Batteries are just too good nowadays to expect hydrogen to receive the level of R&D and infrastructure investment to become at all competitive.
The bulk storage method of interest is dissolved salt caverns: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47160599
Under such conditions, the total cost of ownership for fuel cell systems can achieve parity with, or even fall below, that of lithium-ion battery solutions. Furthermore, when accounting for the end-of-life considerations—where fuel cells present fewer recycling challenges and material recovery complexities compared to the substantial battery waste stream associated with electrochemical energy storage—hydrogen fuel cells emerge as a fundamentally more sustainable and economically viable long-term solution.
One thing that seems wrong is in the efficiency comparison: step 1 for hydrogen should be grid transmission, not electrolyzer.
Also, how come the BEV price doesn’t adjust in response to electricity prices (not that it would impact the result).
I do think that batteries will win, but the correct argument is one that shows that capital costs of batteries are going down faster than the cost of hydrogen production.
e-fuels are just low quality gasoline, IIUC, made by (waves hands) ethical means from thin air using electricity. They still generate NOx gases, but ICEs just take them as is, and they're much more energy dense compared to long range batteries.
The only real problem is that there don't seem to be many green and scalable means to produce them, but if we could, I think it can be an overall better alternative to seemingly unworkable hydrogen based EVs and/or unrecyclable battery based EVs.
With the added advantage of fuel cell swaps [0] and reload giving the trucks a quicker turnaround time per charge (i think similar op is used for electric trucks as well as some consumer car models)
It certainly solves the problem of recharge points as the infra can be rolled out piecemeal, and since it would be for heavy trucks less disruptive of the rest of the cityscape (can have the outside metroplitan areas etc with maybe emergency stops within)
0- this is a massive upfront investment for what amounts to a small time savings (having extra batteries on hand, charging them and the equipment to remove / move / install the heavy units
1- unless manufacturers agree to share a specification, you're tied to a single brand and risk being shut out of replacements when that inevitably goes away because it didn't catch on or got deprecated
2- for individual consumers, the battery is the most expensive component of their vehicle, and trading it for a used one of unspecified origen to save a few minutes instead of charging is not appealing.
Given one and two, overcoming the expense of 0 is not at all economical for many situations. The ones that most need it can't afford it, or could be satisfied with relatively short high voltage charging.
It will work great for them because these trucks are designed to be modular and easily repairable (they are driven hard and WILL break when their owners need them). I would not be surprised at all if it develops into an impromptu standard just because so many eyes are on the system all the time.
Battery swaps are not practical, but the guy you're replying to is making the point that an electric vehicle could be built with a modular, removable power source, and converted between gas/hybrid/battery/hydrogen/natural gas/whatever later in life depending on the needs. That's just not possible with a vehicle which directly connects the powerplant with the wheels - there's too much nonsense like transmissions and differentials to deal with when you do that.
I think it makes a ton of sense for trucks, much less sense for cars.
There are truck pantographs being tested out. It seems like an idea that could have potential in major shopping routes.
To be clear, I'm fully behind decarbonising freight. It's one of the hardest sectors to clean up and it needs serious attention. But hydrogen for road transport requires jumping in with both feet (due to infrastructure requirements) when there are dozens of smaller, commercially proven steps that get you equivalent results. Better route planning, driver training, aerodynamic retrofits, hybrid and battery electric for shorter routes, even just reducing empty running.
These aren't exciting and they don't get press releases, but they compound. The industry could cut emissions meaningfully with changes that pay for themselves today, without waiting for a national hydrogen infrastructure that doesn't exist yet.
On surplus offshore wind: the economics only work if you assume the electricity is genuinely surplus, meaning there's literally no other use for it. In practice, the UK grid still runs gas plants for roughly 40% of generation. Every MWh of offshore wind that goes into an electrolyser instead of displacing gas is a missed decarbonisation opportunity. "Surplus" renewable electricity is a future state, not a current one, and even when we get there, interconnectors, grid storage, and demand response will compete for those MWh. The electrolyser only makes sense after all of those higher value uses are saturated.
On £1.50/kg: that would genuinely change the fuel cost picture, getting you to roughly 12-15p per mile which is competitive with diesel. But the distribution problem doesn't go away at any price point. You still need compression or liquefaction, transport, and a national network of dispensing stations. The UK has 11 public hydrogen stations. Even free hydrogen doesn't help if there's nowhere to fill up. The grid is already everywhere. Adding a charger to a depot is a transformer upgrade. Adding a hydrogen station is a £2-5M civil engineering project.
The place where cheap green hydrogen gets really exciting is exactly the applications where you can't just plug in: steel, ammonia, seasonal storage, maritime. Those don't need a distributed national refuelling network, they need point to point bulk delivery to industrial sites and ports, which is a much more tractable logistics problem.