Honda shows off conceptual, solar-powered station to refill your conceptual, hydrogen-powered car (video)
By Tim Stevens 
posted July 7th 2010 10:42AM
posted July 7th 2010 10:42AM
posted July 7th 2010 10:42AM
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"not the least of which being a fuel source requiring more energy to produce than it in turn gives out as energy"
Well duh. I think you need a lesson in basic physics.
I want this in my conceptual house, where I can have a conceptual wife & kids. A conceptual wife that does conceptual sex with me! So that I can focus on my conceptual car design!
I'll believe it when i see it lol. When are these electric and hydrogen cars going to become mainstream? We don't have enough oil to power petrol engine cars forever, even more now so thanks to BP.
Problem won't be making cars. The main problem will be how many of these charging stations will be installed around every city.
Like me, I live in an apartment and I doubt they will install one there if I'm the only one who has a car like this.
Nice idea... Too bad only Asimo is allowed to drive this car.
Problem with Electric cars
Hydrogen cars you can use the infastructure (ie go to the 'pumps' and fill it up) to fill up, or you can even produce it at home, bonus! Where as electric (battery) you have to leave the car charging for hours, think about that ... I don't have a garage or a spot outside my house, sometimes I can't park on my road ... what am I ment to do, run a set of jump leads out the letter box down the road?!
Producing electricity we can do, and that is only getting greener, lets be realistic ... Joe Bloggs off the street will not accept a drop in living standards (ie charging a car for 8 hours), if we want the public to move away from oil it will have to be a sideways step, not a step down.
@hazardouswaster
"Hydrogen cars you can use the infastructure"
No you cant. Hydrogen is a gas, not liquid. According to wikipedia, it would cost half a trillion us dollars to add a hydrogen refilling network. Cars are prohibitively expensive too, as they need high security storage tanks (think Hindenburg).
@mahut
""Hydrogen cars you can use the infastructure""
Yes you can! Of course your going to have to invest a hell of a lot of money getting filling stations ready for hydrogen but the fact is you can re fill your car in a similar time it takes to re fill it currently like I said, what I'm really getting at is that electric cars (battery) would not be able to use the existing infastrucuture in this mannor ... can you imagion cars stacked up at a filling station for 5 hours a time, or even 3? How about just 1 hour to recharge a car (lets say the technology moved on enough for an hour charge to be possible) ... that would still be carnage!!
And what would cost more is to get charging points installed in to every street of every town ... whoa! ... I'm not trying to argue (debate maybe?) but don't you see that as a massive problem?
(and yes yes ... hydrogen is flamable too just like oil (think deep sea horizon))
"not the least of which being a fuel source requiring more energy to produce than it in turn gives out as energy"
I've seen that argument before, but one thing I haven't seen is how much energy it takes to produce a gallon of gasoline. Anyone know?
Hydrogen again? This was the Bush administration's attempt to destroy the world, did you forget already?? Infrastructure costs alone would be astronomical for hydrogen. Meanwhile where do you fuel up? At home? So, if I commute more than 15 miles in one direction I am stuck, call AAA and they laugh. Plan your entire day around refueling? Are you kidding? Gas stations are everywhere, gas is just where things are at right now. Electric power is probably the next most viable power source as the infrastructure is in place, however batteries are not quite there yet. The Nissan Leaf takes 16 hours to charge, but it's range is about 100 miles on a charge. Think about that, Electric cars are getting better mileage per fueling, still it's not close to gas, I get about 500 miles per tank, takes less than 5 minutes to refuel.
Gas wins for now.
@frosted1030
Of course, the solution is battery swap stations, e.g. Better Place. If we build enough stations where you can swap a battery in 10 minutes or less, EVs become feasible.
Just as you don't purchase a car with a lifetime supply of gasoline, we have to get over the model where you buy an EV with a lifetime battery.
@frosted1030
you refill at a gas/hydrogen station
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AUurBnLbJw
@peacecrafts Where the hell are you that you have hydrogen refueling stations on every corner? Try driving state to state. See how many long distance truck drivers will drive hydrogen trucks.
Hydrogen is also more expensive, on the environment, to produce, as hydrogen does not occur naturally on earth!
hybrid electric- hydrogen?
@Slvrgun thats what the FRX is. They use the hydrogen to store the energy in a fuel cell on board. so when it needs to make energy it uses the hydrogen, when the system is not under load it uses batteries.
A hydrogen based vehicle will only make sense when I can pour water right into my vehicle and have the "magic" happen right there. Having to pull up to a pump station leaves someone else still in control and it's most likely designed this way on purpose.
@Plazmic Flame
When it costs $25 for a tank of gas or $25 for a tank of Hydrogen (that is probably coming from the same company), why would I change?
