Hydrogen powered A2 anyone?

drewroberts

A2OC Donor
http://www.hydrogen-motors.com/audi.html

Was searching the internet and found an interesting article about an Audi A2 with a hydrogen fuel cell I’m loving the torque figures in the comparison chart against the 1.2l Tdi lol.
Drew.
 

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Interesting. I was pleased to read that the boot space was only reduced by a few litres to accommodate the hydrogen tank.
 
A good read thank you Drew. When they finally drive fossil fuel cars off the roads, lets hope our A2's can live on with an electric/hydrogen motor.

Not really. One of the sources of industrial hydrogen is methane. The range is disappointing too. Not much better than my E-Up! Electricity is also much more readily available.

RAB
 
A good read thank you Drew. When they finally drive fossil fuel cars off the roads, lets hope our A2's can live on with an electric/hydrogen motor.

Not really. One of the sources of industrial hydrogen is methane. The range is disappointing too. Not much better than my E-Up! Electricity is also much more readily available.

RAB

True, but it doesn’t have to be. An eco-conscious type could use electricity from solar etc to electrolytically produce hydrogen from water. Not easy but definitely green.
I did see an iPhone powered by a hydrogen fuel cell - amazingly dense energy they are getting now.


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I already use my solar panels to charge my car. That's a lot easier and much more practical than converting it into hydrogen. Not very practical in the winter though, either way!

RAB
 
I’m just selfish. I don’t have the set up to allow street parking but putting in a H2 canister to charge the batteries would be doable. I’m thinking of it as a range extender addition to an electric car - with a hydrogen powered trickle charging the primary cells.


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This is not something that can be done at home! Look at the pressures involved. 350 barg or 5075 psig! Hydrogen is a poor choice as a road fuel as its energy content is low compared with hydrocarbons. At such pressures, it's dangerous too. Leaks would be lethal. It's a dead end!

RAB
 
H2 is 142 vrs diesel 42 energy per KG, but yes compressed into useable litres it's lower.

If (unlike the old A2H2) you only have a fuel cell for the cruise you can get rid of an EV's battery weight by using regen into Capacitors just like Riversimple and soon Lamborghini. This means, just like the A2 3L you have a low power for cruise (A2 around 40bhp max 61bhp, Riversimple 12bhp from fuel cell) but useful torque for acceleration.

Where is the peer reviewed evidence of H2 at 350bar being any more dangerous than petroleum or lithium batteries?

Carbon fibre tanks are extremely resilient to impact and pressure means no air can get in/ Without air mixing H2 does not ignite. Leaking the lightest element means it goes up and away not gaseous pooling like petrol fumes. Plenty of buses run on the stuff. Nicola trucks are keeping Tesla Semis honest in the USA and the Bossel theory has been debunked.

Our BEV i3 gets 25 kWh/100km from the plug socket even though the GOM says it's 18 kWh/100km:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544217303730

But the weight of the battery pack is over 250kg so in terms of overall vehicle efficiency it's not really any better than the old 3L Audi, especailly if the latter were run on renewable HVO from waste like the Helsinki buses:

 
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H2EV v BEV v Petrol:

Ignores that petrol (or higher range diesel) would have been winner and lack of H2 infrastucture but fun anyway!

 
Where is the peer reviewed evidence of H2 at 350bar being any more dangerous than petroleum or lithium batteries?

No need for a peer review. Try taking H2 at 350 barg or LNG at a few bar through the Channel Tunnel!

RAB
 
Looks like H2 is becoming mroe viable - including from renewable sources where battery energy storage isn't so practical:



While H2/fuel cells are more efficient than IC engines (not by much though), it is less efficient than battery EV's, from Wikipedia: "Professor Jeremy P. Meyers, in the Electrochemical Society journal Interface in 2008, wrote, "While fuel cells are efficient relative to combustion engines, they are not as efficient as batteries, due primarily to the inefficiency of the oxygen reduction reaction (and ... the oxygen evolution reaction, should the hydrogen be formed by electrolysis of water).... [T]hey make the most sense for operation disconnected from the grid, or when fuel can be provided continuously."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell

Also where will all the hydrogen come from? 95% of hydrogen is made by steam reformation of methane. Not very green!

RAB
 
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Audi have their own hydrogen producing infrastructure that uses wind turbines to provide the electricity to split water into oxygen and hydrogen can’t get more zero emissions than that zero carbons in zero carbons out.
 
Audi have their own hydrogen producing infrastructure that uses wind turbines to provide the electricity to split water into oxygen and hydrogen can’t get more zero emissions than that zero carbons in zero carbons out.

That's still less efficient than using the same electricity to charge a battery, by about 30%.

RAB
 
If I was to convert my 1.2Tdi to H2/FC, I would need a 150 litre tank of HP hydrogen to keep the same range!

RAB
 
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