I drove 1800 miles in a Hydrogen Car
Vložit
- čas přidán 8. 08. 2021
- I drove 1800 miles in a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car! Thanks to Toyota for sponsoring this video and lending us the 2021 #Mirai.
Upcoming videos in this series:
Hydrogen vs. Battery Electric
Grid Energy Storage
Concentrated Solar
Creator/Host: Dianna Cowern
Editor: Levi Butner
Producer: Hope Butner
Production Assistant: Patrick Muhlberger
Research: Sophia Chen and Erika Carlson
Support Physics Girl
/ physicsgirl
physicsgirl.org/
/ thephysicsgirl
/ thephysicsgirl
/ thephysicsgirl
Special thank you to our X-Ray tier patrons: Carlos Patricio, David Cichowski, Eddie Sabbah, Fabrice Eap, Gil Chesterton, Isabel Herstek, Margaux Lopez, Matt Kaminski, Michael Schneider, Patrick Olson, Vikram Bhat, Vincent Argiro, wc993219
Thanks to Toyota! - Věda a technologie
As a chemist who has done research in zero carbon production of hydrogen (photocatalytic): We are still far from these being our cars, it seems more practical to use FCEV in heavier transportation (larger distances) but I think it's good that toyota is investing in advertising the tech. European green deal seems to recognise that we need hydrogen too (as an addition to batteries getting the largest section of the energy pie) for a cleaner future in transportation.
There's no real use or need for H2, it's a chemist employment program. Shift to durable materials science.
christiefou
"Zero carbon production of Hydrogen" NEVER accounts for the amount of extra green source energy it requires, nor the fact that extra energy could remove an equivalent amount of fossil generation from the grid.
It doesn't matter if the solar is connected straight to the plant, remote, or at point of use. That same solar could connect to the grid, or supply point of use energy to a BEV directly, or through battery backup, at 2.5 -3× efficiency.
The sums just do not add up.
Unless you can more than double the efficiency......?
The "large vehicle" opinion doesn't stack up either.
As with a smaller vehicle, s truck simply has to Outrange the driver, then add sufficient energy for the next journey while the driver refreshes.
Since drive time is limited by law, and a battery truck can easily provide power for that period, then repeat, Hydrogen is redundant.
(Not to mention the cost, crucial in the industry)
@@rogerstarkey5390 You are absolutely 100% correct based on the current data and electrocatalysis. I am talking about BASIC research on hydrogen production that's FAR from being scaled up now. Also I never said anything about grids, I talked about photocatalysis. This is still basic research done worldwide. Awesome if it works (right catalysts)- could never work, but that's how research works for everything.
Also what I mean by "Heavy" transportation= long range, not only cars either.
Also, its was never a BEV VS FCEV issue. Batteries are the future. They will never be 100% clean and issues on longevity, metal composition and energy density are being researched on and the tech is getting better fast.
Now imagine sunlight (photons) producing hydrogen directly from water. Kinda somewhat inspired from nature. That's hard to do, chemicaly awesome, clean as it gets AND at BASIC research level now (At least when I worked on it).
Look at Proton Technologies of Calgary Alberta.
Being a chemist, I love it. But, like the others ask, how are we producing the hydrogen?
by burning carbon.
Ripping water apart with electricity it's an infinite loop
By electrolysis, using energy that was made from fossil fuels. Unfortunately not great, but if we achieved fusion that would mean almost free energy and electricity, and overall then hydrogen cars would be cleaner and more versatile then electric, but that would take into account battery production doesn't get better and the impact more efficient batteries would have. Still they would require many elements that would need to be mined and that is not environmentally friendly, hydrogen would be better here again. The infrastructure for hydrogen is also very lacking and that's a shame because the idea offers many advantages over fully electric cars
😂 questions that matter
How? Their exact technique, who knows, but it's probably from good ole H2O
This is by far one of my favorites of your videos. I find most of your content very interesting and fun to watch but this almost made my eyes well up. I am an electrical engineer and went into the industry to find and aid in the progression of technologies like this to better the planet. Its easy to find arguments as to why we shouldn't read into alternative energies but the fact remains we eventually have to and your exploration was inspiring in a way that it reminded me why I have dedicated so much time and resources to be in the field that I am. I had heard of hydrogen cells in my college studies but to see it in a clean, marketable form is astonishing. Thank you for making this and hopefully more will be encouraged by our efforts to learn and "drive" innovation. Lame puns aside I also love motorcycles and cars so this really hits home. :P
I was debating between a Tesla and a Toyota Mirai and ended up taking the chance on the Mirai because of all the incentives being offered. I liked the the idea of having a car that runs on hydrogen and besides electric battery run cars are not that unique and innovative anymore. I have had my car about 6 weeks and love it. Have gone to Palm Springs and back about 170 miles round trip and no issues. The nearest hydrogen station to Palm Springs is in the city of Riverside.
There is another one in Ontario, Ca by the 10 freeway. Diamond Bar has one at the South Coast Air Quality Management.
I give my car an A in drive ability, interior and exterior design. Have no regrets.
How's that working out for you now?
@@garyculver4345 :The issue is lack of hydrogen stations. Also, before I purchased car, State of California App had 4 hydrogen stations to open up within 8 miles or less from where I live - Glendora, Chino, Pomona and City of Industry. Now they are not opening up. Also, the Hydrogen station inside EPA in Diamond Bar, breaks down often. The last time it was out, it was for 6 weeks. Ended up driving to Placencia and the second time was to Baldwin park, which will use up 15% of hydrogen round trip to fill up. Also, True Zero which is the Chevron stations charges 20% more per kilogram. So, is not worth it to drive to those stations.
Car is excellent inside and out, but, the lack of hydrogen stations is a big issue. Toyota has increase the manufacture rebate foe Toyota Mirai's by $14 thousand which is driving down significantly, the blue book value of the car. Also, the reduction in # of hydrogen stations that were supposed to open up is driving down the value of the car.
I would be interested in more technical details.
Assuming H2 stations do local electrolysis, how many kWh goes into producing and liquefying the hydrogen per kWh output from the fuel cell?.
How many miles does this vehicle typically get per fuel cell kWh?.
How long does the platinum last?.
Any mention of metal organic framework powders that can a) store gaseous hydrogen and save on the liquefaction energy cost and b) save on weight of the high pressure storage tanks?.
The platinum is a catalyst so it never gets used up. There is a significant energy loss converting water to hydrogen and oxygen and then recombining them to produce energy. The energy required to split water into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis is about 260 kJ per mole of water. Splitting one liter of water would take at least 16 MJ (4.4 kWh), which is an enormous expense on an industrial scale. The combustion of H2 and O2 releases 286,000 joules of energy per mole of hydrogen gas burned. 1 liter of water will produce 55.55 moles of hydrogen. So it takes at least 16 MJ of electricity and you'll get 15.8 MJ back out of it.
@@soaringeagle5418 Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I'd still like to know how much energy is required to liquefy the H2 and what is this particular fuel cell's efficiency. I've read that if H2 is produced by steam reforming, it may contain sulfur that poisons the platinum.
@@soaringeagle5418 First, thanks for explaining with numbers. Too many "green technologies" have zero numbers associated with them.
@@soaringeagle5418 While the platinum doesn't get used up fuel cells are notorious for getting fouled up by the small impurities in the hydrogen and oxygen sources.
Check the Real Engineering H2 video if you want real answers.
"Toyota is quietly pushing Congress to slow the shift to electric vehicles"
- The Verge Article I can't link because my comments are getting deleted
I wonder why a leading manufacturer of hybrids and FC cars is lobbying against BEV... I can't seem to find find the answer...
Yikes, this makes me doubt this video series will be very objective...
Toyota also makes bev's.
I just posted another link and it was deleted.
@@grieske Yeah but only because they HAVE to. They're doing everything they can to shift the market away, including these sponsored videos. H2 is not the way forward for cars.
Wow, this was so fascinating to watch. Thanks so much for bringing us along!
Very informative video. Thank you! I been looking at getting a Toyota Mirai and wanted to learn more about it so glad I found this video.
