• acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    The main problem with hydrogen is that it’s not actually clean energy. The vast majority of hydrogen is byproduct of fossil fuel production. Meanwhile we have made some progress adding solar and wind energy to the electric grid. You can even add solar panels to your roof and power your car for decades.

    Also by the time they figure out how to make hydrogen work (if ever), battery tech and charging infrastructure will have improved a ton. and people will be more used to the idea of taking a short break after driving a few hours.

    • ubergeek@lemmy.today
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      1 hour ago

      and people will be more used to the idea of taking a short break after driving a few hours.

      How “short” of a break? After how many miles, is the question.

      For example, I’ve done a Texas to NY run in 23 hours clock time. Can I do that, with short breaks after driving a few hours to charge? Or a NY to Illinois trip in under 11 hours?

      No. But, sometimes, you really do need to get from point A to point B as rapidly as you can.

      We would need to get range up to about 900 miles on a charge, to make is more feasible, as 900 miles is about the max one can drive in a 24 hour period.

      You may think these are just pipe dreams of impossible to meet requirements, and it’s true, they are on the outside of what a typical person would need. However, it is a lost capability that needs to be filled.

      For example, designing cars so you don’t sit for an hour to charge. You pull up, 2 people (Or yourself, hopefull) swap the battery rack for a new rack, of pre-charged batteries. As long as we can eek out 300 miles on a single charge, that could work. But we need infra for that, and industry standards.