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PluginIndia Electric Vehicles

Hydrogen Fuel Cells vs Battery Electric

3/9/2014

15 Comments

 
By Nikhil Parchure
Hydrogen is always touted as a next generation fuel that can replace gasoline. Researchers across the world are developing highly efficient and long lasting fuel cell systems. These fuel cell systems are replacing diesel generators and gasoline engines in cars and diesel engines in trucks and buses. Car makers such as Hyundai, Honda, Toyota and Volkswagen are pouring tremendous amount of money in the research and development of hydrogen fuel cell cars. So now there is emerging competition between electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to become default zero emission system. Fuel cell vehicles have zero tailpipe emission just like a standard electric car but there are significant differences between these two vehicle types. These differences need assessment as that will decide whether future zero emission transportation will be fuel cell or battery electric.
Understanding Fuel Cells
Let us understand how fuel cell system works in order to understand the difference. Both electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles are driven by electric power train. That means both cars use electric motor to drive the wheels. The difference is how electricity is stored and generated. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle uses fuel cell to generate electricity from hydrogen whereas battery electric vehicles use the energy stored in batteries. The diagram below shows the working principle of fuel cell systems.
Of course the actual construction of fuel cell is much more complicated than this gif image can show but this will give a good idea about how the basic reaction takes place inside a hydrogen fuel cell. In common terms fuel cell is an electric generator that uses hydrogen as fuel and produces electricity as an output. Now this electricity can be used in transportation using electric drivetrain. The major auto manufacturers mentioned above are developing cars working on this principle. 
When a hydrogen-rich fuel enters the fuel cell stack, it reacts electrochemically with oxygen (i.e. ambient air) to produce electric current, heat and water.
Toyota's Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle

Picture
Toyota Hydrogen Fuel cell vehicle they unveiled at CES 2014 in Las Vegas.
The video below from Toyota shows how the vehicle will work. From the video you can see the vehicle itself is very similar to battery electric vehicles. The only difference between these vehicles is energy storage system. The fuel cell vehicle uses combination of battery and hydrogen tank whereas battery electric vehicle only relies on battery storage for driving range.

Battery Electric vs Hydrogen Fuel Cells
Range: 
Hydrogen fuel cell cars can win this category. Fuel cell vehicle can have 300 mile range and can improve on that by storing more hydrogen on board. Storing hydrogen is a challenge but new tank design will allow higher pressures and larger quantity of gas to be stored on board. Electric vehicles can achieve 300 mile range but need high cost battery system to achieve that range. Only Tesla Model S with 85kWh battery can achieve that range under good driving conditions. Affordable electric vehicles like Nissan Leaf and Ford Focus EV can achieve only 75 to 80 mile range. 

Fueling / Charging Time: 
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle fueling is similar to their gasoline counterparts. Centralized stations will be needed to dispense high pressure hydrogen. Fuel cell vehicle with 300 mile range will take approximately 3 to 5 minutes to fuel. Electric vehicles take longer time to charge as battery systems have limitation on charge acceptance. High power charging can be done but still it will take at least 30 minutes to charge the vehicle. 

Cost: 
Electric vehicles with limited range cost much lower than fuel cell vehicles. Toyota Fuel cell vehicle is expected to cost around $75,000 after government incentives. Now that is almost twice the price of $30,000 Nissan Leaf. Studies have shown that average driver in the United States drives less than 40 miles per day. Paying that premium to achieve 300 mile driving range is a difficult proposition. Electric vehicles will win this category of cost effectiveness. 

Cycle life: 
Batteries have limited cycle life. Batteries start to degrade as you perform charge discharge cycles. After approximately 2000 cycles the power delivery capacity of batteries degrades a lot and you will need to replace the batteries to operate the vehicle. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles do not have this problem. The membrane used in fuel cell system also needs replacement but it will easily last longer than batteries. 

Infrastructure: 
This is the biggest challenge for both technologies but electric vehicles are in a better position than hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles require dedicated high pressure hydrogen fueling stations. Electric vehicles with on-board chargers can charge anywhere using grid or solar power. Installing electric vehicle charging stations is much simpler and most of the drivers can just charge the vehicles at home. 

Energy Intensity: 
This is where I think electric vehicles will win the race. Currently there are only two ways to generate hydrogen, electrolysis or using methane reformer. Methane reformer uses natural gas as a base material to generate hydrogen, so hydrogen produced will not be completely pollution free or carbon neutral. If we use electrolysis to generate hydrogen, then you will need to spend more electricity to generate hydrogen than what you will get back.

