Poll: Hydrogen Feul Cells Vs The Combustion engine.

[Overlord_Dave]

Electric cars will always be the best solution.

Battery technology, even though it's a bit shit, is always advancing, and as far as I'm concerned the 250 mile range of the all-electric Tesla is enough for me.

As for hydrogen fuel cells, safety aside, the hydrogen-producing infrastructure is practically non-existent. There's been lots of experimental ways to produce hydrogen, like using genetically engineered algae, but most of these hydrogen 'farms' would have to cover thousands of acres, space which is probably better taken up with solar panels or regular farms.

And even though electric cars get their juice from the fossil-fuel based grid, power stations are being constantly replaced by new more efficient (and renewable) versions whether electric cars kick off or not. It's a common misconception that electric cars are just as polluting as combustion engines cos they get their energy from polluting power stations. Because power stations are so much more efficient than the combustion engine, it is much more environmentally friendly.

And for those who want a powerful car... the electric motor provides more torque than any combustion engine you can find in a car today (except maybe the beast inside the Bugatti Veyron) - and that's all in one gear!

 

[fix-the-spade]

Electric cars will always be the best solution.

Battery technology, even though it's a bit shit, is always advancing, and as far as I'm concerned the 250 mile range of the all-electric Tesla is enough for me.

There was a top gear a while ago that pretty much summed up why electric cars aren't going to take off (the one with Jay Leno in it), going electric would represent a step backwards for car drivers.
If there's one thing you can never persuade people to buy, it's a downgrade from what they already have. Unless electric cars can get a comparable charge to range time with petrol, they are neevr going to be successful.
Something like the Tesla takes 16 hours(!!!) to recharge, then it's practical range is less than 150miles (every test I've read states they get less than 100 or so miles when actually driving the car, my guess is the 250 figure is theoretical or done on a rolling road or done under 'special conditions'), that's no good. Unless they can get 300+ miles from a 5 minute charge they are going to be stay a quirky little niche.

 

[Typecast]

Electric, because they're developing batteries that can charge in minutes.

 

[massau]

electric cars are better because they use +-90% of its energy.
and you can almost make electricity from every thing so u can set very powerful solar panels on your car so you can drive very long u only need a high voltage and much electricity and light battery. so for in the future this one will be the best

hydrogen is good but its just to flammable maybe for racing cars and airplanes.but you need electricity to make it. so u go from energy(fuel,nucleon,etc.)»electricity » hydrogen its good to set next to a powerplant that makes to much elecktricity at night so it can be made at night

 

[BrEnNo1023]

Hydrogen is the fuel of the future, it might not live up to the standards of the petrol engine just yet but its getting there. Keep in mind that no matter your feelings on petrol, hydrogen, or hybrid cars we will run out of fossil fuels eventually so a solution better come out now instead of racing to get one later.

just look at the new Honda Accord hydrogen-fuelled car. it performs almost as good as a normal petrol Accord. and all that is emitted is water vapor from the exhaust. now we need the oil companies to give up a pump space on ALL their service stations to accept a bowser for hydrogen.

in my opinion, hydrogen engines are the greatest invention since the combustion engine ;D how's that one?

 

[massau]

Electric cars will always be the best solution.

Battery technology, even though it's a bit shit, is always advancing, and as far as I'm concerned the 250 mile range of the all-electric Tesla is enough for me.

There was a top gear a while ago that pretty much summed up why electric cars aren't going to take off (the one with Jay Leno in it), going electric would represent a step backwards for car drivers.
If there's one thing you can never persuade people to buy, it's a downgrade from what they already have. Unless electric cars can get a comparable charge to range time with petrol, they are neevr going to be successful.
Something like the Tesla takes 16 hours(!!!) to recharge, then it's practical range is less than 150miles (every test I've read states they get less than 100 or so miles when actually driving the car, my guess is the 250 figure is theoretical or done on a rolling road or done under 'special conditions'), that's no good. Unless they can get 300+ miles from a 5 minute charge they are going to be stay a quirky little niche.

you are right we only need better battery's and and if the battery can contain as much as a fuel tank of a car. than you can really drive far because a good electric motor has a efficiently of 95%.
and i think hydrogen is going to be used in very fast races and more likely in airplanes because you just cant fly with electricity u cant get energy to fly with it and all fighter that go faster than sound will use this because a jet engine is really good for going fast and maybe we find a special electric engine were we can even go faster with

 

[Flishiz]

I don't see a problem with using solar-powered electrolysis to get hydrogen from water.

 

[massau]

Hydrogen is a completely inefficient form of fuel since you will need a lot of energy to electrolyse the water you make it from and because it is a highly combustable gas. At the moment nothing simply beats the regular combustion engine. Electric also have their advantages, of course, but since electricity is mainly generated using fossil fuels and nuclear power they aren't that friendly for the enviroment as well.

we already have something new in mind for nuclear power its making H to He so there comes tons of energy free its just like the sun and there no nuclear waste its fusion fusion. so we will eventually get our power from this and we only need heavy hydrogen and lithium

 

[massau]

I don't see a problem with using solar-powered electrolysis to get hydrogen from water.

we just don't get electricity from it fast enough and if you already make electricity with that than you can put it in a battery

 

[massau]

Reduce the population to a level where travel becomes a uneccesary burden.

maybe start WW3 nice

 

[S.H.A.R.P.]

