Japan automakers play catch-up in EV race
(www3.nhk.or.jp)
from boem@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 29 Nov 2023 17:13
https://lemmy.world/post/8924815
from boem@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 29 Nov 2023 17:13
https://lemmy.world/post/8924815
threaded - newest
Until they (every one of them) catch-up with price to ICE it’s gonna be tough. Same story with every single automotive brand we had in past decades. They thought they’re invincible, until…
Just need to start doing away with fuel subsidies
Ah yes those fuel subsidies keep the up front cost of vehicles so high… (sarcasm)
Get a new one liner that’s contextually correct. Or is that the point, to be a pointless broken record.
The higher up-front cost of an EV can be justified when you consider the lower running costs. If gasoline costs more and outpaces any rise in electric costs, the running costs gap is that much wider and the up front costs are easier to overlook
Said no one ever who has done the math.
The cost on a same-same ICE is nowhere near the cost difference. Even over the long term the EV value falls off a cliff as the battery approaches zero so you can’t claim the cost back at the secondhand sale.
For example Korean sedan to Korean EV say Hyundai sonata ($40,000) vs IONIQ6 ($82,000 after gov rebates) is a difference of $42,000 just comparing up front costs. Fuel cost is (250x8.1(L/100)) is 2,025 x $1.8 is $3645 per year all in AUD and km.
The more these overstaments are made the less credibility is given to the discussion of decarbonising the transport network. We need honest, cards on the table discussions. That’s my math. What’s yours?
Said everyone that I know that bought an EV.
You need to get out and touch grass. There is more missinformation (and disinformation) about EVs than factually correct information. No one is willing to have a real discussion because the cult is regurgitating the misinformation and big oil disinformation. Right now EVs are for the rich and the lithium would be better being used on solar farms to clean the electricity grid.
I’m willing to have one, I thought we had one, but you are just starting to talk about cults …
It is. EVs have a cult following and it’s resulted in enormous amount of marketing misinformation and is a MASSIVE detractor for anyone wanting to have frank discussions. Now I will also admit ICE has its cultists as well but the difference is no one can make baseless claims because we all own one and know exactly what they do and don’t do and no one is claiming otherwise.
What does it have to do with this discussion?
You would have to explain that. You inserted yourself into it.
What. This is about feasibility of different technologies of EVs, but you keep talking about cults. So I’m asking you, what do cults have to do with this discussion?
So now it’s a topic change from your own post. Good to know.
Huh? Anecdotal evidence makes you a cultist?
Praise tech Jesus. Can I hear amen.
I paid $37,880 for my Model 3, and got a $7500 tax credit. I do not believe there’s a $30k car that can compete with the base model 3.
In Australia the base is over $70,000 after tax breaks and Government rebates
If you can find an equivalent ICE do the math and post results. I’ve been looking to buy an EV for city commute but it’s just far too expensive and frankly the net result is still burning coal (remote combustion vehicle).
Sounds like you’re the target market for early adoption!
Are you working out all the prices in Australian fun bucks?.. Because an ioniq 6 is not $82,000 usd for any of the trim levels and after running comparable TCOs vs fuel it will start paying for itself after the 15 year mark (well within the expected useful lifespan of a modern temperature controlled lithium pack (old EVs had significant degrading from temperature fluctuations, but new packs level off at about 10-20% wear now for an expected lifespan of 25-40 years >80% SOC)). Biggest downside is tax, payments, and higher than usual insurance which I’m not including in the TOC Calc because it’s so varied based on location that it’s hard to estimate.
Learn to read.
AUD.
Go visit their website in Australia. 70-90k.
Battery only lasts about 12 years of normal use before needing replacement hence the poor secondhand values. What are you going to run it on, gasoline?
Fuck off.
The 12 years you’re referring to is a assuming batteries without thermal management via nrel modeling, the ioniq 6 must face HEAFTY import taxes in your country (which is not the fault of the vehicle), and there are alternatives to running on gasoline like recycling the old cell (already a reality) and replacing it with another.
