Hydrogen is the future of motoring
Discussion
thinfourth2 said:
Of course the majority of us would far prefer to travel all the way to swindon to get our car refilled then the horror of being asleep in your bed while an electric car recharges quietly on your driveway.
What's a... "driveway"?Everyone in the world uses on street parking anyway, next you'll be saying there are people who travel less than 500 miles a day.
I like hydrogen technology because it can be used for both fuel cell electric motors or internal combustion engines. As long as there are internal combustion engines there would be the need for gears hence manual gears will survive. If it's used for internal combustion engines then there isn't really much to change from what there already is either so probably much less cost as well. Unfortunately manufacturers seem to be more interested in using hydrogen for fuel cell electric motors. I remember until few years ago, there were many small companies in Japan competing with each other to perfect the hydrogen technology and many of them were developing hydrogen powered combustion engines. Some of them were even water powered. However, these small companies seem to have all gone bust and disappeared now, for some unknown reason. It's shame a really.
I really want the hydrogen powered combustion engine to take off. Then we can keep making hydrogen powered V8s, V10s and so on with manual transmissions.
This is a news clip I found of one company doing the combustion engine with water and hydrogen. It only emits water, and runs like a petrol car.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV2M_1Ud188&fea...
I really want the hydrogen powered combustion engine to take off. Then we can keep making hydrogen powered V8s, V10s and so on with manual transmissions.
This is a news clip I found of one company doing the combustion engine with water and hydrogen. It only emits water, and runs like a petrol car.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV2M_1Ud188&fea...
MarkRSi said:
thinfourth2 said:
Of course the majority of us would far prefer to travel all the way to swindon to get our car refilled then the horror of being asleep in your bed while an electric car recharges quietly on your driveway.
What's a... "driveway"?Everyone in the world uses on street parking anyway, next you'll be saying there are people who travel less than 500 miles a day.
I thought people had electricty in their houses
How dumb was that
Dr Interceptor said:
We're close to a fuel breakthrough, very close.... and I think Hydrogen will be the future.
Look how far we have come in motoring terms in the past 20 years - back in 1992, your typical family car (say Sierra) didn't have anti-lock brakes, or airbags, or satnav, or electric windows (on the base spec), or climate control, or cruise control.
Fast forward 20 years, and my Fiesta has all of the above... and more! Cars have got bigger to allow for technology and safety increases, and manufacturers are now looking at lightweight materials to improve economy - making more use of boron steel in small cars etc.
I believe that the next 10 years will be very interesting for the motorist. Technology wise, we have reached saturation point, there isn't much left to develop. We already have internet available in car, lane guidance, radar cruise control, cars that brake themselves etc.
Now the engineers can turn their attention more to the drive train, and we will see some big advances. In fairness we already are with the Ford Ecoboost engines, cylinder deactivation in big V8 saloons... Honda are fully behind the Hydrogen project, it will only take a couple of other manufacturers to climb on board and there will be no stopping it. Production costs will come down, a fuelling infrastructure will take shape, advances will be made in tank and storage technology, and before you know it, we'll all be commuting in zero emissions vehicles.
As long as I'm still allowed to get the V8s out of the garage at the weekends, that suits me just fine
BMW have been dabbling with Hydrogen for quite a few years. I think they started off mainly by converting existing ICE's to run on Hyrogen. They had a 7 series at a motor show many years ago which had been converted to run on it.Look how far we have come in motoring terms in the past 20 years - back in 1992, your typical family car (say Sierra) didn't have anti-lock brakes, or airbags, or satnav, or electric windows (on the base spec), or climate control, or cruise control.
Fast forward 20 years, and my Fiesta has all of the above... and more! Cars have got bigger to allow for technology and safety increases, and manufacturers are now looking at lightweight materials to improve economy - making more use of boron steel in small cars etc.
I believe that the next 10 years will be very interesting for the motorist. Technology wise, we have reached saturation point, there isn't much left to develop. We already have internet available in car, lane guidance, radar cruise control, cars that brake themselves etc.
Now the engineers can turn their attention more to the drive train, and we will see some big advances. In fairness we already are with the Ford Ecoboost engines, cylinder deactivation in big V8 saloons... Honda are fully behind the Hydrogen project, it will only take a couple of other manufacturers to climb on board and there will be no stopping it. Production costs will come down, a fuelling infrastructure will take shape, advances will be made in tank and storage technology, and before you know it, we'll all be commuting in zero emissions vehicles.
As long as I'm still allowed to get the V8s out of the garage at the weekends, that suits me just fine
Omshanti said:
I really want the hydrogen powered combustion engine to take off. Then we can keep making hydrogen powered V8s, V10s and so on with manual transmissions.
I think I've said this a million times but diesel exhaust particulate is some nasty s
t. Reducing its emmissions will in turn reduce the PM10 counnt and is very good thing, especially for children with developing immune systems... Although personally I'm not convinced Hydrogen is the way forward. Or even part of it.
If you have any form of allergies, diesel exhaust particulate also increases your bodies response to allergen, so not ideal if you're about to do a 27 mile cycling time trial. Although, I should think these measures will equate to precisely fk all difference.
Incidentally, the horrific images of the Hindenburg were largely attributed to the thermite based lining weren't they? Not that I'm suggesting you want to try and find Hydrogen leaks with a lit match?
As for the H-Bomb... Well, it was hardly a canister of hydrogen being set off was it?
t. Reducing its emmissions will in turn reduce the PM10 counnt and is very good thing, especially for children with developing immune systems... Although personally I'm not convinced Hydrogen is the way forward. Or even part of it. If you have any form of allergies, diesel exhaust particulate also increases your bodies response to allergen, so not ideal if you're about to do a 27 mile cycling time trial. Although, I should think these measures will equate to precisely f
k all difference. Incidentally, the horrific images of the Hindenburg were largely attributed to the thermite based lining weren't they? Not that I'm suggesting you want to try and find Hydrogen leaks with a lit match?