Are you going to cover how the hydrogen is produced? Every time I've looked at the available options, FCEV didn't compare well to BEV unless you use steam reformation of natural gas which produces a huge amount of CO2, defeating the purpose.
You can do hydrogen with green sources.
Hydrogen can be produced by rubbing unicorn horns together .
The advantage is that hydrogen can be generated from water, anywhere there is energy. Geo sources, for example, are often remote to primary uses. But hydrogen could be created on-site, then shipped to wherever it was needed.
@@pcfirebeats You can also capture fairy farts, doesn't mean anyone is doing it!
Also consider the issue - you use green electricity (wind, solar, wave) to make hydrogen, there are losses, next you convert hydrogen into electricity, again losses, no matter what you do you are losing energy to generate the hydrogen, charging a battery has a single step loss, not two.
@@vizionthing
Not exactly, your converting AC to DC then DC to AC..
And your also stepping up or down voltages.
Multiple steps multiple loses.
I hope you will talk about these topics in the next videos:
- How is dihydrogen produced?
- What are the resources of platinum and the impact of its extraction
- What is the overall assessment of this change (taking into account the entire production chain)
Thanks a lot for this very interesting topic!
A couple other questions
- maintenance and longevity of the drivetrain
- how much platinum is needed to produce a FC
- when hydrogen is produced in a renewable, carbon neutral fashion, what other chemicals are involved and how much energy is required to produce a kg of hydrogen from how much water taken from the wild? (pollutants/impurities can foul the catalyst in a FC, requiring ongoing maintenance/replacement of the FC, and removing impurities means distilling the water, which consumes a large amount of additional energy, and then distilled water in turn can’t be directly electrolicized because it isn’t electrically conductive, so additives are required, and then more purification becomes necessary again, involving even more energy and materials, etc.)
These are some of the issues that nobody ever talks about with hydrogen fuel cells.
@@babybirdhome Indeed! I hope she talks about all this in the next video :)
@@babybirdhome H2 is produced from natural gas, unless electrolysis is deployed, which it almost never is. It makes no sense to electrolyze H2 as you loose a massive amount of energy in the process, it's better to simply dump the electricity in a battery and use it straight to an electric motor, which you can just charge at home.
Also the efficiency, the security and the waste products of electrolysis (like the materials used that get corroded)
Yes, like lithium, platinum is limited and has to be extracted. The environmental impact in the mined areas can be very devastating. Also, platinum is expensive which is one of the main causes of the high cost of using hydrogen for fuel cells. Hydrogen is also corrosive. Based on the pros and cons that I have come across from wide variety of sources, I still see hydrogen fuel cells being the preferred future of energy storage compared to lithium batteries. I am aware of research in other materials for energy storage but I am not well read enough yet in these projects to form a valid well reasoned and thought-out opinion.
Thanks for this video. Was very educational. Love your channel, keep up the great work.
Amazing video, I love how technical you get. What a treat.
I, and all chemists, diasgree with thumbnail. Hydrogen is in fact a gas at room temperature.
All jokes aside, great video. Still not convinced that hydrogen will be better than batteries for cars, but I'm really excited to see it in aeroplanes.
Aeronautics and long term storage is wher H2 will be viable, cars only if we have a lot of excess Energy and even then there will be better uses for the energy.
Sure you're making a joke, but it's not entirely correct.
Hydrogen is only a gas at room temperature at a certain pressure range. What's more is that fueling is also technically_not_ done at room temperature. Granted, the hydrogen is still a gas despite that, as far as I know.
Is Gas a liquid or a Gas and if it's a liquid (which Petroleum is) - WHY CALL IT GAS...??
Put actual house Gas into your car and see what happens... 🤣🤣
Edit: editing this to acknowledge that the videos following this one will most likely address the points raised below.
I get that this is a sponsored video, but I wish some actual tough questions were asked or at least acknowledged. Is hydrogen fuel production better for the environment than the alternatives? How are they handling the insane fuel costs not to mention costs of building the refueling stations? Can the industry survive without state government incentives? All we got was a shallow overview of hydrogen fuel cells and an even worse review of a car.
The cars are awesome pieces of technology, for sure, but there are just WAY too many BIG problems to overcome for them to be practical (like $11-14 per pound of fuel) even over lithium ion BEVs which also have some lingering issues that need to be addressed (I drive a 2016 Kia Soul EV). Maybe if half the automotive market decided to do HFC instead of just Toyota and Honda then things might have improved substantially and they'd be on an almost even playing field with lithium ion, but lithium BEVs are so far ahead of HFC there's no way they can catch up now.
This is the first of four videos, so at least some of those questions will likely be addressed later.
@@UnconventionalReasoning Fair enough. I'll make sure to check those out too.
Hydrogen is necessary. But not on personal vehicles. It will be necessary to cross electrical deserts where electrification is not available or long stops are impractical. Trucking cannot do with batteries alone, the math doesn't add up. This is also true for shipping that cannot carry enough batteries to make the weight to cargo ratio worth it. And so shipping and airplanes will be the next biggest users, only FC can bring those modes of transport to zero emissions or carbon neutral. All in all, this is the big tech for climate change combat. Private transportation is such a minuscule fraction of the entire mass of global emissions. But you got to sell the idea to the average consumer to shift government and industry action. It's a tough spot.
@@Leo0718 there are uses for new technologies which seem pretty clear, like trucking and shipping. I think it is a bit premature to cut out some other uses, like personal vehicles, because the development of the technology over the next decade or so could make unexpected progress. Also, the economics of the situation can change dramatically.
Really heartwarming hearing Jackie talk about the setting aside of the competition to focus on the greater good. If only more people could think this way, and especially more businesses could think this way, and just step aside for a moment to focus on how we can make the world more green energy efficient, we could accomplish so much by way of that. I never knew about hydrogen fueled vehicles until watching this. And now I'm actually considering buying one since my 2001 Chevy is basically dying and it's way past time for me to get a new car lol. I definitely was going to go for electric, so this is an interesting option. Thanks Dianna!
Are they even selling this car yet?
@@joeaveragerYes they do in California
Also, I remember reading about a Japanese bus company back in the 1970s which converted their diesel buses to run on hydrogen. The advantage of burning the hydrogen in an internal combustion engine is that it would require all of the rare minerals which are used in the above hydrogen fuel cell.
Let me guess the author who wrote that was the oil companies?
As a home owner, I will never get an FCEV because charging at home is just too convenient. I don't ever want to go to a "gas" station again. I've been driving BEVs for 6 years and I'm never going back. I'm sure the Mirai is a nice car, but I'm not trading in my Tesla for one any time soon.
But for a renter or street parker, maybe FCEVs are a better option? If you can't charge at home, and don't want to burn gas, the fast fill-up time of a FCEV sounds like a good idea. Of course, you will stuck in your home town for many many years waiting for the infrastructure to be built.
The elephant in the room is that we just don't have a good way to create compressed hydrogen gas. Natural gas reforming releases greenhouse gases. Cracking water wastes too much energy. When is the magic catalyst going to be found?
I wonder how many more kilowatt hours were added to your consumption when you started charging your car at home.
@@ostrichproject1715 i wonder how many gallons of hydrogen was added to your consumption when you started refueling in remote hydrogen station
mine adds 4.5 KWh to the bill after a days worth of zipping around my metropolitan home town (50-70Km).
@@ostrichproject1715 before covid, I needed about 30kwh per day to charge the car.
There's also the range issue for a lot of the US. There are significant parts of the country where the common 150-ish mile maximum range for BEVs is less than ideal. When not in plaguetimes it was not uncommon for me to but in 110 mile days easily for just local driving and not heading to a nearby city (about 30 miles off.) Teslas normally break that limit and make BEVs more practical for some of those areas, but that's specifically Teslas and they aren't the entirety of the BEV market, nor are they inclined to share much of their technology that enables that range. Even then, if we're ever going to break free of fossil fuels we're going to need something that can power trucking (rail doesn't go everywhere and even where it DOES go there's still short/medium haul that's required) and you're not going to be able to do that with something that's always going to have lengthy recharge times. Even the Tesla SuperCharger stations (if they're available) are going to take fifteen minutes to an hour or so and that's for the lower load passenger transport cars. BEVs definitely have a place, but that place seems better suited to predictable consumer daily driving (which is still important)
An electric car is 2.4 times more efficient than a hydrogen car.(source Wikipedia)
Why?
