Last we heard around here was that it was taking $1.10 worth of energy to make $1.00's worth of hydrogen. So we got one of the Japaneze companies building a bunch of hydrogen cars for some reason. Probably more "public relations." Or perhaps they'll work out some cleaver government subsity program....as soon as they actually build some useable fueling stations.

But unless something has changed via a breakthrough, is the ratio still upside down on cost vs. production or what?

yep still cost more to make then is usable, but also they still havent solved the storage problem. Hydrogen is one of the smallest molicules (sp?) it will even pass through glass

Read:

Honda FCX Clarity: The future is fuel-cell, (The Telegraph, 6/20/08)

2008 Honda FCX, Behind the wheel of the ...and a non-event, (Autoweek, 6/21/08)

First Drive: 2009 Honda FCX Clarity, world's first series production fuel cell car, (AutoblogGreen.com, 11/18/07)

All of the above expressed "concerns" are fully addressed.

Hi All;
I saw a fellow doing a fuel demonstration at the Manchester ,Vt ( formerly Hildene) antique car show last weekend using water as the source of hydrogen, making it on board.( I think) He was running a pickup truck with it. That is all I know and have not checked out the website yet myself, though I plan to do so. I offer it here for discussion on hydrogen. www.fuelfromh2o.com What do you think?

Jim 43

It's like almost every other "alternative" fuel technology to date. It costs more to make it than the value of the end product, and generally creates a different type of hazard in storage and collision scenarios.

Working with liquid and gaseous hydrogen on a daily basis, my concern is storage and explosive limit. I have seen hydrogen fires and explosions first hand. They are not pretty and not something you want to deal with in a collision. Gasoline is bad enough, but at least you can see the fire. What about refueling? I see too many people who have no business operating a gas pump. Don't want to think about these people messing with hydrogen.

Plus, even though it can theoretically be reclaimed from simple water (remember yer freshman chemistry class?) most commercially available hydrogen is produced from petroleum, with a lot of it coming from the Gulf Coast.

Well if we're going to have pump attendants again I may have something to d in my retirement years!

Try the NO FUEL air-powered car. The French guy in the U-Tube thing was on TV talking about a perpetual motion concept where the car runs an on board compressor to replenish much of the power used to run the car and partially fill the tank!

http://www.futurecars.com/
http://www.theaircar.com/acf/air-cars/air-cars.html
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QmqpGZv0YT4

Yes, there are concerns about hydrogen. But, you'll never find answers without building and experimenting.

CNN had an interview with Jamie Lee Curtis, one of the people selected to lease one of the Honda fuel cell cars. A Honda exec said it cost $100,000 to build the car. But, that isn't anything unusual; prototypes can cost $1 million each, and at their current production levels, these cars are slightly above prototypes.

Anyone remember the test program Chrysler did with turbine cars in the 60's? Very similar to that. Honda could decide to not pursue fuel cell cars, but their lessons learned could lead to other developments.

Personally, I'm in favor of anything that keeps OPEC awake at night, including fuel cells, wind power, solar, drilling anywhere and everywhere we think there is oil, streamlining and approving the building of new refineries, and doing away with ridiculous, antiquated EPA rules and regulations.

Have you forgotten that Ford is working on a hydrogen fuel celled car?
Last year it even tested a fuel cell powered Fusion on the Great White Dyno and achieved over 200MPH with ease.

Good!

I wish the presidential candidates would make a policy statement that manufacturers sharing or selling lessons learned from new technology would not violate anti-trust laws.

Anyone that comes up with a technology to save gas in large quantities is probably not going to be able to get it mass produced quickly enough to keep up with demand, so licensing it to other companies would help the country.

Remember Jeeps licensed and made in Ford factories in WWII?

I don't know that it's an anti-trust thing. I think it's more of a competitive advantage thing. Trust laws are more about companies colluding to control prices for mutual benefit and thereby eliminating price-driven market competition.

Say GM invents this amazing new technology that works. Why would they call Ford and say, "Hey, do you want in on this?" Although it might be better for the country as a whole, companies aren't going to give away their R&D because of it. Their #1 reason for existing (as well as reasons 2 through 100) is to make money, not help the country. So the first one to mass-market a reasonable alternative to the internal combustion engine will own the market, competition be damned. $2 gas didn't make it important. $4+ gas suddenly presents a very attractive new market. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that. Once the market is there (and it is today, maybe for the first time ever), it's only a matter of time.

