If I lived in Silicon Valley, an electric car for errands / weekend runs / fun, etc. would be neat. For many of us, the constraints posed by heavy heating and A/C loads, plus a large commute render a vehicle like this useless.

Given the proper infrastructure (which Europe is capable of doing, the USA less so), hydrogen CAN be a player

One liter of liquid hydrogen contains 71 grams of hydrogen. One liter of gasoline contains 118 grams of hydrogen, and one liter of diesel, 130 grams.

Of course liquid hydrogen costs lots of energy to make, is difficult to store (it will leak out of any container in a matter of days), and is 423 degrees F below zero, so be careful when handling it.

Compressed hydrogen is less dense than liquid, and kaboom.

My point in using that example? Myself, I don’t think it is improper on a show like Top Gear to push a car into a garage to make a point about its battery. The battery was down to 20% charge, as Tesla acknowledged. But Tesla did not want it driven below that point. Pushing the car into the garage to emphasize that it was “out of gas” seems legitimate to me.

There is a line there, though. Remember when Dateline NBC used explosives to illustrate the danger of a side impact collision to GM pickup truck fuel tanks? That was over the line.

But pretending to get a message from hell? Pretending to push a powerless car into the garage? Doesn’t bother me. Legitimate ways to make a point, I think.

Others may disagree, of course.

Current fuel cell cars cost an average of $1,000,000. This cost has gotta drop.

Current materials cannot store enough hydrogen in a reasonable space to give you the range people want.

Hydrogen fuel is wildly expensive. Even hydrogen from dirty fossil fuels is two or three times more expensive than gasoline.

The need for an entire new fueling infrastructure. Someone’s gonna have to build at least ten or twenty thousand multi-million dollar hydrogen fueling stations, before anybody is going to be interested.

Competing technologies will improve over time as well. You have to hope and pray that the competitors in the marketplace don’t get any better. Because right now the Tesla model and the hybrid vehicle are way ahead.

Add the platinum parts costs, the cost of electricity to crack hydrogen off whatever it’s attached to (hydrogen molecules are never found alone in nature) and those molecules are so tiny it’s tough (read “expensive”) to make tanks underground and in cars that don’t leak.

I think your “some evidence” is based on accounting rules that say we’ll be out of oil in 20 years. There’s enough U235 for centuries of power.

Actually, no.

The earliest reference I have to the 50-100 year figure is Kenneth S. Deffeyes and Ian D. MacGregor, “World Uranium Resources,” Scientific American Vol 242, No 1, January 1980, pp. 66-76.

It’s been widely accepted for sometime.

In another post you ask me to look at Wackypedia which has an even more silly “answer” of 85 years. No-one I deal with in energy planning talks in absolute terms like that. In any case 50-100 years places 85 years about right, or actually should Wackypedia have to say 75 years to get a tick? I’m not so sure now….

People who understand these things don’t talk about Peak Oil as “running out” either.

We’ll just do what we’ve done for the last 20 years – burn 2 percent more coal each year.

Why would you do that? It isn’t even necessary RIGHT now. That’s the point.

EDIT: Sorry, it was noone who asked me to refer to Wackypedia.

Thing is, HYDROGEN IS THE MOST ABUNDANT ELEMENT IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE and Earth has an ENDLESS SOURCE OF IT.

Irrelevant. H₂ is not destroyed when a hydrogen car runs.

It costs energy to get H₂ into a form usable by cars.

You can manufacture gasoline from electricity the same way you can manufacture H₂ from electricity. What advantage does H₂ have?

There is no connection between an Elise and a Honda or Toyota beyond the engine and tranny which is found found in the old Celica GTS and Matrix. As dgduris mentioned, reliability is unlike any previous Lotus.

Contrast this with the Tesla which is MADE by the same Norfolk turnip farmers that make the Elise, and on the same factory line. The chassis is from the Elise. The suspension bits are from the Elise. It is in every way an Elise with a brilliant carbon fiber body plus an obese drivetrain that is a sin against the memory of Saint Colin Chapman.

As a car, there is nothing about the Tesla — NOTHING — that is superior to an Elise that has had a bit of money thrown in the engine bay. That is, unless your religion tells you that you are contributing to the planet’s doom by exhaling.

I think your “some evidence” is based on accounting rules that say we’ll be out of oil in 20 years. There’s enough U235 for centuries of power.

