Sunday, May 14, 2023

if this works, I'll just skip the whole EV nonsense

This has been worked on and talked about for years, but maybe we're nearing the point of real plausibility: hydrogen-fueled cars! Working on a principle similar to that of regular internal combustion, hydrogen cars produce a small fraction of the pollution of today's regular ICE (internal-combustion engine) cars while also avoiding many of the pitfalls of EVs (electric vehicles), including the ridiculously long charging times. I'm still cautious enough to think that I wouldn't buy a hydrogen vehicle until we'd gotten to at least Version 3.0. I said much the same about so-called "self-driving" vehicles: I won't step in one until we're long past Version 5.0. (As things stand, self-driving vehicles still have way too many accidents.) Meanwhile, hydrogen looks really promising, and the video notes that hydrogen can be easily integrated into regular gas stations, thus solving the whole "infrastructure" problem that bedevils EVs in one fell swoop. Initial costs for all this will doubtless be very expensive, but I suspect that hydrogen can deliver on its promises—including being better for the environment—far faster than EVs ever will. As things stand, I'm much more likely to drive a hydrogen car than an EV. EVs also lose all their charge in the cold, another flaw that hydrogen vehicles won't have. Toyota, right now, is leading the way with hydrogen; I'll be curious to see where we are in five years. I'll also be a dusty old fart by the time this technology gains traction, but who knows: maybe a smooth integration of self-driving and hydrogen technology will lead to the perfect car for my old ass to drive... or ride in. Enjoy the vid.

Elon Musk's contrary view here, with annoying narration. If Musk's argument is that hydrogen cars ultimately need fossil fuels to produce hydrogen, it's also true that EVs need fossil fuels to (1) manufacture EV cars and (2) produce EV batteries. So who's the bigger polluter in the end?



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