Tesla CEO Elon Musk has a historical past of expressing robust opinions about hydrogen and hydrogen gas cells.

Just a few years in the past, when the topic got here up throughout a dialogue with reporters on the Automotive Information World Congress, the billionaire and electrical car magnate described hydrogen gas cells as “extraordinarily foolish.”

“It is simply very troublesome … to make hydrogen and retailer it and use it in a automotive,” Musk stated. “The very best-case hydrogen gas cell would not win in opposition to the present case batteries, so then, clearly … it would not make sense,” he added later.

“That may develop into obvious within the subsequent few years. There’s … no purpose for us to have this debate, I’ve stated … my piece on this, will probably be tremendous apparent as time goes by, I do not know what extra to say.”

Within the time since these remarks, Musk’s views do not appear to have modified a lot, if in any respect. In June 2020 he tweeted “gas cells = idiot sells,”  including in July of that 12 months: “hydrogen idiot sells make no sense.”

First issues first: What underpins the tech Musk appears so skeptical of?

The U.S. Environmental Safety Company describes hydrogen gas cell automobiles — that are also called gas cell electrical automobiles — as being “much like electrical automobiles … in that they use an electrical motor as a substitute of an inner combustion engine to energy the wheels.”

The important thing distinction is that electrical automobiles have batteries that should be charged by plugging the car right into a charging level. Gasoline cell automobiles, however, make the most of hydrogen fuel and, in response to the EPA, “generate their electrical energy onboard.”

Put merely, with gas cells, hydrogen fuel from a tank mixes with oxygen, producing electrical energy.

A gas cell electrical car emits “solely water vapor and heat air”, the U.S. Division of Vitality’s Various Fuels Information Middle says.

A variety of views

Musk will not be alone on the subject of being unconvinced about using hydrogen in automobiles.

In February of this 12 months, Herbert Diess, the CEO of German automotive powerhouse Volkswagen Group, weighed in on the topic.

“It is time for politicians to just accept science,” he tweeted. “Inexperienced hydrogen is required for metal, chemical, aero … and shouldn’t find yourself in automobiles. Far too costly, inefficient, sluggish and troublesome to rollout and transport. In spite of everything: no #hydrogen automobiles in sight.”

Musk and Diess are two high-profile figures on the helm of main firms with big affect and attain. What they are saying carries weight. It could seem, nevertheless, that their views aren’t shared by everybody within the autos sector.

Thus far, corporations together with Toyota and Hyundai have produced hydrogen gas cell automobiles, whereas smaller producers equivalent to Riversimple are additionally engaged on hydrogen-powered automobiles.

In June, the BMW Group stated it had began to check automobiles that use a hydrogen gas cell drivetrain, with the corporate describing hydrogen gas cell tech as having the “long run potential to complement inner combustion engines, plug-in hybrid programs and battery-electric automobiles.”

Though these merchandise clearly do not account for the majority of automotive gross sales at this second in time — Riversimple will not really promote its automobiles, providing them on a subscription service as a substitute — that such a spread of firms are engaged on fuel-cell choices in any respect exhibits some see potential within the know-how.

“Gasoline cell automobiles will definitely play an element in decarbonizing transport,” a spokesperson for Toyota informed CNBC.

“As and when refueling infrastructure expands, they’ll supply a handy various type of electrified transport over a completely electrical BEV [battery-powered electric vehicles],” they stated.

Toyota considered hydrogen “as an alternative choice to fossil fuels in all method of settings, together with heating, lighting, haulage, mass transit and heavy trade,” the spokesperson stated.

“The vary of hydrogen functions will improve, enabling cheaper, extra environment friendly energy provide and we’ll more and more see hydrogen powering automobiles, buses, trains and vans,” they added.

In a press release despatched to CNBC, the Gasoline Cell and Hydrogen Vitality Affiliation expressed an identical viewpoint.

Gasoline cell electrical automobiles and hydrogen vitality, the FCHEA stated, provided prospects “a zero-emission possibility with efficiency they anticipate and no change to day by day routines — lengthy vary, fast refueling, and the flexibility to scale to bigger platforms with out including restrictive weight and measurement.”