You have electricity.(hopefully generated via solar or other renewable way)
You use it to separate hydrogen via electrolysis(or other methods) and pump it into your car.
Your car turns then that hydrogen into electricity.
See the problem? We could have just use the electricity to charge an electric car directly.
Also we already have vast and fundamental electric grids versus a non existent 'hydrogen grid'.
I really expect that the next parts talk about this "little issue" with "H2 future" Toyota want to take (force?), otherwise it will tell this is just a paid ad. Sad.
I'm saving for a tesla
Efficiency isn't s problem if you've got enough renewable energy.
@@wo-olf
Yes it is.
Being 2.4 times less efficient means you're effectively emitting 2.4 times more carbon per unit of energy delivered to the wheels.
Plus you've forgotten to mention that the hydrogen needs to be compressed so it can be stored. The compression process takes a huge amount of energy too and this energy you're never getting back.
I applaud you at taking this daunting task on and be straight about what the real pros and cons are. This is what really helps the avg Joe and Jill.
Great video.
Loved the knowledge and your enthu!
When you know that Toyota is actively slowing down the adoption of BEV, this video has a different taste
@@k1fizz only 4% of hydrogen production is so called green... so who's liying now?
@@k1fizz also FCEV can't do regenerative break unless they have a battery inside (and they do... so FCEV is a whole BEV with extra part that consume 3 time more energy, need new kind of station with lot of protection as H2 is dangerous and can't be charged at home... so FCEV = BEV-------)
@@k1fizz Lie? There’s no lie about Toyota executives funding anti-Bev lobbying efforts, no one’s arguing about how green hydrogen is or isn’t in this comment thread just Toyota’s lobbying efforts
@@SylouCool A majoritiy of energy productioin is from fossil sources. The energy mix in the grid will get better over time, just like the energy mix in gas pipelines that also will get better over time.
Its the same thing.
@@SylouCool You can utilize supercapasitors if battery resources gets low to regenerate energy in a FCEV. BEV's value chain towards battery grade minerals is troublesome as we electrify the transport at bigger scale.
I've invested into miners and lithium index for this reason alone.
I did a project on hydrogen fuel cells back in my high school geography class... that was like 15 years ago. I was starting to think everyone forgot about hydrogen fuel cells. Glad to see they're actually being tested now
Same here.
An amusing part is the notion that there will be one or the other. From global projections *before* we talked much about electrical cars or hydrogen cars as a reality, on NOVA, they talked to many people in various energy sectors and the broad consensus that the population is still growing and the needs of the world will require many sorts of energy production and applications. There may be areas where one technology is predominant, and in other sectors another.
Also what if China and Russia have a lot of the Lithium or whatever key component you want to name? Do we support them by piling ridiculous amounts of currency to get the materiel? And how much do we want to buy these things from authoritarians, despots, dictators, etc. ? And how much do we want to deal with countries where there are few human rights, effectively zero workplace safety, and a lot of the processes are hard on the environment and on the workers... what's our moral decision - buy materials and support awful regimes? Invade to take them? Or choose less optimal materials and technologies that come from decent countries with minimal(ish) environmental and worker safety issues?
This big energy transition we are going to be undergoing for at least 100 years is going to put many conundrums in front of us and often no really good answer. Where are our needs for power going to trump the safety of foreign workers who are humans as well? Some slaves effectively.... this is not a simple green revolution - it ties directly into some of the nastiest nations in the world.
Nobody has forgotten about hydrogen fuel cells it's just the cost to produce the hydrogen is way more expensive than fossil fuels and electricity. We experimented with Hydrogen bombs forever so we knew its potential.
Oil cabal will not allow untill oil is gone. They kill off any competition
@@danielk0106 Cost to produce hydrogen is an issue? I use electricity and electrolyte solution (mostly water) and I can make hydrogen with ease. On the other hand, I've been told that it is an energy-intensive process. Is that related to what you are saying?
I'm impressed, very nice video with a lot of background knowledge.
I drive this Mirai myself in Germany and do so with enthusiasm. Super nice and cool CAR! Thank you Toyota!🥰
Awesome vid! Highly informative. Thx! 🙂
I totally get this, but 1. making single-molecule hydrogen takes a lot of energy (so constantly, not just during the development of batteries or something), 2. not using the heat energy generated by h2o forming (just the electron flow), it's very much about tradeoffs. And if there are no actual graphs and numbers here, I'm not sure we're gonna get anywhere to attribute to climate change fixing. So I would very much ask companies to share the actual details, even if they're bad at the moment but they see room for improvement.
I'd be more impressed if I hadn't heard how Toyota had bet on hybrid and thought full electrics to just be niche for the next while, and now that Tesla et all are making viable electrics they are lobbying against electric vehicles. Very green of them.
It's cash green. The greenest tech of them all.
They are lobbying for hybrids. Not against EV.
To be fair, what are you supposed to do with those batteries when they wear out?
@@EnderKiller225 Currently, they just sit in toxic piles of battery waste. Some companies are trying to solve that problem by recycling, but that just tries to solve climate change by creating more problems.
@@k1fizz
There are several companies, big and small, that are finding ways to recycle car batteries. Everything from use for household electric storage through to remaking new batteries. It is the best interests of EV manufacturers to recycle.
It would be great to listen to a discussion about the thermodynamics, and energy efficiency of powering a BEV charged most of the time from a PV array, compared with using the PV array to electrolyse water, separate the Hydrogen and Oxygen, compress the Hydrogen and make it available for filling the tank in a FCEV. The storage losses from the tank would also be interesting.
It's not much of a discussion, more like a summary. BEV's are hands down far more energy efficient, but interestingly fuel cells would require a lot less mining because they're using a fuel. But of course that fuel is a pain to deal with.
Very good presentation..easily understood highly technical process.
Thanks
I saw a video by Real Engineering “The Truth about Hydrogen.”
The arguments brought up in the video seem compelling to me and he calculated if I remember correctly something around 75% efficiency for BEVs from Power generation to the electric motor and somewhere around 30% for HEVs. With you running your car, what were your numbers?
Are they better than the model calculations by Real Engineering or are they even worse? I’m really curious about your story and data!
Yes. And broadening it out _Real Engineering_ is very good on renewables generally. That's the place I'd go to get a much better understanding of this topic.
efficiency of the fuel doesn't matter if your source of energy is very cheap. Like hydrogen production from nuclear power. VHTR reactors produce electricity and hydrogen too.
don't forget they get the hydrogen from methane steme reforming, so you need to add a buttload of CO to their overall emissions, and not just take tailpipe readings. CH4 + H2O ⇌ CO + 3 H2. both methane and steam are so cheap it's like it's free compared with green methods of generation
@@Azrudi
The efficiency matters.
1) The end user pays for the energy.... ALL the energy to produce the fuel (check the comparative price per mile)
2) Any energy ("electricity") used could replace Fossil generation on the grid.
The fact that it doesn't obviously means more fossil fuel remains. "Green hydrogen" is not green.
@@guest_informant Agreed, Real Engineering is not being sponsored by Toyota while this video is.
"It actually requires armor piercing rounds that we can only get in the US"
...of course
time to send it to Demolition Ranch
Murica, 'F' YEAH!
My favorite so far! So interesting. Hilarious edits too.
Thanks for Sharing this and all your Videos ! 🙏🏼
I always enjoy seeing your work, thank you for doing this wide-ranging series!
Did they explain why the BEV won't be enough to get to a 100% green transportation future?
I think hydrogen is a great choice for planes and ships, but ground transport is more efficient with BEV.
They said that topic will be covered in a future video.
I think Hydrogen is a great technology to exist, and I'm interested in hearing why they think it's better than BEVs, but remain convinced that BEVs are the much better choice for most people.
I would think it would be related to issues with grid capacity. CA is already struggling and they are only starting to push to 8% of new cars sold being EV. A mixture of BEV and FCEV would ease strain on the grid. Range is also substantially better with FCEV so that would be better for long range transportation where BEV is more than sufficient for daily commuting.
