comment: >
  
  I agree. Hydrogen can also be generated at a filling station and doesn't need to be transported. Spills wouldn't affect much for very long. It's only byproduct is water. 
  I didn't read all of OP's post because A. I'm lazy and 3. I agree with just the title so...sue me.
context: There are a few major drawbacks to using a hydrogen ICE. Namely fuel stability and power output. Maybe one day in the future it will become a viable option, but at the moment the technology couldn't keep up with commercial demands. >
  
  When comparing the two you always have to compare the relative ease of building out charging infrastructure vs. the enormous expense of building hydrogen infrastructure. Right now we don't produce much hydrogen, have limited ability to transport it, and almost no facilities to pump it into vehicles. Also, the cars themselves are not even being produced in quantity. 
  None of these problems exist for battery electric cars. All the electricity production and distribution networks have already been built (though some expansion will be required). Charging endpoints are the major infrastructure need at this time, and those are relatively cheap to install...like a couple orders of magnitude cheaper than hydrogen.
  Finally, battery tech is rapidly evolving. One of the key areas of study is battery chemistries that use less rare/expensive materials. It's likely that we have not yet seen the type of battery that will fully revolutionize our economy. Mining technology may also provide new sources of lithium if it's still required in large quantities.
  The last thing we can do is simply reduce our reliance on cars. Especially in cities, there are much better ways to create urban environments than building them around car use.
  edit: I forgot to mention that hydrogen may be the right solution for applications where a vehicle is far from civilization and has a lot of capacity to store fuel, such as a cargo ship. But even there battery tech may improve enough where it works for that application as well. Easier to recharge w/ solar panels than create hydrogen. >
  
  Good luck getting over the “million little Hidenbergs” on the road perception. >
  
  Those people clearly don’t know about lithium fires.  It’s true, hydrogen fires/explosions are no joke, however current Tesla batteries have 5 kilograms of lithium.  Lithium fires are fucking terrifying.
  Burns at 2,000°c, you can’t put it out with water as that can lead ironically to hydrogen explosions, are self oxidizing so can reignite if you smother them and spew extremely toxic smoke.
  I’d kinda prefer driving my own Hindenberg over dying in a lithium fire. >
  
  Hydrogen has really crappy low energy density, so you need to squeeze a lot of it into a high-pressure tank, which is not a fun thing to take out with you on the road.
  The other problem is that hydrogen atoms are tiny so they tend to work themselves into metal and make it more brittle.
  So now you have a brittle high-pressure tank bouncing around on the road with you (and possibly getting smacked in a collision).
  Solvable maybe with advanced composite materials but that might be really expensive. >
  
  Complete non-engineer here, so take my opinion for what it's worth.  That said, I think you (like many others) are missing the mark because you're focusing on only one part of the problem (lithium) and missing the greater up-stream problems.  In this case, the real problem with hydrogen powered cars is in the hydrogen generation and compression.
  In brief, while free-floating hydrogen is abundant in the atmosphere, it is much more efficient to use electrolysis to produce.  This is a very very power-intensive process, most of which comes from fossil fuels.  The hydrogen must then be compressed, another power-intensive process.  Through these processes alone, one think tank (Cato) calculates that hydrogen my be more carbon intensive than gasoline cars. (Of course, this could be remedied with nuclear or wind/solar power, but "green" hydrogen costs almost triple the price of hydrogen produced by conventional means).
  On top of this, because of the nature of the hydrogen cell process hydrogen engines are only 37% efficient, best case.  Purely electric cars are 90% efficient.
  In short, given current technology, hydrogen powered cars are never going to overtake electric cars.  There are still some fundamental physics problems that keep it out of reach.  This may change in the future, but for the moment it would seem that the only real competitor to gas is electric. >
  
  Isn't the current idea for making hydrogen Cars to use a hydrogen fuel cell to get electrical output to power an electrical car >
  
  Yes, but you have to fill that fuel cell with hydrogen. In order to do that, you have to build out all of the electrical infrastructure you would need for electrical cars, then add electrolysis machines at the end of it to separate and compress the hydrogen. This uses more electricity than it would to charge a battery electric vehicle. You fill your fuel cell, and the fuel cell then needs to generate electricity from the hydrogen, and most of your energy is lost in conversion. All in all, it's extra infrastructure and a whole lot more electricity needed to move the vehicle the same distance. >
  
