There is no excuse for not having hydrogen cars now

There’s no excuse for not having hydrogen cars now. With a range of 310 miles, no need for batteries, and Toyota starting production in 2015, hydrogen powered cars should have been springing up worldwide like weeds.

From the New York Times

Toyota making hydrogen cars now — Toyota’s FCV concept vehicle at the Tokyo Motor Show. The company plans to sell a car based on the FCV “around 2015.”

Is this article from Erich Pfanner

There should be millions of hydrogen cars now on the roads

1. Why is it taking so long to do this?
2. Why as the New York Times article suggests is getting enough refueling stations across the U.S. such a problem?
3. How long will prohibitive high costs to manufacture such a car going to pose a problem given the economies of scale that will be realized once full mass production is underway?
4. Does this means that all those conspiracy theorists who’ve always blamed the oil companies were right all along?
5. Does this mean that with the U.S. becoming increasing independent of foreign oil due to domestic fracking and other new technologies and now THIS, that we no longer need to have such good friends as Saudi Arabia?
6. Does all this mean that if we no longer need Saudi Arabia we are now free to get along much better with Iran?

We should be thinking about all these questions. But I do have a couple of thoughts about #2 and #3.

Not having millions of hydrogen cars now because of a lack of filling stations for hydrogen fuel cells is a total crock

Think about it. If the government suddenly outlawed all gas powered cars, how long do would it take the U.S. to develop an entire infrastructure of such filling stations? Months? Maybe a year or two. Fuel cell filling stations would spring up like mushrooms. So this excuse has obviously been planted by the oil companies.

As to #3. Once mass production of hydrogen powered cars got underway, economies of scale would result. What Economies of scale means is this. The costs of producing a single car would be prohibitive. But once a major car manufacturer receives orders for 10,000 cars, then 100,000, and finally a million cars a year, the price to the consumer plummets dramatically. Until the price the consumer has to pay is roughly equivalent to what he’s already paying for a gasoline powered car.

Which brings us to #4. The conspiracy theorists have been right all along. There is simply no excuse for not having hydrogen cars now?

You might also enjoy reading “Use CNG (natural gas) powered cars for energy independence“.