Licensing technology is perfectly legal, however. Porsche is building a hybrid using licensed technology from Toyota. If I have the technology, I can get doubly rich by licensing it AND building it. But, of course, that'll only come after I establish dominance on the market and become the industry standard.

And seriously, what does anyone expect the president and/or congress to do about energy prices and the advancement of new technology? They have exactly zero power to control any of it. We can't look to them for solutions or answers. Which, come to think of it, is how it has always been.

No, look to the free market to find the technology. As soon as you legislate progress or start favoring one technology over others with grants or changing regulations, you limit the choices that researchers can make. Let the guys who specialize in making money figure out the best way to do it, not the dopes in Washington. Have you seen how they've managed Social Security and the public schools? If it were up to me, I wouldn't even want those morons in charge of breakfast cereal.

Back in 1903 the Liquid Air Company built a compressed air powered car. The "fuel" was a tank of liquid air. Air liquifies if you compress it to 600 PSI and will stay liquid in a Dewar flask (thermos) at -600 degrees.

They took the liquid air which expands to high pressure air at normal temperatures, and used it to drive a steam engine.

This was a typical 1903 "gas buggy" auto.

I believe it was the same Liquid Air company that makes welding gases today.

I don't see how they can pressurise air to 4350 PSI when it liquifies at 600PSI.

Maybe they are talking about compressed nitrogen. You can buy compressed nitrogen tanks right now, 2000 PSI, they use it to air up tires. A racer friend tells me one tank of nitrogen last a whole season on his truck, running air tools blowing up tires cleaning parts everything you use compressed air for.

It just seems like somebody way up there has a bug in their butt about hydrogen. It's great. They proved the concept more or less and built some viable prototypes. But stop the hoopla and concentrate on producing the fuel at a viable cost otherwise it's just more hot air when there are several other working solutions now available.

It just seems they are ignoring all the rest and fixated on the one that actually doesn't work yet in an economic sense. I don't get it unless there is a huge number of politicians and others that figure some way to make $$ on hydrogen somehow.

Anything that uses power/energy to produce an end product, fuel or otherwise, has to do so at an economically viable rate. This means that anything which plugs into the power grid increases the need for power at that stage.

Anything electric still requires extra power plant energy. Most plants are coal, natural gas, a few garbage-to-methane and a handful of nukers. So to produce some clean energy we have to increase dirty energy output or use energy that could be better used heating homes and buildings.

And in ANY new tech do we fully know how much energy will be required to manufacture and transport the components for whatever non-gasoline cars that come along. In other words if we squander 3 times the amount of fabrication energy to build the hi-tech Wazoo Flyer over the Hyundai Zippy w/gasloine engine, what the hell is the point?

It becomes a viscious circle quickly.

No kidding! Mention hydrogen in most circles and guess what comes up? Hydrogen bombs.

There have been several hydrogen (and helium) powered cars on the salt, and even though there are no rules concerning this - all the knee-jerk alarmists wanted those cars fueled away from the usual pit areas and only allowed them to run once the starting area was cleared.
It ain't the old days anymore, but some folks don't get it.

It's a shifting environment. What isn't "viable" today will be a huge bargain in a few short years.

Home Hydrogen Fueling Stations - Generators

Gasoline to hit US$7 per gallon in two years: report, Investment Executive 6/26/08

Here's a link to the CBS News story on the $7/gal. prediction. It has a video of the story from Thursday night's broadcast.

Prediction: Gas Prices Headed To $7 A Gallon

It's going to be a different world.

Dave, unfortunately it's been a different world for the last 30 years.

The $7 per gallon predictions are a joke; probably just designed for some obscure 'think tank' to get a ton of free publicity.

We are already seeing a backlash at $4 against the restrictions on drilling. And, several news sources have already reported a 20% drop in demand and far, far fewer congested freeways.

Now, if one of these socialists gets elected president, and they can sell the liberals in Congress to add $3 per gallon in taxes to pay for social programs, $7 per gallon could happen. But, the oil market will implode before the demand is there for $7 per gallon gas any time soon.

If you ask me, this is a way to end the American car manufacturer................

Bob,

What do you think these people want to do? They want to force you to ride a bus for an hour to get somewhere it takes you 20-30 minutes to get in your car!

Why? Who do you think runs the bus companies? Gov subsidies!

Joe

Inventing your own mythical oil supplies is bad enough for your arguments that the past is the future, but pretending things that can actually be checked is an even worse idea.

