Elon Musk has sturdy views on hydrogen. Not everyone agrees

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a historical past of expressing solid opinions about hydrogen and hydrogen gasoline cells.

A couple many years back, when the issue arrived up through a discussion with reporters at the Automotive News Earth Congress, the billionaire and electric car magnate described hydrogen gas cells as “particularly foolish.”

“It truly is just quite challenging … to make hydrogen and retail store it and use it in a vehicle,” Musk claimed. “The very best-circumstance hydrogen gas cell isn’t going to gain in opposition to the recent circumstance batteries, so then, obviously … it won’t make sense,” he extra later on.

“That will develop into obvious in the future couple of many years. You can find … no rationale for us to have this debate, I’ve claimed … my piece on this, it will be super noticeable as time goes by, I do not know what far more to say.”

In the time due to the fact individuals remarks, Musk’s views don’t feel to have altered significantly, if at all. In June 2020 he tweeted “gasoline cells = idiot sells,”  adding in July of that yr: “hydrogen idiot sells make no perception.” Musk was not promptly accessible to remark on no matter whether his sights on hydrogen experienced transformed when contacted via Tesla by CNBC Monday.

First items very first: What underpins the tech Musk would seem so skeptical of?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Company describes hydrogen gasoline cell autos — which are also known as gasoline cell electric powered cars — as remaining “comparable to electrical autos … in that they use an electrical motor as an alternative of an interior combustion motor to power the wheels.”

The crucial variance is that electric autos have batteries that require to be charged by plugging the vehicle into a charging level. Gasoline cell cars, on the other hand, make use of hydrogen gasoline and, according to the EPA, “deliver their electrical power onboard.”

Put simply just, with fuel cells, hydrogen gasoline from a tank mixes with oxygen, producing electric power.

A fuel cell electric automobile emits “only drinking water vapor and warm air”, the U.S. Division of Energy’s Option Fuels Facts Heart claims.

A selection of sights

Musk is not alone when it will come to getting unconvinced about the use of hydrogen in vehicles.

In February of this year, Herbert Diess, the CEO of German automotive powerhouse Volkswagen Group, weighed in on the issue.

“It really is time for politicians to settle for science,” he tweeted. “Environmentally friendly hydrogen is desired for steel, chemical, aero … and must not finish up in vehicles. Far way too high priced, inefficient, sluggish and difficult to rollout and transport. Soon after all: no #hydrogen cars in sight.”

Musk and Diess are two superior-profile figures at the helm of major providers with massive influence and reach. What they say carries weight. It would seem, nevertheless, that their sights aren’t shared by absolutely everyone in the autos sector.

To day, companies together with Toyota and Hyundai have manufactured hydrogen fuel mobile cars, while more compact makers these as Riversimple are also performing on hydrogen-powered cars.

In June, the BMW Group stated it had started out to examination vehicles that use a hydrogen gasoline mobile drivetrain, with the organization describing hydrogen gas mobile tech as obtaining the “very long phrase likely to dietary supplement inside combustion engines, plug-in hybrid programs and battery-electric powered vehicles.”

Though these products obviously do not account for the bulk of motor vehicle sales at this minute in time — Riversimple will not likely basically sell its cars and trucks, offering them on a membership company in its place — that this kind of a selection of firms are performing on fuel-cell choices at all displays some see opportunity in the technology.

“Fuel mobile autos will absolutely engage in a section in decarbonizing transport,” a spokesperson for Toyota advised CNBC.

“As and when refueling infrastructure expands, they will offer you a convenient alternative kind of electrified transport about a thoroughly electrical BEV [battery-powered electric vehicles],” they claimed.

Toyota seen hydrogen “as an different to fossil fuels in all method of configurations, such as heating, lights, haulage, mass transit and major business,” the spokesperson said.

“The variety of hydrogen applications will enhance, enabling cheaper, far more economical electric power source and we’ll progressively see hydrogen powering autos, buses, trains and vehicles,” they additional.

In a statement despatched to CNBC, the Gasoline Cell and Hydrogen Power Affiliation expressed a very similar viewpoint.