Again stop equating USD to AUD, that price also includes government subsidies and tax breaks, eg NO tax! Frankly I don’t care if you do or don’t believe me, they have a website, it gives you the cost subsidies and tax breaks pretty clearly.
So far as the life time goes 12 years is very generous based on country average 25,000km per annum
How many people can’t finance that though, they are going to be on a ridiculously high interest loan that will way outstrip the fuel savings.
The second hand market won’t be there for years (you can get a just about works petrol car ridiculously cheap) and who knows what their batteries will be like at that point
Learn to have a discussion with people without being a dickhead about it.
Keep drinking that coolaid cultist
Ya sure got me there! Congrats
Good point, just delete the second paragraph…
Exactly.
And when parts become available at my local auto parts store. One of my friends had a Model 3 and it took 1 MONTH to replace a broken passenger door mirror. It also took 3 WEEKS to fix a power seat issue. The same car had multiple growing pain issues that took way too much time to fix.
They were thrilled to trade it in on a new Camry so they could have a functioning car again.
This is just the state of the auto industry at the moment. There’s just as many teslas and evs waiting on parts as there are traditional ICE models when adjusted for market scale. The days of having everything in stock at the dealer for a quick swap are dead and gone.
Was this in the last 4 years? Because supply chains and labor are still in recovery everywhere.
.
Ketchup?
Catsup?
You want ketchup? With lobster? <img alt="" src="https://reddthat.com/pictrs/image/b862244e-6ded-4b21-bc26-45b59d49a5d3.gif">
You’re a smeeheee
A complete and total one.
BEVs are a dead end. It's an idea older than internal combustion and is already obsolete. The world needs to shift focus to concepts like e-fuels or hydrogen cars.
E-fuel? So like what? Electricity…
It's fuel made using electricity as the energy source.
The problem with fuels made from electricity is that pesky thing called thermodynamics. If an efuel was developed that was more efficient than electricity then we’d be able to use it to produce more electricity than we put in.
You avoid the giant, expensive battery though. People are obsessed with efficiency in a self-defeating way.
People are obsessed with efficiency because it’s the only metric that matters. We have a finite amount of resources on this planet and efficiency is the only way we can make it last. If you aren’t a ‘save the planet’ type of person then efficiency still matters because it’s directly correlated with cost.
Better ban solar panels cause they're only 15-20% efficient. /s
You are comparing different efficiencies. Solar panels are 15% to 20% efficient at converting light into energy. As far as I’m aware every Efuel being developed (and every hydrocarbon fuel for that matter) has a 0% efficiency at converting light into energy but if I am mistaken please do correct me.
E-fuels are made from solar power. It is not anywhere near 0%. Also, clearly efficiency is not "the only metric that matters."
No they are made from electricity, and that electricity is made by solar panels (sometimes).
Any form of conversion means losing energy.
BEVs require conversion steps too. Not to mention the cost and energy needed to build them in the first place. They are nearly as efficient as their advocates think.
An EV’s pollution is recovered after 25 000km compared to an ICE.
This is including the battery and being completely powered by coal power plants.
The conversion steps for any EV is much less then any other form of fuel, because all those fuels usually convert to electricity somewhere in the line.
You just really like bringing up debunked arguments, do you?
It's too bad we're not comparing BEVs to conventional ICE cars. The alternatives are even greener and don't have a paypack period.
Fuel cell cars literally are EVs. People like you are just regurgitating a lot of BEV propaganda. These arguments only work when the alternative is a conventional ICE car running on pure fossil fuels. Your understanding of transportation technology is basically trapped in the early 2000s. You think you know something, but in reality you're 20 years out of date.
In a completely technical sense the hydrocarbon fuel was at one time produced from light energy (dead plants) but that’s taking your point and being pedantic since the “efficiency” of the conversation is probably astronomically low when you account for the loses sustained by whatever lifeform died and became said hydrocarbons.