U.S. oil demand has declined all of 1.4% since last year ( NASDAQ, 6/10/08 ), when demand was still increasing. Before you get all warm and fuzzy at the potential for such a (massive?) decline affecting prices extraordinarily, that decline has brought demand all the way down to just 2003 levels.

Oh yeah, and by the way even at these prices world oil demand (which is what really dictates price) is still increasing ( Reuters, 6/10/08 ).

Now if only all those mythical supplies so many people want to pretend are there were real! Then maybe prices would maybe hold steady (maybe!), and we can get back to melting the ice caps unencumbered.

I don't care what people are reading, look around, this is all a plot........ Guys, it's happening.

They've done that on their own by not preparing for the future, Sky. It is scary how close to true you are, however, at least in the result of all of this. Last month's sales figures had Toyota within less than 1% of overtaking General Motors for #1.

Oy, why is this so hard for America to understand (actually, I know why--a vast majority of people believe in simple, dumbed-down answers from politicians instead of thinking for themselves)? Drilling for oil on our own soil will not lower prices. Not today, not when it finally arrives on the market in 10 years, not ever. Whatever oil comes out of the ground will be sold on the world market at the current going price, which is currently about $130/barrel. This is why gas is expensive.

Folks, there is no shortage (at the moment). This isn't supply and demand in action (well, actually it is supply and demand for oil futures, but not the oil itself). Expensive energy is here to stay. Learn to manage it. Don't wait for a government band-aid or hand-out to make it better. Neither side has an answer, so no matter who gets elected, you're still going to be paying at least $4/gallon for gas. Politicians can't fix this for you, no matter how much you want to believe they will. There's no conspiracy, no collusion, no secret deals behind the scenes designed to stick it to average Americans.

If you belive this hype by your favorite candidate/newscaster/buddy down the street, you're just not thinking for yourself. All the politicians will make you think it's the answer, and most rubes buy it hook, line and sinker because it just tastes so good and looks so stupidly obvious at first glance. But the only way domestic drilling could make gas cheaper is if the oil companies decided to sell it to us at a discount and forego the billions they could make selling it on the commodities exchange. Yeah, sure, they'll do that. Maybe if we say pretty please with sugar on top...

The only person who can do anything to lower your energy costs is you.

Dave, other than the Prius, the US has cars that are getting the same miliage as Toyota but the people are still not buying them. The Lexus LX, a giant SUV that gets 14 mpg shows sales that doubled in the first 5 months. How do you figure that?? Our government should put a quota to how many cars can be sold here in the states. Our economy is getting killed. Something has to change............This is going to be survival for all of us and our children.

Where? The best non-captive import car any of the Big Three sell gets 24 mpg city (Caliber, Focus, & Cobalt) in their best trim. Virtually every "foreign" competitor beats that by at least 4 or 5 mpg in their most efficient non-hybrid line.

Worse, the Big Three have spent generations teaching those of us who buy these cars that we don't count. To this day the quality of manufacture for American 4 cylinder cars is demonstrably worse than for their 6 or 8 cylinder models. It's not as bad as in past years, but still it shows a distinct indifference. We've learned the hard way how little we matter who don't buy high-margin models.

Finally, it is the hybrid cars that matter, not just because of their growing sales and profitablility, but because of the "halo" effect they have on the other models in the lines. Much like Rivieras and Corvettes used to help sell a lot of LeSabres and Chevelles, the Prius and the Civic Hybrid are are doing the same for Camrys and Accords. Not for reverse-snob appeal reasons that some might assume, but because they show a real interest in serving the lower end of the market with quality product.

When was the last time you heard anyone say that about GM, Ford, or Chrysler? Falcon? Valiant? Cavalier? Tempo? Neon?

Our "domestic" manufacturers bet the farm on SUVs. They're about to lose it.

And now back to the TOPIC of this forum: Hydrogen.

Capitalism works. When a reliable hydrogen fuel cell or electric vehicle is ready, GM will be selling it. There may also be a Ford or Chrysler version, and that will be great, too.

Right now, the Toyota Pius looks good because people are shocked with $4 gas. But, when those cars start needing their batteries replaced at a cost of thousands of dollars, they will be clogging the used car lots the way SUVs are today.

Doesn't happen. Is as likely as needing a new engine block, and about as expensive. Virtually all have gone over 200K miles before replacement, if ever. Perfectly functioning used batteries are only a few hundred dollars anyway. Been said here dozens of times. Yawn.

