GM has been trying to make an electric car since the late ’80s. Lets see if they can make it up a slight hill this time.

If Chryler hadn’t gone bankrupt, I would have more faith in the venture they went into with Nissan. As far as costs, once these cars go into mass production, costs will come down. It will take a few years, but as the support companies amp up production, they’re cost per unit will slowly go down, and so will the over all cost of the vehicle. And of course as actural demand rises, the companies involved will fund more research into cutting production costs. With in 6-10 years of there release, they should become affordable. Its the same process with every new Technology.

And don’t use the Volt as a benchmark for mile/weight because it only uses half of it’s pack capacity (this is due to it being a EREV). A pure EV like the Tesla gives a better benchmark. It’s 900lb pack gives 244 miles. And because a pure EV takes out the heavy ICE, transmission, and emissions equipment (~500lbs together), it can deal with a couple hundred pound pack. That means a 500lb 300 mile pack is all that is really needed to reach parity with a normal gas car. So basically batteries only need a 2x improvement in density to match ICE cars, not a 7x. And if people can deal with 150 mile range, we don’t even need an improvement. We can conceivably reach 2x improvement with the incremental improvements in li-ion technology, but lithium air and lithium sulfur holds good promise for a much more drastic improvement in energy density.

I can’t do the same analysis for hydrogen fuel cells/storage systems because I haven’t been following hydrogen closely, but I’m fairly sure it’s as expensive, if not more expensive than batteries.

The analog for hydrogen to batteries is that though the hydrogen tanks take up a lot less weight than batteries, it takes up as much if not more volume. And because of the cylindrical shape of the tank it makes it hard to store inside the vehicle without taking up cargo space. This is why most hydrogen demonstration vehicles are SUVs. On the cost side, the analog is the fuel cell power. You need a minimum to drive the vehicle. I don’t know the current fuel cell costs but again I’m guessing it’s more expensive than batteries since if they weren’t, I don’t see why Honda can’t sell the 100kW (134hp, given the fuel cell cost weakness is power you can see where they skimped) Clarity for $100-200k or less, when Tesla can sell a 244 mile (remember the cost weakness for batteries is energy density/range and Tesla went all out on range) EV for $109k, with both being low volume.

First of all on batteries: the power density is actually excellent for batteries. This is why the Clarity uses one! Fuel cells suffer from low power density so they need a battery to supplement the power.
What batteries suffer from is low gravimetric energy density. However it seems most people are satisfied once the pack is big enough for their daily travel. The Tesla Model S is going to have a 300 mile battery. This is done by using some higher density 2800-3000mah 18650 cells vs the 2400mah cells they use in the Roadster today. 300 miles (EPA cycle) seems to be what most gas cars get and it seems even 100 miles is enough for most people to travel. Long range wise, we have practical solutions in PHEV/EREVs like the Volt; rapid charging and battery swapping might be more widespread in the future (both are demonstrated to work already). But the important point is that people can begin driving electric with a plug-in for most of their travel without waiting for infrastructure changes.

The problem with hydrogen is it’s mostly talk. So far there’s not one hydrogen vehicle for sale, not even an expensive one, so we can’t tell how much it will cost, so it’s hard to make a judgment on whether it will ever be viable. On the plug-in side, at least we have conversions and production EVs like the Tesla being sold so we can actually tell how much it will cost.

Then there’s the infrastructure side. It makes no business sense to build a hydrogen station because the fuel is still more expensive than gasoline (even in projections) and the fueling station costs 2-4x a normal gas station. Add the fact there are no cars to use the stations and it becomes even worst. So this means the governments has to provide huge grants to subsidize stations even to run the smallest of hydrogen fleets. Currently our almost bankrupt California state government has to shell out millions to fund hydrogen stations.

As for why car companies are still focused on hydrogen despite funding cuts, you can thank CARB from our state. Hydrogen cars get more credit than plug-ins and BEVs in the ZEV quota that automakers will have to meet for 2012-2014. Keep in mind virtually all the major companies has at least one specific (not just a vague promise) plug-in car planned for commercial release in the next few years or already running in a commercial fleet, even when they are simultaneously developing hydrogen cars. GM has the Volt. Toyota has their plug-in Prius and the FT-EV. Ford has a couple of plug-in Escapes and also a BEV Focus planned. Chrysler has their ENVI division’s Circuit EV. Nissan has the EV-02 BEV planned. Mitsubishi has the iMIEV and Subaru has the Stella EV in production. Daimler bought a 10% stake in Tesla and has the Smart-EV and a mystery EV planned. BMW has the MINI-E running and a follow-up unnamed EV planned. Even Volkswagen, which has been bad mouthing EVs, recently signed a battery deal with BYD. The only odd one out is Honda with the Clarity (still less than 50 of them last I heard) and no plug-in planned.

On energy use: both plug-ins and hydrogen hold promise because they are the two that can run on renewable energy like solar and wind. However, via electrolysis, hydrogen takes at least 2x the energy to travel the same distance as an EV. That means to run a renewable hydrogen fleet you need twice the generating capacity.

That’s just a couple of the problems I have with hydrogen. First and foremost is it’s not going to be ready for the market in the near future. It’ll just be more waiting. If previous announcements in both the hydrogen and plug-in space is any indication, the promise for commercialization of hydrogen cars will be more fleets. Contrast this with the Volt, which even with expensive battery prices, we know is entirely practical and doable in the near future. Out of all the plug-ins announced it’ll probably be the most practical. I feel GM made the right decision, and besides, GM is still continuing on their hydrogen program anyways (they have to because of the ZEV mandate). Remember, GM is no longer the lone major automaker planning to release an plug-in, the space has gotten a LOT more crowded, as I have shown, and if GM ditched the Volt and focused solely hydrogen they will surely not be ready to compete.

Maybe they feel the best tool for Toyota’s success in the marketplace is the system they’ve already spent billions on to make into the best selling hybrid in the world.

Just my best guess at this time. No more no less.