Can Hydrogen-powered cars overtake Electric vehicles?

Some may doubt the long-term feasibility of electric vehicles considering Honda and GM's partnership to create hydrogen cars, Toyota's continued backing of hydrogen technology, and the possibility of converting conventional gas engines to run on hydrogen. 

Although conversion kits to convert gas-powered cars to hydrogen are available in Europe, drivers have not adopted them widely because of reliability problems. The more trustworthy performance of electric cars fitted with hydrogen fuel cells stands in stark contrast to the frequently less dependable vehicles produced because of these improvements. 

Toyota has now created a special hydrogen engine that will operate on hydrogen more dependably than a gas engine that has been converted, but it won't have the same performance benefits as the more popular fuel cell technology. Both types of power have one huge problem: there is no hydrogen infrastructure, and hydrogen generators aren’t cheap. 

Let’s talk about hydrogen-powered cars this week. Then, we’ll close with my Product of the Week a car out of Switzerland called the Microlino. It could be the perfect electric for situations when electric cars work best: short hops. 

Hydrogen vs. Electric Cars 

In theory, hydrogen is a more viableoption for driving an automobile than batteries. This superiority results from the fact that, in most cases, you receive the best parta batteryof an electric car without having to deal with the drawbacks. Instead, you get an incredibly dependable motor.  

In the same way as gas tanks never wear out, though older models did rust out if you neglected them, hydrogen tanks also last a lifetime if properly maintained. 

Both require fuel delivery systems to be maintained, and because hydrogen is usually provided in liquid form and is under pressure, it is more expensive and complex than gas. Nevertheless, hydrogen has the potential to be significantly more dependable than current batteries. 

Toyota’s approach of using a special internal combustion engine (ICE) is interesting because you get the ICE experience (engine sound, etc.), but you get the complexity of that engine type, as well. 

Internal combustion engines tend to be far less dependable than electric motors because they are more complex. But, if you are used to a gas car, this experience should be quite similar. So, the Toyota approach could be the best bet for someone who wants that gas car roar and feel. 

To get a similar experience from an electric motor, you typically have to add engine sounds artificially, a solution that, to date, hasn’t been exceedingly popular. Both BMW and the first Fisker did this with mixed results. Electric car owners typically get over the need for sound quickly, particularly when they experience the benefits of massive torque and acceleration from an electric car. 

So, if you are talking about where most automakers are taking hydrogen, like into fuel cell cars, on paper, the hydrogen-powered vehicle is far superior to the electric battery vehicle. 

But Hydrogen has a big problem 

The company's enormous investments in an electric ecosystem and the quick development of affordable Level 2 chargers that allowed for at-home charging are what drove Tesla's success.  

Level 2 electric chargers cost less than $300, and a good flex charger, such as the ChargePoint Home Flex Charger that I use, costs less than $600. 

By 2022, there will be over 53,000 charging stations in the US thanks to the growth of public chargers, according to Statista. This growth suggests that although there are problems with the dependability of public chargers, they are widely available and being installed more frequently. There are more than 44,000 of these charging stations in California alone.  

In comparison, there are currently 111,000 gas stations across the U.S., so we are about 50% of the way to parity if you don’t consider many of these stations are often out of service. 

Compare that to only 58 public hydrogen refueling stations in the U.S., with 57 of those in California. So good luck getting fueled in any other state in the U.S. 

By 2030, there may be as many as 4,300 hydrogen fueling stations in the United States, however most of them will be used for business purposes. Even yet, it representsa very smallportion of the current availability of electric charging stations, and there are insufficient public charging stations.  

Electric battery-powered cars are therefore getting close to the same advantage that gas cars currently have when it comes to fuelling places, or they would if these charging stations were more dependable, with approximately 1,000 times the number of predicted charging locations. 

Still, compared to hydrogen, the number is far larger. I should also mention that by 2030, 35 million electric car chargers are expected to be in use worldwide. Even though the majority will reside in homes, that is still a very large number. 

