All you need to know about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles – HotCars.
No doubt you’ve heard plenty in recent years about electric cars, and of various car manufacturers chasing green initiatives, looking to reduce emissions wherever possible. The truth is many manufacturers and governments and putting their full faith in electric cars, believing they are the only way forward.
While electric cars do serve some benefits over traditional ICE cars, it’s worth noting that other alternatives do exist. Most notable are hydrogen fuel-cell cars, which at first sound like a perfect solution. They refuel quicker, emit only H2O as a by-product, and perform pretty much the same as a generic car.
A number of manufacturers have been working on this technology, most notably Toyota, and as a result, hydrogen fuel-cell cars are a fully realized reality. What is it like to own one every day, and what unique issues do they face?
As the image above shows, a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle (commonly referred to as an HFCV) does feature the same type of electric motor that typical EVs use, although you won’t find a huge and heavy battery pack to power it. Instead, HFCVs feature a fuel-cell stack. Here, pure hydrogen is combined with oxygen which then produces energy to power the motor, with the only by-product being water vapor; sounds ideal, right?
For the most part, ownership is very similar to that of a normal car. They drive much like an EV, with no transmission to speak of, and a set range per fill-up. The filling process is much the same as a traditional ICE car, with a nozzle at a filling station, that takes just a few minutes to fill.
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, so why only now are hydrogen cars possible? Well, for starters, hydrogen is never found naturally in its pure state; for example H2O, it is always combined with another element. It takes huge amounts of energy to separate hydrogen from other elements. The good news; however, is once fun through a fuel cell (and combined with oxygen, as explained above), that energy is returned in the form of electricity, and therefore used to power the motor. In theory, it’s quite a simple process.
Highlights:
- Hydrogen fuel-cell cars, like the Toyota Mirai, offer clean energy and water vapor as the only by-product, making them environmentally friendly alternatives to traditional ICE cars.
- Despite their advantages, hydrogen fuel-cell cars face challenges with the limited availability of hydrogen filling stations, as seen in California where there are only 60 stations.
- While hydrogen fuel-cell cars offer quick refueling times and similar range to EVs, they have higher fuel costs and lack the home recharging convenience of EVs, making EVs more accessible and popular in the market.
All You Need To Know About Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Vehicles, Septe,ber 16, 2023