It's still pretty terrible for planes, the tanks have to be absolutely massive. Liquid hydrogen is not energy dense compared to jet fuel.
How do you intend to charge fleets of BEVs? The CA grid for example, can’t handle today’s loads!
They say that BEVs can't do it alone but they don't produce any of those so have to push the FCEV as the "other" option.
Love your videos. One thing that should be considered is the total emissions from vehicles versus the global industrial emissions from other sources including shipping, trains, etc. It really changes people's perceptive when they learn how little of global emissions is due to personal vehicles.
Just found out about this channel I was researching hydrogen powered cars. I was wondering what happens to the hype. I love this channel already!
Most auto manufactures put the delivery pump/charger to wheel efficiency of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles at 25% to 30%, and battery electric vehicles at 70% to 90%. 95% of hydrogen is now made from natural gas or coal gasification, so has almost zero pollution or CO2 benefits. Hydrogen fueling stations are very scarce, and it costs on average 16 dollars per kilogram, and the Mirai gets between low 50s to high 60s miles per kilogram, and averages about 265 miles on a "full" tank. Very expensive for a car that can barely be used in California, let alone the rest of the country. And the Mirai still has a battery pack to provide the surge power. Mirai's resale value is from below 9k to 15k dollars for a 2018. Not great for a car that cost 51k to 60k new. It has been estimated that Toyota is losing about 60k to 120k per Mirai sold.
H2 can only accelerate cars, they would still need batteries for braking.
@@BrianSu They need batteries to both accelerate and provide regenerative braking, as the hydrogen reaction cannot happen fast enough to produce enough energy for fast acceleration. So they are still hybrid vehicles, just with a hydrogen powered generator.
Quite a devestating summary.
@@GoCoyote ahh ok. I’ve only been on H2 buses. Not sure how they work
@@GoCoyote sounds like a good application for supercapacitors
Where is the hydrogen for the cars coming from. At present most hydrogen is produced by steam reformation of methane or natural gas, this releases vast quantities of CO2 and if you catalyse water with electricity where is that electricity coming from and would it be more efficient to put that electricity into batteries.
More efficient to just use petrol or alternative fuels. Hydrogen is just a battery.
You can catalyze water with electricity from green source (like solar or wind).
@@pcfirebeats so just use electricity
@@pcfirebeats Yeah it's certainly possible to produce hydrogen using renewable energy, but any third party hydrogen producer will try to maximize their profit and will do it in the cheapest way. So it would require some regulation to ensure hydrogen production doesn't defeat the purpose of going green.
Green H2 production is a chicken and egg problem. It's doable, but won't happen until the demand is there. If we wait until it's available to use it, it will never happen. This is the benefit of electric and H2 cars. They can literally get greener as the infrastructure evolves. We're already seeing this happen with batteries.
As far as "why not just charge a battery", it's about being able to refill quickly. This R
emoves the biggest hurdle to eclectic car adoption. Which was made abundantly clear in the video, making me wonder if you even bothered watching it.
I've always wanted to know more about the mirai thanks!
Great great job!!! Thanks Diana Team!
The whole "a chemical reaction happens but the electron is forced take the long way around" is how batteries work too
That's why they also call it "cell" or "battery" sometimes on the video :)
Yep, except you can refill a battery cell anywhere there is electricity......
Batteries leave a larger carbon footprint tho
@@johnroberts5500 Please site your sources.
Hey Physics Girl, how much editorial control did you give up to Toyota? You showed us the taped up phones, now please share the limits of your NDA with Toyota.
Or, do a follow-up video talking about the opposite viewpoints (assuming that you aren't constrained from making such a video).
@@aveekbh And if you are restricted, don't make the video and we'll know you had to give up a lot of control to get the sponsorship.
Assuming there's an NDA is already pretty big assumption, and even if there is, how is she going to show the limits of it? Do you know what an NDA is? What lol??
@@MrKangorilla 1.The NDA is signed BEFORE they tape up your phone's cameras. Clearly you've never visited an R&D center.
2. It perfectly fine to talk about the limits of an NDA.
3. yes
4. you are a doofus
this is quality content, loved it
I love what Jackie has said about putting aside competition for the greater good! Different companies having a single mission sounds awesome!
Yaaaa but they arnt sharing tech. They are just making their public image better really, making the idea of hydrogen more appealing for sure, but still refusing to work together publicly with the tech.
It makes sound business sense. Same as android phones are all compatible. They are all aiming to take on ICE and accept that they will not have a monopoly on the technology. You can only go it alone like Apple if you are big enough and wish to corner an exclusive part of the market.
Isn't true though. Toyota actively lobbies against BEVs because they dragged their feet on that tech and success for other OEMs' BEVs is bad for Toyota competitiveness.
A standardized nozzle is not a particularly impressive example of cooperation for the greater good. And every other OEM that actually sells vehicles has given up on the obvious dead-end of H2 for passenger vehicles anyway.
@@PyedrHydrogen for Semis and Airplanes Jets is the way of the future. Imagine a Jet plane with batteries on fire mid air over the ocean. Really?
Working for the hydrogen division of M*chelin here in France, it's super interesting because it feels new even though the technology isn't that new at all (60's for space applications, wow) there is still a lot of work and progress to make. The prices of each system is horrendous (looking at 5 digits), it uses ultra rare metals (platinum for example) and because the fuel cell isn't reactive enough and you need a buffer in the middle of that, vehicles still needs a lithium battery. The lifespan of the stack is the main question. Automotive applications are supper harsh because of cold temperatures, vibrations, start and stop usage (the fuel cells likes constant load and temps). But even though, I'm super proud to work in that industry, and I still love my older cars to have fun in the week end 🤙
What's the system efficiency (grid to "wheels") of the latest fuel cell systems?
@@rogerstarkey5390 to be absolutely honest I don't remember (considering the production of h2 from water electrolysis and not gas). Those numbers exists somewhere but as we don't produce our own hydrogen for now, I can't tell how much power is needed to produce a certain amount of h2 (VS what our cells provide with the same amount of gas). Good question though
You don't need a fuel cell to use H2.
@@BrianSu true but you need h2 to use a fuel cell 😁. I'm following what Toyota does with a piston engine burning h2
@@frozenpete788 BMW made H2 powered piston V-12 engine 7 series.... it's called the BMW Hydrogen 7
It was nice that Toyota let you tour and film part of their facility, but ultimately there was no science discussed in this video other than addressing the headers of a few topics + infographics without any numeric depth (no numbers = no science IMO).
This honestly seemed like corporate propaganda from Toyota. Nice to watch, but ultimately lacking any real info and rather meaningless besides an emotional impact (save the planet, etc.). The select few concerns addressed in this video were brushed-off/dismissed without any substantial response by Toyota's team (ex: hydrogen will worm its way through any material I've seen, what difference will a polymer wrap make? Hard to just sit here and trust the Toyota lady at her word without a better explanation).
Exactly, she never discussed the efficiency of the car as well which is like the most important aspect of a new technology
Well it’s a sponsored brand integration not a critical journalistic piece. She probably had to have lots of meetings with them to go over ground rules and such. I wouldn’t have high expectations of transparency when a brand is paying you to make a video imo.
@@rutvikpanchal5726 - Or the emissions in the hydrogen fuel generation process, which imo is even more important than the efficiency.
This video made physics girl look pretty blonde.
@@rutvikpanchal5726 Now there's a video that discusses the efficiency!
I enjoy the enthusiasm. Are the refilling stations supplied with green hydrogen or grey?
Was the 1800 miles the result of a single fill? If not, then what is the driving range of a single full tank and how much did it cost to fill the tank? Thank you.
Range is 412 miles $80 to fill up, but if you buy it new Toyota gives you $15k on a card to use all of the $15k or for 8 years whichever comes first
Hey Dianna! Make sure to present how the hydrogen is being produced.
currently, or in the future?
@@diazinth I think both of them would be great. How the industry would like to move forward also influences public opinion.
It's important than using hydrogen
Thanks soo much for highlighting FCEV technology! Although I think the best application is for heavy duty vehicles and equipment (replacement for diesel fuel and aircraft engines), it DEFINITELY has a strong place in the green future economy. Much faster to fill up. No need to dig into the Earth (for Green Hydrogen). And nearly 5x the power density of latest mass produced batteries for cars!
Jackie seems super passionate about this and explains it super well!
She a westcoast tree hugger that’s why 🤣
Thank you. Very informative. More, please. 🙂
What was the range of the car on one tank(s) worth of hydrogen? I don't remember it being mentioned in the video.
500 km
@@giovannip8600 Then how much that hydrogen costs at the "pump"?
@@ikocheratcr $75-$88
@@paperhouse6282 which is why car makers are subsidizing the fuel.
Note, there are only something like 44 hydrogen fuel stations in the US. One in Hawaii, the rest in California.
@@giovannip8600 that short‽ There's BEVs with more range, but to be fair the Mirai is about 6-7 years old now isn't it?
I've got one of those BEVs. I charge it up in my garage; turns out that electricity is nearly ubiquitous so basic charging infrastructure is already everywhere. Faster charging is only needed on longer trips, and is already in a usable (could be better) state for most of the US. I think these details will prevent FCEV from wide spread adoption, except maybe for some unusual markets, because BEVs have plenty of infrastructure already in place.
Then there is the whole issue of how the hydrogen is produced and how much carbon dioxide the production releases.
I agree.
Green Hydrogen also is a wate of electricity, because electricity is used toproduce H2 and then H2 is used fo produce electricity again. All this costs more than half of the energy.
If BEV is an viable option for the purpose in mind, FCEV won't be able to hold up.
@@mAx-grassfed Doesn't really matter considering the fact that we could have so many times more electricity than we need if we used more of the potential the sun is giving us day to day. H2 would be a great way to store that energy.
@@wo-olf
I kind of agree.
Though I think we should use our green energy as efficiently as possible as long as we do not have enough.
Meaing for private mobility:
bicycles > electrified public transport > BEV > FCEV
The saved green electricity should be used to produce green hydrogen to decarbonize the steel and aluminium production, as well as the chemistry industry. Also, it is needed for special case of cargo transportation like ships and planes.
@@mAx-grassfed absolutely. As long as we don't make use of enough renewable energy to cover our energy demand we should not waste it.
100% GREEN hydrogen is available today in California. Find the stations here: cafcp.org/stationmap
FCEV using green hydrogen will emit 79%-80% lower life-cycle green house gas emissions than a comparable gasoline car and it is being done today.
A BEV using 100% green electricity will emit 81% lower life-cycle green house gas emissions than a comparable gasoline car, but the grid is only 10-20% green at night when BEVs are charging: www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html When is California's goal to have a 100% renewable electrical grid? 2045: focus.senate.ca.gov/sb100/faqs
Even the worst hydrogen you can fuel up with today (33.3% green and 66.7% blue) emits 72.44% less life-cycle green house gas emissions than a comparable gasoline car. Whereas the average BEV in the United States will emit 57% - 68% less life-cycle green house gas emissions than a comparable gasoline car. This means driving a BEV will contribute more to carbon emissions than driving a FCEV today.
thank you very much Jackie u are very good with your knowledge
So great video!
Well… after this, to wash out all of the Toyota’s propaganda, people should really watch Real Engineering’s The Truth about Hydrogen.
I am automatically suspicious of anything headed “The truth about…”
@@reallynotpc as you should, but that video it's actually good, it goes all the way in with the engineering math and all that stuff
Toyota (and to a lesser extent Honda) is big on fuel cell because they were caught flat footed in conventional EV development. Additionally, many in Japan see hydrogen as the path to energy independence. Other zero emission power electrical technology isn't particularly feasible and they generally dont want to be dependent on China. Unfortunately right now that means buy Hydrogen converted from natural gas in Bahrain as nuclear plants are being decommissioned due to safety concerns following Fukushima.
@@charliewilson9062 isn't it possible to but a place from another country, place a nuclear reactor there and get the electricity transported. Also there are several poor countries in info Pacific and south east asia so energy can be shared with the country in exchange for land. If uranium is being used then the other country has to pay for it since Japan is farther away and the other country also needs to contribute.
@@isntthisfun3208 Would you carry the electricity in big buckets?
Almost two decades ago, we already thought fuel cells were the future. This is painfully slow.
Yup, BEV won and now Toyota is just being stubborn.
@@TheLastMoccasin It's not that simple. Batteries "won" _for now,_ for a very small percentage of vehicles (less than 0.5% of vehicles currently); it's quite insignificant currently, although I will admit there's at least _some) traction for the future as well.
There are multiple good arguments explaining how batteries aren't viable -or at least optimal- for ubiquitous/universal use in the future though. So there can still be an introduction to hydrogen down the line, be it 5 years or 50 years.
There's still a lot of time and a lot of unbuilt green vehicles (over 99%), and everything has a shelf life too, so it's not like once all vehicles are BEVs (super unlikely) that a HEV couldn't still occur.
@@TheLastMoccasin Me thinks BEV is a road map to hydrogen and hydrogen is a roadmap to something else beyond our lifetimes 😂.
@@TheLastMoccasin Toyota now builds Hybrids, HFCs and BEVs ...... and not only Toyota is investing in the technology. Honda, Hyundai, GM, BMW, Porsche, VW, Land Rover, Jaguar are all investing in HFC technology
@@SnowWolf9999 I guess we will just have to put our bets down (stock market) and see who wins then!
Love it! How would graphite hold up compared to platinum?
If just the single proton goes through the membrane what happens with isotopes of hydrogen? do they get stuck? can they get through too?
It's so hard to know if this is a positive move, environmentally, when you hear statements like, "0 emission vehicle." We've moved the emissions to another location, but not eliminated them. I understand that it's a long and nuanced conversation and the numbers aren't small. Laymen (like me) don't know what those numbers mean without context of other industries.
I'd love to hear your perspective on how to make sense of all these options from a big picture view.
I should carry a load of stickers reading "here" to correct the stickers on BEVs that read "zero emissions". Really annoys me!
Right now, fossil fuels and natural gas are used to produce hydrogen. But you could easily use solar, wind, hydro, geo thermal, or even nuclear energy to create hydrogen from water through electrolysis.
@@reallynotpc
You'll need more, saying "3 times the emissions of a BEV" for Hydrogen vehicles (not at the vehicle, of course)
@@rogerstarkey5390 At the moment a couple of dozen will suffice over here.
Zero emmision at the point of the car is relevent for L.A. as eliminating smog was a major impetus for these vehicles and the subsidizing of them.
Is Physics Girl throwing out physics? A hydrogen car is an electric car with the inefficiencies of hydrogen (making, compression, loss). The only probable advantage would be range which most electric cars do just as well. There's no HFC infrastructure! There's a reason there's not more companies working on hydrogen fuel cell. Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars are DOA.
It might be a waste for personal travel, especially in urban area's, but for heavy commercial traffic or Agricultural applications batteries are just too, heavy/bulky for the needed energy density, and the refuel times are far too long.
A refueling experience like that of a ICE car is the appeal. Unless two minute recharging becomes a thing, EVs owners will not enjoy that kind of "fill up" and go experience on a leg of a road trip.
@@unraisinable Compressed hydrogen gas still won't match up well against liquid fuels for energy density by mass and definitely not volumetric. I wonder how that'll work for a hypothetical aviation world, whether they burn it in turbines or use fuel cells. But I suspect for most ground vehicles, especially mass limited ones like road transport and agricultural equipment (max weight per vehicle/axle pressure) combined with faster refueling it could become part of a solution.
Theoretically if we ever get a surplus of renewable energy that could be used to produce and store hydrogen gas I guess instead of being wasted? There are some areas that already have excess solar/wind power at times, but I'm not sure how well the processes are at quickly ramping up and down with hydrogen production and if intermittent activity will end up being sufficient or even financially viable (with subsidies).