Lots of fuels (like petrol) are a lot more energy dense than out best batteries. If we can synthesize fuels like that just using electricity as an energy source (that can be generated from renewables) then you have a carbon free dense store of energy that can be used to power a vehicle for a long distance without refueling.
The problem with these (fuel cells etc) is that the conversation rate is inefficient, wasting a lot of energy. As we are not using 100% renewable energy this means carbon is being released still.
If we had an entirely renewable energy grid (with oversupply when sunny/windy etc) then those energy losses would not matter.
Yeah, quit using the efficient stuff, we need something similarly inefficient as gas powered cars.
Batteries are unsustainable and have massive resource requirements. It's basically an obsession with "efficiency" while actually being extremely wasteful.
You say that while promoting the idea of more inefficient energy transfer systems. Electric motors operate above 90%, traditional motors around 25-30%. Trying to mitigate that with wasting more energy by creating an artificial fuel is even more wasteful.
Burning stuff is unsustainable, using batteries, that are recyclable is not.
Solar panels are only 15-20% efficient. No one is going around saying we need to ban solar panels.
Fuels made from solar power are the opposite of unsustainable. They are the most sustainable ideas possible. It is basically artificial photosynthesis.
We don’t make fuels from solar power.
Unless you mean hydrogen, which by itself is already 30-40% less efficient then just using the electricity directly in a battery.
And that is without counting all the hydrogen that just escapes through any form of containment we try to keep it in.
Hydrogen is a fuel. E-fuels are hydrogen plus CO₂ and converted into synthetic hydrocarbons.
You are blatantly ignoring the part where solar power is incredibly inefficient to begin with, and we don't care. It's still cheap energy.
You’re confusing the efficency of solar panels with the efficiency of burning hydrocarbon based fuel (perhaps intentionally?). Yes, solar panels convert about 20-30% (they’re getting better with time) of the energy provided by mankind’s closest and most beloved fission reactor into energy we can use, the rest being reflected or turned into heat, but the source (that giant ball of fission) is infinite and non-detremental to the environment to keep running. Hydrocarbon production not only requires this original source but once calculated would provided you end delivery efficency levels that are dramatically lower (likely less than 1%), Natural hydrocarbons are limited in supply, and the whole chain is significantly more toxic for the planet when you calculate in byproducts produced during production or consumption. It’s legitimately not even close and if you truly believe hydrocarbons are even remotely viable you’ve misinterpreted one of the data points somewhere in your calculation.
Except you've just proved my point: Solar is basically infinite energy. So why obsess over efficiency? If you have something made from solar power, it is not a big deal.
I’m not obsessed with efficency, but it is a useful metric to consider when thinking about the overall picture. Additionally I’ve not made your point. Solar still requires implementation, land use, and is finite in access to humanity despite the source being infinite. Producing hydrogen fuel with this consideration would automatically increase the required solar capacity by 20-40% based on current hydrogen production processes. In addition there are byproducts and downsides from creating traditional hydrocarbon based fuels in a renewable manner.
Useful in isolation, but that is not what is happening here. People want to maximize the efficiency of a resource that is basically infinite in nature, while being fine with it destroying the rest of the environment in the process. It doesn't take much thought to realize that deprioritizing efficiency in favor of other factors is a much better compromise.
And this is even more stark when you realize that we are not merely prioritizing efficiency; we effectively have a cult of efficiency. One that maximizes the perception of efficiency even at the cost of actual efficiency. BEVs are still insanely inefficient compared to ideas like mass transit or walkable neighborhoods. A grid that runs entirely on renewable energy needs vast amounts of energy storage, which can't be solved by batteries without massive amounts of waste. A much smarter balance of solutions will actually reduce waste and improve efficiency. However, that imply that BEVs are a niche idea and aren't really needed in the grand scheme of things.