As for the H-Bomb... Well, it was hardly a canister of hydrogen being set off was it?
Mr Gear said:
Omshanti said:
I really want the hydrogen powered combustion engine to take off. Then we can keep making hydrogen powered V8s, V10s and so on with manual transmissions.
kambites said:
To be fair, the reason for Hydrogen and Electric vehicles in big cities is very valid - to improve local air quality. No-one wants to be breathing in pure diesel fumes every time they walk past a taxi rank.
And noise. I'm a huge fan of electric for urban and pottering use but completely accept the current stumbling blocks.The sooner the range issue can be resolved the better our lives will be. But I don't agree with the concept of roll in-roll out battery changing. The only credible solution is to use modern composites to make the vehicle as light as it can possibly be and flood key areas with charge points so you can charge the vehicle at both A and B.
And ditch the concept of midget cars, no one wants tiny cars the entire industry has been going bigger and bigger.
Interestingly, this is a segment of the market that Lotus could completely own if they wanted to. They can build a super lightweight vehicle and their brand would bring far more kudos for buyers than anyone else currently faffing about in this sector.
DonkeyApple said:
Interestingly, this is a segment of the market that Lotus could completely own if they wanted to. They can build a super lightweight vehicle and their brand would bring far more kudos for buyers than anyone else currently faffing about in this sector.
Lotus unfortunately don't have the investment, backing, or the scale needed to take advantage of any factors of production... it needs to be done on a bigger scale to make it viable, and to make the vehicles affordable.Perhaps Tata could get involved (they have the scale), and they can make a cheap car (Nano) - they could produce something under the JLR umbrella? Next X-Type?
DonkeyApple said:
And noise. I'm a huge fan of electric for urban and pottering use but completely accept the current stumbling blocks.
The sooner the range issue can be resolved the better our lives will be. But I don't agree with the concept of roll in-roll out battery changing. The only credible solution is to use modern composites to make the vehicle as light as it can possibly be and flood key areas with charge points so you can charge the vehicle at both A and B..
Taking the concept a teeny bit furtherThe sooner the range issue can be resolved the better our lives will be. But I don't agree with the concept of roll in-roll out battery changing. The only credible solution is to use modern composites to make the vehicle as light as it can possibly be and flood key areas with charge points so you can charge the vehicle at both A and B..
Do you need to own a car?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULnpYxJ8WrA&lis...
Yes we all want to own a V8 super saloon as we are all powerfully built directors and our penis would fall off if we even caught sight of a car with an engine of less then 3 ltrs
However does your average city dweller need own a car
CraigyMc said:
kambites said:
CraigyMc said:
What's the local air quality like when an HGV crashes into one of these things and ruptures a tank?
I suspect no-one knows because it's never happened. Of all the safety concerns with motoring, that's a pretty minuscule one. And anyway, it'd be fine (if a little warmer) because all that would be released when it burnt would be water.
I suspect it might burn the car (and HGV) a bit too, though - and cars tend to be made out of things that don't produce clean emissions when burnt.
A hydrogen fire causing some "bodywork" to burn:
Me, when I realised how small the range of these cars was, due to the ridiculous containment tanks for something that has to be kept that cold, and which has a small proportion of the energy content of petrol/diesel even if you manage to keep it liquid:
C
What's the local air quality like when an HGV crashes into a petrol tanker and ruptures a tank...?
Dr Interceptor said:
Electrolysis would be the ideal method... providing it's done using renewable energy such as HEP, Solar or Wind - or even using waste energy from industry/power stations.
Most of our generating capacity is fossil fuelled.Even if it were renewably powered, it is thought that future electrolysis plants should be able to get the energy efficiency of conversion up to about 80% - it's currently worse than that - so you are wasting 20% of your energy before the hydrogen is compressed, transported, stored, dispensed and then either put through a fuel cell to regenerate electricity or even worse burnt at, what, 30%-40% efficiency in an ICE?
Even putting it through a fuel cell, it just seems like a very inefficient way of getting electricity from the power station to the hub motors.
Omshanti said:
I think in the video I posted the technology uses hydrogen to vaporise water instantly and then it's the steam that powers the engine, so it is mostly water that does the job in each cycle of the engine.
Hydrogen + Oxygen = vaporised water anyway, so that doesn't make an difference. The problem is that internal combustion is inefficient. Just look at how much heat cars have to shed from radiators and through hot exhausts. All that is wasted energy. Off the top of my head, I think an IC petrol engine is only 30% efficient whereas fuel cells are 90% efficient. Someone will be able to tell you the exact numbers.I think it's very good to create cars with alternative energy sources for the average private user, but there needs to be an alternative energy source which can run commercial transportation systems such as big lorries, massive tankers ..etc and which can power large industries as a whole, to really make environmental changes as it is mostly the commercial business world that is destroying the planet.
If more people used bicycles in cities, the public transportation was improved, commercial businesses (such as big wasteful shopping centres) used renewable energy sources ....and so on, so many things could be improved from an environmental point of view. The problem is that people or groups who need to spend money initially to make a difference are not willing to do it. That is why most things do not change and it's the average private people who have to pay in the end.
If more people used bicycles in cities, the public transportation was improved, commercial businesses (such as big wasteful shopping centres) used renewable energy sources ....and so on, so many things could be improved from an environmental point of view. The problem is that people or groups who need to spend money initially to make a difference are not willing to do it. That is why most things do not change and it's the average private people who have to pay in the end.
Edited by Omshanti on Wednesday 1st August 11:58
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