I think we’ll need to include in the electric car specs a thunderous stereo system blasting a high fidelity V8 burble & roar. Maybe an offbalance rotating shaft somewhere to complete the effect…… nah!.. I agree that even won’t cut it!

Bugger that.

I’d rather billowing clouds of tyre smoke and a roaring bellowing internal combustion engine burning fantastic amounts of powerful fossil fuels and leaving two smoking strips of rubber down on my favourite piece of dry road as the tacho swings to the redline and I snatch second gear and do it all over again……

Oh, and the anti-spam word.. Bugatti, I rest my case.

mate have you been to the Middle East yourself? because all I hear you say is utter jibberish.

Dubai isn’t surviving on oil or date exports… the number of projects going on there, you’d have to be an ignorant twat to believe that only oil is the reason they are booming. While its an integral part of their economy, its not totally dependent on it.. Tourism, Arab Emirates (pretty sure I’ve read a number of times on their good high caliber ratings) then the property development. Hell even Brangelina got themselves a piece of land (on those Islands which resemble countries).

Do a bit of research mate, I suggest you get yourself updated…

*rant end/

The key is to get the energy from somewhere clean to make the hydrogen. Those options exist but are still in their infancy. Until this happens, fuel cells are only moving the problem somewhere else.

Which is best? It depends on your criteria for whats important: Cost, greenhouse impact, self sufficiency.

And I agree with Joober that this will be a changing landscape with all technologies in a constant state of improvement.

I just think that Hydrogen is pushing sh*t up hill. Its always going to be a bugger to store/transport – all the inovations/enhancements in the world are not going to alter the basic thermodynamic limitations of the stuff.

You are always going to have to get it either from hyrdrocarbon reforming (which generates CO2) or from water (which requires you to put more energy in than you get out)

Battery/electric drive is way ahead ogf H2 on every criteria, and unlike H2 / fuel cells, battery/capacitor technology has strong & EXISTING commercial drivers pushing its R&D along at turbo pace!( think mobile phones, PCs, and military in the case of ultracapacitors).

BTW – Rolfmatic – H2 storage tanks are typically in the 100kg – 200kg range. Add that to the fuel cell weight and I think you would find there would be nothing in the weight difference comapred to batteries.

Where are you going to fill up, the infrastructure just isn’t there… As said in the article, you must fill up at a couple of places, severely limiting the use of hydrogen vehicles for the mass market at the point in time.

Secondly, the car probably costs a fortune to make just one unit. That’s why Honda are leasing, they aren’t going to recover the cost, but at least they still own the vehicles and can continue to perform tests on them. Is the FCX going to be the next GM EV1?

MarketMaker, that is good insight on the energy conversion figures and clearly shows if that is the case, that this technology has not found a good footing to make it feasible on a mass level. But as O suggested this is in its infant stages, and will improve over time.
I don’t want to do this but.. Look back at the first computers, massive vacuum tubes and the size of a house and what did it manage… to calculate 1 + 2 or in the lines of that. Clearly the economics are not there cost vs benefit, but it did drive others to improve on and innovate, likewise something like this what we will see that others will go “hang on we can do this better”, you’ll have smaller technology groups reverse engineering the system and develop better ones only to sell back to Toyota (hopefully not stolen back lol).

Hugo – “How soon before the Saudi Arabians offer to sell us cheap hydrogen? You don’t think those OPEC nations are lacking a back-up plan, do you?”
Yes they are lacking – have you been to those countries, have you seen the general state of them, the populance? even look at Dubai, AbuDhabi is all a big wonderland. Petrol is the only thing bringing money to their economy, they second largest export is dates, they make some good steady money from Hajj as well but thats all. The Kings/princes squander the money from oil sales not into proper infrastructure growth, but to build Super Shopping centres, fun parks the size of tasmania, and hotels which only .0005% of people can afford, just to impress the global community on how “Grande” the middle east can be…,

Algae-petrol, sounds like an Idea, renewable, not overly hard to get going and cheap and produces positive byproducts, sounds like a clear winner for the short to medium term and possibly long term until something REALLY outstanding and beneficial comes along of course…

Now when can we start on those Nuclear Power plants.

Yippee!!!!

Just pretend I said pressurised hydrogen, not liquid hydrogen :)

Still I wish I had the time to crunch out numbers to figure out which product is more efficient – because even though the battery powered cars are more efficient in terms of the chemical reactions, It might use up that energy faster because so much of the energy is being used to move the heavy battery in the first place.

Unfortunately liquid H2 is stored at -252C! So it needs high tech tanl design to store it. Also it boils off its contents at about 3-4% per day (in order to stay cold) so don’t go away on holidays for a month or there will be no fuel left when you get back!

Tom – thanks for the complement mate but I think it would be quite frustrating working for most of the mainstream car companies. Think I’ll just stay invested in the companies who will benefit from the electric age (those with lots of copper, aluminium, uranium etc) and try to spot the winner in the better battery race early enough!

You should be working for the car companies if you have that sort of understanding.

And compare a Prius to an Insight and tell me who is a serious hybrid manufacturer.

Also, fuel cells vary in efficiency depending on the electrodes used and the electrolyte, I’m pretty sure they go up to 80% efficiency.

Anyone else notice that the side profile of this car resembles the prius :P