My take in a comment >>
@mfhberg
Said, “[Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles] will die…” Right now, it looks like Toyota’s Mirai, Hyundai and Honda all have a sizeable stake in the HFC market future. These are not backyard grease monkeys, these are car companies that have done a lot research and development. Toyota has had FCVs on the road for two decades. There are 45 hydrogen fueling stations in California with more being built. So they’ve committed and the ball is rolling. Right now hydrogen is more expensive but it should get cheaper as sales volume increases. If batteries ever get to be as fast as refueling hydrogen vehicles then the hydrogen FCVs will have to be concerned. But heavy vehicles will still be hydrogen fuel because it’s much lighter than batteries.
But the future of both FCEVs and BEVs is very important because the transition to a fossil fuel free economy is mandatory. ICEs (internal combustion engines) will have to be run on fuel that is not fossil fuel. That could be ethanol, since there are already a significant number of cars on the roads that are Flex Fuel and can run on ‘E85’ or 85% ethanol. But there is not enough land to grow the crops to make a lot of ethanol, and the cost will be high. Another alternative will be to run the ICEs on hydrogen. That may be cost effective to convert existing ICEs. But the cost is higher to manufacture new ICEs to compete with BEVs, so eventually all vehicles will be electric for economic reasons. Somewhere it said that the ‘drivetrains’ of EVs have less than 2 dozen moving parts. Compare that to hundreds of parts in an ICE.
Time will tell.