  Ya I diffentily agree I was just saying >
  
  That's true but unfortunately, every single hydrogen car is a moving bomb. Don't even want to imagine what would happen if one crashed into something and the tank would crack a bit. Even worse if there's a spark, as it's also extremely flammable. >
  
  You realise that the explosive potential of a EV battery is way more above a hydrogen tank? >
  
  The risk of a hydrogen tank exploding is higher than that of a battery. >
  
  The only reason why this is “unpopular” to begin is because we have Tesla shareholders and other EV buyers who are very upset by the idea of competition. In short, they are just spamming social media like Reddit with their bullshit out of personal insecurity.
  But because the EV is not particularly sustainable, especially with regards to battery related metals, it is basically guaranteed that there will be a huge backlash against EVs. That will mostly end the unpopularity of this opinion. >
  
  Hydrogen cars are bombs on wheels >
  
  Unless you have an idea to make hydrogen to make really cheap, hydrogen is just an ev but worse >
  
  How would a hydro car work >
  
  Depends, it can either work with a somewhat modified combustion engine (see the bmw hydrogen 7) or with an hydrogen fuel cell (the inverse of electrolysis) where electrolysis uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, the fuel cell lets them come together slowly in a process which produces electricity chemically (like a battery) >
  
  
  Depends, it can either work with a somewhat modified combustion engine
  
  I wonder if a hydrogen engine would be louder than a petro engine >
  
  My now alcohol fueled (well e85... 85% alcohol) car that I converted from regular gasoline sounds exactly the same as it did before.
  The exhaust smells very different though (for the better).
  Not the same as hydrogen of course and gasoline and alcohol are much more similar to each other than either is to hydrogen, but it's a data point for you. >
  
  The issue with hydrogen fuel cells is they use a layer of platinum to catalyze the reaction that creates energy.  The question we need to ask is can you scale up the production of hydrogen fuel powered cars and not have the same issues. >
  
  I think we fucked up big-time by not making cars that are hybrid but lean more towards electric than current hybrids. Basically they were an electric car with a tiny engine to recharge the battery, which doesn't have to be nearly as big. I think there were a few, but they had no market because the people who wanted them at all tended to just want full electric for some reason (probably felt it helped the environment more; "feels good" factor). I feel they were pretty much superior in every way--very low emissions and gas use and it solved some of the issues with these huge batteries. >
  
  Battery technology well improve to the point of not needing lithium >
  
  My understanding is that hydrogen powered anything (cars, planes, etc) opens up potential dangers because of human behavior and explosive energy of hydrogen. Making hydrogen car is essentially making a bomb on wheels because of what is needed to get the most output from the hydrogen with compression, etc. The tech has to be more refined for safe long term commercial and widespread use. 
  ON TOP OF THAT, the amount of 'energy' needed to get from water-> car is more energy required than it is electricity to car because of the process of moving hydrogen, turning water into hydrogen fuel cells, etc. We dont have the infrastructure setup for that, we dont have the refined processes in place for that.
  All that said, I think battery tech advances will out due hydrogen car advances, def room for both. Honestly I think we should move away from cars in general, but thats my take. >
  
  Hydrogen powered cars have low energy efficiency. Once you account for the conversion, it's barely more energy efficient than an ICE car. About 40% or so (which is similar to a modern hybrid). Battery electric is >85% efficient. >
  
  I think it's clear that the car with the greatest green credentials and is the obvious choice for the future. Ironically, such cars are from yesteryear and can be found well documented in video archives.
  The car of the future is, of course, The Flintmobile (also known as the Cavemobile). Constructed from just wood, rock, and animal hide (can be substituted for a more eco-friendly alternative). 
  There's also no need for either battery or hydrogen, since the car can draw power from the kinetic energy contained in the legs of the passengers.
  Really, the only words that can describe this technological marvel are Yabba-Dabba-Doo! >
  
  Cant wait ti turn my car into a hydrogen bomb and drive into >!redacted!<