Also, one of the major advantages of a BEV for me is the ability to charge at home, possibly from energy generated by my own panels. Even if there were solutions for me to generate my own hydrogen, I'd rather lose 20-30% of that energy with a BEV than lose 70-75% with a FCEV.

[–] fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 6 months ago

I've provided a rebuttal for the other replies which you might find interesting.

In a scenario where you're considering using roof-top solar to produce hydrogen for your car then yes, the inefficiency of cracking hydrogen from water makes it unappealing.

The thing is, I don't think most of the world has access to roof-top solar and the portion that does will diminish as population and population density increases.

If you consider for example this project in Western Australia covering 15,000km2 it makes a lot more sense. The land (and associated sun light) is practically free. Hydrogen is a far more cost effective method of energy storage to get the energy from middle-of-nowhere-west-aus to market.

I guess one way to look at it is that hydrogen is a better option if the cost of the solar energy is less than a third of what it would be if you produced it nearby.