I want a Hydrogen fuel cell E-bike

[steve mercier]

I have started carrying 3 (sometimes 4 ) powerpacks on long hilly trips . My bike is solid and comfortable with fat knobby tires. There are some steep (18% grades) and some long ski hill roads as well as many high resistance gravel trails. I also like to tour with a lot of stuff sometimes so the bike can get heavy. So fellow dreamers, what if there was a hydrogen fuel cell powered bike that only needed one small light battery which could be refilled quickly at any gas station? The result would be a light bike with infinite range. If it cost a dollar to fill up instead of a dime per powerpack I would pay. Make it so!

 

[rich c]

Not going to be good for the people who won't pay over $2500 for an eBike!

 

[Ebiker01]

They are saying that hydrogen powered cars will take over EV 2030’s so, it is just a matter of time.
Not sure which is more economical.
Hydrogen is everywhere around is in the water vapor in the air but it needs a machince/process to produce/extract it.

With li-ion, with a solar panel, can charge the battery right away, so it looks like if better solar cells would be invented Li-Ion will be the winner.
But then if someone invents a small device to extract the hydrogen , compress it and send it to that bike battery , we will have another winner.

 

[steve mercier]

They are saying that hydrogen powered cars will take over EV 2030’s so, it is just a matter of time.
Not sure which is more economical.
Hydrogen is everywhere around is in the water vapor in the air but it needs a machince/process to produce/extract it.

With li-ion, with a solar panel, can charge the battery right away, so it looks like if better solar cells would be invented Li-Ion will be the winner.
But then if someone invents a small device to extract the hydrogen , compress it and send it to that bike battery , we will have another winner.

Yeah GO SCIENCE GO

 

[NeweBikeMan]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but hydrogen will never replace EVs. It's pretty straight forward from an engineering perspective; every time you change energy from one form to another you introduce losses. If you take electricity and convert that energy to hydrogen and then back in to electricity to power an electric motor it can never match the efficiency of battery charge / discharge. This is also true for AC/DC conversion but the efficiency it much higher and batteries can be charged directly with DC to eliminate half of those losses. It's essentially impossible for a hydrogen fuel cell based car to reach any where near the efficiency (and therefore cost per mile) of an electric car. Now if you consider that the range issue for cars is basically solved with current battery technology and high Kw charging stations there is not a chance hydrogen ever replaces EVs. Hydrogen had it's chance as an interim energy storage medium when battery tech was terrible, but that time is passed.

 

[Ebiker01]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but hydrogen will never replace EVs. It's pretty straight forward from an engineering perspective; every time you change energy from one form to another you introduce losses. If you take electricity and convert that energy to hydrogen and then back in to electricity to power an electric motor it can never match the efficiency of battery charge / discharge. This is also true for AC/DC conversion but the efficiency it much higher and batteries can be charged directly with DC to eliminate half of those losses. It's essentially impossible for a hydrogen fuel cell based car to reach any where near the efficiency (and therefore cost per mile) of an electric car. Now if you consider that the range issue for cars is basically solved with current battery technology and high Kw charging stations there is not a chance hydrogen ever replaces EVs. Hydrogen had it's chance as an interim energy storage medium when battery tech was terrible, but that time is passed.

The efficiencies are mostly the same right now, the problem with hydrogen for now is that it is about 7-8x more expensive to produce then li-ion
I’m Sure N. Tesla has burries somewhere and it has being hidden by the authorities a device to produce hydrogen very cheaply.
The coil tower can propagate free electricity worldwide , has anybody build it ?

 

[steve mercier]

I only want one H bike (-:

 

[harryS]

There's plenty of arguments about cost/efficiency, but think about all the power not being used. For example, the wind farms about an hour's drive from me in central Illinois are often banked because the electricity isn't needed, and cannot be stored. If you use it to produce hydrogen, now you have another means of storing the energy form the wind.

