What is the point of hydrogen cars when the hydrogen is produced by electric?

Question

and the electric (electrolysis) produced by coal/oil/nuclear/etc why not just have electric cars with a nice clean electric motor.

Answer 1

you actually dont need to go as far as to use electric. it is now possible to make a car that runs on water seriously here go to this link its a guide on how to change your car from gas to a water fueled car, step by step so that even the general public can achieve this. it will cost its says from 60 to 150 dollars.

http://tinyurl.com/5o2gyz

Answer 2

Honda currently has a plant that produces hydrogen via solar energy.

Answer 3

Electric motors are nice only draw back is

.. . ..

When the battery is dead it is dead for a couple of hours when you find a recharging station

.. . ..

The Hydrogen fuel source has the commercial tank and the HHO generator that is now available as a supplementary fuel source to accompany the gasoline engine to

.. .. .

So the big question is when will Honda or any of the car manufacturers get a HHO generating car that will refuel its self with a gallon of water carried on board

.. .. ..

Talk about changing the fuel needs of the automobile to a "0" cost in fuel cost Man People will want to live in their cars it would be cheaper to most

.. . ..

Just put out a funnel with a coffee cup below it on a rainy day to catch the weeks need of fuel

.. .. ..

Now that will be the day that will change the WHOLE world

.. . ...

So why in the world are not the companies doing something about it

MONEY in their pockets will be kind of on the short side PROFIT is the evil word in todays life of mankind

.. .. ..

Answer 4

Hydro can be produced by Solar or Nuclear..  But, sure in large part it will be produced at present time by fossill fuels in USA. Not in France, and other parts of the world, though

Answer 5

You're right, there isn't much point to hydrogen cars for that reason.  People who answered that you can get hydrogen by using nuclear or renewable energy are missing the point - you can recharge an electric car battery with that same energy, and the process is more efficient.

Basically the benefit of electric cars is that they're much more efficient than hydrogen cars.  The benefit of hydrogen cars is that you can refill them quickly and they have a longer range.  However, you can also refuel an electric car quickly by either swapping out the battery (as you note), or by using a high voltage rapid recharge station (5-10 minute recharge).  We'd have to install these stations, but that would cost far less than building an enormous hydrogen transportation and storage infrastructure from scratch.

As for the range issue, we just have to improve battery technology to address that, and we're well on our way.  The Tesla Roadster can go 220 miles per charge (although it's very expensive), and EEStor is working on ultracapacitor batteries that will be able to go 250 miles per charge if it works.

The way I see it, hydrogen only has one decent chance of being competetive with electrics, and that's if the process of getting hydrogen by combining aluminum alloys with water works on a large scale and is less expensive.  See the link below for further details.

Answer 6

You're oversimplifying the process.  Sure it uses electricity to complete the reaction, but electricity CURRENTLY (or in most places), comes from polluting sources.  So a pure electric vehicle, which uses much more electricity than a hydrogen vehicle would, is worse in terms of pollution.

Also, there are plenty of other sources of hydrogen.  It's the most abundant resource in the entire universe, by a long shot.

Answer 7

That's why we need Nuclear Reactors in this country.

Nothing would be better to run our cars off of than hydrogen.

Why would anyone want to get their hydrogen from oil based product, it's the stupidest thing ever.

OK I don't really believe that humans are the cause of global warming.

But if you get hydrogen from gasoline you will create CO2, not O2 like you would if you use water, so why the h**l do that!

Why can't people put 2 and 2 together!!

It's not imposable to create another consumer product; that is the bottom line isn't it?

Isn't that what they are saying when they say, " well we have a distribution net work already in place.."Gas stations"

I think (I know) that this is the wrong mentality, we need to put up BRAND new "HYDROGEN STATION" s***w the gas stations, let them compete on the open market like everyone else.

Don't even get me started on batteries, that is a dumb idea too.

The real enemy to technology is the special interest groups.

Answer 8

Hydrogen cars can be refueled in 1-2 minutes, wherein Electric cars have to be re-charged over night.  Hydrogen cars have a range akin to a normal gasoline burning engine - you could drive up to 400 miles on a tank of hydrogen.  Production electric cars have very short ranges - usually less then 100 miles.  Electric car batteries also become less effective over time and an electric car might be able to get 100 miles per charge the first year, but only 80 the second year.  Within 4 years the batteries die altogether and must be replaced - very expensive, and high impact to the environment.

Even if hydrogen is produced by traditional means, it's much cheaper to use electrolysis to produce hydrogen then it is to produce electricity from other methods.  Also, electricity is not necessarily a dirty source, it can be the cleanest source under the right conditions - which we are slowly moving to in this country - wind, solar, waste methane power, etc.

Hydrogen is PROVEN.  There is an entire highway, several hundred miles long with hydrogen gas stations in Norway.  They are going to be expanding it to Sweden and all of Scandinavia shortly.

Answer 9

Even better - the hydrogen will come from oil, as oil is rich in hydrogen, and the hydrogen will be distributed by oil corporations, as the system already exists.