Fuel-Cell Car Racing Series Aims To Spur Green Motoring 254
Anonymous Cow writes "The world's first international fuel-cell powered motor racing series kicked off in Rotterdam over the weekend. The organisers hope that 'Formula Zero,' like Formula 1, can become a forum for competing technology as much as anything else, helping green consumer cars to become better."
Re:Zero Emissions? (Score:5, Informative)
Most commercially viable fuel cells contain a first stage catalyst which break down a hydro-carbon fuel (petrol or similar) to produce hydrogen and CO2. Obviously for racing, the extra weight of the first stage is avoided by loading up on pre-prepared hydrogen.
The difference in emissions is from the efficiency of the whole system - somewhere under 35% for a conventional IC engine drivetrain, and around 85% upwards for a hydrocarbon/fuel cell drivetrain. Meaning far more than twice the power delivered carbon emissions created.
Longer term, it is easy to replace the first stage with out-of-car hydrogen generation, if and when clean hydrogen becomes cheap and easy to transport. The second stage (the actual fuel cell) remains unchanged.
As with all technologies, it is an incremental process. However, a >50% cut in emissions is a breakthrough - once cells become viable, stable and maintenance free for long term use (still a number of years off), they will be everywhere. In the mean time, the electric drivetrain components are already being implemented, and constantly improved, in full electric cars and hybrid electric vehicles.
Re:Not pompous enough (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.teslamotors.com/ [teslamotors.com]
0-60 mph 2.9 seconds
256 mpg equivalent
220 miles per charge
less than 2 cents/mile
Re:Not pompous enough (Score:3, Informative)
Go take a ride in one of bmw's top of the line turbo d's, it'll make you cry. A friend of mine has one and I've *never* ever been in a car that had more torque, a shorter 0-100 time or top speed.
Re:Not pompous enough (Score:3, Informative)
They do have all the torque if you look at the PEAK figure, however the curve tends to be worse and they often don't rev as high. Therefore you usually get bugger all torque at lower revs, then when you hit the boost you get a huge surge of the twisty stuff, then you've hit the limiter. All within a narrow rev band. Cue lots of changing gear.
I drive a diesel ('06 VW Golf TDI) and I am pleased with it's performance. At 45mpg average, it out performs pretty much every other compact car on the market off the line.
As for the Torque curve, it's perfect for road use. I mean, honestly, how often does anyone see 5k RPMs when driving on the street? The 1.9l TDI pulls strong from 1800 to 4000 RPMs, which is well above what any normal driver is going to be doing and is just fine for spirited driving. Sure, I'd love to cruise around in a Lotus, but running it up to 6000 RPMs just to get off the line in a hurry at every single stop light really sucks.
As for the shifting, again, big deal. VW's new DSG tranny provides the convenience of an automatic with the fuel efficiency of a manual and up shift times that are faster than Lambo's auto shift manual (down shifts are slightly slower, but still far faster than any human).
Poor perception has been a big problem limiting diesel sales in the US. Thanks to the crap that GM produced back in the 70's. Emissions has been another limiting factor. Thanks to the EPA dropping bins 9 and 10 in 2007, even though there was no ULSD fuel on the market yet (needed for more clean burning Diesel technology), there was only 1 model of diesel sold in 2007. Fall of 2007 required all Diesel to be ULSD, so we've got a few more options on the road in 2008, and a bunch more product lines should be coming to market in 2009-2011.
-Rick
Re:Zero Emissions? (Score:3, Informative)
None of the existing fuel cell vehicle prototypes work this way.
This idea, properly called on-board reforming, was floated as a way to get around the problem of lack of fueling infrastructure. Unfortunately reformers are fussy, high temperature devices that are not good at load-following.
Your efficiency numbers are way off too. IC engine vehicles are about 15% efficient and fuel cell vehicles are about 40~50% efficient on a well-to-wheels basis.
One of the problems is that hydrogen has a very low energy density. So low that by transporting liquid or 5000 psi hydrogen more than 150 miles in a diesel truck, you've used more energy than you are transporting.
All of these cars will be using compressed hydrogen, just like all of the current prototype vehicles.
Re:Definitely would help image (Score:5, Informative)
Fuel cells are not "a good thing". They're an incredibly expensive boondoggle that's been leaching money from electric vehicles. Let's compare and contrast FCVs with BEVs that use modern automotive li-ions (phosphates, stabilized spinels, titanates, etc).
They're roughly a third the efficiency of EVs. Even if you use cleantech to create the hydrogen, you're still talking three times the coastline covered in wind turbines, three times the desert land covered in solar, three times the rivers dammed for hydro, etc -- not good. Even if your electrolysis was near lossless, as a couple techs in the lab are proposing to do, they're still nearly twice as wasteful as EVs. Even hydrogen from natural gas reformation compared to EVs powered by natural gas power plants is *still* significantly more wasteful for fuel cells ((25% efficiency versus 35% [sciencedirect.com]).
Hydrogen is expensive; electricity is dirt cheap. Hydrogen is fundamentally always going to be more expensive because it's such a PITA to handle -- leaks through practically anything, embrittles metals, is corrosive, etc -- and not to mention, poses safety and environmental risks.
Safety? Autmotive li-ions can be abused to heck and back without starting a fire -- discharged to 0V, overcharged, punctured, etc; the electrolyte is generally flammable, but no moreso than gasoline. Hydrogen is an incredibly combustible substance -- burns in almost any fuel air mixture, very vigorously, with a very pale blue, hard to see flame; rapidly evolves deflagrations into detonations in atmospheric conditions; pools under overhangs; can be ignited with less than a tenth the ignition energy of gasoline; enters pipes and tubes and follows them to their destinations, pooling there; etc. Liquid hydrogen is even worse; it acts like a high explosive. Check out NASA's safety guidelines [64.233.167.104] for dealing with hydrogen to get an idea of how much of a pain it is to handle.
Fuel cells are ridiculously expensive. Here, go shopping [fuelcellstore.com]. A good chunk of that price is due to the price of platinum, one of the rarest elements on the planet, although things like Nafion membranes don't help the price, either. Getting fuel cells for $10/W would be an outstanding price. Your average car will need ~10kW to maintain highway speeds, and more for accel/decel, so you're looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars. Automotive li-ions, except for the titanates, are usually a little over $0.50/Wh in bulk, and are projected to significantly decline with mass production, since they're not raw materials costs limited. A couple tens of kilowatts (a couple hours of driving at highway speeds) means $10-20k currently, and significantly less in the near future. And to top it all off, the batteries last longer, too. Nafion membranes tend to wear out over time in fuel cells, giving them around five years or so in typical FCV usage (some techs are proposed to raise that). And there are other components to break, too -- fuel cells have moving parts (compressors, pumps, etc), support parts (heaters, etc), and so on. Automotive li-ions will generally last for thousands to even tens of thousands (in the case of the titanates) of cycles. We're talking decades. To give an idea of how durable they are, the Volt is going to come with a 10 year warranty on its battery pack, and all of the other upcoming EV/PHEV makers are similarly talking about very long warranties. They should last the life of the car.
As for range, it's roughly a draw. 200-250 miles is a typical range for a FCV that costs hundreds of thous