 

[NeweBikeMan]

The efficiencies are mostly the same right now, the problem with hydrogen for now is that it is about 7-8x more expensive to produce then li-ion
I’m Sure N. Tesla has burries somewhere and it has being hidden by the authorities a device to produce hydrogen very cheaply.
The coil tower can propagate free electricity worldwide , has anybody build it ?

That is simply incorrect the efficiencies are not even close to mostly the same I am sorry to say. Cannot comment on conspiracy theories about hidden tech.

 

[Ebiker01]

That is simply incorrect the efficiencies are not even close to mostly the same I am sorry to say. Cannot comment on conspiracy theories about hidden tech.

at the starting point , yes with hydro it is less efficient, but b/c it is much less weight needed for the hydro fuell cell vs. 4000cells as in a tesla model 3 the hydrogen car will go much ,much further.
But b/c it cost a lot to produce that hydrogen and to have it delivered, the total cost is much higher for hydrogen cars or hyrogenbikes.

 

[NeweBikeMan]

at the starting point , yes with hydro it is less efficient, but b/c it is much less weight needed for the hydro fuell cell vs. 4000cells as in a tesla model 3 the hydrogen car will go much ,much further.
But b/c it cost a lot to produce that hydrogen and to have it delivered, the total cost is much higher for hydrogen cars or hyrogenbikes.

While a fuel cell vehicle will weigh less than an BEV this does not even come close to closing the difference in end to end efficiency even with insitu H2 production.

The reason it H2 costs more is primarily due to energy consumption for production, distribution, storage and filling, although there is also, and will always be, additional profit layers as well.

 

[NeweBikeMan]

If the OP hasn't seen this - H2 Fuel Cell eBike

It's a little over $9k - Alpha eBike

 

[steve mercier]

Those bikes are at least a start..... GO SCIENCE GO.

 

[NeweBikeMan]

The company I work for also built one - Linde H2 eBike. It was built mainly as a prototype and was never brought to full production.

You will also notice the range of the Pragma Bike (per fuel charge) is about what a standard eBike range is (60 miles) and it weighs 60 lbs (about the same as most eBikes). Advantage is fueling time if available, but TBH easier to carry a spare battery.

 

[steve mercier]

OK send me that prototype and let me be the judge. It looks pretty good for a first attempt. Go Scientists Go.

 

[Ebiker01]

A Nytrogen Bike is even better. Nytrogen is 80% in the atmosphere , no need for a complicated machinery to extract it.
Just an invention on how to use it. ...

 

[NeweBikeMan]

OK send me that prototype and let me be the judge. It looks pretty good for a first attempt. Go Scientists Go.

If you thought $9k was expensive, I hate to tell you what the prototype cost

 

[NeweBikeMan]

A Nytrogen Bike is even better. Nytrogen is 80% in the atmosphere , no need for a complicated machinery to extract it.
Just an invention on how to use it. ...

Better idea, use the O2, it's only about 20%, but it's highly chemically reactive, unlike N2 which is inert. You could maybe combine it with a hydrocarbon in a chemical reaction and extract the energy created and use that to create mechanical power.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

I was involved with some experiments with small fuel cells about a decade ago. One thing that we discovered very quickly was that there was a very noticeable amount of waste heat. This is an efficiency problem but also a practical problem, as I wouldn't want something that hot on my down tube or in my pocket. In a residential off-grid application you could use that waste heat to make hot water or even heat your house, but it is just an annoying inefficiency in an electric vehicle.

The costs of Lithium batteries per watt-hour are halving approximately every four years. That is the continuation of a thirty-year trend and there isn't any good reason to believe that it is going to change any time soon. No other energy storage technology is on a cost curve that sweet.

On that cost curve a 500wh battery pack that costs approximately $500 today would cost $0.50 in around 40 years. In practice, other parts like the casing, battery management system, and wiring would prevent the cost reduction from being so extreme (it is also likely additional functionality and features would be added to the battery which would keep its price up). But it is still likely that such a battery pack in the 2050s would retail for under $10.

 

[steve mercier]

That sounds good Mr Coffee but I was looking for improvements in weight and range? Which format will bring us a light bike that goes all day?