=================================
For those who care:

When I bought my Prius 3 years ago they had been on the road for 6 years. More than a year later there had still yet to be a single Prius on earth that had had it's battery replaced for any reason except physical damage in an accident. As of this month there have been a total of 200 batteries replaced worldwide, a replacement rate of 0.003% over the life of the car. ( Autobloggreen.com, 6/2/08 )

Like they said so many years ago, "Ask the man who owns one."

Dave,

Once again, your data only fits your conclusions. The data Toyota is reporting is for OUT OF WARRANTY battery replacement. They can hide the replacement numbers within the warranty.

And other problems are easily found on various Web sites. But, I won't play the game where you respond back with your data and name calling.

The readers of this forum are very smart and they can see what is going on around them.

Now, back to fighting California wildfires.

Joe

"Our government should put a quota to how many cars can be sold here in the states." Whatever happened to the concept of capitalism? If a company fails to make good decisions it should be allowed to go out of business. If you leap to the salvation of any company that is "too big to fail" then you create a "moral hazard".

Sarcasm: But I forget socialism is okay for big business (wall street financiers and big businesses get bailouts when they screw up), just not for individuals (who should know better about making ends meet).



Hmmmm. And should we car about in warranty replacement rates? That cost is built into the price of the car and comes out of the manufacturer's profits.

Not sure about batteries, but generally if something has a crappy design it will cost the manufacturer a lot in warranty costs which they either cover in a higher sales price or they lose money on the sale.

And if it is a crappy design that has a high cost to cover the warranty it is likely that it will also be failing a lot after the warranty period. Given a low out of warranty failure rate, I would be surprised to find a high in-warranty failure rate.

For the record: I am prejudiced as we have a 2001 Prius (purchased in the fall of 2000) and a 2004 Prius (purchase in the fall of 2003). Both cars have been very good on repairs as long as the tires are kept at a high enough pressure.

Once again gang, just want to put the brakes on having this turn into a "rant." It probably already is but our moderators have felt that the conversation of cars as they relate to gas prices, alternative energy, etc. is certainly something that is appropriate to our forum. However, we ALL need to do this respectfully. Find a way to have a difference of opinion without getting personal. Thanks.

Isn't that what you just did here:

Huh?

So you're saying that although out-of-warranty failures are rare, there are many that are in-warranty that we don't know about? How is that even relevant? You were talking about the huge cost of ownership when the batteries go south and how hybrids aren't economically viable because of it (why do you hate them so much?). When it's in-warranty, the manufacturer eats the cost, not the consumer.

Dave, those are excellent percentages................ Now, as we all know, nothing will last forever. Suppose all the batteries start to go within a short period of time on all the cars that were sold say within a year of each other. Will Toyota have enough (100,000+ or so) batteries in stock to meet demand, or will the price go up to meet supply & demand? This is just a curious question...........

The husband of a coworker owns a 4 year old Prius with about 200K on it. No battery problems during or after the warranty.
Every so often they ask Toyota about the cost for replacing the batteries.
It seems that the price for new, replacement batteries has been going down over the last couple of years.

Steve, *** has a long history here of losing his argument on facts, and then claiming that people are calling him names to distract from it. If "wrong" is a name, then it may be. However, if you go back through this thread (and the threads he's posted on over the past few years) I doubt you'll find a single instance where he was called anything but "wrong" (or some synonym thereof).

Don't be taken in by the protests. There's generally less behind them than the arguments.

If people are allowed to read here about unproven miracle devices, unrealistic & untrue fuel projections, and unsubstantiated fearmongering regarding certain automobile companies/devices (to name a few recent examples), it will reflect on the rest of us as well as misleading a number of our own. Trying to protect such material with a cry of wolf to the moderators is, or at least should be, patently transparent.

There is a huge effort going on worldwide to manufacture more nickel metal hydride batteries. Toyota (and I believe all of the other hybrid manufacturers--GM, Ford, Honda, Nissan) offer a bounty for every used battery they've made regardless of condition to help with recycling the materials to make more. Toyota pays $300.00 for old batteries. There's little doubt that making enough of them will be a strain in the coming years. (All the more reason to get one now! )

I have no doubt that in a few years when lithium ion batteries are phased in similar programs will be in place.

============================

BTW, I found a very good short explanation of hybrid battery myths on this page of answers.com for anyone interested in their capabilities and lifespan. As of last October the record for mileage on an original Prius hybrid battery is 360,000 miles according to the Toyota tech who posted the information.