It occurs to me that the best answer is always the easiest answer or the “KISS” principle. Keep It Simple Stupid!
And the simplest answer, Electricity not Hydrogen. I’m sure most of you who follow my posts (all three of you) already new that but why.
Well lets look at all the Mad Max movies. OK, I haven’t seen the latest one yet but I doubt they are fighting over solar panels and wind farms. I doubt they are fighting for the last Tesla when you can drive a bitchin’ transformers type super truck with the latest fossil fuel burning super loud engine. We all find a growl to be better than a whine.
But lets look at the PEV supply chain in it’s perfect world. You have a few solar panels attached to a Tesla Power Wall. We only need the Tesla Power Wall because we plan on driving in the day, that day and every day. If not we could charge one day and drive the next. Or even use the car to run the house for a day or two we don’t plan to drive. And for those days there is no sun or places where there is no sun we could have a wind turbine as a backup. No need to fight over who makes “fuel” no having to run down to your closest Bartertown and fight the simpleton with the dwarf genius telling him how to fight.
And in the current civilized world we just plug in if we don’t have our own solar panels.It takes no more effort to plug in a car than an iPhone. I have my Ford Focus plugged in at night and pay just 5 cents per KWH. Today I drove 30 mile. Pretty much an average day. I used less than 10Kw or about 50 cents worth. In my Mazda 6 that would have been $2.60 at the current gas price. In the time I’ve had the Focus EV there has only been one day a week where I chose to drive a Gas Burner over it. And I really don’t have to drive the other car. I just choose to do an activity that requires a car with a 200 mile range. I have to find reasons to justify keeping the ICE.
So now lets look at the Toyota FCV. After all, they are getting ready to roll it out real soon, or at least that’s what their website says.
You pick up the car and drive it around a bit, probably a lot since you are going to want to show your friends how cool you are. How cool the car is. And it is cool, looking. Even I will give them that one. But then so was the Betamax when it first came out. You make a youtube video or two and go home and park it in your garage. Now what? Well the coming apocalypse happens. Mad Max in San Francisco. You can’t just plug your car into your Tesla Wall Battery. You have to go find someone who can make you some hydrogen. It sounds like you are going to have to make that trip to Bartertown after all. LOL I hope you’re as buff as Mel Gibson 30 years ago and not in the same shape he is today. But odds are your about as buff as Bill Nye the Science Guy. I mean you did just lease a hydrogen car and not a Ford Raptor.
OK, the world didn’t come to an end but you do have to go out and buy fuel from somebody. In the beginning there will be only a few fuel stations where you can fill up. While Toyota will pay in the beginning what happens to the price in the future. And if you think it’s hard to find EVSE outlets on the road what are the odds the FCV ever makes it out of California without really and I mean really big subsidies from somebody. That is unless the Oil Companies really see these FCV cars catching on big time because they are cheaper than a Yugo.
Why is it that Government and most Private Industry don’t want to get behind the PEV?
Could it be because it’s really hard to tax a distributed energy model. Governments like things they can track and tax. They like putting the production in the hands of the few and regulating any thing they see as a threat to that model out of existence if one or a few of the law makers don’t own the technology. Solar power is like the moonshine of the power industry. The sun is cheap and abundant and shines on just about everybody at least 30% of the time. You can make electricity on the roof of your house and store it in your garage. And I will bet you they didn’t see Elon Musk coming. They thought Tesla and Solar City would never get passed the failure stage. Now he probably has them really worried.
In Arizona my Utility SRP has added a surcharge if you put up solar panels. They could offer to put them on my roof for me and charge accordingly like Solar City but they are stuck in their centralized distribution model where they can manipulate the prices. Where they try and control the supply or tax the “moonshine” coming in to my house. No stills for you. Think soup nazi when you say that.
And that, my friends, is what the car companies want to do as well. They want to build cars where you have to go to someone to buy your fuel. Where there is a supply chain model and you are just a consumer of their technology. Buy from a dealer. Service done by the dealer. Buy fuel from a “supplier”. Consumers are far more compliant than producers.
If you really think that the Mad Max scenario is a possibility you should be buying and electric car and putting up solar panels. You should be pushing for more solar and wind energy and greater government investment in it. Drilling for oil and fracking for gas will just prolong the dependence on the good will of others and the benevolence of corporations and government. You won’t need as much gold or have to buy as many bullets. After all, no self respecting bad guy is going to jack you for that nerdy electric car of yours. As long as you don’t have gas the’ll go on to the next guy to fill their Raptor.
And while we are at it. It’s probably not a bad idea to start building homes with grey water systems and water catchment containers as well. We have the knowledge and the means to build fairly self sufficient homesteads and cities. I digress, that is for another day.
Today is the day to start insisting that companies build enough electric cars that everyone in every city and state who wants them can buy them. That places stop putting restrictions or fees on adding solar power to the grid.
If they wan’t to develop Hydrogen for trucking or shipping then by all means go for it. But lets not kid people and try to convince them its better and cheaper than a battery electric vehicle. It’s not and it won’t be anytime soon. Electricity powers almost everything, except cars. If you don’t think so then just flip off you circuit breakers for a day or two. I’ll bet many of you wouldn’t even know how to get your car out of the garage if that happened. Go somewhere there has been a hurricane or tornado. Try to get gas pumped or use your credit card to buy something. No electricity means no business.
Let’s go all in on electric. This is where Elon Musk is the Steve Jobs of today. Lets not take 20 years to figure this one out.
Here are some links to videos I find that support my case.