Why did we make Hydrogen Cars?

Question

It is going to take 30 years to get a hydrogen car costing around $100k, by that time the world may be gone and so will oil, definately. Why didn't we just keep funding research for technology we had 100 years ago? AKA electric cars?

Answer 1

Charging time. An electric car takes hours to charge properly, so the range is limited to however far you can drive on a single charge. Most people on most days actually don't drive any further than that, but people want the option of driving further if they need to. The attraction of hydrogen cars is that they can be "filled up" like standard gas or diesel vehicles, eliminating the charging issues. Unfortunately there are a lot of technical problems with hydrogen cars. Chief among these is that nobody seems to know where we're going to get the hydrogen.

A more practical approach is just now coming into play; the plug-in hybrid. Putting the matter simply, it's a hybrid car with a larger battery pack, allowing it to be recharged from an electrical outlet and run in an "electricity only" mode. The advantage over pure electric vehicles is that once the battery drains to a certain point, the gas motor kicks in.

Of course, we could have done this long ago -- if less efficiently -- just by installing gasoline generators on electric vehicles. It just didn't seem important when gas was cheap.

Answer 2

Unfortunately, electric cars have no get-up and go, and the mass public would prefer something with a big loud engine to something that eventually saves the world.

In all reality, we're not completely reliant on foreign oil, we keep a huge stash up in Alaska that has yet to be tapped, however, the leaders of this country want to be the one left holding all the Ace's when the oil dries up. Hydrogen technology will become a sudden reality as soon as America makes bank on the last of the oil stores.

The only problem now is keeping alternatives under the government's thumb long enough for them to take advantage of everyone else.

Oh, but of course, there's that little obstacle to overcome where it uses more energy to produce hydrogen then the fuel it's self actually creates.

Answer 3

Right now, electric cars are a viable option, and actually are doing much better technologically and practically than hydrogen-powered vehicles. Hydrogen cars, however, do remain alluring, both due to the fact that these vehicles create no greenhouse emissions whatsoever and, theoretically, can be powered by a cheap inexhaustible fuel. Producing hydrogen fuel is actually the single greatest practical and technological limitation on these cars today. If hydrogen can be cheaply produced, such cars could replace today's fossil-fuel dependent vehicles quite easily, without giving up any of the performance or reliability which electric cars are perceived to lack.

Hydrogen cars will be a viable option in the future. The $100K hydrogen car should be available in the US in the next five or so years. Beyond that, who knows. Only further research and development will tell how quickly and cheaply such cars can be brought to market.

Answer 4

It's not going to take 30 years, hydrogen cars already exist. They do cost that much, but that's because they're prototypes. Like anything else, the price would go down once they're finalized, in mass production, and the infrastructure to support them is in place.

Electric cars may be clean, but the means to produce the electricity is not. Unfortunately that's also true with most of the hydrogen that's currently being produced. That's something that can be changed, though.

One big advantage with the hydrogen is it doesn't require batteries, which are short-lived, not especially efficient, and themselves become waste that has to be dealt with. That may change with new batteries they are trying to develop, though, like this "nanotube battery" I've been hearing about.

All the systems have problems, and all the problems are being worked on. It's a gamble which approach is going to yield the best solution, I guess, but if you limit your research and development to just one area you limit your discoveries, too.

Answer 5

between hydrogen and electric powered battery powered vehicles i could presently elect electric powered. electric powered is undemanding to fee at this cutting-edge element and you will continually purchase clean capacity or make your guy or woman clean capacity with small wind turbines or image voltaic panels to fee the vehicle, with new battery technologies the vehicles have honest shuttle distances on a unmarried fee. With hydrogen there presently isn't alot of fueling stations, many fueling stations available create hydrogen from organic gas leaving little actual benifit. There are some image voltaic powered hydrogen fueling stations yet as I pronounced there are few, have you ever seen any around? additionally gas cells are presently particularly costly even in spite of the undeniable fact that the fees could drop at last. One selection you additionally can evaluate is an air powered vehicle that's presently being produced for around 15,000 in europe. i'm sorry I misplaced the information superhighway website handle however the vehicles are fueled up with compressed air and characteristic countless one hundred miles or so according to fillup. the only draw back I observed grew to become into the vehicles are very easy weight and that i don't understand how nicely they could honest in a crash besides the undeniable fact that it could be something to look into, surprisingly in case you nevertheless have gas stations that provide loose tire inflations.

Answer 6

Hydrogen's beauty is that when it burns it produces water vapor. Everyone likes water. :)
As to electric cars, what is going to produce the electricity? Oil ?
Nuclear? or perhaps, hydrogen?

Answer 7

No it wont. We got technology to do it cheaper and more efficiently, American and other countries rely on foreign oils, and car companies are part of the conspiracy. They don't want to make them, so they make it seem hard.

Answer 8

0 polution in hydrogen cars