Absolutely agree with you when it comes to all of that, but I’m just saying after spending a pretty significant amount of time reading up on current ‘renewable’ hydrocarbon production it’s not what it’s cracked up to be. We should almost assuredly be investing in transport networks that are vastly more efficient and environmentally friendly than our current networks (light rail, bus networks, electric bikes, etc, etc), but it’s a far easier argument to talk someone into an BEV vehicle vs a ICE one than it is to get them to take the bus or petition their local council for better community transit, and like it or not new vehicles will continue to be made. Not sure what that says for us as a species, headed high speed towards self and environmental destruction, but at least BEVs seem to help lift the metaphorical foot off the accelerator. I hope we eventually get to a point where current transport networks look as outdated as horse and carriage to our descendants.
Talking someone into a BEV is just laziness, and more greenwashing than being a serious solution. It's not even easier, as you now need a garage and tolerance for long recharge times and less range. The actual easiest idea would be to create a drop-in replacement for ICE cars. E-fuels are an option. Hydrogen cars are similarly straightforward as a possibility.
BEVs are at best a transitional idea. All it seems to be good for is changing people's minds on green transportation. But it won't get us to the promise land. There are too many problems, and the resource requirements mean they create huge new problems of their own. We need to push for whatever that can best get rid of fossil fuel cars, which will have to be something else.
I disagree with you there. Most of the common affordable BEVs are perfectly capable of providing required transport as a drop in replacement for most people I’ve met. Charging infrastructure is also extremely cheap and easy to implement. Implenting mass scale ‘e-fuel’ is a pipe dream requiring significantly more infrastructure and funding than available and reasonable. A good place to look is at F-1 or Porsche who are both building renewable hydrocarbon fuel networks. Both demonstrate that the economics and environmental costs just do not work out unless there’s an engineering reason to do it (like producing high density light fuel). Meanwhile if we migrate a camery driver from their 4 banger to a mid-range BEV they’ll be hard pressed to notice except in the 0.1% of long range travel which could be handled by flight, rental, or mass ground transport depending on travel needs. Additionally their fuel costs will drop significantly as they charge at home with low cost outlet electricity (which can then be a centralized focus for a governmental body to regulate and transition to environmentally friendly renewables like wind/solar), eliminating the need for expensive and energy intensive fuel delivery supply chains, stations, and frameworks. BEVs are just better than ICE in most regards when you look at the overall picture and don’t discount the unseen costs.
You're not seeing the whole picture then. Having only BEVs will mean millions of people being totally screwed over on transportation, and vast new mining operations everywhere. It's pretty much an environmental nightmare in its own right. A lot of attacks on the alternative ideas are just strawman arguments. As if BEVs will be exclusively micro-compacts and all ICE vehicles will be giant SUVs and with zero mass transit options.
In reality, BEVs are part of the problem. And one that can't be truly solved.
Hydrogen is a dead end, because it is nowhere near green to produce it in large quantities, and the technology is still not ready, nor is the supply network. It’s just an idea pushed by fossil fuel companies hoping to transition to selling hydrogen.
E-fuels are not zero emission, but the basic premise is that somewhere else along the chain it reduced GhG emissions into the atmosphere - like capturing methane from cow burps, or biogas from garbage dumps.
These fuels will have uses - hydrogen in rockets and e-fuels for aircraft - but for almost all land vehicles, BEVs or going electric, is the most readily available and working strategy.
That's just BEV propaganda. They're trying to sell you unsustainable BEVs instead of a fuel that can be made from water.
Not to mention it will leave millions of people stranded without any means of transportation. As it turns out, the gas station is pretty much unreplaceable. BEVs are really just toys for the rich. The whole thing is pretty much a variable on climate change denial or at least an adjacency idea.
It’s more like BEV reality. They (car manufacturers, oil & gas, etc) have been trying to get hydrogen to work for ages now, but BEVs have made much more progress instead.
Hydrogen fuel-cells: Everyone (consumers, manufacturers, etc) has been waiting for this to come into mass-production and used in cars. Hasn’t happened yet.
Hydrogen combustion engines: Good idea, but still not as feasible at sounds. I’ve heard of problems with efficiency of the engines, dangers in storing and transporting the fuel, leakage, etc. It still hasn’t happened to scale.
