A 220VAC circuit would be better (and there is NOTHING BUT 220VAC in most other countries, but the U.S. was an ‘early adopter’ and we have that legacy 110VAC), but even if you don’t have an extra circuit, one new breaker and wire/conduit from Mr. Circuit Box to Mr. Car isn’t that expensive in most cases. At least an electric car can be PLUGGED IN to ANY existing AC outlet. Where the heck will you find compressed hydrogen gas?

If you want a car as efficient, inexpensive and reliable as a SPACE SHUTTLE, go hydrogen. They don’t have their ‘infrastructure’. They have no economical way to produce the hydrogen gas required by a fleet of hydrogen cars, nor to deliver or pump it. They STILL don’t even have a way to STORE the hydrogen in the car. Hydrogen amalgamates with, then tunnels through ALL KINDS of metals, travels through wires and gets INSIDE electronics, where it poisons solid state circuitry (you know, like everything that makes a ‘fuel cell’ EV work). Every microscopic flaw in material becomes a hydrogen leak. If the car has any kind of range, it’s a rolling bomb. BEVs ALREADY go further than Hydrogen cars that don’t have some sort of high-pressure cryogenic storage.

So, if you don’t mind spending $200,000 for a car that goes 20 miles between non-existant hydrogen fuel pumps, and completely destroys its self within three years, enjoy your hydrogen car.

There are already CNG cars and buses that have acceptable range and cost. No need to ‘reform’ your natural gas into hydrogen/CO2/water in a refinery (and this is the ONLY commercially viable way to mass-produce hydrogen fuel at the moment), only to have most of it leak out into the atmosphere (and probably be lost to outer space) before it manages to even move a car. Just fuel them up with CNG from household gas and either run an ICE or fuel cell subsystem (ala ‘Bloom Box’) DIRECTLY off of it. CNG molecules are BIG and relatively easy to contain. Though like petroleum, ‘natural gas’ is a fossil fuel, which isn’t replenished at anywhere near the rate it is consumed. Coal gasification can ‘help’, but eventually you run out of that, too. Anyway, you end up with CO2 as well.

Hydrogen is nothing but a distraction from REALISTIC alternative fuel technology. This hydrogen scam is only designed to keep us dependent on petroleum while the unobtainable ‘hydrogen economy’ remains forever ’15 years from now’.

BEV is the ultimate ‘alternative fuel’ vehicle. Coal, Gas, Wind, solar, hydro, wave, nuclear… whatever can make a difference in electrical potential will make these vehicles go. It isn’t even a question whether batteries can economically do the job anymore. It’s only a matter of which batteries will do it best for the longest and for the least money.

I want to CUT the tie to ANY filling stations!

You all sound intelligent so lets get the politics and global warming out of the way and look at the reality.

Incentives are in place now for Solar, Wind and Fuel Cells along with Net Metering. I will get to how this applies to my transportation wet dream at the end of this blog.

I live in Michigan, just South of Detroit, 1.3 rural acres. My 4.2kW solar array installation begins Monday 2-1-10. As soon as that is done my next step is adding a small Wind Turbine within the next two years

Here’s the way I see it. My home energy expenses are increasing more than 10% annually. I either pay those bills monthly or take that money and invest it into alternative energy and fix my homes energy expenses for my lifetime. I’m not getting that rate of return from my 401k, so I stopped contributing to it for now.

The government and my utilities are offering incentives which off-sets my expense for these systems by 67%. This being said, my system will cost me $12,000 out of pocket by the end of 20 years at today’s rate of $.14 per/kWh. Last year it was $.12 per/kWh.

Here’s the beauty of my plan. Plug in Hybrid, EV and/or Fuel cell vehicles. They will all be available and in full production next year. I just came from the 2010 NAIAS at Cobo Hall and rode in them. Tesla was there along with A123 who is providing the power pack for it.

MIT has developed the nano tube technology. This is being fast tracked by the DOE and it will evolve expediential over the next 2 to 3 years and these battery pack’s will get smaller/lighter and have 200 to 300% more power density. The old model battery pack’s will slide right out of your vehicle and the advanced pack will slide right in.

The Tax incentives are in place for these cars/trucks/big rigs right now and will be in the future and the manufactures are going to build them.

I’m 50 years old. I’ve been working on and in the Electric Forklift Truck and now Heavy Duty Transportation industry for my whole career. So I know how fast/efficient and dependable electric drives have evolved in just the last 8 years since AC drive systems have been developed.

I’m currently an active member with the EPA Smartway and Clean Cities transportation groups and attended many engineering meetings involved with Hybrid/Alternative fueled vehicles. This all came about because of the $4.80 per/gal diesel we had to put in our HD Trucks in 2008. I’m meeting with these people who are engineering this technology and believe me when I tell you that none of them have any doubt that it’s not going to become a reality.

Do you want to sit by and watch or are you going to get involved.

My goal is to get myself strapped into a Tesla, charged from my own home produced energy, never having to pull into a gas station again.

No I’m not rich, I’m cheap!

I don’t recommend funding for either option be decreased but support both and let the better technology win.

Please do not get me wrong, I am NOT endorsing either type of vehicle as I see major problems with both technologies. I am simply correcting the misconception that hydrogen is more dangerous than batteries.

Remember that only existing technology may be considered if we want to produce a solution for the near term, (5 to 10 years). Remember hydrogen fuel cells trace back to 1836 while Lithium Ion batteries trace back to 1970. Both of these are well understood technologies which could be exploited.

INPUT: Electricity at a power plant
OUTPUT: Electricity at the car’s electric motor.

Efficiency of a hydrogen system to fuel-cell vehicle (best case):

HYDROGEN SYSTEM:      23%

Efficiency of power lines to battery vehicle:

BATTERY SYSTEM:        69%

This is a STARK difference. IF your source is electricity at a power plant, you will need the output of THREE TIMES AS MANY POWER PLANTS to drive a hydrogen-based transportation system.

Here is the detailed analysis:
http://www.efcf.com/reports/E21.pdf

If you want to ‘cut to the chase’, go to the graphic on page 10.

The assumption in this analysis is that you start with electricity at a power plant, because that is the form that renewable energy general comes in. Certainly, if you start with natural gas, you are likely to get different numbers. But then you haven’t really solved the carbon problem.

Who do you think is going to build this hydrogen infrastructure? Oil companies

EV/PHEV infrastructure? partial upgrade of the electrical grid already in place. No C&E problem! Slow upgrade to grid as EVs/PHEVs slowly increase in market share and gasoline side of infrastructure is already in place!

The above also answers the questions of experience with both, likelihood of unforeseen problems implementing both, and safety issues with both.

H2 just doesn’t make any sense anymore (not that it necessarily did years ago).

And if EEStor comes through, that really puts the stake in the “hydrogen future.”

Last thought: electricity can come from many sources (e.g., your own roof top solar and/or wind (“Let’s get going Blue Green Pacific!”) w/excess stored on site (“Let’s get going EEStor!”)), whereas w/H2, you will always have to buy it from someone.

H2 might give us national energy independence, but EV could give us national and *individual* energy independence!