Hydrogen has been the future as long as I have been paying attention to electric cars. There are many problems with it, including Hydrogen is the smallest molecule. It leaks through seals, embrittles metals, and has terrible energy density by volume. You either compress it to 700 bar (heavy tanks), liquefy it at -253°C (energy-intensive), or store it in metal hydrides (heavy, slow release). Solid state batteries are much more interesting. They extend EV range to 600-1000 miles and enable 10-minute charging. If they work at scale, they kill hydrogen for cars, trucks, and probably short-haul aviation too.

Good article, as always hydrogen for transport is dead. Unfortunately, as they say, what is dead can never die. And there will always be companies trying to siphon off public funds to do “trial runs”.

One thing that seems wrong is in the efficiency comparison: step 1 for hydrogen should be grid transmission, not electrolyzer.

Also, how come the BEV price doesn’t adjust in response to electricity prices (not that it would impact the result).

This is a very poor analysis, since it doesn’t account for the capital costs. Even if hydrogen is inefficient compared to batteries, it could win if the upfront investment was low enough to offset the additional fuel cost. This is quite obvious, since that’s why diesel trucks are winning today — the upfront cost of a diesel engine is cheap enough that it offsets the higher lifetime fuel costs.

I do think that batteries will win, but the correct argument is one that shows that capital costs of batteries are going down faster than the cost of hydrogen production.

This analysis does not account for side benefit of the oxygen. If you split water to get hydrogen, then for every kilogram of hydrogen you get, you also get 8 kg of oxygen. Liquid oxygen is not an expensive commodity, its market price is about $1/kg, but in this context this makes a difference. For example, in the first infographic, the cost of green hydrogen produced today is listed as £16.97 which is about $23. If you can recoup $8 from this by selling the oxygen, or even only $5, then this makes a difference. If you select green H2 with 2030 assumptions, you get £7.67, or about $10s. If you sell the oxygen at $5, you basically get the hydrogen at half price, and this makes the hydrogen powered truck slightly more economical than the battery powered one.

As much as I find H2 fuel cell technology - which is a type of a gas based electric battery with no moving parts - fascinating, I can't help but wonder if we would be better off just running hybrids on e-fuels.

e-fuels are just low quality gasoline, IIUC, made by (waves hands) ethical means from thin air using electricity. They still generate NOx gases, but ICEs just take them as is, and they're much more energy dense compared to long range batteries.

The only real problem is that there don't seem to be many green and scalable means to produce them, but if we could, I think it can be an overall better alternative to seemingly unworkable hydrogen based EVs and/or unrecyclable battery based EVs.

I think the Edison motors approach will be the most future-proof, using drop-in power supply bricks, one can abstract the power source to the point where it won't matter if it's a fuel cell, natural gas turbine or a new battery technology, to the truck it's just electricity (plus or minus some metadata for things like regen breaking or engine gear)

Would a system like the one in China - with the user of methanol conversion from excess Wind/Solar/Other power gen (even idle coal) making it much more flexible to generate/transport/store rather than trying to buildout gas distribution.

With the added advantage of fuel cell swaps [0] and reload giving the trucks a quicker turnaround time per charge (i think similar op is used for electric trucks as well as some consumer car models)

It certainly solves the problem of recharge points as the infra can be rolled out piecemeal, and since it would be for heavy trucks less disruptive of the rest of the cityscape (can have the outside metroplitan areas etc with maybe emergency stops within)

[0] https://m.chinatrucks.org/news/10750.html

Or -hear me out- we can put these long I beams on the ground and put some cables above. Then tie 50 trucks to each other and they can get whatever kind of electricity from anything you can make electricity out of.

Not only is it competing with battery electric, it’s potentially competing with just plain old electric.

There are truck pantographs being tested out. It seems like an idea that could have potential in major shopping routes.

https://youtu.be/_3P_S7pL7Yg

Excellent analysis. Two points: what if 1) only surplus energy from offshore wind would be used for green H2 electrolysis and 2) the price would be at or below £/€/$ 1.50 per Kg?

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