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Tesla CEO Elon Musk: Fuel Cells Are 'So Bull@%!#'
Frosty P sends this quote from AutoblogGreen:
"Elon Musk is unafraid to speak his mind. Whether he's talking about other players in the electric vehicle space or sub-par reporting from The New York Times, this is a man with few filters. Musk says that fuel cells are not part of the solution that electric vehicles offer for giving up the hydrocarbon addiction. After commenting that the only reason some automakers are pursuing hydrogen technology is for marketing purposes, that lithium batteries are superior mass- and volume-wise for a given range, and that fuel cells are too expensive, Musk capped it all off with the safety issue. 'Oh god, a fuel cell is so bull@%!#,' Musk said. 'Hydrogen is quite a dangerous gas. You know, it's suitable for the upper stage of rockets, but not for cars,' he said."
Hydrogen gas is quite safe, if a tank is just punctured, it will remove itself harmlessly from the vicinity.
If the tank is ruptured and the gas set on fire, you might set a tree overhang on fire, but the car will avoid most of the damage. Unlike gas that pools under the car in a manner perfect for human BBQ.
He's like the Linus Torvalds of the automotive industry!
Did you forget the Hindenberg? Hydrogen can explode, as well as burn. Back to elementary chemistry for you Bubba.
The Hindenberg did not explode. It burned quickly, but most of the hydrogen burned outside of the frame. Of the 97 people on board, the majority survived. Many of those that died were killed by gravity, not heat. As long as your electric vehicle doesn't rely on hydrogen's buoyancy to keep it suspended hundreds of feet above the ground, you will likely be fine. The problem with hydrogen is not safety, but economics.
The Hindenberg cause of ignition hasn't been determined, but hydrogen wasn't deadly to the people. It rises faster than it burns, so the flame front will go up as it burns, leaving those on the ground safe. And unlike nearly every other fuel, the combustion product is safe. Most people who die in home fires die from smoke. The "smoke" from hydrogen fire is water.
"Hydrogen fires are notable for being less destructive to immediate surroundings than gasoline explosions because of the buoyancy of H2, which causes heat of combustion to be released upwards more than circumferentially as the leaked mass ascends in the atmosphere; hydrogen fires are more survivable than fires of gasoline and of wood. The hydrogen in the Hindenburg burned out within about 90 seconds."
Hydrogen fires are some of the safest to be around. Most of the people inside on the ship at the time survived the Hindenberg disaster. The fire wasn't as deadly as many other transportation accidents with diesel or jet fuel or gasoline.
Learn to love Alaska
Tesla's charging system is a joke, having to go park in some far off small town and wait a hour for your car to recharge is not a solution to range anxiety
n.b. I own a Leaf.
Range anxiety is real, but subsides pretty quickly when you realize that since your car tops off every day when you get home, you're rarely in danger of exceeding your range -- and that's true even for me, living in a suburb of Phoenix with it's massive sprawl.
While you certainly need to conscious of your driving plans and charger locations, rarely do you have to divert to some far-away location. Most of the time you're driving your car, it's to work and back, or running errands, or out socializing -- and there's a pretty good chance that you're going to end up somewhere where there's a charger already in the front row waiting for you at your destination. There's 232 Blink chargers alone in Phoenix proper and over 500 in Metro Phoenix -- and that doesn't count chargers from the other companies.
You don't go somewhere foreign to charge. You just top off occasionally while you're already doing what you're doing - many times for free.
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A friend of mine was really interested in hydrogen as a fuel source for cars, to the point that he converted one of his half-dozen 80's Honda hatchbacks to a hydrogen-powered vehicle. He was a huge fan of hydrogen, until the day that he was working on his car and didn't realize that a fuel line had developed a pinhole leak and caught fire. Since the flame was invisible and he had no reason to be alarmed he reached into the engine compartment to work on something and passed his hand straight through the flame. It was only like a 1/2 second before he realized that his hand was burned and he yanked it out (seriously, it was like he smelled his hand burning before the pain hit).
If only "common" sense was actually that common...
Whoosh?
That seems to sum up the vast majority of this thread, and the alternative energy debate in a very concise way.
Let me take this opportunity to summarise the thread:
30 pages of people arguing about the safety of hydrogen. 20 pages of people arguing about their opinions of Elon Musk.
Let me now summarise the issue:
A) Danger is not the issue, yes hydrogen tanks are dangerous, but we are talking about private transportation here. If we cared about safety we would have banned all of it decades ago. No one really cares if a few people get torn to pieces by a car.
B) Hydrogen fuel cells are a bad idea because the production of hydrogen is hugely inefficient. The thermal efficiency is only about 50% and that is ignoring the massive compression that would be required for private transport, as well as distribution costs. This means hydrogen powered cars will use significantly more energy than other alternatives, energy that is generated in power stations, mostly through burning fossil fuels. The issue we have with cars is that they use too much energy. Neither Musk's electric cars nor any hydrogen technology currently on the market do anything to change this at all. It is all a huge PR lie so that all the happy consumers will feel good in the fluffy cotton wool illusion that they are saving the planet.
C) Quit the celebrity worship, hundreds of people have quite clearly explained the pro's and cons of hydrogen fuel cells and we should not care more about this guy's opinion just because he is rich and famous. We could care about his opinion because he has a physics degree, but then again there are a great many people with physics degrees who have opinions on hydrogen fuel cells.