Shouty Kilmer says hydrogen cars are the future.

[Xist]

I guess this should not surprise me, he is obsessed with Toyotas, and they have been developing hydrogen cars for years, although I do not understand why. I have read many times on here that hydrogen cars are electric cars with fuel cells instead of batteries. Shouty says you can convert a gas car to burn hydrogen, but that does not seem like it is nearly as easy as he claims.

He also seems to ignore the extreme energy required to produce hydrogen and the difficulty storing and transporting, but he said that even a Tesla supercharger takes an hour to fully charge a car, while hydrogen pumps are far faster. He also suggested twice that there might not be enough lithium to make enough electric cars for everyone in the world.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=uJaHhxGymRA

This guy says that eighty million cars are made each year and if we consider that by the time the worldwide car market reaches a hundred million, which could really happen with China and India approaching levels of car ownership in the U.S., and if we assume that every car is electric and, on average has a battery the size of a Tesla pack, we could make electric cars for 16.9 years.

That is just lithium and he discussed alternatives, but no, there is not enough lithium to replace petroleum-burning vehicles, power storage, etc. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.gre...-ion-battery-m

[oil pan 4]

The future is nacho fries.

Enough lithium, easy. Enough cobalt? No, not even close.

Hydrogen is stupid. It will be like buying gas at $10 a gallon.
Compressed natural gas powered cars and electric cars look great, cheap, affordable and refuelable compared to hydrogen you can't find or afford.

Since starting to drive an electric car my self have found that some of the uneducated, unwashed masses think that electric cars are more dangerous than gasoline cars because you occasionally hear of one catch on fire. Their words not mine.
Try to sell hydrogen cars to them.
You don't hear anything about gasoline cars catching fire because anything smaller than a gasoline tanker catching fire is not news.

[jjackstone]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

The future is nacho fries.

...
Since starting to drive an electric car my self have found that some of the uneducated, unwashed masses think that electric cars are more dangerous than gasoline cars because you occasionally hear of one catch on fire. Their words not mine.
Try to sell hydrogen cars to them.
You don't hear anything about gasoline cars catching fire because anything smaller than a gasoline tanker catching fire is not news.

I used to get that same fire argument from friends who are technically fairly well educated. Then I'd ask them if they knew that one gallon of gasoline contained more energy than the entire battery pack of most of the electric cars on the road at the time. After they thought about the fact that they drive around sitting on top of a small bomb all the time they quit arguing with me. JJ

[seifrob]

If you ask me, the whole "Future is ..." is just advertising one proprietal solution.

There is not enough lithium to convert all petrol cars to electric
There is not enough platinum to make hydrogene cells for all cars nor not enough resources to produce so much hydrogene.
There is not enough corn to run all petrol cars on ethanol.

The era of dominance of one system is over, thats all. All the "alternative fuels" will probably gain more percentage, but I assume none will be as dominant as internal combustion engines were as alternative forms will be more cost-effective in some scenarios.

We will see more diversity. More electric cars, more hydrogen cars, more CNG cars, hopefully even some compressed air cars too.

Probably some unification too. I can imagine some "powerpacks" for trucks. Long haul in arctic areas? take this petrol. Long haul in mild climate? take this diesel. Need to do california city delivery? Than we offer you this hydrogene powerpack. Do you have your own CNG station? Take this turbine. All that fits our standard Cummins MotorMount(TM).

-- the only problem I see is political interference skewing the natural selection.

[oil pan 4]

Compressed air cars are only going to be about as powerful and fast as a golf cart.

[jcp123]

Even if he's right...it's still Scotty Kilmer.

Fuel diversity probably is the future. Or, maybe asteroid mining will take off.

[redpoint5]

There's no such thing as running out of anything. Supply and demand will balance through price.

Shouty is wrong even if he's loud.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by seifrob

The era of dominance of one system is over, thats all. All the "alternative fuels" will probably gain more percentage, but I assume none will be as dominant as internal combustion engines were as alternative forms will be more cost-effective in some scenarios.

We will see more diversity. More electric cars, more hydrogen cars, more CNG cars, hopefully even some compressed air cars too.

I also believe integrated solutions will be more relevant than some one-size-fits-nobody.. err.. one-size-fits-all approach. And the internal-combustion engine is likely to remain relevant long-term, even if it becomes more used as a backup generator instead of the prime motive power. When it comes to CNG, since nearly every organic matter residue can be turned into a feedstock for biomethane, it may become more relevant soon and eventually take over the market share of ethanol.

Probably some unification too. I can imagine some "powerpacks" for trucks. Long haul in arctic areas? take this petrol. Long haul in mild climate? take this diesel. Need to do california city delivery? Than we offer you this hydrogene powerpack. Do you have your own CNG station? Take this turbine.

Not so sure about such "unification", since most options didn't effectively replace Diesel and it remains relevant for heavy hauling on a worldwide basis. I'd also not hold my breath for hydrogen anyway, even in California it might make more sense to use CNG as long as EPA and CARB become less stringent when it comes to certification of aftermarket conversions.

the only problem I see is political interference skewing the natural selection.

Political interference is a PITA, since it doesn't often involve long-term planning. They actually need to keep some problems to sell a false solution, just like the goat-in-the-room metaphor.

[seifrob]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Compressed air cars are only going to be about as powerful and fast as a golf cart.

Agreed, but they can still find their uses - as a means of transport in explosive environment perhaps? From all the "alternative fuel" technologies, compressed air does not depend on rare resources. Although probably greenest, I admit it shows least potential.

[Xist]

I still say the only way that hydrogen power would make sense would be in tiny nuclear reactors, but if people do not accept that stationary reactors are safe, why would they allow nuclear missiles--cars?