Hydrogen in the UK

[SB1500]

Any time I've mentioned the Toyota Mirai on a forum elsewhere or in the discussion about EVs versus regular ICE cars it gets laughed out as being impractical. Here in Northern Ireland there's only one pump in Belfast I believe. 

I'm posting this here as it's most relevant to Mirai owners and you folks with them are probably best placed to share your thoughts and experiences. 

My thinking is that since there seems to be no real solution for large HGVs in the realm of batteries and practicality (not to mention the power grid) - and there is not likely to be one from now until 2030 - a Hydrogen concept for HGVs is probably the only real practical solution. With that being the case and all of our goods across the UK arriving by lorry, won't there need to be demand for Hydrogen stations most everywhere? IF that happens, won't we all have a reasonable travel to go to find a suitable station that will provide this - problem solved? 

How likely is this? 

I haven't read all of this but have been skimming it. Hydrogen has a plan and is set to be at least a part of the governments plan for 2030/2050. I read a similar 2020 publication on just how they intend to make EVs work (notably ignored the Battery production ethics / sustainability) but it omitted anything bigger than large vans entirely. UK Hydrogen Strategy (publishing.service.gov.uk)

[Cyker]

The problem is Honda and Toyota really haven't done a good job 'selling' their hydrogen cars.

If they'd given the Mirai significantly more range or serious grunt and handling it would have attracted more attention, but they made the same mistake they made with the Prius and set back hybrid adoption by decades:

They're *boring* - They have no USP, no advantage over anything else! They're slow, their range sucks, and they have nothing but disadvantages. It just doesn't do anything better than existing drive trains.

You need some BIG advantages to offset the fact that refuelling them is an even bigger PITA than charging an EV, but they pretty much have none.

The single advantage of hydrogen is you can hold a lot more energy than a Battery, and they really should have pushed that. If they had, like, 900 miles of range and EV-levels of acceleration it would have done better, but the range is maybe 200-300 if you drive efficiently but *far* worse if you push it, and it has no pep. No wonder it's not done well!

[Elmahdi]

I was interested to buy the Mirai back in 2020 before I bought a Corolla 2.0 Hybrid Touring sport. After doing an extensive research and deep dive into the car I have found that the hydrogen concept is better than Hybrid and perhaps EV’s in terms of range and efficiency however hydrogen stations weren’t available everywhere. The closest to me was Swindon so I will have to travel an hour to fill the car (perhaps not every day).

Toyota Mirai 2 is really a good car with a lot of safety features and pleasant to drive with a clean energy.

Tow months later after doing my deep dive into the Mirai I read somewhere that Shell decided to close all hydrogen stations in the UK due to the government didn’t want to support the hydrogen industry.

[Mushu84]

I still believe Hydrogen is better then EV for now at least until the solid state Battery comes along

Technically it makes more sense Hydrogen then EV's, If given a choice and if a grid of Hydrogen gas station would be available I would had switched to Hydrogen as it is a no brainer, the same fuel refill time give or take, same explosion danger as petrol (haha die like a man), same range, makes total sense. 

I drove a couple EV's (Tesla 3, VW ID3, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kona and , KIA EV6. Ford Mustang, MG 4) back when I was thinking to buy electric and you feel the weight, the range is atrocious and very weather dependent. I was disappointed to be honest, interior quality is not there for the price, the range is too small for normal usage or holidays, the reason I have a Hybrid now. Why they are selling in EV with so much power for a normal user (300-500 HP), I don't go racing, but I have to have the power as it is included in the price that is very high and I need to buy the long range with a lot of power included.  The EV's are stupidly expensive for what they are honestly.

 

I understand there are people that wants to have 400-500 HP but the numbers are not that high I belive...normal drivers want something dependable and with a good usability (range, re-fill time, interior quality or long lasting), I want something I can re-fuel in 10-15 min max with a range of 400-500 miles, HP around 150-200

 I don't want to pay for 11 screens or what ever gimmick they come out with, keep is simple and dependable. 

[Cyker]

You've hit the nail on the head - it's just gimmicks.

My Mk1 Yaris taught me 74HP is more than enough for me if deployed correctly, esp. when I had the 100HP Mk2 Yaris and it was so much slower and sluggish at all speeds despite having over 20 more HP!

Having such high HP figures is just a marketing exercise, because people have been tricked into thinking More HP = Better, the same way they've been fooled into thinking Bigger Rims = Better.

In reality, the torque curve is at least as important as the HP figure, if not more so, as the HP figure is always the *peak* HP, and in most non-turbo cars, you'll never see that peak unless you're ragging the nuts off the engine, so it's virtually meaningless on its own.

 

I'm still not sold on hydrogen - It will likely be the only possible alternative for the haulage industry, as I just can't see any way, even with some major Battery breakthroughs, that a battery-powered HGV will be able to do anywhere near the mileage and load capacity of a diesel truck.

But of the three, the other two being petrol/diesel and batteries, hydrogen is by far the worst. Literally the only advantage it has over carbon-based fuels is it has no carbon in it, other than that it's worse in every way. Even making it either generates loads of emissions, or wastes lots of electricity. I'm kinda hoping some clever person thinks up an alternative chemical fuel...

Maybe if we made space travel much easier and more affordable so we could go mine hydrogen from Saturn and Jupiter, but to get to that point we would probably have solved our energy problems already  

[Mjolinor]

The only emission is water and to be viable it has to be made from electrolysis using solar panels. Once that is sorted then the use of it is neutral in all respects.

[Cyker]

True, but for every 100 miles of hydrogen made using solar power you could power a BEV for something like 600-1000 miles, so it still doesn't make sense unless we have a massive over-abundance of energy, which we currently don't.

And hilariously stupid irony I read a while back is that water vapour  is technically a greenhouse gas and also increases global warming, so it's still not really helping!  

It's like, we're not going to hydrogen because it's good - We're going to it because it's the only chemical fuel alternative that doesn't have carbon in it...

[Mushu84]

It would be a good start to invest in technology like hydrogen that could drive the cost or invent new processes that make it more efficient, also sa far as I am aware you can build a self sustaining hydrogen station with a little effort (or Government support)

 

The things I see good for Hydrogen are

-Abundance of Hydrogen 

-Only emission is water 

-re-fuel time

-range 

-no big changes to the car design 

-no added weight to the car 

 

We need the technology to be familiar not make us change the way we use the cars 

 

 

 

[Cyker]

Actually one thing I remember being told at school was if you discover a catalyst for the hydrogen + oxygen <==>  water reaction you'd win the nobel prize  

If someone can find one that's practical for industrial use, that would make hydrogen generation several orders of magnitude cheaper and energy efficient and make it much more viable!

Get your kids working on that!