I can produce my own electricity for an upfront cost.
@rcappo
Sure, today, it's not a big deal.
When it costs $25 for a tank of hydro, and $150 for a gasoline refill, maybe you will reconsider. And they do make cars that run on both.
The thing about Hydrogen is that it's not chained to any particular energy source. You can make it with diesel generators, nuclear fusion, coal, solar, geothermal, etc. The costs will scale out eventually and this tech will be much more stable in price than gas ever was. Cheaper, too. And universally available all over the planet. You will be able to get fuel in Antarctica with minimal infrastructure.
This really will change the world completely.
It's on Honda and others to make this work if they want it to sell. I wouldn't bet against them. the Chevy volt is not a solution.
@Dustin F
The energy cost for producing the electricity will always be higher. You're converting energy from one form to another, using energy from the source you're maligning to do it, and losing energy in the process. It's simple physics. In short, you're an idiot.
This will be much more practical when the 3d solar cells in the lab make it to the marketplace.
This is ridiculous. The reason why hydrogen research still lives is because most it is generated from natural gas (through steam reforming). And what a waste of solar cells, i think you'd rather power your house in addition to your electric car. Or drive 100 miles.
Honi soit qui mal y pense. ;)
this is awesome tech i love what honda is doing for the planet.
i wish honda all the success for this project.
i hope one day my honda civic will be running on Hydrogen.
:)
30 miles for the average commute. Is that one way? If so how do you re-charge to get back home?
@colinfox Switch on the hope-powered backup engine.
So...as long as I have room for a Vorlon encounter suit, a washing machine, and a gigantic solar panel array in my yard or on my roof, I'm all set...to power my car for 30 miles a day. Sounds expensive.
Do want, but I do drive more than 10,000 miles a year. Also unless this is mandated by the government that all gas stations must carry one of these (which would be against the constitution but who cares about it while obama's in office right? lolol D:) *feels sad*
Ignoring the ugly sloar array, I did like how the "fuel" station looked like and would be stoked to see how a gas station would look like if Honda designed it.
Without revoking the rights of a gas stations, I don't see a way that hydrogen can be an alternative especially in this economy, and that's assuming that hydrogen powered cars would only cost $12,000 and under.
As for me, I'm waiting until my car can be powered by sunshine and farts. Open up a can of beans and you're off across country on one trip.
The oil companies with their friends in the gov will never let hydrogen cars go into full production. Other then the danger of massive explosion this technology more then any other threatens the oil stranglehold on the auto industry.
A close friend is an engineer at Nissan. He helped develop the Leaf, 350Z, Xterra and others told me something really scary a few weeks ago. Nissan was testing a hydrogen based car in their testing facility in southern AZ (Casa Grande) when they got the order to stop testing and send the car back. The car which was about two years from going into full production got canceled from this country. The Honda is only there to give us hope.
There's no way in hell the oil companies are going to let us choose anything other then cars reliant on Oil. The Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt are not expected to sell to the masses because of their range and challenges to recharge.
What they don't tell you is that the FCX has a range of 280 miles on a "full tank". So unless you're driving more than 30 miles every single day, you're fine with just what that home fueling station would produce. And if you're in a bind, you could tap the grid for extra juice. And it can generate that fuel at home WHILE YOU'RE DRIVING and refuel in minutes, which electric vehicles obviously can't offer. Still not great for a road trip on account of the lack of hydrogen fuel infrastructure, but a 140-mile driving radius on nearly free (long-term) fuel isn't bad at all.
The wikipedia page on hydrogen economy says that replacing all of our gasoline use with hydrogen from solar-powered water electrolysis would require $22 trillion in new photovoltaics (113m 40-kw systems, which I think is generous). That's if we wanted to re-work everything all at once, which is not likely to happen no matter what the new tech to be adopted.
It's important to note that this would be a one-time investment. After that, we'd have enough CLEAN electricity for hydrogen to fuel every last vehicle in the US, on top of what we already have ("A study...in December 2006 found that the idle off-peak grid capacity in the US would be sufficient to power 84% of all vehicles in the US if they all were immediately replaced with electric vehicles."), for only the cost of maintenance.
Now, suppose a few intrepid early adopters were willing to put up their share of that investment, which apparently amounts to about $9.50 per gallon of gasoline equivalent for the first year. And suppose a few more did it later on, at a cheaper price. It wouldn't take much time before it was actually a cheap buy-in, and not much longer than that before it became a large enough market for public hydrogen fueling stations to be feasible. That would be critical mass for hydrogen fuel adoption. To get there, though, Honda (or someone) has to actually start selling HFC vehicles and fueling stations, not just leasing them in SoCal.
Brief correction: range is 240mi, not 280.