Hydrogen cars a good idea or not?

Insights change constantly. Many car manufacturers now seem to be slightly more positive about hydrogen cars, but most remain full of battery cars. We happened to come across an interesting infographic from Volkswagen in which they clearly explain why hydrogen cars are not the most efficient solution for a sustainable future.

"With regard to the limitation of climate change, the electric vehicle is superior to vehicles with fuel cell drive and combustion engines that run on synthetic fuels (E-fuels), a fact that is documented in studies," says Volkswagen resolutely. To support this claim, they published the infographic below in 2021.

Electricity actually needs only one intermediate step to the electric car from the windmill (or any sustainable source). On the way from the source to the car, around 20 percent of the energy is lost. Another 4 percent in the car itself. The efficiency of an electric car is therefore 76 percent. Not a bad score.

With hydrogen that is a different story. The moment you convert energy into hydrogen, 30 percent already disappears. If you then turn the gas into liquid, another 10 percent will be lost. Then you still have to transport, store and refuel the stuff. The car itself then turns the hydrogen into electricity. At the end of the ride we talk about an efficiency of 30 percent. This will be a completely different story if we start applying gold hydrogen.

Is hydrogen hopeless?

If you look purely at efficiency, hydrogen does not have the future. There are other benefits for the stuff. There are already a lot of gas stations for gasoline and diesel, which could be converted. It is also true that hydrogen refuelling does not put pressure on the energy network. For the fact that you fill your tank within five minutes (if there is enough pressure at the pump), of course, something can be said.

In addition, hydrogen cars are a lot lighter than cars with large batteries. If you look at large vehicles, it can be more efficient not to equip them with large batteries (which cost a lot of raw materials), but to run them on hydrogen. Think of trucks, but also ships and planes.

Even hydrogen combustion engines

Toyota said earlier that they also saw a market for hydrogen combustion engines. In terms of efficiency, this is a stupid idea, but the technology is simple and affordable. Not everyone will have money for a battery car in the future, but perhaps for a conversion kit* (A new technology from researchers at the University of New South Wales in Sydney UNSW, Australia).

With this new technology, a diesel engine is converted so that it can run on hydrogen. The engine then runs on a mix of 10 percent diesel and 90 percent hydrogen. As a result, the CO2 emissions of the diesel engine go down by 85 percent. 'This new technology considerably reduces the CO2 emissions of existing diesel engines, so it could play a major role in making our ecological footprint much smaller, especially in Australia with all our mining, agricultural and other heavy industries where diesel engines a lot are used, "says Professor Shawn Kook from UNSW.

Within one to two years, the researchers want to commercialize and offer the conversion technique. With diesel engines that do not move (for example, generators or mining equipment), the conversion is the easiest. Pipes can then be laid for the hydrogen. For vehicles with diesel engines, it is also necessary to think for extra tanks for the hydrogen.

There are a number of brands that clearly express themselves that hydrogen will be an important part of the mix, for example BMW. Volkswagen currently does not yet have clear plans about a large -scale production of hydrogen cars, but they too seem to have the door open.

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