Obstacles in Home Hydrogen Fueling and Infrastructure 

But what about home hydrogen fuel? Well, that’s going to be a problem. 

A household hydrogen generator costs about $12,000 and requires water in addition to electricity to operate. This makes installation more difficult. Therefore, even if you can recharge an electric automobile just like you can fuel up at home, the expense of the fuelling system is unaffordable. 

There are more issues besides the hydrogen generator's price. An electric car costs about $10 to fully charge, whereas a hydrogen car costs more like $75 to fuel. An electric car would cost about $4 to drive 60 miles, while a hydrogen car would cost closer to $15. 

Currently, hydrogen has a similar problem with fueling that electric cars have with charging, but it is far worse in terms of ecosystem availability and fuel cost. The only way around this is to build a massive, low-cost hydrogen fueling infrastructure like Tesla did for EVs, but no one seems to be doing that for anything but commercial hydrogen vehicles. 

This situation is why GM and Honda are focusing their efforts in that direction. Toyota is nuts because it seems unlikely it’ll be able to fund the fueling infrastructure it needs outside of Japan. Toyota could make this work in Japan, though in 2022, there were only 250 stations there. 

Building a hydrogen fueling station comes at a cost of about $1.9 million. You would require 53,000 electric charging stations, even if you could cut that cost by $800,000 by converting an existing gas station rather than starting from scratch. Given that Toyota is only worth about $273 billion and that the cost is over $58 trillion for the United States alone, the company will require significant government assistance to develop the ecosystem.  

This compares to the estimated $7.5 billion needed to add 500,000 more chargers to the U.S. EV charging ecosystem. 

After stagnating for most of the 20th century, battery technology is currently developing swiftly. Zeekr, a Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer, boasts of over 640 miles of range (the electric cars from China are setting range records) for a car costing under $40,000, which is within striking distance of the Toyota Mirai hydrogen-powered car with an impressive 845 tested range. 

I get that you can make commercial hydrogen vehicles work with the combination of superior range and depot fueling stations and a limited number of long-haul fuel stops. But consumer vehicles? Nope. The math just doesn’t work, so Toyota’s impressive effort will likely fail. 

Given how far we’ve come with battery electrics, it’s just too late to switch to hydrogen because the cost of the switch is beyond what even governments are willing to pay to get it done. 

Conclusion 

There's really no comparison for electric cars when it comes to local driving. It doesn't need to be very big or expensive, you can charge it at home, and you don't care about public charging. 

The Swiss electric vehicle Microlino has become my new favorite in this class. 

Although there are now no plans to sell this in the United States, we may still hope that the fantastic, compact, and incredibly reasonably priced $14,000 automobile will be available here. 

Like the vintage BMW Isetta, which my father owned two of when I was a child, the Microlino boasts several noteworthy benefits. Depending on the battery capacity chosen, its remarkable range for local travel extends to 60 to 143 miles. The front door (you open the front of the car to get in) allows you to park in very tight spots and still easily get in and out of the vehicle. 

With a top speed of 55 mph (on a flat road), it will handle most local speed limits, though I’d stay off freeways. I tried an electric scooter that had a 56-mph speed limit a few years back and found the number of cars that seemed to want to run over me on a freeway disconcerting. 

Still, if you want something for your kid to drive to school that’s safer than a bike, scooter, or motorcycle, or want a small second car for when your larger vehicle was in use by another family member but don’t want to tie up a lot of cash, this car could be an ideal option and, given how unique it is, it is likely to draw interest at your local Cars and Coffee. 

The Microlino uses a Level 1 charger, which plugs into a regular AC plug and still charges the car in around four hours. So, the electricity cost would be negligible and in line with a typical large appliance. 

I wanted this car as soon as I saw it, and sometimes I pick my Product of the Week based on how much I want the darn thing. Particularly, as is the case this time, whenI’m not allowed to buy it. As a result, the Microlino is my Product of the Week. 

I hope Amazon figures out how to sell these because I’d like to buy one.