Hydrogen production is still very energy and CO2 intensive. The small amount of hydrogen that can be produced using green methods or with carbon-capture, should be used towards planes and rockets.
BEVs won’t be a cure all for every machine on earth, and not immediately either. But over time, it should become the most cost-appropriate solution if you factor in the cost of emitting CO2 and other GhGs.
It's the same story as with diesel or ethanol cars. There are always some short-term "easy" solutions that don't scale or aren't really that green. BEVs is just the next stage of that. You can obsess all you want with a transitional technology, but that doesn't stop the march of progress.
Where is the comparison to the solar panel? I’m comparing methods of propelling, you are comparing solar panels and?
If you can use the energy more efficiently and choose not to it’s not sustainable (or at least not very smart)
Because it is solar power ultimately powering it all. If you don't care about the efficiency of that step, you don't really care about all of the later steps. It is still green energy and still cheap.
The problem with BEVs is that while it is efficient in one respect, it is insanely wasteful in others. As a result, it is an unsustainable idea and functionally just greenwashing.
So it’s the same if you have to build 5 times as many solar panels to do the same thing? It’s just not.
Now we're in the "pro-BEV bullshit" zone. Batteries won't magically solve all transportation needs, nor solve the energy storage requirements of the grid. Alternatives still have to exist anyways, and the total lifecycle efficiency of BEVs isn't that special. In a lot of cases, avoiding excessive use of batteries will save you energy. So pursuing alternatives will not need radically more solar panels.
Where did I say batteries were perfect?
If you can admit that, you can admit there can be superior options to BEVs.
Admit what? That they aren’t perfect? Yeah sure, nothing is. But where is the better option?
E-fuels or hydrogen made from green energy. With the latter you won't even give up on the future being EVs. They are the actually sustainable forms of transportation that everyone can accept.
… But they are way more inefficient then batteries, which is what I’ve been saying all this time.
Which doesn’t matter, something I’ve been saying all this time.
And the efficiency of batteries has been massively exaggerated too.
energy prices are far from stable and efficiency plays a huge role in the feasibility of a technology.
The efficiency of e fuels is far below hydrogen and hydrogen is still a lot worse than battery.
The advantages of a chemical fuel is that you make them when costs are very low and save them for when you need them. Even months later if need be. Not doable with batteries. Even the ICCT is admitting that electricity used to make hydrogen is going to much cheaper than electricity used to charge BEVs. It will likely be cheaper to operate a hydrogen car due to that fact.
At least with e-fuels, there's an argument to be made that there are too many unnecessary steps and that costs will be high. But with hydrogen, that argument doesn't really hold water. Fuel cell cars are also EVs. The gap between BEVs FCEVs on efficiency is small and shrinking. When the full lifecycle factors are included, it is likely the FCEV is the more efficient idea even now.
Hm, maybe, but using it in a vehicle doesn’t sound too enticing. Although everything we talk about here is developing technologies, maybe the next breakthrough might change everything.
Or just move to building proper public transport like Europe did.
Europe is a huge continent. What do you mean, exactly?
The UK is in Europe, and in many cities here the public transport options are terrible, with driving being the only safe option, as cycling is very dangerous on our roads.
There are also huge parts of France, Italy, and Germany where public transport is poor, expensive, or infrequent.
I can charge my EV in the garage and not have to stand at a gas station in -30. Why on Earth would I want a less convenient hydrogen or other fuel car?
Because not everyone has a garage, and you still have to use the equivalent of gas stations if you're travelling long distances.
In reality, BEVs pre-date ICE cars. They were abandoned because they were found to be less practical. The vast majority of people actually want gas stations and not the reverse.
We’re still in the early adoption stage. They were less practical because batteries were absolute trash 100 years ago. The vast majority of people want a car that will fill fast and go far. They don’t care how it happens.
We are also in the early adoption phase of other technologies. They will be far cheaper and more practical than what they are now. At some point, we have cars that are exactly as practical and cheap as conventional cars, only zero emissions. That is likely the end of the BEV.
