Honda FCV commercial

[pdk]

So, who else saw the Honda FCV commercial during the Seahawks-Redskins game...the one with the impressively choreographed water-pistol fight scene?

I can't find any video of it on the vast series of tubes that is the internets.

A few interesting points.
- The tagline was "what if we took something dangerous...and replaced it with water?" Admittedly clever.
- "No emissions...except for water." Oh, and massive amounts of well-to-station emissions to create the hydrogen from water or CNG, but that's conveniently left out.
- Notably absent were the price, the release date, and where hydrogen stations will actually be built.

[xcel]

Hi PDK:

___Was this what you were looking for?



___Good Luck

___Wayne

[koreberg]

I believe on the hynor they have some of those fridge sized hydrogen generators. If I remember right 1 of them is even solar powered. I believe that would eliminate all the issues of well to station emissions. You still have the power production issues, but these are the same issues people have with ev, and phev but I still think its better to have the pollution in 1 place, rather than coming out of the end of millions of tail pipes.

If we're going to be looking at a different fuel infrastructure we might as go all the way with hydrogen, rather than half way with ethanol.

[Blake]

There was a show on the discovery channel yesterday about future cars. It was pretty good if you ignored some of the glaring errors. The segment about the hynor was very interesting indeed. I wish I had Tivo'd that show so I could get it on my laptop for future reference.

I had a thought about fuel cell vehicles the other day. I keep thinking about fuel cell cars being similar to CNG or LP cars instead of thinking about the fuel cell just being technically a battery or sorts. While I'd rather have a full electric infrastructure, it would be silly to think that one tech is going to suit the needs of all people. I'd be ok with fuel cell tech as long as the hydrogen production was done in an environmentally friendly way. Using NG to make it is NOT friendly.

[pdk]

Wayne, that's the one. Thanks (and how did I not find it?).

Koreberg, half the issue with hydrogen is that the infrastructure isn't set up, and it would take *so* much to widely deploy hydrogen stations and refineries (is refineries the right word?), and no one's going to invest until there's an infrastructure (nice chicken-and-egg problem). At least with EVs the existing grid can be used. Also, I heard about 10 years ago that the hyrdogen car was...10-20 years away. While hydrogen vehicles have certainly been made, I don't consider a handful of non-mass-marketed concept vehicles to mean that a class of vehicle is "here." The hydrogen car is vaporware (pun not intended).

Blake, I agree that if there's a way to manufacture hydrogen efficiently. The other half of the problem with hydrogen are the huge well-to-wheel emissions (at least currently) and the inherent inefficiencies of a combustion engine. Even if you can produce hydrogen without a great energy loss, you're still running into the problem of losing 70%+ of energy to combustion.

If hydrogen can be made efficiently, I think that it could have a role as a clean fuel for range-extension on an EV, but not as a primary fuel source. I still maintain that EVs (or PHEVs or whatever) are the right way to go ultimately, with other alternative fuel sources playing important backup roles.

[koreberg]

@pdk
We will see what happens the hynor will be finished end of this year, and there is a hydrogen corridor being built in cali. I believe iceland has been using hydrogen fuel for a while now.
Those fridged sized devices could be put at any gas station in this country, and all you would need is a water connection and an electrical connection, then you're not transporting anything, and using existing infrastructure for production. Now how this would affect water supplies, I could not tell you.

I also agree that EV is the way to go, I won't dispute that. In fact i've said that many times in other discussions. But EV like everything else is not perfect. They have low range. To me the fuel cell makes the most sense as a range extender when compared to the other technologies, because it only requires 1 motor. Every other technology including ethanol would require the use of two motors, introducing much unneed weight and inefficiency.

When I hear about building vehicles and infrastructure for ethanol I have to take offense, if you're going to build infrastructure for anything, build it for something that will be a real advancement. Don't replace 1 evil with another just because it is barely the lesser.