As for the downsides of losses mentioned by swirlingbrain in the original comment: I do hope the other 3 parts she alluded to at the start will adress those. This one since they got some exclusive Toyota access might've been restricted and subject to their approval before uploading. I think BEV is probably going to be preferable for a lot of use cases as well, especially most personal use but there are some activities that'll really struggle staying functional without liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Long distance aviation and ships are probably the hardest ones to deal with, hypothetically ships could go back to using sails as primary power source but that'd be very unpredictable and hard to combine with current container ships (both loading/unloading and unpredictable schedules). Won't go so far as to say that fuel cells are dead on arrival but they definitely have a tall mountain to overcome with both infrastructure and unsustainable production emissions currently.
Thank you for the great informative video. I shared it with my wifes sister and her husband as they are considering an electric car in the future. Perhaps my next new vehicle for us also.
Aaaaand Toyota's propaganda video does its job.
What will happen instead is you will stick with a gasoline car based on the 'future promise' of hydrogen, which is all Toyota has left to sell from their massive R&D mistake.
They are using the Mirai not to sell you a Hydrogen car (it's expensive and impractical) but to keep you out of a competitors battery vehicle. The goal is here is to make your next car yet another Corolla and not a Kia EV or a Tesla.
What this Toyota scripted commercial deliberately left out was where the H2 actually comes from, it's methane, the Mirai is a fossil fuel powered vehicle with refinery CO2 emissions. Yes, it *could* use green electricity, but it doesn't. If it did, it would be even more expensive per mile, and use 3x the electricity of a battery EV, which in turn puts more burden on the grid which leaves less green electricity to displace CO2 emitting generation.
Using hydrogen as a fuel is a lose lose situation. Either use the methane directly in a natural gas combustion engine (LNG) or use the electricity directly in a battery EV. Going via Hydrogen makes no sense now that batteries are heading to $100 per kWh at the pack level - in all fairness to H2 research, batteries used to be $2000 per kWh - but have not been for a decade now.
Toyota doesn't really want to sell you a hydrogen car, they want you keep buying gasoline, they don't have a capable EV offering because they have been asleep at the wheel.
Love your energy and curiosity! Hope you get well soon.
"Toyota is not responsible for the operability of third party fuel stations or the availability of hydrogen fuel".
Well, of course they don't they don't want to be responsible for the part that dictates why we'll never have hydrogen cars.
Battery EVs immediately answer your questions about range. Sure, there might be more or less superchargers in a certain area, but worst case scenario you can just charge it at home or on any regular outlet, and things will get better with time.
Meanwhile, Hydrogen has a *severe*, so far *unsolved* problem with availability. And the problem is fairly simple: Hydrogen is expensive and *slow* to manufacture. The two ways this could work is either each gas station makes its own hydrogen, or hydrogen is centrally manufactured and distributed, just like gas. The first case would *never* work, first because the initial investment is *massive*, and there are no customers, and second, because when there are enough customers, a gas station can't make hydrogen fast enough to supply them. What about centrally manufacturing it and distributing it like gas? Well, there are again no answers here. There isn't enough hydrogen production to go around for any significant amount of vehicles, so you're guaranteed to see prices fluctuate UP the more hydrogen cars there are. Just like gas. And there's no WAY that supply could keep up with demand if there was any serious demand.
So, basically, the only way hydrogen cars could work is if there was only a few select vehicles with a steady, predictable requirement, such as the buses on a city or trucks.
And I think hydrogen works fine for trucks. Distribution is easier since truck typically drive between industrial areas, and hydrogen demand on the scale of an industrial area is very predictable.
And there's of course the problem with batteries of not scaling very well. Batteries are heavy, there is usually a regulatory limit on how heavy vehicles are allowed to be, so the weight of batteries limit the useful load a truck can haul.
@@HenriZwols I agree. As I said, trucks, city buses, and similar large-vehicles with predictable routes could work.
The fuel station infrastructure in LA is terrible. I love driving my mirai, but it’s not a practical vehicle as there are so few pumps. To make matters worse, the hydrogen stations seem to be out of fuel a lot of the time, or they have maintenance issues. It’s just not a realistic car to own if you want to use it regularly, as getting fuel simply isn’t possible a lot of the time.
@@florianschura4150 Exactly. The problem is, it's a scam. The manufacturer *knows* what the fuel situation is like, and they know that it's something that is *inherent* to the fuel type. It's not a matter of "there aren't enough *yet*", it's a matter of production and are intrinsic issues of H2, and there is no solution in sight.
The manufacturers that are nonetheless pushing H2 vehicles are doing so in order to fight the shift to electric. Toyota is using their hybrids and H2 as excuses to lobby Congress against EV policies. Basically, they push a vehicle that they know is intentionally not viable, and then say "See? We need to slow down, the world is not ready yet".
I realize you're not the only educational youtube channel to do this lately (Veritasium comes to mind) but it concerns me that there's a conflict of interest between covering the topic and the sponsor of the video. :/
welcome to car youtube
Toyota pushed hybrids and failed to invest in BEV's since the first Prius came out.
Now that the mandates are in and timelines set for a zero tailpipe emissions future they are scrambling to be relevant without looking foolish.
It seems a sunk cost fallacy for them.
But damned if they aren't going after the fully electric cars offered by other manufacturers.
I imagine much of that is because no one else is interested in sharing the load of hydrogen infrastructure they need to sell their FC cars.
This doesn't matter much to me (what are you worried about? Maybe you've thought of something I haven't). If you trust the content a channel posts when the video is not sponsored, then you should (usually) trust the content they post when they do imo. Forgetting about any moral obligations they may have as a creator, unless they are getting paid (tens of) millions, these creators have much more to lose by lying to their audience than just by refusing the changes the sponsor requests on the video. Companies like Toyota realize this too; if they were ever exposed (which they probably would be if there were any obvious lies or misleading statements), this video would probably do more harm than good for them.
@@Erik-R Knowing something about the topic, I can tell that Diana is getting a bit “snowed” by “self-charging EVs” Toyota here. She also, is not getting any outside information.
When I saw this video pop up, it gave me flashbacks to the Veritasium video from a few weeks ago. I didn't find this one *quite* as nauseating to watch as that, but these videos still really feel like companies wanting science edutainers with PhDs in physics to endorse their products…"Let's use all that reputation for intellectual integrity and authority to make algorithm-friendly fluff pieces that discuss very little science and a whole lot of why our company's product is the thing to buy."
Next thing we know, Neil deGrasse Tyson will be telling us about low-emission vehicles in a TV special sponsored by Volkswagen 🙃
Wow, I always thought hydrogen cars would have to have lots of tiny hydrogen tanks! I am amazed that they could make the tanks so strong, Your the best Diana! Not really your not the best, your considerably better than that!
We have many in the Coachella Valley in an near Palm Springs that are available for the public to use. Our local public transit SunLines offers it to the community to use.
We've crunched the numbers on this technology. it loses to BEV on every environmental metric, but the real reason hydrogen fuel cell technology will never catch on is because it costs more.
Well, BEVs aren't all that great for the environment in their own right.
I think the best we can do is explore as many different alternatives as well can.
@@mechanomics2649 Do you seriously still believe all that FUD? FYI, Tesla has released their environmental impact report. It's been all over CZcams for about a week now. Here's the link:
www.tesla.com/ns_videos/2020-tesla-impact-report.pdf
Of course, we could all give up motorized transportation completely, but as far as the environment is concerned, What Tesla is doing is the next best thing.
@@surferdude4487 you do realize making the batteries uses a lot of CO2 right? Neither are totally clean, the truth is that, regardless of infrastructure cause that’s a different story, FCEV and EV are on par with eachother or EV is ahead a little, but you can’t write off different alternatives because they aren’t efficient, remember, the average person doesn’t really care about efficiency and environmental impact
@@matthewmizrachi1877 Yes, I can write off solutions for being inefficient. Inefficiency translates into additional costs.
And, as for battery production being bad for the environment, have a look at Tesla's environmental impact statement. I provided the link in one of my other replies in this thread.
BEVs pull ahead of ICE vehicles in total life-time CO2 produced by 5,000 miles. And that's with current technology. Bevs will be even better than that within the next two years because of new technology such as dry battery electrodes and larger form factor cells.
