We spent hours on Reddit past midnight this week, not even including the time on twitter past 3 AM – some interesting world views come on at that time…
One thing that caught our eyes is the ongoing debate between battery-electric and hydrogen-electric for personal vehicles. So we decided to dig into more of the science and real numbers behind where each solution delivers value. Going beyond the argument that battery EV is better because of existing infrastructure & current market growth and Hydrogen being better from a weight & energy density standpoint.
For the purposes of this analysis we are going to take a study done by Volkswagen that summarizes it pretty well.
The net result is that they, of course, show that with the current state of technology Volkswagen – you guessed it – stands tall against the hydrogen for passenger vehicles. With the big “point” they make being: wheel to wheel efficiency and existing infrastructure.
Here is a good chart explaining the point they are trying to make – see above photo.
And we agree: given the current state of Hydrogen refueling stations and efficiency of producing and using hydrogen as the source of power for passenger vehicles doesn’t make sense. However, companies like Nikola Motors see a niche for heavy-duty passenger vehicles where range and power are going to be more important than the ubiquity of refueling stations.