Hydrogen vs. Battery Electric Cars

The amount of bias in this presentation is enormous. A far better discussion of hydrogen, not sponsored by a manufacturer, is in the Real Engineering channel for July 27, 2018. The cost per fuel load of a 500 km range car is far greater than battery recharge. About 1800 Toyota Mirai’s were sold in 202, but 264000 Tesla’s in one quarter. The reason is economics. With respect to the “zero emission “ claim, 90 % or more of the hydrogen in this country is produced by partial combustion of methane, emitting lots of CO2. Hydrogen with fuel cells makes some sense for trucks, due to weight load fractions, but not for cars due to irreducible efficiency problems. Hydrogen for planes makes sense, but in combustion engines, not fuel cells, and probably with liquid H2. Mr. Toyoda made some very bad decisions because of personal bias, not full consideration of engineering issues. He is now trying to use advertising and lobbying to depress the market for battery EVs and push H2 using government support, while still selling millions of polluting ICE vehicles. This presentation might be titled “Physics Girl sells out”. What a shame.