There are no such improvements anywhere in sight for hydrogen fuel cell powered hybrids.
@@surferdude4487 do you know what the company plasma kinetics is?
Still strikes me as really unfortunate that America has such a dependency on cars. Having good public transportation would go a huge way in reducing carbon emissions.
Ask someone in a flyover state about public transportation.
Having said that, we need all the sources of energy we can get, and we need to be free to choose the one that's appropriate for our location/situation.
That is likely always going to be the case as well. Even if the governments built efficient public transport, most people in suburban areas will not use it.
Somehow I feel you live in a country the size of a small state. The amount of even one resource like copper to begin building infrastructure would triple the cost of copper. The amount of open pit mining to get the resources would be devastating. You may not realize it also, but there are other countries in North America and it is a very large mass of land. You cannot drive from New York to LA in a day like some people think.
@@mollygundies6966 Obviously the public transit would only be of benefit in cities… which, coincidentally, is where 5/6 of people live.
I've lived in Berlin, where public transit is widely available & cheap. A lot of people there don't own cars, because there's no need.
@@jursamaj Well, I live in the American coastal west, where because slightly more than half of the population lives in the cities and are dependent on liberal ideology, the cities control the politics. But I'll tell ya, if you go to Costco you'll see almost all SUVs in the parking lot. It takes one of those to haul home your purchases. We do like to drive here.
Thankyou for The Information
Does it have an app showing you where to fill up? I see the station in Sacramento California but I haven’t seen them in other states. However maybe I didn’t know where to look.
Awesome video. Hydrogen seems like a cool concept.
Oh hi jerry
Hello verified user.
Hey Jerry 👋
Should talk about how a Verge article came out that Toyota is lobbying Congress to slow the shift to electric cars because they are behind.
Verge has ZERO credibility.
@@geonerd Ok? How about Forbes or the several others who have reported the same thing.
EVs are not sustainable. HVs are the potential winner.
@@deplorablechump8758 Lithium mining for batteries is an incredibly unecological process.
Used batteries are a nightmare to recycle. The strain EVs put on the power grid if even half of all cars switched, boggles the mind. I also don’t like that these cars are constantly tracked by the manufacturers. This guy with a Rivian couldn’t even get into his car, when an OTA update went awry.
I wonder if the water is worth catching and recycling? I wonder if it's drinkable right out of the purge valve?
Thanks to this show, I am now a fuel-cell electric proponent. Thanks, Dianna!
I think it's interesting to learn about hydrogen electric and would easily get one if it was an option. But this video really feels like a Toyota add. Spent the entire video kinda cringing cus it felt so coporate and ungenuine.
it is. they sponsor almost all the coverage of these cars, and it's the only time they are mentioned unless it's someone bringing it up as a tech dead end
Sure but if this video wasn't sponsored she would never have been able to drive a car like this, let alone talk to the actual engineers working on said car. It's a sacrifice I think anyone genuinly interested in these things is happy to make.
@@seldoon_nemar the thing is, too, this could imply some legal stuff. A video should clearly show that it is sponsored if it is. That didn’t happen here.
@@kevkevpurple ^ true. and youtube is _super_ strict about that. there are laws for it. that is not so on traditional tv. you never had to disclose that info on tv. I think there was a tom scott video about that
@@kevkevpurple it says "This video is sponsored by Toyota" around the 29 second mark.
There were a few Mirai's driving around on Oahu with the only hydrogen station on the island being just down the road from where I worked. Toyota promised free hydrogen to Mirai lease holders for a few years as an incentive.
My brother leased the Honda version. They gave him a prepaid gas card that was sized to the standard mileage for the lease. They paid for the fuel, in other words. A fill-up would otherwise cost $80. This is in California.
The shocker was the cost of the special non-conductive coolant for the fuel cell. It was $70/liter, the smallest premixed size available. Once the seal was broken, you used all or part of it. Oh, sorry. Not you. The dealership had to do coolant top-offs, and they were not optional. Proper coolant level is critical to the operation of the $30,000 fuel cell. It would shut itself down to protect Honda’s property (lease only).
Running out of fuel was also a tow truck flatbed call because the auxiliary Li-Ion battery had no limp-home mode (could not work without the fuel cell) and could only be charged by the fuel cell. Flatbed because it violated the lease to tow with wheels on the ground.
that's why James May sold his... huh his free hydrogen timer must have ran out
@@Markle2k Oh dang, that sounds quite restrictive. I think I remember seeing a few Honda Clarity vehicles on Oahu as well.
@@dallatorretdu James May already bought the new generation Mirai and he loved it 😍
Without watching the other video, I would assume fuel cells have a lower carbon emission to make than that of batteries, especially when factoring in the rare metals required for the batteries.
The fuel cell is stainless steel and rubber gaskets
@@scottalan4655 electric car batteries require 6 times the amount of minerals of conventional car batteries, and require some minerals which standard car batteries don't require such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite. They are using up substantially more of the rare Earth Minerals, they aren't just stainless steel and rubber gaskets.
Don't forget the toxic pollution that mining the resources that make batteries create. While we cannot get away from the mining, the scale that would be required to build so many batteries is insane.
Great video. I assume you will cover how Hydrogen in made, how much energy is required to make the hydrogen and where does that energy come from ( renewable or non-renewable). Also, what is the mileage and cost per 100km compared to petrol. Thanks for the great introduction
I was hoping to hear "where does the hydrogen come from?"
"shhhh dont think about it" - toyota
i get this argument, but seems like methane is preferable over gasoline for one thing, and for two, in traditional vehicles, both the fuel production and use creates emissions, but in this case its only the production. not perfect but a step maybe?
definitely not a mature industry at this point, but seems like it has potential - especially if hydrogen is used as energy storage during peak production (like solar)
it was the first element ever in the history of the world part 1
@@JW-hh4qg that feels like a step backward. Moving to hydrogen by way of natural gas still requires intense infrastructure modification and it opens up centuries of hydrocarbon harvesting, entirely defeating the point. We can MAKE methane from landfills, giving an indefinite supply and lengthening carbon emissions simply for the sake of not abandoning hydrocarbon-based energy. If the end goal is electricity, then collect it from the sun, wind or water without polluting the air and causing widespread health issues.
@@gelerson1642 Except that our current solar, wind and hydro-electrical infrastructure do exactly that. Solar and Wind take large amounts of plastics and silicon. Plastics obviously require petroleum. Silicone requires a ton of open-pit mining and is toxic. So much so that the levels of silicone in the Silicone Valley water supply are reaching near undrinkable levels. There isn't a magic fix to our problems.
Is there a battery in the car for accelration, or does the fuel cell(s) react fast enough not to need it?
awesome i ve wondered for awhile how they work
At one company I worked at we used Helium for leak testing since it is a very small molecule.
Love this topic getting out there, besides the obvious CO2 emission comparison between both industries... I wish to see some real life statistics comparisons about mining, approximate availability, and usage of both Lithium vs Platinum (or any other viable metal for the HFC batteries), and life expectancy of both types of batteries.
I'd like to hear about the carbon footprint of H2 production. My impression is most of our hydrogen production comes from scraping it off of fossil fuel molecules.
100% GREEN hydrogen is available today in California. Find the stations here: cafcp.org/stationmap
FCEV using green hydrogen will emit 79%-80% lower life-cycle green house gas emissions than a comparable gasoline car and it is being done today.
A BEV using 100% green electricity will emit 81% lower life-cycle green house gas emissions than a comparable gasoline car, but the grid is only 10-20% green at night when BEVs are charging: www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html When is California's goal to have a 100% renewable electrical grid? 2045: focus.senate.ca.gov/sb100/faqs
Even the worst hydrogen you can fuel up with today (33.3% green and 66.7% blue) emits 72.44% less life-cycle green house gas emissions than a comparable gasoline car. Whereas the average BEV in the United States will emit 57% - 68% less life-cycle green house gas emissions than a comparable gasoline car. This means driving a BEV will contribute more to carbon emissions than driving a FCEV today.
If you want to stop carbon emissions, cease breathing.
