SHOPSMART AUTOS – CUSTOMER INFORMATION – DECEMBER 15, 2021 -2
THE BEST BATTERY VS HYDROGEN ELECTRIC CAR
Battery-electrics are also efficient, with between 70% and 80% of the energy that leaves the power station making it to the car’s battery. That figure plummets to 35%-40% for hydrogen, thanks to the energy needed to extract and compress it. Hydrogen, and the fuel cell that converts it into energy, are also extremely expensive to produce: theMirai costs £66,000, and as he says, it’s not terribly quick or exciting. However, May is all too aware of the disadvantages of battery electric cars. Major advances in battery technology will be slow, he says, while their heft (lithium ion battery packs are heavy) means that they are “useless in shipping freight or aviation”. Meanwhile, even with Tesla’s superchargers, the time difference between refilling a tank of hydrogen and recharging a battery is difficult to ignore. And while most journeys are well within the capability of a single charge, some are simply not. And May highlights concerns about the provenance of some of the raw materials used in battery manufacture, such as cobalt and nickel. As progress is made, hydrogen could pose a solution to all of these issues, argues May. It’s suitable not just for aviation and freight but also the factories that build electric vehicles, and hydrogen will one day be “cracked” from water by electrolysis, using almost unlimited renewable energy, “in which case efficiency is not such an issue” and becomes a storable and transportable fuel. “Hydrogen could also replace the gas used in the existing national network, which is three times bigger than the electricity grid,” he says. May is not alone in his belief: just three days ago the charity Climate Action held the 2021 Hydrogen Transition Summit, which was attended by car makers including Hyundai. The South Korean car company has already shown itself to be a serious player in the hydrogen landscape: it delivered ten units of the first hydrogen-powered lorry to Europe last year, and is working with British SUV maker Ineos on improving Europe’s hydrogen infrastructure. Concluding, May wrote that he believes hydrogen is a big-picture solution to the world’s renewable energy problem, while batteries only solve the issues with cars: “[Hydrogen] is not a very good solution to decarbonising the car. Battery cars are much better for that. Rather, the fuel-cell car is merely the car element of a much bigger energy vision to decarbonise everything. For that reason I think it’s worth pursuing.” You can read James May’s full piece about hydrogen (and a bit about his Toyota Mirai) on The Sunday Times website, or in today’s Sunday Times Magazine.
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