Gas mobile electric automobiles and hydrogen electrical power, the FCHEA explained, provided prospects “a zero-emission option with overall performance they count on and no change to day by day routines — very long array, rapid refueling, and the capability to scale to bigger platforms devoid of including restrictive bodyweight and measurement.”

The FCHEA went on to say there was a “remarkable prospect for fuel cell electric powered autos and gasoline cell-driven materials managing autos.”  

“Also, provided the limits of battery body weight and recharging for prolonged haul trucking, a important possibility also exists for medium- and significant-duty supply vans, vehicles, buses, trains, and planes,” it explained.

In fact, as governments all over the world try to create low and zero emission transportation methods, the idea of utilizing hydrogen fuel cells in much larger vehicles is setting up to be explored by a broad assortment of companies.

In a the latest job interview with CNBC, the CEO of Daimler Truck was asked about the discussion amongst battery-electrical and hydrogen gasoline cells. Harmony, Martin Daum argued, was vital.

“We go for both of those, due to the fact equally … make feeling,” he stated, likely on to describe how distinct systems would be appropriate in distinct scenarios.

“In normal, you can say: If you go to metropolis shipping where you want decreased amounts of vitality in there, you can demand overnight in a depot, then it truly is absolutely battery electric powered,” Daum mentioned.

“But the moment you happen to be on the highway, the minute you go from Stockholm to Barcelona … in my belief, you will need some thing which you can transport much better and exactly where you can refuel improved and that is eventually H2.”

“The ruling is not out, but I think it is too dangerous for a corporation our size to go with just a person technologies.”

Versatility

Daum’s feedback on fuel cells contact on the idea that they could, finally, find a residence in heavier kinds of transportation covering long distances, hauling cargo and, in some cases, ferrying individuals from just one desired destination to one more.

He is not by yourself in getting this watch. The European transport giant Alstom, for instance, has made the Coradia iLint, which it describes as “the world’s to start with passenger coach powered by a hydrogen fuel mobile.”

In aviation, strategies to operate industrial hydrogen-electrical flights concerning London and Rotterdam were introduced in Oct, with all those at the rear of the project hoping it will just take to the skies in 2024.

In construction, JCB, a major participant in the sector, claimed final yr that it experienced made an excavator “powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.”

Weighing 20 metric tons, the organization mentioned the car or truck had been examined for in excess of 12 months, including that the “only emission from the exhaust is water.”

Troubles

When there is a perception of enjoyment about the use of hydrogen gasoline mobile technology in a assortment of applications, the route to any mass rollout might not essentially be a clean one particular.

Previously this 12 months, Honda ceased manufacturing of its Clarity plug-in hybrid and gasoline cell models, even though the company did make a level of stating that fuel cell electrical vehicles would “play a critical function in our zero-emissions tactic.”

Elsewhere, the U.S. federal government has cited a range of problems. These range from the toughness and dependability of gasoline cells to auto expense.

“The present infrastructure for developing and finding hydrogen to people can’t nevertheless support the common adoption of FCVs,” it adds.

In February 2020, Brussels-dependent campaign group Transportation and Ecosystem hammered house just how considerably competition hydrogen would experience in the transportation sector.

T&E manufactured the position that eco-friendly hydrogen — which is developed making use of renewables — wouldn’t only have to “contend with grey and blue hydrogen,” which are generated making use of fossil fuels. “It will compete with petrol, diesel, marine gasoline oil, kerosene and, of system, electric power,” T&E mentioned.

“Where ever batteries are a useful resolution — cars vans city, regional and probably extended-haul trucks ferries — hydrogen will facial area an uphill struggle because of its lower performance and, as a final result, substantially larger gas expenditures.”

Bridging the gap between battery electric powered and fuel mobile autos will be a huge job, as the Worldwide Strength Agency’s Worldwide EV Outlook 2021 notes.

According to that report, registrations of fuel cell electrical automobiles “remain three orders of magnitude lessen than EVs as hydrogen refuelling stations … are not extensively accessible and contrary to EVs cannot be billed at residence.”

The race to dominate the lower and zero emission upcoming of 21st-century transportation is underway.

When it will come to cars and trucks, battery electrical motor vehicles are in a potent posture with firms this sort of as Tesla foremost the charge, but the road to success is hardly ever a straight just one. View this house.