By Paul Homewood
Mercedes Benz are to pull out of hydrogen cars:
Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz is killing its program to develop passenger cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The company has been working on fuel-cell vehicles for more than 30 years — chasing the dream of a zero-emissions car that has a long driving range, three-minute fill-ups, and emits only water vapor. In the end, the company conceded that building hydrogen cars was too costly, about double the expense of an equivalent battery-electric vehicle.
Mercedes-Benz will wind down production of GLC F-Cell, its only current fuel-cell model. The GLC-F-Cell was developed in a 2013 collaboration with Ford and Nissan.
The idea of the collaboration was to kickstart the production of fuel-cell cars and hydrogen infrastructure. Mercedes-Benz was the only carmaker of the three partners to produce a vehicle in the program.
Mercedes-Benz only made a few hundred examples of the GLC F-Cell because manufacturing costs for the model were so high. The car was used for business promotions but was never offered for sale to the public.
Other automakers are giving up on hydrogen cars. In November, Honda — a longtime proponent of hydrogen-powered cars — said it would put its fuel-cell program on hold. Volkswagen published its position on hydrogen last month, producing this graphic:
Volkswagen concluded:
Everything speaks in favor of the battery, and practically nothing speaks in favor of hydrogen.
https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/daimler-ends-hydrogen-car-development-because-its-too-costly/
The whole concept of hydrogen cars was always a pipedream, driven by political imperatives instead of sound engineering. Quite apart from the uneconomical build costs, there is an even bigger barrier – how to produce, distribute and store hydrogen.
Electrolysis is always the go to option, but this is extremely small scale and ultra expensive. It also begs the question of where the electricity comes from.
Steam reforming is the only possible option, but this produces lots of CO2 anyway.
If your only concern is air pollution, and not CO2, then the logical answer is hybrid. If hydrogen cars really are twice the cost of electric, they will never be a viable option.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
April 24, 2020 at 10:51AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 