Overall Value judgment: 
If we evaluate above six factors, it is very clear that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have important advantages such as range, fueling time and equipment life but have disadvantages of cost, infrastructure and energy intensity. 
The driving distance per day of an average American is far lesser (~40 miles) than what electric vehicles provide (It is even lower in India and Europe), electric vehicle charging can be easily integrated in the grid or with solar panels and the cost of electric vehicles is lesser than that of fuel cell vehicles. Overall electric vehicles provide great value over hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Toyota, Hyundai, Honda and Volkswagen are betting big on fuel cell vehicles and Nissan, BMW and Tesla are advancing battery electric vehicles. The race between these technologies to provide zero emission transportation will be interesting. I personally believe electric vehicles will provide great value to the customer and will be difficult to compete against. Integration with existing infrastructure and continuous advancement in battery energy density will ultimately provide the best value to the consumer. 

15 Comments
Sateesh Reddy
3/9/2014 01:13:51 pm

Great blog.
For me - The BIG problem with Hydrogen Fuel Cells vehicles is this - We still need to go to a PUMP to fill 'fuel'. In this case Hydrogen.

And for me this is the big reason, why governments, corporates will support Hudrogen. So that they can keep the public from lining up at the Pump and ensure people are dependent on them.

I would rather generate my own clean electricity and not pay the corporates and the governments !
Am sure companies like Hyundai, Toyota, Volkswagen are developing Fuel Cell vehicles with vested interests.

When Elon Musk said - "Fuel Cells are bullshit"
I totally agree with him.

Reply
Kamlesh
3/9/2014 01:26:09 pm

Hi Sateesh,

I totally agree with you. Here is the thing about Fuel Cell vehicles. We do not have hydrogen pumps at local gas stations or hydrogen pipe lines coming into our houses. It will also take billions of dollars of investment and a long time for all local gas stations to have a hydrogen pump.

The infrastructure for Battery Electrics is available at everyone's HOME and is available TODAY!

Am with Elon Musk here :)

Reply
Zephyr
3/9/2014 09:26:59 pm

I dare you to charge an EV at my home. I live in a 6th floor.

Kamlesh
4/9/2014 03:18:19 am

Zephyr,

I live on the 6th floor too and i charge it :)

Do read the blog on Apartments and EV charging
http://www.pluginindia.com/1/post/2014/05/apartments-and-electric-vehicle-charging.html

Reply
Ramesh Krishnan
4/9/2014 06:56:20 am

Hydrogen or Battery, what difference does it make? The outcome will be Electric Cars in both case.

Reply
Ashish Mahajan
4/9/2014 08:06:48 am

hey krishnan,

Both are technically electric cars.

There are huge differences with respect to 'fuel' delivery mediums, having a sense of energy independence etc.

I think u need to read the blog again before making statements ;)

Reply
Chris Waddle
4/9/2014 08:21:25 am

Hi Nikhil,

Thanks for a great explanation on H2 Vehicles.

I like Hydrogen, as the car will still have a fuel tank, and will still run an internal combustion engine.
There will be no "range anxiety" and you won't have to worry about replacing the entire battery pack after 3000 charge cycles.

Do you think there is an opportunity to do - 'Hydrogen Electric' hybrid? Now that would really work?

But these are major drawbacks, that can really setback the use of Hydrogen for Vehicles.

The Car companies are going to have to start forcing gas stations to carry hydrogen as well, the way some places carry diesel and kerosene.

One very important point you did not mention is this
Hydrogen gas also requires a lot of work to free if from other elements. That means until technology advances enough to simplify and ease the process; hydrogen energy will continue to be too expensive.

There is no existing infrastructure in place to accommodate hydrogen as a fuel source for the average motorist.

Even though i like Hydrogen, sadly as of now Electrics are the way to go, as the technology is ready now and infrastructure is available.

Reply
Nikhil
4/9/2014 12:32:02 pm

Hello Chris,
Great comments.
I do not oppose hydrogen in any way, I just think looking at progress in battery technology, it is difficult for fuel cell systems to compete against EVs. Range anxiety is a big challenge but once you have DC fast charge and level 2 chargers everywhere, you will not have that. Also once user gets more experience and software to predict range becomes more accurate, range anxiety will go away.

