In case electricity would be used for BEV instead of hydrogen at stated 3.5p/kWh (US 5¢/kWh) price to cover the 100 km distance would cost $1.05 exactly. Instead targetet hydrogen cost for Europe for 100 km coverage $7 in 2025!!!! Don't people see hydrogen madness?

Tanking the costs apart I can't see how for the UK they can argue for 3.5p/kwh and 70% Utilisation at the same time.
Checking on their website for the origin of their assumptions we find:
http://www.itm-power.com/news-item/update-on-hydrogen-cost-structure/
Which shows the cost of their equipment in 2012 but not where the electricity cost comes from.
The earliest reference to hydrogen costs on the site is:
http://www.itm-power.com/news-item/hfuel-cost-structure/

'HFuel can be switched on/off in a second and can be demand side managed as a smart load which could potentially result in electricity costs of less than 4p/kWh and potentially as low as 0p/kWh or negative electricity prices in some parts of Europe utilising a high percentage of intermittent renewable power.'

Now that is well and good, but I can't see that you are likely to get 70% utilisation that way.

I have contacted them to seek clarification.
For comparison the average price of industrial electricity in the UK is around 7-8p/kwh.

This would put the cost of running a car on hydrogen in the UK at around the same level as for diesel, but the diesel pays tax at around 60% of the retail price in the UK.

Surprisingly the economics in the US are rather more favourable.
This is primarily because of the lower price of electricity.
For light vehicles the fairer comparison is petrol, not diesel, models which get less per gallon.
Even if the US wanted to switch to diesel in a big way, the way the barrel of oil is refined can't simply be swapped to petrol instead of diesel.
I don't know enough on the subject to comment definitively on whether it would be possible to switch world use over to diesel, but it would certainly not be trivial.
For a petrol i35, the comparable figures to the ones used in the analysis seem to be around 8.5 litres/100km:
http://www.caradvice.com.au/187804/hyundai-ix35-suv-expanded-and-updated-range-released/

So even with electrolysis using average US electricity rates but loaded downward somewhat to allow for some TOU credit we are perhaps looking right now at costs per mile in the same ball park as petrol.

For those who are curious why I bring these issues up, since I am usually regarded as a hydrogen advocate, I actually don't have a dog in the fight, and simply call things the way I see them.

In my view it is in any case pretty easy if it is cheaper that way to combine a plug in car with fuel cells, and in any case we are very far indeed away from any level of bottoming of cost for hydrogen production by electrolysis, and in the case of California for instance only around 1/3rd of hydrogen is mandated to come from non-fossil fuel sources.

@Darius:
Your arguments work fine if, like me, you advocate a massive build out of nuclear.
They don't work if you actually fancy renewables, as they can't effectively store them.
That is why all those who want renewables as a high percentage of the grid, such as the Germans, are moving towards hydrogen.

Believe it or not, you are not the first one to have thought of the points you raise.

Do do some research on the actual, messy, lossy, business of running a grid using a lot of renewables.

'Electrolytic hydrogen still comes out much more expensive than electricity, and is barely competitive with petroleum at today's prices even without taxes.'

I'd say that is pretty good at this stage of the game.
Saving the odd trillion dollars or so on wars in the Middle East would save folk a fair bit, and we have only just started on hydrogen cost reduction.

Even if 2/3rds of early hydrogen production comes from reforming NG we are still way ahead of the game, with greatly reduced energy requirements to power our car fleet in a much cleaner and more energy independent manner.

That is aside from fuel cells natural partnership with batteries.

Batteries for running around day to day and a fuel cell for longer journeys, with quite a bit of that produced by electrolysis sounds pretty good to me.

A li-ion battery is over 400% the lead-acid energy density, yet EV battery cost calculations seem to 'discard' at 80% recharge-ability.

80% of 400% is still like the capacity of 3.2X new lead-acid batteries, which could be used in a thousand stationary power storage applications for many years.

The total cost of producing, storing, infrastructure, transporting H2 plus the initial fuel cell cost would have to undercut(significantly) existing electric power, battery, and EV costs.

@Bob

I've heard numbers between 60,000 to 200,000 miles.

EP:
These are electrolysers actually in production, so costs are current, and they have based their costs on UK figures where it is more expensive than in the US.
I have noted above reservations on their methodology, on which I am hoping for a response, but US costs are certainly lower than those in the UK.

@Devenmart,
Energywise hydrogen would be reasonable producing in CHP or CHHP (combined hydrogen and power or combined hydrogen heat and power) process when water spliting ocures at superhigh temperatures and process heat used for power generation and finaly low grade heat for process steem or district heating but I have no idea what investment cost would be.

Hi Darius.
As you say, CHP is not taken into account in these calculations.
CHP is rarely used in the US with its low energy prices, but many of the countries keen on hydrogen have extensive networks, among them Germany and the Nordic countries.
Audi for instance pending the build out of hydrogen stations is producing e-gas in a CHP installation:
http://fuelcellsworks.com/news/2012/12/20/topping-out-ceremony-for-the-audi-e-gas-plant/

Not only can waste heat be used where hydrogen is produced by electrolysis, but also where natural gas is reformed, and the energy calculations bandied about purporting to show batteries as more efficient energetically than fuel cells already ignore NG reforming, as well to wheels fuel cell cars powered by hydrogen are already as efficient as battery cars using the US grid, without using the waste heat.

The argument is invariably that 'eventually' we have to move on from fossil fuels.

Not only are the figures from PRESENT DAY electrolysis then used without amendment without taking into account high temperature electrolysis and CHP, but electrolysis is simply assumed to be the only route for non-fossil fuel hydrogen.

In reality, at that future date, we have no way of knowing whether direct solar to hydrogen or other technologies will not be the source.
For instance:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130719140006.htm

All in all I am pretty happy with the costs and efficiency of the electrolysis technology detailed in this article, at this stage of the game.

I have nothing at all against using batteries where they pan out, but fuel cells in one way or another are a very, very handy tool to have available.

If big battery pack BEVs work out, well and good.

A fuel cell car with or without plug in capability would also be a pretty good way of getting around though.

No Bob. A fuel cell would NOT be toast and need full replacement at 100,000 miles. It would need "servicing."

Places where CHP systems for local district heating can run a variant on this:
http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/news-events/news-archive/2013/july/cfcl-launch-free-fuel-cells-in-the-uk

'Solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) developer Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited (CFCL) held a media event on Friday 19th July where it introduced a new financing scheme for its BlueGen fuel cell system. Suitable applicants in the UK can now receive a free BlueGen fuel cell micro combined heat and power (micro-CHP) unit, instantly saving them money on their utility bills with no capital costs up front.

CFCL is targeting social housing schemes with its free BlueGen campaign where one or more of its 1.5 kW SOFC systems can provide baseload power and heating to schools, businesses or apartment blocks. Certain criteria must be met in order to qualify for this scheme and more information can be found on the BlueGen website.'

Of course, for a fuelling station much more than 1.5kw would be needed.
The point is that the station could reform NG releasing hot water for district heating, and then provide still more hot water through using the electricity in electrolysers.

This amortises the electrolysers, so that when surplus renewable power is available, from solar on summer's days, or wind, often at night, then this can easily be used instead of the NG.

What you then have is viable half way house between fossil fuels and renewables, equipment is used economically and efficiently and storage problems of renewables are solved.

Energy efficiency would be excellent.

Base-load nuclear plants are great when winter heating is done by NG or oil or wood. However, when zero-carbon energy will be required, then base-load nuclear plants won't be sufficient to cover this heating energy requirement. So, storage of energy produced by these nuclear plants in the spring, summer and fall must be done for winter heating. Much less H2 storage will be needed when nuclear plants are used as compared to solar energy.

The decision is then depended upon overall costs associated with nuclear + [less]H2 storage + [less] FC-CHP vs. solar PV + [more] H2 storage + [more]local FC-CHP, and local preferences. In some geologic and/or cultural areas, nuclear may not be safe, while other geologic areas have low solar or wind potential and must depend on nuclear energy. The answer is not "either/or", but "all of the above".

Local expertise availability for nuclear energy, and worker reliability is another issue that can be solved by "all of the above" approach, that can utilize all segments of the working population, not employing just the most reliable workers for nuclear energy and not employing the rest for RE.

@Devenmart
I have posted description of hydrogen CHP - combined hydrogen and power generation. It is not traditional CHP. It means hydrogen is produced at 1000 Cº or higher and after that oxygen and hydrogen gases when cooling are heating steam via heat exchanger to 700 Cº. In that case 100% of heat energy would transformed into hydrogen.