The most convenient would be on-the-move energy transfer system that would supply unrestricted e-range to all equipped EVs. Home chargers would not be really required in most cases....charge as you drive.

I wonder what AD is smoking. A hydrogen infrastructure would cost about $1 trillion, or $3,300 per vehicle served. When chargers come down to the 10 cent/watt price of computer power supplies, they'll be perhaps $300 per vehicle--or even free such as AC Propulsion's reductive charging scheme which uses the existing inverter. Chargers are already cheaper than hydrogen infrastructure. Hydrogen is a dead end.

A.D., or 'Goodoldgorr' as he variously titles himself uses mathematics as yet undiscovered by the rest of humanity, and far beyond the furthest realms of quantum mechanics.

The 40 minute figure is what these guys can do, not what can be done. Some of the battery chemistries can take a faster charge.

I don't look at this as taking a long trip, but getting people over the worry about running out of energy. If they are about to, they stop by the local quick charge and get 30,40,50 miles worth of a charge, whatever they need.

It is clear what you said, you just happen to be WRONG.

With h2 it will cost only about 5% of the fuels retail price to build out the infrastructure. And the companies involved can handle this financing very easy.

With fast chargers... we are mostly going to be seeing the cost in that the power will be charged at say 25-75 cents per kwh.. in short a fast charge for 5-10 bucks.

Both syetems will do very well because they cater to very different people and both have fairly large markets avaialable to them.

@ wintermane299 ''With fast chargers... we are mostly going to be seeing the cost in that the power will be charged at say 25-75 cents per kwh.. in short a fast charge for 5-10 bucks.''

This is a catastrophy, 10 $ for doing 100 miles is costly and not counting the 40 minutes to do so and also if the charger is occupied then another 40 minutes to wait.

"5% of the fuels retail price..."

Where do you get that figure? 150 billion gallons per year of fuel at $4 per gallon comes to 600 billion dollars per year, so 5% of that is $30 billion.

Are you saying that you could fit 100,000 gas stations across the U.S. with H2 for $30 billion? If that is what you are saying then say it and tell us where you get those numbers.

Over 40 years sounds a bit more reasonable. Perhaps if the fueling stations made the H2 using natural and gas or electrolysis it could be done. I just don't like the high pressure tanks, I would rather reform methanol on board and make it bio methanol.

You realize that 70% efficient electrolysis times a 50% efficient fuel cell leave you with .7 x .5 = 35% electricity, which is best case optimistic. Put the same electrical power into a lithium battery pack and you have 90% for the charger and 90% for the battery for .9 x .9 = 81% efficient battery in an EV.

No matter how you make the power it still comes out of the wall and either charges a battery or makes hydrogen. The Honda Clarity fuel cell car with home refueling either reforms natural gas or uses electrolysis. Reforming natural gas probably has the higher well to wheels number, but that is not sustainable.

Actually, at the moment, hydrogen can be extracted from water with electricity and made into fuel that would cost less than a gallon of gasoline, if the electricity is available at the lowest industrial night rates. Ammonia can also be used as a zero carbon fuel and making it directly from air and water and electricity is being developed as a much more compact fuel than hydrogen and it can be stored in concentrated form in propane cylinders with about the same density as methanol which should become the standard fuel for automobiles because it is easily made from hydrogen and recycled CO2. It is possible now to build an automobile that burns any carbon fuel, including charcoal but captures the CO2 for recycling.

Since most automobile journeys are well within the range of lead acid batteries and the Atraverda batteries will improve this even more with higher energy and horsepower, small cheap electric vehicles with range extenders should be used for most travel, and have a large cheap used vehicle for planned long range travel.

The large number of battery manufacturers is actually making the electric automobile more expensive. The ZEBRA battery is suitable for most electric vehicles and could be bought at one fifth the price if made in the quantity needed for present electric automobiles because it is made of cheap materials and has no fire hazzard or cooling problems. GE in the US is pretending to make them in the future. FZ SONICK may expand production beyond the numbers done by MES-DEA.

Fast charging stations need an energy storage system so that the grid does not have pulse loads. These systems are best powered by a natural gas engine of the required capacity. Such engines can support the grid at critical times or be available during grid failure and also be used for cogeneration to heat or cool nearby buildings. ..HG..

I really cannot understand the absolutiist mentality which loves to set up a battle between fuel cells and batteries on grounds of infrastructure cost and efficiency generating electricity by means which at present is hardly used anyway, electrolysis.

In reality you optimise systems to the job in hand, and mix and match a variety of technologies.

This means that if you use batteries where they work ok and low energy density is important and fuel cells where you need higher energy density or it is too slow/difficult to plug in you obtain better efficiency overall than by using either on its own.

So the more sucessful batteries are the less the cost of the infrastructure for fuel cells, and the lower the overall assumed energy penalty.
OTOH the more sucessful fuel cells are the easier it is in combination with batteries to overcome remaining range limits as batteries and fuel cells go together superbly in a single plug in vehicle, and the less you have to worry about an pay for charging points at everly single roadside location.

As for the long term supply of hydrogen, there are all sorts of ideas around such as direct sunlight to hydrogen.
Whether they will work out or not we don't know, anymore than we know whether the vast increases in battery energy density and reductions in cost and charging time some are eager to assume for batteries will work out.

In the meantime we have pretty good batteries, especially if we can combine them with fuel cells, and it is perfectly fine producing hydrogen from natural gas at reasonable efficiency.

I don't see the point of demanding that transport systems are one trick ponies.