Wireless energy transfer is what is needed instead of extension cords. Telsa towers could be installed every 50 ft along every road to power autos. It would all be paid for with free money from the Federal Reserve.
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/29/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
"Who's the chicken now?" said the egg expectantly.
08/28/09
No local emissions. Excellent. So we're outsourcing our industrial farts too, now?
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
Paring some junk off and fitting a nice small turbodiesel might yield approximately the same fuel economy, and leave room for a tank with sufficient capacity for up to 400 miles. Six gallons (of diesel!) ought to do it.
08/28/09
@Elhigh: There was a great deal of sarcasm in my comment, but if you want to get pedantic about it, it really doesn't matter how you look at, whether it be from an mpg standpoint or a range standpoint, as it's all just different methods of providing approximate measures of the same damn thing: will it get me to the next hydrogen filling station?
08/28/09
You'd do just fine for stations if you stayed in LA. I'm surprised there's no google map pointing them all out.
08/28/09
I'd strongly prefer a Civic Diesel. Oops! There's that darn location issue again.
08/28/09
[www.cafcp.org]
Sadly, it reports: Operational (23) Planned (11) Decommissioned (10).
Also, to get a 100% fill-up the process takes longer and/or the station costs more because of the higher pressure required to force the H2 in. I don't know how many of these stations use which systems.
There's an extremely incomplete EV charging map at [evauthority.com] , it lists none of the 5 recharging points I've seen in garages.
08/28/09
08/28/09
Er...you may want to fix that.
08/28/09
08/28/09
/couldn't resist
08/28/09
08/28/09
Wes is right however. This is a hypothetically perfect reaction. There always impurities present(engines require oil). It is far cleaner than burning gasoline, but it is not perfectly clean.
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
Have you met their unobtainium live axle metallurgist as well?
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
The excessive amount of energy it takes to make it through either chemical or electrical processes.
Bulky. A given volume of hydrogen in a liquid form takes up roughly twice the space in equivalent volume of LPG or LNG.
The logistics involved in managing this kind of fuel to a consumer standpoint is still way to expensive.
Any tank made in this day and age leaks hydrogen. The hydrogen molecules, which are smaller than the materials used to make the tanks, simply slip past the covalent bonds.
Its so hellfire hazardous if it ignites. Unlike gasoline or diesel, hydrogen ignites with a bang once it mixes with a oxidizer and exposed to an ignition point.
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
03/25/09
That's it everybody, pack it in, we're done here, nothing more to see. We've all got to find new hobbies now. Last one out of Stuttgart hit the lights.