95% of global hydrogen comes from processes on waste from fossil fuel refineries, basically
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production
I, along with quite a few other potential buyers, was invited by Toyota to test drive the Marai, when it was released, IIRC, in 2014. I was truly impressed by every aspect of the car, and we also attended a mini-seminar on the total hydrogen use/production of/cost analysis, comparison to gas and BEV, cost-benefit, pollution (almost not measurable) and more. In my mind it passed the litmus test.
The only negative I noticed in the car was it had slightly less power/acceleration than my Camry Hybrid. I understand Toyota has upgraded the electric motor, but have not driven one with the upgrade. The only other negative was there weren't enough fuel stations to drive to S. CA, but that has been remedied also.
The pricing of a Marai is a little lower now and there are over 20,000 Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles in CA now, appx 9,000 of them are the Toyota Marai. When fueling nationwide comes into place I will definitely buy a Marai.
Thanks for the review.
Sounds better than the battery options.. lovely video..
As charming as Physics Girl is, she finally asked the most important question in the very end, “where is the hydrogen coming from?”
I guess that depends on how well the renewable energy infrastructure is where you're driving. But once people are driving electric cars, you can't blame the cars for the pollution, and the infrastructure is left with the responsibility.
With electric cars, clean energy is at least an option.
@@diazinth even if 100% of the energy used to produce hydrogen comes from renewable sources, it is still too inefficient of a process to be viable at large scale, which is really what we are aiming for here. If 90% of the energy goes to waste (and it does) then we should choose the process that is 70% efficient (ie batteries) over the one that is 10% efficient (from production/extraction to wheel)
@@Supreme_Lobster I saw somewhere that for long haul trucks is better the use of Hydrogen and for passenger cars is better the use of batteries
@@diazinth where does the charging station get a majority of its power.
@@matthewgibbs6886 that depends on the infrastructure where you live. If you live in a renewable energy challenged part of the world: probably coal or some other form of burnt carbon. If you live in Norway: mostly hydropower.
The things is, once cars run on other things than fossil fuels directly, it's possible to influence how clean energy cars run on for many users at the same time. While it's challenging to replace a coal driven powerplant, it's more challenging to make a bunch of ICE lovers stop loving their archaic engines. And you have to start somewhere for capitalism to do it's magic and fill/adapt to a market.
Thanx for putting this info out there! Did you know that the APUs (Auxiliary Power Units) on all the Space Shuttles were hydrogen fuel cells, and that the by-product, pure H2O, was the water the crew drank.
Indeed it was but the cost was astronomic.
@@rogerphelps9939 How so? If you could care to explain perhaps.
That map of hydrogen stations was interesting - the only one I know of wasn't on it. (Shell station on 190th Street in northern Torrance. Yes there's usually a bunch of Mirais there.)
Awesome video H 🤘
How does the fuel cell behave when in high altitudes and low oxygen rate? And is it possible to compress more air in the intake increasing the reactions and generate more power output, like turbo chargers in combustion engines?
The kinetics of the reaction will be affected and power output decreases (as oxygen will start acting as a limiting reagent). Amount of air put into the cylinder depends on how much pressure it can withstand, so increasing intake means thicker cylinder and higher cost of production. Here, they struck a balance between performance vs cost.
lol
Is she going to talk about how hydrogen is an energy carrier, nearly always produced from methane (which is *by far* the least wasteful method), not a fuel source? It's thus not green at all.
It's an electric car. They all have this problem.
Even the worst hydrogen you can fuel up with today (33.3% green and 66.7% blue) emits 72.44% less life-cycle green house gas emissions than a comparable gasoline car. Whereas the average BEV in the United States will emit 57% - 68% less life-cycle green house gas emissions than a comparable gasoline car. This means driving a BEV will contribute more to carbon emissions than driving a FCEV today.
Look up the methane vents that opened up off the coastline of WA. Methane is a natural gas. I have no idea what it takes to find, collect, and refine it.
@@k1fizz in USA
@@k1fizz Also, where did you get those numbers? when i search i found only 4% of H2 is "green" and 95% is grey/blue
Looks excellent!, it could be my next car! 👍
Incredible channel
This makes me want to imagine a future where cars will be primarily batteries so people can have the convenience and affordability of charging at home but with hydrogen tanks in them as well for emergency quick charging and long road trips. Long ways away but that might be the perfect car.
You mentioned a couple of times the source of energy of these vehicles, the fact that it's "renewable", or that it would be green in some way. I am very sceptical. Would you care to make a follow-up video on this topic?
From what I understand, there is a theoretical limit to the efficiency of the conversion of electricity to hydrogen which is fairly low, in other words turning electricity to hydrogen is kind of a waste. Thus the only way to produce hydrogen from electricity that makes sense is to produce it with electricity coming from renewable, green, sources (that's a given, right?) which would be otherwise wasted, because there is almost always a better usage of the electricity produced than storage as hydrogen. An example of a good "source" of energy would be a wind turbine working during the night, when people sleep and the demand on electricity is low.
If you combine the poor efficiency and the low availability of these renewable sources, I don't see how it's possible to imagine replacing even a tiny fraction of all the vehicles of the world with hydrogen vehicles.
Of course you can produce hydrogen with hydrocarbons, but that's not renewable, and it produces a massive amount of CO2
Currently, nearly all industrial hydrogen production (something like 98%) is by high-temperature steam-reforming of methane gas, so... that's not ideal. There are a lot of people working to come up with ways to generate hydrogen (via hydrolysis or other processes) more cheaply and efficiently, but the biggest issue currently is the amount of energy required and the problem of increasing to industrial scales.
What makes the most sense currently is nuclear power; a single 1GW reactor can produce as much electricity as 150-350 square miles of wind turbines, and could produce around 250,000 tons of hydrogen a year. However, as much as I'm a huge proponent of nuclear power, we're absolutely abysmal at it in the USA: antiquated aging reactor designs, no fuel reprocessing and poor waste management, just to name a few highlights. Even disregarding cool flashy new technologies -- or the ever-elusive commercial fusion -- France, in contrast to the US, has been reprocessing spent fuel since the late sixties and it's estimated they've reclaimed roughly 15 *additional years* of national energy production, in addition to reducing waste storage requirements.
Anyway, hydrogen not only costs multiple times more, it is also extremely inefficient compared to BEVs: czcams.com/video/f7MzFfuNOtY/video.html
PEM electrolysis seems to be a lot more efficient than what I had been told. It doesn't affect my other concerns but it's quite a significant update for me.
100% GREEN hydrogen is available today in California. Find the stations here: cafcp.org/stationmap
FCEV using green hydrogen will emit 79%-80% lower life-cycle green house gas emissions than a comparable gasoline car and it is being done today.
A BEV using 100% green electricity will emit 81% lower life-cycle green house gas emissions than a comparable gasoline car, but the grid is only 10-20% green at night when BEVs are charging: www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html When is California's goal to have a 100% renewable electrical grid? 2045: focus.senate.ca.gov/sb100/faqs
Even the worst hydrogen you can fuel up with today (33.3% green and 66.7% blue) emits 72.44% less life-cycle green house gas emissions than a comparable gasoline car. Whereas the average BEV in the United States will emit 57% - 68% less life-cycle green house gas emissions than a comparable gasoline car. This means driving a BEV will contribute more to carbon emissions than driving a FCEV today.
Well, it's coming from a privileged French dude but the fact that your grid is only 10-20% green at night seems to be the one problem you need to solve, not selling more hydrogen cars.
Now, granted, nuclear energy isn't zero waste (and it's not any kind of waste) but it has a very low carbon footprint, which is what matters most right now.
I'm also concerned about the availability of lithium and the lifecycle of batteries. It's not an easy topic.
Finally, I get that, in many places, not owning a car is not practical, but in many other places increase of public transport, car sharing and car renting would probably have a greater impact than any new technology. Changing our behaviour and culture is sadly a lot harder than pushing a technology.
I wonder if this eats/dissolves platinum like a similar battery eats aluminum? I worry about running out of these metals sometime in the future when we'll need it most!
wow!! 7:34 - my cup is there))
that feeling when you drink coffee from same cup as in video o_O
greetings from UA