# First Hydrogen EV Hits Market



## The Davy Crockett (Jun 14, 2014)

From this webpage at Hyundai:



> *TUSTIN, Calif., June 10, 2014* – Today, Tustin Hyundai’s Dealer Principal, John Patterson, proudly handed over the keys to Hyundai’s first mass-produced Tucson Fuel Cell CUV in a ceremony with Hyundai executives and Timothy Bush, the first Hyundai Fuel Cell customer.
> 
> “My family is certainly excited to be doing their part in driving a zero-emission vehicle that benefits the environment, and at the same time, reduces our nation’s dependence on imported fuels,” said Mr. Bush. “What’s great about the Tucson CUV is that its day-to-day utility is virtually identical to the gasoline version, so we don’t have to compromise our lifestyle in the process; I can easily fit all of our family’s things in the back. The attractive $499 lease rate with unlimited free hydrogen fuel made the decision to drive a fuel cell even easier.”
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> ...


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## Green Maned Lion (Jun 14, 2014)

Hogwash. The future is, has always been, clean diesel.


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## Bob Dylan (Jun 14, 2014)

So What happens when oil becomes too expensive, is gone or getting it causes so much pollution and environmental damage that even the "conservatives" turn against it?

"Clean diesel" is just like "clean

Coal!" A fantasy!


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## railiner (Jun 14, 2014)

I took a short ride in a Toyota Highlander Fuel Cell vehicle while attending the New York Auto Show in April...very impressive.

I would be interested in buying a fuel cell vehicle as soon as there are sufficient refueling stations to eliminate "range-anxiety", that many owner's of electric cars must content with.

electric cars can be recharged almost anywhere currently, even if not at high speed recharging stations. Finding hydrogen stations will be a much greater challenge, for now....


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## Green Maned Lion (Jun 14, 2014)

Diesel is not a fuel. Diesel Fuel is a fuel. Diesel is an automotive combustion process. It was invented by Dr. Rudolf Diesel. The three 'common' internal combustion processes are the Diesel, the Otto, and the Wankel, or a direct variation of them.

The Wankel is the newest. It was invented in the late fifties by German Dr. Felix Wankel. It is a continuous compression process that uses a rotor to mix, compress, and then spark ignite fuel. It has a few advantages- it produces a lot of power for its size, involves no valve springs and so it's rotational speed limit is usually related to balancing and whatever it's driving. It is also thirsty on both fuel and lubricant, and designing its seals to be durable is an elusive problem. It has some flexibility with what fuel it can use

The Otto Cycle is much older, and it has two variations that were mass produced- the Miller Cycle and the Atkinson Cycle. It was invented in the early 1880s by German Dr. Nicklaus Otto. It involves mixing fuel and air, which is then injected into a cylinder, which compresses it ~ 10:1, and ignites the mixture with a spark. It is highly inefficient, and can only use a very limited number of fuels, because it need to be easily ignited with a spark, but have a very limited chance of predetonation with compression or temperature. The most common fuel chosen is, of course, gasoline.

Diesel engines are the oldest. They were invented in the 1870s by German (see a pattern?) Dr. Rudolf Diesel. They operate by injecting air alone into a cylinder, compressing it mightily (24:1 is not uncommon), and force misting fuel into this highly compressed, super heated mixture, which results in self ignition. It's advantage is vastly superior efficiency. It's other huge advantage is that anything with a relatively low flashpoint is acceptable as fuel.

A petroleum distillate not far off from either Kerosene or home heating oil is the current preference (almost all road diesels will operate on either kerosene or home heating oil without effort, which is why they are dyed to prevent non taxes usage). However high concentration bio-diesel is not uncommon, nor are vehicles converted to run on waste vegetable oils. Dr. Diesel himself originally specified peanut oil.


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## Paulus (Jun 14, 2014)

There's hardly any hydrogen fuel stations around, this was not the brightest idea imho At least an electric car you can charge at home.



Green Maned Lion said:


> Hogwash. The future is, has always been, clean diesel.