The FCHEA went on to say there was a “great alternative for gas cell electrical automobiles and gas cell-powered materials dealing with automobiles.”  

“Additionally, given the constraints of battery weight and recharging for lengthy haul trucking, a big alternative additionally exists for medium- and heavy-duty supply vans, vans, buses, trains, and planes,” it stated.

Certainly, as governments around the globe try and develop low and 0 emission transportation programs, the notion of utilizing hydrogen gas cells in bigger automobiles is beginning to be explored by a broad vary of firms.

In a current interview with CNBC, the CEO of Daimler Truck was requested concerning the debate between battery-electric and hydrogen gas cells. Steadiness, Martin Daum argued, was key.

“We go for each, as a result of each … make sense,” he stated, occurring to elucidate how totally different applied sciences can be applicable in numerous eventualities.

“Basically, you’ll be able to say: In case you go to metropolis supply the place you want decrease quantities of vitality in there, you’ll be able to cost in a single day in a depot, then it is actually battery electrical,” Daum stated.

“However the second you are on the highway, the second you go from Stockholm to Barcelona … for my part, you want one thing which you’ll be able to transport higher and the place you’ll be able to refuel higher and that’s finally H2.”

“The ruling will not be out, however I believe it is too dangerous for a corporation our measurement to go along with only one know-how.”

Versatility

Daum’s feedback on gas cells contact upon the concept that they might, finally, discover a house in heavier types of transport overlaying lengthy distances, hauling cargo and, in some instances, ferrying individuals from one vacation spot to a different.

He is not alone in taking this view. The European transport big Alstom, for example, has developed the Coradia iLint, which it describes as “the world’s first passenger practice powered by a hydrogen gas cell.”

In aviation, plans to function industrial hydrogen-electric flights between London and Rotterdam had been introduced in October, with these behind the challenge hoping it’ll take to the skies in 2024.

In development, JCB, a serious participant within the sector, stated final 12 months that it had developed an excavator “powered by a hydrogen gas cell.”

Weighing 20 metric tons, the corporate stated the car had been examined for over 12 months, including that the “solely emission from the exhaust is water.”

Challenges

Whereas there’s a sense of pleasure about using hydrogen gas cell know-how in quite a lot of functions, the trail to any mass rollout might not essentially be a easy one.

Earlier this 12 months, Honda ceased manufacturing of its Readability plug-in hybrid and gas cell fashions, though the corporate did make a degree of claiming that gas cell electrical automobiles would “play a key function in our zero-emissions technique.”

Elsewhere, the U.S. authorities has cited a lot of challenges. These vary from the sturdiness and reliability of gas cells to car value.

“The present infrastructure for producing and getting hydrogen to customers can not but assist the widespread adoption of FCVs,” it provides.

In February 2020, Brussels-based marketing campaign group Transport and Surroundings hammered house simply how a lot competitors hydrogen would face within the transportation sector.

T&E made the purpose that inexperienced hydrogen — which is produced utilizing renewables — would not solely should “compete with gray and blue hydrogen,” that are produced utilizing fossil fuels. “It would compete with petrol, diesel, marine gas oil, kerosene and, after all, electrical energy,” T&E stated.

“Wherever batteries are a sensible answer — automobiles; vans; city, regional and maybe long-haul vans; ferries — hydrogen will face an uphill battle due to its decrease effectivity and, consequently, a lot greater gas prices.”

Bridging the hole between battery electrical and gas cell automobiles might be an enormous job, because the Worldwide Vitality Company’s International EV Outlook 2021 notes.

In keeping with that report, registrations of gas cell electrical automobiles “stay three orders of magnitude decrease than EVs as hydrogen refuelling stations … are usually not broadly out there and in contrast to EVs can’t be charged at house.”

The race to dominate the low and 0 emission way forward for Twenty first-century transportation is underway.

In terms of automobiles, battery electrical automobiles are in a powerful place with corporations equivalent to Tesla main the cost, however the highway to success isn’t a straight one. Watch this house.