Hydrogen Vehicle?

Question

I heard about the Hydrogen Vehicle is ready to use this summer but only for lease and not sell, the reason is because the company wants to test it first from driver's experience and if its fine for few years then they will go ahead to sell. But I wonder, that means the car would work with water only, and water instead of gas, motor oil, and everything that needs oil is going to be water instead?

Answer 1

It's an electric engine, plus I do not think it is as simple as "runs on water".  There is more to the whole Hydrogen thing than that, like special fueling stations. To my understanding, tap water will not work.

Also, I do not believe electic engines require as much or any oil at all.  I am not certain of these things though, perhaps someone else can confirm.

Answer 2

Hydrogen is the fuel, and water comes out the exhaust because that's what you get when you burn hydrogen.  Regular gasoline engines have been converted to run on hydrogen.  These engines still need motor oil and radiator coolant.  They are much cheaper than hydrogen fuel cells, which produce electricity for electric motor drive.  The whole problem with hydrogen is that it's such a lousy way to store energy because it's the least dense element in the universe.  A huge volume of it is needed to provide fuel for any reasonable range, say 300-400 miles.  Gasoline or diesel is a much more space efficient energy storage medium.

Answer 3

Well it won't need much oil because it will be using an electric motor.  However, it probably won't be getting the hydrogen from water, but rather from fossil fuels.  Also, another reason they're only leasing these hydrogen vehicles is that they're incredibly expensive because the fuel cells contain platinum.  And also because there are few hydrogen fueling stations.

Basically hydrogen vehicles are not very promising.  Not nearly as much as electric cars.  See the link below for further details.