Why do you think BEV is going away? Toyota is predicting they’ll have 1200km range and charge in 10 minutes by 2028. Even now the average city dweller can charge enough on a small service to make their trip to work and back. There is no upside to changing to something else.
They're unsustainable, not to mention expensive and difficult for society to adopt. Toyota just say things while not actually being interested in them.
The marketing that they are "acceptable" for most people is not good enough. Eventually, there will be zero emissions cars that are just as practical as existing ICE cars and just as cheap. Basically no one will want BEVs once that happens.
They’re not unsustainable. Lithium is infinitely recyclable. Not to mention batteries are lasting way longer than expected. I’ve been in Tesla cabs with almost a million kilometers.
But it isn't recycled, especially at the 100% level that would be required. And you still need to dig out vast amount amounts of virgin material in the first place. Meanwhile, e-fuels and hydrogen have no such problem to begin with. This is basically an excuse to ignore the real-world problems of batteries.
If you don’t have a garage you don’t need a car
If only...
I’m going to say that less than 30% of houses here in the UK have a garage/carport etc (either individual or shared).
Most of the individual garages will be sized to fit an old mini, not a modern car (even a small one)
I’m going to say that if you can charge at home, then electric cars are awesome, otherwise a HFC style car might be better.
Both are going to require significant infrastructure build out, but electric chargers are much easier to install.
Funny thing is, Chinese EVs are at the place where Japanese cars were back in the 1970s. Widely mocked as cheap crap, but consumers like them well enough, and the quality keeps improving. The US reacts by shutting them out of its market, but they’re doing awfully well everywhere else in the world…
Hyundai/Kia tho …. We can’t lock out the Koreans and someone’s lunch is getting eaten
Japan changed the manufacturing game.
10 years later people are taking business trips to Japan to learn how to do it.
I learnt about Japanese manufacturing in the last 10 years and started a career in it.
Toyota rather falling out of favour in recent years of course
Partially because the Chinese government is good at covering up any negative news about them.
Even outside the US I would not want to buy a Chinese electric car. Can you imagine trying to get maintenance on that thing.
I’m starting to see proper dealerships from brands like BYD so it’s not so far off. I don’t know the details but if they’re implemented physically in the region then I assume they provide maintenance.
I thought the nationality was called “Japanese”, so “Japanese automakers”?
Or Japan’s Automakers.
Headlines in general just seemed to be terrible. It’s like when they decide the word “and” is too hard to type so they just use a comma instead, but also still use commas sometimes for their original purpose. Leading to some very weird sentences.
That’s a genuine headline I’ve seen in a local paper.
lol yeah, it does sometimes seem like headlines will compromise grammar in favor of brevity to the point of incomprehensibility…
All the people vehemently defending ICE in this thread are missing the point.
All the expensive maintenance/problems with my current ICE are with things that do NOT exist on a BEV:
Also, the scumbag dealer straight up LIED because I specifically asked about the common head gasket issues with Subaru and they assured me that they had been fixed, and then proceeded to sell me a car with the exact engine which had that issue even though the same model year had started shipping with a new engine that didn’t have the problem.
So I do NOT give a SINGLE fuck about the environmental tradeoffs between lithium extraction and all the dirty fluids involved with a ICE. If you have a hard-on for breathing smog, I won’t kink-shame you.
In summary, I’ll be getting a BEV because:
It won’t ever blow a head gasket and spew coolant and oil all over itself for no fucking reason while I’m just trying to get home from work. The battery will slowly degrade over many years, but that’s very predictable and can be planned for.
It won’t ever force me to replace it because it needs a catalytic converter that costs more than the car is worth and can’t pass emissions. Again, I won’t kink shame you if you get off on breathing smog, but I also don’t believe you have the right to force that on everyone else with your bypass kits and rolling coal BS.
I will NOT have to deal with lying scumbag car dealers. These middlemen add NO value to the transaction and they lobby to force the state governments to keep them involved.
