Liviu Marcus
In comparison to conventional petrol and diesel vehicles, EVs and hydrogen cell cars represent the future of transportation. Where EVs have got a huge rise in sales and public adoption within recent years, hydrogen-powered cars have also been in production lately.
So, if you are out in the market for a new vehicle and are interested in buying an electric motor-powered car, hydrogen and electric cars are your best bet.
We have compared both of the sources of Vehicle transportation in light of some important points below.
Range
Among both contenders, hydrogen cell vehicles tend to have a greater range on average as compared to electric. Electric vehicles tend to have a range of about 100 to 250 miles, which is dependent on your driving style, motor efficiency, and battery size. Whereas hydrogen cell cars tend to have a range of almost 250- 300 miles on average.
This comes down to the low energy density of lithium-ion batteries of the current age. Though due to the increased public demand for EVs, most of the companies have their RND working on increasing the energy density and life cycle of these batteries.
Availability
Due to a greater market share of electric cars as compared to hydrogen cells, electric charging stations outnumber hydrogen ones easily. The US has roughly 80 thousand working electric charging stations whereas the number of hydrogen stations is just 39 out of which 35 are in California.
Performance
Both the powering procedures use an electric motor at the driving end. So, the torque output is instant. Although due to a greater electric market share, they offer much variety and range in terms of power and comfort.
Refueling
Refueling a hydrogen car is almost as easy as petrol or diesel. Although it takes from 3 to 5 minutes to refuel your hydrogen cell car, the procedure is almost very identical to petrol as well. Electric vehicles fall short by a great margin in this arena, as they tend to take almost 4 to 8 hours to charge up to 100%. Although mainstream electric manufacturers such as Tesla have deployed their supercharging network as well, that allows up to 80 percent charging in half an hour. But on average, the whole EV industry still lags behind in terms of charging rates.
Environment Friendliness
Electric vehicles have 0 emissions whereas hydrogen cell vehicles just emit water vapors as a product through their exhausts.
Electric vehicles are mostly charged through electric grid stations that are mostly powered by renewable sources of electricity production procedures. Hydrogen is still mostly collected by natural gas reforming, which gives off CO2 as a byproduct. So, the whole point of converting to hydrogen cells is kind of disturbed. Although another process known as the electrolysis of water does exist that does not have any harmful byproduct, it does require a lot of energy to carry out, which as a result increases the hydrogen cost on the user’s end.
Keeping in mind all the above points, electric cars still look like a better option than hydrogen cell cars, if you can keep up with their limited range and time-consuming refuels. If you cannot compromise on these, petrol and diesel still look like a feasible option due to the non-environment-friendly collection of hydrogen and the limited refueling network offered in hydrogen cell cars.