Similar to batteries, fuel cell stacks also need replacement after 2000 hours of operation. That means the current systems are not good enough for 150,000 mile operation. Of course, development is underway and eventually fuel cells will reach there but as of today its not possible.

I tried to touch on hydrogen source using the energy intensity matrix. So currently it takes more energy to get hydrogen, transport it and use it which makes its energy negative fuel.

But thanks for all your notes. Appreciate you reading and participating in the discussion.

Reply
Reena Rai
6/9/2014 11:34:25 am

Hi,

This is an insightful article. Thanks. I'm a big fan of Elon Musk and he clearly states that generating Hydrogen is an extremely inefficient process.

Here is a snippet of the interview.

ELON MUSK: Plug-in electric. The fuel cell will never ever, ever, ever be a mainstay.

SPENCER MICHELS: You say that very emphatically and yet some of the folks at Toyota and so forth say they will be a mainstay eventually.

ELON MUSK: Well then, time will tell who is right.

SPENCER MICHELS: Why do you say what you said, though?

ELON MUSK: The fuel cell is just a fundamentally inferior way of delivering electrical energy to an electric motor than batteries. First of all, you have to say what is the fuel source for a fuel cell? Okay, so there is not naturally occurring hydrogen in the world. There’s carbon element in the universe but not in the world, so you have to get the hydrogen from somewhere. Where do you get it from?

SPENCER MICHELS: Water.

ELON MUSK: Yes, but it takes an enormous amount of energy to break down the water. So where did you get the energy to break down the water?

SPENCER MICHELS: Solar panels.

ELON MUSK: Okay, so you could do all those things. But it’s a tiny fraction as efficient to do that as it is to use those same solar panels just directly to charge a battery pack, as opposed to using the solar panels to split water, then take hydrogen, oxygen, separate them, compress the hydrogen into either a very high pressure gas or liquid, and then put that into a car and then run a fuel cell process and then generate electricity. It’s incredibly inefficient to do that. You’ll always win by taking that same electrical source and just directly charging a battery. Always, guaranteed. This is a fact of physics.

Some people will say, well what if the technology were improved? It’s not. You can say, you can take the ideal case, let’s say all the technology was perfect for a fuel cell. It still doesn’t work. It is still not competitive for a battery, not even close. And one last item, you know on fuel cells. If fuel cells were good, don’t think you’d see them somewhere, like maybe in a laptop or a cell phone or a $200 million military satellite maybe? And yet, where do you see them?

SPENCER MICHELS: You don’t.

ELON MUSK: Exactly.

Reply
Pero
12/9/2014 10:36:44 am

Elon is absolutely correct: http://phys.org/news85074285.html

Reply
Desmond Wright
6/9/2014 11:52:50 am

I find it funny when fuel cell advocates claim that you can fill up in 3-5 minutes. First you have to get yourself to a fuel cell filling station, which is, if you're lucky, 50 to 100 miles away.

Compare this to waking up to a fully charged car every day.

No comparison.

Reply
Nikhil
7/9/2014 04:19:17 pm

Really good point. California is spending millions of dollars to set up hydrogen fuel stations but I personally think it will not prove cost effective at the end.

Reply
Chris
10/9/2017 05:23:34 am

Try charging that EV in less than 30 minutes, on a long drive. EVs dont and mpst likely wont for some time have the range to work anywhere else but cities. You pretty much need 2 cars. One gasoline powered and one EV.

Reply
Priya
8/9/2014 06:39:54 am

Where is Zephyr lol

Reply
Pero
12/9/2014 10:24:30 am

For hydrogen, You have to put in 100kWh of energy to get 20kWh to move the car (and this is the best case). In EV, for 100kWh, you get 70kWh to move the car. (http://phys.org/news85074285.html)
50$ for 300 miles? That is more expensive than a petrol car, and this is with 'cheap' hydrogen that is coming from fossil fuels, it can only get more expensive.
You can say, we will put solar panels and make hydrogen that way for 'free', but that does not make sense, because with the same solar panels you 'charge' one fuel cell vehicle for 300 miles, you can charge 3-4 EV vehicles for the 300 miles each, or charge 1 EV for 1000-1200 miles.
Batteries lose capacity with time, but you can probably get 500,000 miles with them (Tesla even offers 8 year and unlimited mileage warranty), and use them for house energy storage after that. Question how long fuel cell and hydrogen tank lasts.

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