Study Suggest New Insane Hydrogen Tesla Car Will Destroy The Industry: Electric propulsion is not the only way through which we can get rid of combustion engines. You may know that many alternatives have been tried over the years, such as biofuel, solar, and even cooking oil! However, a serious and promising alternative does exist, and that’s the hydrogen fuel cell. Can it happen for Tesla? Let’s find out.
A hydrogen vehicle is an alternative fuel vehicle that uses hydrogen as its primary source of propulsion. Hydrogen-fueled space rockets, as well as autos and other modes of transportation, are examples of hydrogen vehicles.
The chemical energy of hydrogen is converted to mechanical energy by either reacting hydrogen with oxygen in a fuel cell to power electric motors or burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine, which is less common.
Steam methane reforming, which emits carbon monoxide, produces 98 percent of hydrogen as of 2019. It can be made from renewable feedstocks utilizing thermochemical or pyrolytic methods, but the techniques are currently prohibitively costly.
Various methods are being explored with the goal of delivering low enough costs and large enough volumes to compete with natural gas-based hydrogen generation. Fast refueling (similar to gasoline) and a lengthy driving range on a single tank are two advantages of hydrogen technology.
However, High carbon emissions when hydrogen is produced from natural gas, high capital costs, low energy content per unit volume at ambient conditions, hydrogen production and compression, the investment required to build filling stations around the world to dispense hydrogen, transportation of hydrogen to filling stations, and lack of ability to produce or dispense hydrogen at home are all disadvantages of hydrogen use.
As of 2021, two hydrogen car models are publicly accessible in certain markets: the Toyota Mirai and the Hyundai Nexo. The Toyota Mirai is the world’s first mass-produced dedicated fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV). The Honda Clarity was manufactured between 2016 and 2021.
Most companies that were testing hydrogen cars have switched to battery-electric cars other than Totoyta; Volkswagen has stated that the technology has no future in the automotive industry, owing to the fact that a fuel cell electric vehicle consumes roughly three times more energy per mile driven than a battery electric vehicle.
As of December 2020, there were 31,225 hydrogen-powered passenger FCEVs on the road across the world. Heslas According to The Drive, the Holthausen Group, a gas provider in the Netherlands, was able to increase the maximum range of Tesla’s Model S by effectively hacking in a hydrogen power source.
The business is the first in the world to produce a Tesla that is both electric and hydrogen-powered. They even came up with a catchy name for it: Project Hesla. The Model S was purchased second-hand because Tesla was not involved in the transaction.
The Model S’s system was described by Holthausen Group engineer Max Holthausen as “a gigantic labyrinth” when it came to accepting hydrogen as a fuel source. Holthausen had to devise and implement a solution, adding to the project’s difficulties.
Crewmembers made it work in the end; the Hesla has two power sources. The first is a battery that has already been installed, and the second is hydrogen stored in tanks within the car. The process is actually quite simple: hydrogen molecules are pushed into a fuel cell, where an anode extracts their electrons, which then flow through a circuit to the battery, providing it with additional charge.
The hydrogen (now ions) enters a cathode, where they are rejoined with electrons and bond with oxygen to produce water, i.e., H2O, before exiting the fuel cell. In comparison to the Model S P100D’s 506 km (315 miles) range, the Hesla’s exceptionally efficient fuel cell allows it to go approximately 1,000 km (620 miles) on a completely charged battery and full supply of hydrogen.
Despite the lack of hydrogen tanks for refueling and the high expense of the entire operation, Holthausen is continuing with Project Hesla. Over the following few months, the business hopes to refine its prototype and collect more data.
If the results of these experiments are useful, it may allow other firms who have invested in hydrogen-powered vehicles to catch up to the race, despite the fact that interest in the technology is dwindling.
However, Holthausen and the Hesla might entice even more forward-thinking organizations to invest in hydrogen fuel in the near future. Let’s look at another such ‘Hesla’. Anja Karliczek, Germany’s Federal Minister of Research and Technology, unveiled in 2021 a Tesla Model Y that had been turned into a hydrogen car she dubbed a “hyper hybrid.”
The idea was to show how clean transportation may be the way of the future. However, as Teslarati points out, the decision to alter a Tesla — arguably the most well-known electric vehicle — rather than a gas-burning vehicle is perplexing.
It’s unclear whether Tesla was engaged in the $10 million initiative to convert a Model Y to run on synthetic methanol, according to Teslarati. “Today we are building a very interesting bridge between these two points: The use of methanol from ‘recycled’ CO2 from the industry as a fuel in road transport,” Karliczek said at the Wednesday announcement.
“But the methanol car itself is also an ‘innovation showcase’ for low-emission, resource- and energy-efficient mobility of tomorrow.” What does Elon Musk think about this tech, though? Well, the answer is unfortunate.
Musk Dislikes Hydrogen Elon Musk has already expressed strong views on hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cells. When the topic of hydrogen fuel cells came up during a meeting with reporters at the Automotive News World Congress a few years back, he dismissed them as “extremely silly.” “It’s just very difficult … to make hydrogen and store it and use it in a car,” Musk said.
“The best-case hydrogen fuel cell doesn’t win against the current case batteries, so then, obviously … it doesn’t make sense,” he added later. “That will become apparent in the next few years. There’s … no reason for us to have this debate, I’ve said … my piece on this, it will be super obvious as time goes by, I don’t know what more to say.”
In the time since those remarks, Musk’s views don’t seem to have changed much, if at all. In June 2020 he tweeted “fuel cells = fool sells,” adding in July of that year: “hydrogen fool sells make no sense.” Hydrogen fuel cell cars, also known as fuel cell electric vehicles, are “similar to electric vehicles… in that, they employ an electric motor instead of an internal combustion engine to power the wheels,” according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
According to the Alternative Fuels Data Center of the US Department of Energy, a fuel cell electric car emits “just water vapor and warm air.” Musk isn’t alone in his skepticism about the usage of hydrogen in automobiles.
Herbert Diess, the CEO of German automaker Volkswagen Group, spoke up on the topic in February of 2021. “It’s time for politicians to accept science,” he tweeted. “Green hydrogen is needed for steel, chemical, aero … and should not end up in cars. Far too expensive, inefficient, slow and difficult to rollout and transport. After all: no #hydrogen cars in sight.”
Musk and Diess are two prominent personalities at the leadership of significant corporations that wield enormous power and influence. What they say is taken seriously. However, it appears that their viewpoints are not held by everyone in the car industry.
The BMW Group said in June that it has begun testing vehicles with a hydrogen fuel cell powertrain, citing the technology’s “long-term potential to augment internal combustion engines, plug-in hybrid systems, and battery-electric vehicles.”
Despite releasing a fleet of electric vehicle designs, Toyota has remained committed to the technology, and we may expect further progress in the future. According to a BMW news release, hydrogen fuel cell technology has the potential to augment internal combustion engines, plug-in hybrid systems, and battery-electric cars in the BMW Group’s flexible drive train strategy.
“It could become an attractive alternative to battery-electric drive trains – especially for customers who do not have their own access to electric charging infrastructure or who frequently drive long distances,” the company said.
In a statement to CNBC, Toyota said that fuel cell cars would undoubtedly play a role in decarbonizing transportation and that they will provide a practical option to completely electric battery-powered electric vehicles.
“The range of hydrogen applications will increase, enabling cheaper, more efficient power supply and we’ll increasingly see hydrogen powering cars, buses, trains, and trucks,” a Toyota spokesperson told CNBC. For now, Musk will never hear of an official proposal for a hydrogen-powered Tesla, but it remains to be seen whether he will change his mind in the future as the technology develops.
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