Hydrogen vs. Battery Electric Cars

I drove 1800 miles in a Hydrogen car to learn about electric vehicles. Thanks to Toyota for sponsoring this video series and lending us the 2021 Mirai!

Upcoming videos in this series:
Grid Energy Storage
Concentrated Solar

Creator/Host: Dianna Cowern
Editor: Levi Butner
Producer: Hope Butner
Production Assistant: Patrick Muhlberger
Research: Sophia Chen and Erika Carlson

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[physicsgirl]

Hello! This is a reupload because some of you expressed the graphs were misleading, and I agreed. The tiny bars were animated not to scale as an artistic choice, but in the interest of accuracy we decided to take the video down and change that. I hope you enjoy learning something from this video, or it at least sparks a desire to research and learn more!

Edit: Reuploaded again because the first comment wasn't "first"

[scootsmcgoots]

I think you missed the elephant in the room which is how hydrogen is actually produced. It is almost all through steam reforming coal, oil, and nat gas.
Get the cost of the electrolyzer down and then it becomes an interesting alternative

[StalePhish]

@10:10 "if you replace all 15 million electric cars in California with battery electric and plug them all in, the grid would fail". But if hydrogen "uses about twice as much to produce/use hydrogen than battery", isn't that still a much better scenario than creating all that hydrogen? Regardless of the path, we're going to need more electricity generation and less fossil fuel generation

[russelltaylor]

On average, Americans drive ~26 miles per day. 95% of trips are under 30 miles. Under those conditions, recharging at home from a 240V charger is more than sufficient.

[culturedfrog]

another huge infrastructure issue that wasn't mentioned was the cost of installing new hydrogen refueling stations (1-5 million) vs that of a bev charging station (100k-300k). This is a huge factor!

[darkoleskovsek]

I guess you need to get a BEV sponsor now and do the opposite pitch so we can compare results.

[ashwinbhat]

Given that this was sponsored by Toyota, it’s still feels like an ad even though she tries to give the other side of the argument, it would have been better if EV manufacturers were also interviewed for their perspective

[vladimirgazizov]

I really appreciate Mr Sam's hard work and high quality videos. His extremely interesting to listen and I've been learning a lot from him, making a difference into so many lives and I look forward to work with him.

[WinstonMakes]

I appreciate the attempt by Dianna to present a balanced take on things, despite some perceived bias/optimism of Toyota employees.
The argument that that BEV's don't work for everyone because of living situation (no garage) vs FCEV is somewhat weak because you can still find electricity anywhere. Coffee shops, mall parking lots. Easy to expand to apartments and more common places. Even street lights have been proposed. Bottom line is the situation is pretty good for a good chunk of people, and getting better by the day. Can't quite put a hydrogen tanks everywhere though, so you'll never be able to get away from making dedicated trips to a station. I agree that Hydrogen can be a part of a healthy and diversified infrastructure, especially for energy storage if you have plentiful excess renewable energy, but I'm still not sold on its use case for commuter vehicles.

More specific to car design, hydrogen might have a weight efficiency vs batteries but it's volumetric energy density isn't great whereas battery tech is improving at a much faster rate. Its storage at pressure also makes it more difficult to package, since you can't hide them under the floor of the passenger compartment. The best user experience, from an ergonomic and aesthetic perspective will be found with BEVs.

[jeremyjaramillo]

I prefer electric for now since most of the H2 for these car is extracted from natural gas well at a very high CO2 cost so I think electric might be better on emissions

[dariusdareme]

10:08 - "If we replaced all 15.000.000 cars and plugged them in at night, the grid would fail."
If we produced all of the hydrogen with electrolysis for all 15.000.000 vehicles, the grid would fail 3 times over.

[richardefriend]

Interesting theoretical analysis. Would have been nice to see something about what really drives decisions to go EV, Fuel Cell, or stay with carbon (including LNG): COST! What are the comparative costs of ownership and 12K/yr use (for a typical 4 or 5 year period) between these potential competitors?

[The_Flamekeepers]

Correction: High-end BEVs have 500+ miles of range.
Also, you mentioned that the cleanest way to produce hydrogen is electrolysis but in reality, the vast majority of hydrogen is produced from natural gas (producing tons of emissions).

While fuel cell is superior technology to ICE, I do not think it will ever overtake BEV in widespread adoption.

[mikeselectricstuff]

"Losing capacity over time" - FCEVs still need a small battery, which will deteriorate over time. How long does a fuel cell last ? Also Hydrogen tanks need replacing every 10-15 years due to embrittlement.

[Djof]

The problem with hydrogen isn't the weight, it's the volume. Especially since it needs to be stored at very high pressure (or low temperature) and those vessels can't be shaped easily. So the reason hydrogen cars have issues getting more range is the space the tanks use. That's not as much a problem for batteries at this point.

[fullychargedshow]

I really enjoyed this episode.
A very balanced and well presented argument in favour of HFC cars. I have also driven the Mirai, and the Hyundai Nexo and the Honda Clarity, they were all really good cars that worked very well.
Yes, there are some serious problems with the filling stations, we used to have 12 here in the UK, we now have 5 because they were not used enough to maintain them economically.
But reliability issues with H2 filling stations is a fairly simple technical issue which I'm sure can be overcome.
However the one question not asked in this video, and for me it is the massive, oversized elephant in a very small room.
Where does the hydrogen come from?
I know there will be an immediate answer, 'we can split water using excess electricity from renewables ' and that is 100% true, okay, there are massive energy losses, you need 4 kWh of electricity to produce 1 kWh of hydrogen.
But even that is nit picking.
Where does the hydrogen we use today come from?
98% of commercial hydrogen comes from steam reforming natural gas, it's produced in an oil refinery, it is a fossil fuel derivative.
Yes, it's clean, yes, when you pass H2 through a fuel cell the only waste product is water.
But when we extract hydrogen from natural gas we 'bleed off' the CO2 into the atmosphere.
And yes, the fossil fuel industry are all over this, 'we are going to capture that carbon and sequestrate it in old oil caverns underground.'
They have been talking about doing this since 1990, and all the tests have proven unworkable or economically unviable.
So to sum up, a hydrogen fuel cell car is a very inefficient fossil fuel car.

[guamae]

After watching this, it seems like the benefits of creating consumer-FCEVs doesn't make up for the infrastructure requirements...

I still think they'd be great for trucking, or other industrial uses (particularly for electric planes!), but those are all places where you could make specialized refueling stations, rather than making public ones on every street corner.

[seanwhitehall]

The overall efficiency really makes me lean conventional battery whenever possible.
The place I see Hydrogen being good would be emission-free air travel where the less weight means everything. Also it's much easier to plan infrastructure between a few airports.

[radiobabylon]

i have been seeing a lot of talk lately around how hydrogen is sourced and its net carbon impact, along with terms like 'grey' and 'blue' hydrogen... and it is clear to me that (as are most things meant for popular consumption these days) these articles are biased towards one particular position or another... i would appreciate a video in this series (or thereafter) that looks at the science behind how hydrogen can be sourced on the scale needed to serve a national or international market for fuel cell vehicles, as well as an objective presentation of the pros and cons for the various methods and sources in terms of net energy, cost, environmental impact and sustainability, etc... i have of course googled for this, but it is difficult to tell what is objectively factual (and complete) and what is slanted by opinion. i would trust you for this information far more than i would any online article. thank you for your continued excellent youtube material!

[markrowland]

Japan had no CNG, LPG, Coal, or oil, but it discovered it's exploitable sea floor has an enormous reserve of hydrates. Yes folks that is being developed now. Equipment is developed along with refining and shipping. This produces natural gas and HYDROGEN for transport and industry. Fifty years of availability, makes the government happy.