An interesting experiment is taking place in Europe right now : GM is attempting a Fuel Cell Marathon with his HydroGen3, from Norway to Portugal. You can read the daily reports on the AutoBild pages (one page in German is followed by one page in English).
GM engineers presented the absence of backup battery in their new vehicle as an improvement compared to the previous version. Now they're probably scratching their heads when considering the real-world data.
Here they are : the HydroGen3 must stop every 150 km (93 miles) at the latest to fill up the tank with about 75 liters of liquid hydrogen, as you can read here. The report says they are weighing "less than five kilos", actually one liter of liquid hydrogen makes 70.8 g so 75 liters should be 5.3 kg. Let's take 5 kg : that is 3.3 kg for 100 km or 33 g per km (compared to the claimed 6.4 g/km for science-fiction projects like the still-non-existing "Revolution" car, see page 17 of this document), or 54 g per mile.
Given the energy content of about 33 kWh / kg, the HydroGen3 therefore uses 165 kWh of hydrogen energy for 150 km, or will go 0.91 km (0.57 mile) per hydrogen kWh. This is already much worse than clett's figure of 0.8 mile per primary energy kWh :
Some opponents to hydrogen economy base their calculations on a 50 miles per hydrogen kg figure to prove how inefficient fuel cell vehicles are (see here, top of page 9). GM tells them right now they should take less than 20 miles if they were using HydroGen3... :?
Well, that's not a reason to bash fuel cell cars forever... just a hint to think GM is trying to make them consume as much hydrogen as possible. Probably to pep up hydrogen economy and pay off infrastructure costs ? :wink:
GM engineers presented the absence of backup battery in their new vehicle as an improvement compared to the previous version. Now they're probably scratching their heads when considering the real-world data.
Here they are : the HydroGen3 must stop every 150 km (93 miles) at the latest to fill up the tank with about 75 liters of liquid hydrogen, as you can read here. The report says they are weighing "less than five kilos", actually one liter of liquid hydrogen makes 70.8 g so 75 liters should be 5.3 kg. Let's take 5 kg : that is 3.3 kg for 100 km or 33 g per km (compared to the claimed 6.4 g/km for science-fiction projects like the still-non-existing "Revolution" car, see page 17 of this document), or 54 g per mile.
Given the energy content of about 33 kWh / kg, the HydroGen3 therefore uses 165 kWh of hydrogen energy for 150 km, or will go 0.91 km (0.57 mile) per hydrogen kWh. This is already much worse than clett's figure of 0.8 mile per primary energy kWh :
But remember, it takes much more energy than the energy content of hydrogen to make this clean fuel... so you can almost divide again by 2, roughly.1 kilowatt hour used to make hydrogen by electrolysis, then compressed, transported and burned in a fuel cell car provides a range of about 0.8 miles.
Some opponents to hydrogen economy base their calculations on a 50 miles per hydrogen kg figure to prove how inefficient fuel cell vehicles are (see here, top of page 9). GM tells them right now they should take less than 20 miles if they were using HydroGen3... :?
Well, that's not a reason to bash fuel cell cars forever... just a hint to think GM is trying to make them consume as much hydrogen as possible. Probably to pep up hydrogen economy and pay off infrastructure costs ? :wink: