– How do hydrogen cars work? Are they better than electric cars?
In: Technology
Hydrogen fuel cells use the difference in charge between hydrogen and oxygen ions which provides the electric power to drive an engine. https://youtu.be/gh95X3Qb6zo
Better is a rather subjective term and it depends upon what you are measuring and what weight you give. The output of a hydrogen fuel cell is non polluting, but the generation of the initial power might not be.
Hydrogen cars work off fuel cells, the technology used for electricity during the Apollo program to the moon. It’s like a battery but it uses gas pumped into the electrodes. Electricity is generated in a chemical reaction where Hydrogen gas is on the negative terminal and Oxygen gas is on the positive terminal, which turns into water.
There are pluses and minuses compared to electrical cars. Obviously you can get faster refuel times than electrical charging and therefore they might be better for longer range traveling, however there is currently no good hydrogen infrastructure to recharge tanks so right now that benefit is mostly hypothetical.
Electric cars are more mature, design wise, but there are a lot of companies working on hydrogen cars, like Toyota, Honda and Hyundai among others. In fact, I believe every major car company has made at least a concept hydrogen car. Right now, today, I’d go electric, but I certainly hope they can make big advances in hydrogen, because I don’t have a lot of faith they will ever get reasonable Electric car recharge times without damaging the battery life.
Hydrogen cars use the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen to make electricity and water. The electricity is then used to make the car go in the same way that an electric car goes. (A normal electric car uses a big battery to hold its electricity instead.) The water is released as exhaust.
The problems with hydrogen cars are that A] hydrogen is expensive to produce, B] pure hydrogen tends to leak out of containers over time, even if you use thick metal walls, and C] hydrogen explodes if you mix it with air. These combined make them not a great choice for cars. At least until someone finds a way to fix all of those problems.
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