California's ZEV requirements, if nothing else, mean that the future is electric. Personally I suspect that the sheer lowered cost of driving alone will ensure that the future is electric.


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## Ryan (Jun 14, 2014)




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## railiner (Jun 14, 2014)

Paulus said:


> There's hardly any hydrogen fuel stations around, this was not the brightest idea imho At least an electric car you can charge at home.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


When total electrification comes around, I wonder what devious device the hungry legislator's will devise to tax vehicular-use electricity?


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## Ryan (Jun 14, 2014)

VMT.


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## MattW (Jun 14, 2014)

Diesel still has the problems of pollution though, GML. Regardless if you believe in global warming or not, we do need to reduce our pollution and though the different fuels may be cleaner than current diesel, they aren't as clean (at the point of use) as electric. We are eventually going to get to a zero-emissions transportation architecture.


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## railiner (Jun 15, 2014)

MattW said:


> they aren't as clean (at the point of use) as electric.


Key words--at the point of use.....you do have to factor in the way the hydrogen was produced, in order to provide fuel for the fuel cell, in the total scheme of things...what generated the electricity to produce the hydrogen? If it was coal, oil, or natural gas, the pollution point has just shifted somewhere else. If the power was produced by solar, wind, or hydro-electric energy, then you have close to a truly zero-emissions energy infrastructure....only the pollution caused by the manufacturing of the plant is a small factor...


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## Green Maned Lion (Jun 15, 2014)

Listen, carbon dioxide is clean. It is the equivalent of oxygen to half the life on this planet. The problem isn't that carbon dioxide is a pollutant inherently. It's that we have managed to change the mix of chemicals in the atmosphere, screwing up a balance.

If our engines took carbon dioxide and changed it to pure oxygen and diamonds (compressed carbon) we'd fix the carbon dioxide for the first 20 years and then kill all the trees by asphyxiation.

If our engines take hydrogen, mix it with oxygen, and put out pure water, we will screw up the planet by adding too much water to the atmosphere and over humidifying the planet.

If we run them on electricity generated by hydro, solar, and wind, we will kill a lot of birds, a lot of fish, and still generate way too much heat.

Stop kidding yourself that there is a 'clean' way of doing this.


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## jis (Jun 15, 2014)

The only clean way would seem to be moderating the rate of consumption I suppose.


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## railiner (Jun 15, 2014)

To do that, you would have to have zero population growth, at the least....


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## Green Maned Lion (Jun 15, 2014)

Or get people onto MASS TRANSIT.


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## railiner (Jun 15, 2014)

Or instead of Mass Transit, have most people "tele-commute"...(work from home) wherever possible.....


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## Paulus (Jun 15, 2014)

Green Maned Lion said:


> Listen, carbon dioxide is clean. It is the equivalent of oxygen to half the life on this planet. The problem isn't that carbon dioxide is a pollutant inherently. It's that we have managed to change the mix of chemicals in the atmosphere, screwing up a balance.
> 
> If our engines took carbon dioxide and changed it to pure oxygen and diamonds (compressed carbon) we'd fix the carbon dioxide for the first 20 years and then kill all the trees by asphyxiation.
> 
> If our engines take hydrogen, mix it with oxygen, and put out pure water, we will screw up the planet by adding too much water to the atmosphere and over humidifying the planet.


Yes, anything is fine and dandy in small enough quantities and horribly harmful in sufficiently large quantities. Do you have a real point?

As for the particular example of too much water from hydrogen cars, they actually produce less water vapor than do gasoline fueled cars.



> If we run them on electricity generated by hydro, solar, and wind, we will kill a lot of birds, a lot of fish, and still generate way too much heat.
> 
> Stop kidding yourself that there is a 'clean' way of doing this.


We're a couple orders of magnitude away from waste heat being an actual threat, the problem is removal of heat from the atmosphere.



railiner said:


> MattW said:
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> > they aren't as clean (at the point of use) as electric.
> ...


Wells to wheels, electric and hydrogen cars are always better than pure ICE vehicles. At least for electric cars, that holds true when including lifecycle emissions as well.


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