BMW: EV’s are Dead, buy Hydrogen Fuel Cells Vehicles

[NY_Rob]

BMW shit the bed hard on EVs. Makes me sad. I love our i3, and considered an i4. Now to get an EV BMW it will require H2 refilling, which can happen in a small handful of places in the US, and none of those places are in my garage.

Very sad when you consider all the advanced tech BMW created and put in the i3, some of which is still ahead of anything available in a mass produced EV.
They need to pick a direction and stay on course... full EV, then no EV's, then hybrid, now EV's again, now considering hydrogen? Sheesh.... what a waste of $$$$$ for BMW.

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[Cycliste]

I have bad memories from watching the Hindenburg so, not getting behind hydrogen.

We blow ‘em up sometimes in California (hydrogen refueling stations)

https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/tra...after-explosion-during-refuelling/2-1-1488705


https://h2tools.org/sites/default/files/2021-06/AP_Santa_Clara_Incident_Review_Report_Rev1.pdf

 

[COdogman]

Dang @COdogman I didn’t know toyota was so against BEVs that they had to PAY BMW to get in on their hydrogen dreams ??

I guess when you are as bad at making EVs as these 2 companies are, you are desperate for a “do over” like hydrogen

A few years ago I met someone who was a Mirai lessee in CA and they could not stop talking about how terrible the car was and the entire experience. I know EVs have much room for improvement but I’m a believer so far…

 

[solaskaze]

Adhemar from a Knights Tale to Thatcher: "You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting. Come back when you're worthy."
So too for Hydrogen.
First, EV infrastructure is here. Guaranteed. Why? Because cities require it anyway. It's so far along, discounting it v. Hydrogen stations is simply laughable. Comparing EV infrastructure to gas: just imagine where it could be in a few years: 0) Most folks charge at home. That means far, far, less stations required 1) EV stations that are actually covered (at least car ports) just like gas stations - why am I standing in the pouring rain at a RAN or Tesla SC (exception: a handful on hwy 5), while virtually every gas station has cover? Seriously Rivian and Tesla: like, WTF? 2) EV stations that actually protect themselves properly from cold as well, not just elements 3) The charge times now match -- in every case I have had: using the restroom, else eating a quick lunch. Charge times [can] be irrelevant 4) If you care about the environment, Hydrogen ain't it. Guess how it's made. 5) To help 3 -- my last to trips up HWY5 showed: a) exactly ZERO cars charging at a brand new installation (20ish stalls) , and 1/4 mile away, every single stall full (14ish stalls). Why? Because one had food, one had literally nothing. What's the lesson here? Compare to Japan, where highway rest stops are literally a vacation in and of themselves -- make stops worth while, and it doesn't matter.

Finally, the cars: 1) weight: I'm just not seeing the issue for a Model 3 class or smaller. Enlighten me. 2) Technology advancement: if BMW or anyone else had a massive breakthrough in a fuel cell setup ... as long as it meets environmental concerns, I am all in. But here's the rub: a fuel cell that is deemed worthy must, be definition be very light, and that means: very small. Which implies we revisit the good ol' hybrid setup, this time with a gigantic gas engine gone, and replaced with a very small fuel cell feeding.... battery, or lighter analogs (which do exist). "E" is here to stay.

 

[jplblue]

No offense, but the articles you linked to are trash. If you want to hear about BMW's position on hydrogen, you should check out this Out of Spec Podcast episode:



TLDW: there are advantages to BEVs and hydrogen depending on use case, and BMW plans on investing in both. Interestingly, BMW says a combined infrastructure of electric and hydrogen is cheaper than one that's just electric due to projected cost curve of electric charging.

 

[MidnightRivian]

bunch of nothingburger


One of the best advantages of EV is being able to use solar to make your own energy at home to charge your EV with at an extremely low cost.

As time goes on you will be able to purchase solar at a lower price and it will be more efficient panels.

Competition and innovation is on our side.

 

[shap]

I actually agree with BMW - EVs in the current state have reached their potential and are not ready for mass adoption. You may or may not like this statement

There are multiple problems right now:
1. Slow Charging speeds (adds about 30% to the road trips). Still great for home charging and nearby road trips. Requires extensive planning (may be a bit better when Tesla opens superchargers). Charging outside of the home is expensive as well and on pair or more expensive that gas car.

2. Very heavy with current battery chemistry - this creates problems for road infrastructure (including safety rails, etc). Also, puts additional stress on the foundation of the houses when parked in the garage.

3. When they catch fire - it is really bad, toxic, and complex to stop. The solid-state may improve that. (ICE catches fire more often, but it is less toxic and easy to stop).

4. BIG ISSUE: Insurance costs are going up quickly as most of the incidents result in total loss. You can see this become already an issue in some EU countries, and it will spread. Germania Insurance (TX) declined to insure Rivian. We will see more companies will go a similar route.

5. Depreciation - it is very speedy, and the market for used EVs is very problematic as you have no idea how the battery was treated. The best you can do is to test a degradation that may or may not show battery abuse. For example, my loaner (BMW) was charged 100% and was sitting on the lot for days before I got it. The dealership said that they always charge all their vehicles to 100%. While the car showed no visible degradation, obviously such battery treatment is not healthy at all.
Leasing may help partially to address this problem in the short term.