Electric cars will always be the best solution.

Battery technology, even though it's a bit shit, is always advancing, and as far as I'm concerned the 250 mile range of the all-electric Tesla is enough for me.

There was a top gear a while ago that pretty much summed up why electric cars aren't going to take off (the one with Jay Leno in it), going electric would represent a step backwards for car drivers.
If there's one thing you can never persuade people to buy, it's a downgrade from what they already have. Unless electric cars can get a comparable charge to range time with petrol, they are neevr going to be successful.
Something like the Tesla takes 16 hours(!!!) to recharge, then it's practical range is less than 150miles (every test I've read states they get less than 100 or so miles when actually driving the car, my guess is the 250 figure is theoretical or done on a rolling road or done under 'special conditions'), that's no good. Unless they can get 300+ miles from a 5 minute charge they are going to be stay a quirky little niche.

Just thinking along. 100 miles, isn't that an amazing distance? For the average working person (though I bet in the USA it's different then in the Netherlands where I live), the distance from home to work (twice) is under 100 miles. This would make it very feasible to introduce these cars, especially if they can recharge during work.
Sure, it's rather useless for anything else than that (you might just make it to the supermarket after work), but my guess is that most of the car-usage is for forensic use. Surely you have to agree that a car run on electricity might make a difference this way, in favour of combustion engines?

 

[Johnmw]

The problem with hydrogen is how to store it in large quantities. That and it takes quite some energy to create.

That's relative.

It's not exactly simple to float a giant mechanical platform out into the ocean, attach it to the sea floor then drill hundreds (or thousands) of feet into the sea bed for the sake of some crude oil.

I think in the next 100 years or so fuel cells will take over from internal combustion engines, simply because the cost of extracting hydrogen will drop and the cost of finding then extracting oil will become increasingly expensive.
It will probably get a lot more efficient over time as well, you only have to see how a small car has gone from being able to deliver 30-35mpg in the 1980's to some cars managing close to 100mpg now, engineers are good at making things better when it's in their interests to do so.

This + The fossil feul crisis is a relative thing. We are not running out of oil just yet, we are running out on oil that is CHEAP TO EXTRACT. When the market dictates that mining more expensive oil is profitable that is what will happen. Personally i hope by then we have a decent hydrogen infrastructure as above has said.
Edit* Also bear in mind that the majority of the damning research on hydrogen comes from oil barons and car companies, which have skewed priorities - like convincing you a Prius is a green car... Its not..its a poser car for people who want to pretend to care about the environment or at least don't know enough about cars.

 

[savandicus]

To put it simply:

[HEADING=2]Hydrogen Cars won't work[/HEADING]​

Why? Because you can't hold liquid hydrogen anywhere. If you are aware of basic chemistry, hydrogen is the smallest element, meaning no matter what tank you make for it, it will leak hydrogen unless kept at a negative pressure (as if that's viable in a car). This will lead to all fuel tanks after a year becoming brittle and crumbling to bits.
Not to mention, the actual energy needed to create hydrogen would be so larger, it would match the pollution caused by conventional cars. Electric, as I've been told, is the way forward, but a long way off working well.

That arguement is so flawed i dont even know where to begin, you realise that the size of an atom is insanely small compared to the space in between each atom.

As for my views on OP i reckon the world will go electric, small scale power generators like a combustion engine or a hydrogen engine or anything will always be miles worse than a proper power plant. Produce power with wind, tidal, nuclear, whatever and pump that into a car to make it run, you'd just need to make the use of that energy effiencent and you've got an unrivaled mode of transport.

 

[Rath709]

See the Peugeot Flux concept car, which is available as a download for PGR4. Never actually built in real life, but it's interesting to note that while its' top speed in the game is relatively low in comparison with other vehicles, it also produces almost no noise at all.*


http://www.diseno-art.com/encyclopedia/concept_cars/peugeot_flux.html


*Possibly because nobody knows what it would actually sound like.

 

[Dys]

Electric cars are a bit of a joke, as they need to be charged which is a slowl process and the battery cells will not last long, meaning that the cars will not last long. Most batteries are also environmental disasters, read anything about the cell used in the prius, it isn't pretty.

Combusion engines, especially deisal are the most practical. If we could find a way to use a petrol combustion engine with a higher compression ratio (which would mean an alternative to the sparkplug), which I assume people somewhere are trying to do, then it would be yet even more practical.

Hydrogen fuel cells are far and away the best option if you aren't footing the bill. For a hydrogen fuel cell to work you need platinum, which is hardly an abundant resource. There are other hitches with the system (getting the H2 gas is a major one, there is some alge so we could farm it but I'm not sure how quickly or efficiently). I was toying with a model electric motor car that was powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, and this little thing, with a single cell, was worth upwards of $700 (which is pretty much all spent on the cell). If you were going to get enough energy to power say, a tesla, you would need hundreds of these cells which simply isn't feasable until we find a cheaper way of making the reaction work.