But more nuke generation won’t happen in this country with the hysterical Oprah, enviro and lawsuit lobbies. We’ll just do what we’ve done for the last 20 years – burn 2 percent more coal each year..

@ shaker: The architecture you propose (high-energy batteries in parallel with high-power ultracaps) is exactly what GM presented at the AABC last May. They hinted at the problem with trying to combine high-energy and high-power performance into the same battery cell; it just ain’t happening right now.

Tesla gets the power they need from high-energy/low-power cells simply because there are so damn many cells in the pack, but that’s not yet proven to give acceptable performance over the life of the vehicle.

“Do you really expect me to believe that Clarkson got a weather report from hell in his earpiece? Come on.”

Oh for Christ’s sake, NO.

humor
[hyumər]
1. a comic, absurd, or incongruous quality causing amusement: the humor of a situation.
2. the faculty of perceiving what is amusing or comical: He is completely without humor.
3. an instance of being or attempting to be comical or amusing; something humorous: The humor in his joke eluded the audience.

YDRC!

Not Honda. Toyota! Reliability unmatched!

Goes through tires – does the Elise – like Clarkson goes through expletives, however.

I meant, specifically the chassis (frame).

Serotta are wonderful machines! But it is hard to get an Ottrott above 21, I would imagine. My synapse weighs less than 19 and some would argue I haven’t enough of them (synapses – as I have plenty of Cannondales and other breeds).

Closed loop fuel cells have a name. They are called batteries.

Typically a device that consumes it’s fuel to generate electricity is a fuel cell.

I prefer to call my disposable alkaline Energizers “fuel cells” and my lead/acid batteries, err…. batteries.

Closed loop fuel cells have to have a separate containment and process to reverse/charge back to fuel.

But, whatever makes you happiest.

RichardD:

The same can be said about the Elise. IIRC it has a Honda engine so it has less reliability, less carrying capacity etc. than a Honda. etc. It is a stupid car for speed freaks.

ps. You claim that it is less reliable than an Elise. Are you sure about is because Elise and reliable aren’t words that are often used together

And as for a hydrogen car’s ability to be “refueled normally,” my only question would be…”Where?”

RF is unfair to the master in his post. Clarkson laid out a very careful critique pointing out that the Tesla is an Elise with: worse reliability, worse range, horrible handling (note the explanation of the suspension settings), and worse green credentials (unless your religion requires you to ignore whence your power comes). And all for 3x the price of an Elise. It’s a stupid car for Gaia worshipers.

For the fanboys who fixate on the 3.9s 0-60 time, there are various ways to get a lot of power into an Elise engine bay — not least of which is that Lotus know how to get 272hp out of the 2zz. $100k buys a lot of speed.

Use the batteries for long-term storage from an overnight charge; use the Ultra Capacitors to capture/deliver regenerative braking energy for quick acceleration with less resistive loss. Proper computer selection of either storage medium could result in a lighter, quicker car, as the Amp-Hour rating of the batteries could be lower (thus, lighter batteries); thus increased range on pure electicity.

Of course, such a car would be less than ideal for extended highway cruises; there a serial hybrid would serve better.

Actually, there are fuel cells that are regenerative or “closed loop”.

Fuel Cell Types

There are a couple of companies that have been working on laptop sized methanol fuel cells that can be recharged “normally” or by exchanging the methanol from a canister.

With a futuristic closed loop methanol fuel cell you could; i) recharge it regenerating from braking, ii) recharge it at night, or iii) refill it with methanol at “gas” station (with very few changes to the existing petrol infrastructure).

Why not combine Nuclear power with hydrogen production?

Because there’s no point in exchanging one non-rewenable (oil) for another (nuclear). There is some evidence that unless breeder reactors are used (EXTREMELY dirty), there is likely between 50-100 years of uranium left, and that’s before China, India and Indonesia (!!) go hell-bent on nuclear reactors.

Honda and Mercedes both agree that anything resembling mass production of hydrogen vehicles is at best 3 decades away. Among other things, the infrastructure needed for such vehicles is terribly expensive.

About the Tesla, he “treats” it in classic Top Gear fashion.

A possibly interesting solution is this year’s launch of Mercedes hybrid articulated city buses with powerful electric motors on the rear axle that are combined with a “normal” engine.