Overall, IMHO, we reached the point:

To move to pragmatists, aka regular drivers, the problems mentioned above should be fixed.

Two things may happen now:
1. Breakthrough in battery chemistry (solid states, etc). This will shorten the charging time and potentially reduce weight

2. Broad adaption of other technology (hydrogen, etc). Do not see this happen in 1-3 years from now.

And the last point (sorry to bring politics here) - EV has a very bad perception on the right side of the political map. Mostly due to wrong government policies and climate agenda pushed through the troats. Interesting observation - 99% of the DC politicians (including climate agenda-driving ones) are using heavy gas cars.

 

[j.w.s]

Apparently BMW is shifting to Team Hydrogen. See links below.

...

Hydrogen for cars? Anyone making that argument is going to struggle to do so with numbers.

Environmentally, the best possible case is "green hydrogen" - hydrogen made with renewable electricity like Solar. But Turning electricity into hydrogen, refrigerating it, transporting it, then burnning it in a car yields no more than about 30% full cycle efficiency, which is dramatically worse than just stuffing that electricity into a car battery. In other words, Your 3 miles per kwh turns into 1.5 mile per kwh if you switch to Hydrogen - aka 2x more expensive per mile.

 

[opnwide]

Somehow, iPyle Donner will manage to measure the charging curve inefficiencies for a YouTube podcast in a 60 minute video.

 

[seanocono]

I leased a hydrogen vehicle for three years before going EV. The hydrogen fuel was all free as part of the lease. It was a great deal, and I drove so much that the free fuel essentially covered my monthly car payment.

I live in LA, which probably has the best hydrogen infrastructure in the country. Let me tell you, I could not wait to get out of that lease. You think the EA stations are bad… hydrogen infrastructure is an absolute nightmare. It was truly a coin flip if the lone station at a location actually had any hydrogen available. The stations were constantly empty or broken. The hydrogen dispenser often “froze” to the vehicle and was impossible to remove. So even if it was quicker than recharging an EV, you ended up sitting there for 10 minutes after it was done refueling just waiting for the nozzle to warm up enough that you could remove it from the vehicle.

The lines were often several cars deep, and it was very common to wait your turn for 30 minutes and then by the time you made it to the front of the line, the single dispenser would run out of hydrogen.

The apps that monitor the status of these stations were always outdated. I can’t tell you how many times I took a significant detour to make it to a station only to find it out of order — despite the apps saying it was online and functional.

The final straw was a road trip I took with my wife and newborn from LA to Palm Springs. On our return home we tried to stop at a station to refuel. It took us four attempts to finally find a working station dispensing hydrogen, despite the apps saying all four stations were online. We coasted to that last station with “0 miles” for the final ten miles or so. It was stressful, and as you might imagine, my wife was not too pleased about the possibility of getting stranded at night with a newborn baby. I placed an order for a Tesla the next day.

Hydrogen may be one solution for the future, but it is a long ways away from being a solution for the present.

 

[Tahoe Man]

I’ll be dead by the time the hydrogen refilling infrastructure is built out so I will just enjoy my 835hp electric truck until then

Agree. Hydrogen if a pipe dream that will be nothing more than a pilot program.

 

[Supratachophobia]

I’ll be dead by the time the hydrogen refilling infrastructure is built out so I will just enjoy my 835hp electric truck until then

Not too mention the 15 min recompression time between vehicles.....

 

[jlstan]

People overthink this. Heavy industrial use (steel, concrete production, etc) and long-haul trucking. That's the future hydrogen use case.

 

[COdogman]

Not too mention the 15 min recompression time between vehicles.....

BMW & Toyota: “EVs are not ready for prime time - you should try waiting in line for hydrogen instead”?

 

[Reed]

All this talk about hydrogen is oil industry nonsense. Do the math, hydrogen consumes too much energy and money to produce.

Transporting the stuff is a nightmare. That tiny hydrogen molecule is an escape artist.

Everything that involves hydrogen requires a special solution. In Prince George, British Columbia, in the centre of the province, there is a hydrogen project that makes sense - and still manages to illustrate the complexity and cost of using hydrogen.

A company there produces sodium chlorate for the local pulp mills. That's salt, sodium chloride, with oxygen added. They mix salt and water together, zapping it with electricity to produce the sodium chlorate. (Might be a bleaching agent, not sure.)

The process releases hydrogen. Up to now there hasn't been any use for the hydrogen, so it has been released into the atmosphere. This is bad. Hydrogen interacts with methane and slows down biodegrading. Methane, a worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, hangs around longer.

What they are now going to do, is take the waste hydrogen and pipe it over to a pulp mill. There it will be mixed into the natural gas stream used by the pulp mill to generate heat. This will reduce the pulp mills consumption of natural gas.

So, all good, right? Pulp mill probably saves money and emits less carbon dioxide. Chemical company makes money from a waste product and stops releasing hydrogen into the atmosphere.

What's the complication? That pipe taking the hydrogen from the chemical company to the pulp mill is stainless steel.

Everything I have read about hydrogen ends up at the same place, unique technical needs with high cost. In theory hydrogen works. In reality, it is too complicated and expensive.

The noise on hydrogen comes from the oil industry and stupid politicians who don't bother to investigate the facts.

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