I’ll never have to go with a gas station and deal with their bullshit gas pumps with poor usability, I can charge at night and while I WFH
My car will be able to run on any fuel that can generate electricity: natural gas, nuclear, solar, wind, etc. ICE cars are dependent on a very specific nasty byproduct of petroleum refinement which is constantly price gouged for windfall profits by greedy corporations and our government just lets it happened because they are bought and paid for by the same industry, they’ll even send subsidies their way as an extra fuck-you to the taxpayer. I’ll stick with my local, municipal electric company which is held accountable to provide me electricity without padding the windfall profits of the 1%.
An electric motor is a much better engineering solution to the problem of creating forward momentum than an ICE. There are some things that you need to burn a liquid fuel for, like if you’re going to try to launch a rocket. Turning a wheel is NOT one of them. Do the ICE fetishers even know how an ICE works? It’s immensely over-complicated to create an explosion and then harness the power of that explosion to create rotation, which is trivial to achieve with electricity. So many moving parts which all have to be properly lubricated and aligned or it will literally explode and spew metal and toxic chemicals everwhere. No thanks. Kids can make electric motors in science class.
All that being said, I’m still not going to drop 3x the cost on a BEV over an ICE, the prices DO need to come down. Thankfully, with lots of options in the market it looks like they will.
Which is where fuel cell cars come in. They are also EVs. It pretty much renders the BEV obsolete. A lot of BEV advocacy are from people stuck in the early 2000s, totally unaware that technology has past them by. It is similar to the past obsession with diesel cars, which at one point was see as unbeatable.
Aren’t there still immense challenges with the safe storage and transportation of hydrogen? Will I be able to generate that hydrogen from my own solar panels?
I’m actually in agreement that FCEVs are the future, I just haven’t seen anything to convince me that those challenges have been addressed. Didn’t Toyota screw up by betting heavily on FCEVs instead of BEVs and now they have to play catch-up?
No, there are not. A lot of these concerns are from people stuck in the past, or have an agenda.
You can generate your own hydrogen, and there are a few companies building products for that. Though realistically there will be some degree of centralization. Most people will buy hydrogen and not bother with home production.
BEVs are really the result of subsidies and virtue signaling. It is a mandate driven by delusional pseudo-environmentalists. The same people that got nuclear banned in much of the world. It is not a serious attempt at green transportation. And it will likely die-off in favor of FCEVs or other ideas once the time comes.
So you’re saying that the major issues with storage and transportation of hydrogen have been resolved? Do you have a source? Everything that I’ve read today is that they still can’t store it without it evaporating at a pretty high rate.
In an abstract sense, I understand that FCEVs WILL be better once infrastructure exists and the problems with transportation and evaporation are resolved. Ideally the hydrogen would be used as energy storage for renewable sources, though my understanding is that most hydrogen produced today is produced using oil and gas.
The reality is that I’m going to need to replace my ICE in the next year or two, and there is not currently a FCEV available for me to replace it with or infrastructure for me to fuel it. My house gets good sun, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to power my small amount of driving with my own solar and a BEV
It’s not really productive to say that people who support BEV over ICE are stuck in the past. What would you recommend people do? If your answer is “buy another ICE until hydrogen is a realistic option”, isn’t that MORE stuck in the past than someone advocating for BEVs?
We have had hydrogen pipelines for decades, and large scale storage in the form of underground salt caverns. These things basically work the same as natural gas pipes and storage systems. The only real challenge was local storage, which has mostly ceased to be a problem with the rise of carbon fiber tanks. There are tens of thousands of FCEVs around the world, and rarely any issues with dealing with hydrogen storage.
The main limiting factor is infrastructure, or rather lack thereof. But the difference here is that you think it is technically impossible or at very least difficult. I believe it is simply a matter of building it, which is pretty straightforward.
BEVs also were impossible to buy for most people until around the mid-2010s. They went a century of near non-existence before then. FCEVs are simply going through a similar process. Sooner or later, they will be everywhere and BEVs will be abandoned afterwards.
You can buy whatever you want right now. It's not like anyone's stopping you. The point is that BEVs are not the answer. They are just a transitional idea and won't last.