Or indeed on a shout, Policemen on official police business are exempt from all kinds of nasty laws.

They also get away with far too much when they are not on official police business.

(Points at electric car)

Hydrogen all the way!

I must admit I tend to put the words Hydrogen and bomb together

Yes - the problem with hydrogen is that its explosive, or if you use hydrogen peroxide, caustic. There needs to be a carrier which neutralises it before it does its reaction thing.

Electric cars? No thanks.
Although, like Paul, I'm most interested in the Lightning. Simply because it's gorgeous, not because it's electric.
Saw one at the Motor Show last year, and spent a good long time talking to the staff on the stand.
Drop a V8 in the front it'd be even better.



Click to embiggen.

As my mobile computing lecturer constantly points out:
We drive around at high speed with a tub of acid in the front of our cars...


Must have been before health and safety

In many ways, a hydrogen tank is less dangerous than a petrol tank. If it ruptures on impact, it all goes up in the air - perhaps with a big blue flame. When a petrol tank catches fire, it runs all around you enveloping you in fire and toxic smoke. You're far more likely to survive the Hydrogen accident if you're trapped inside the car. Petrol bombs are very effective, but I'd like to see you make a hydrogen bomb that did more than go "pop".

I thought the main problem with hydrogen was storing enough of it. Because it doesn't liquefy, it's bulky. Also, with any form of secondary fuel, there is a problem of conversion inefficiency. H2 can be produced in a variety of ways, but the only way we could make enough in this country is from fossil fuels. Another problem with hydrogen is that the molecules are very tiny and tend to leak. They also cause a brittling effect on most metals over time.

I think it would be good if we could charge on the go. Some kind of inductive system on main roads which could power the traffic, and provide enough charge for the minor roads at the ends of the journey. It's far more efficient than trying to carry 600 miles of charge around with you. Or maybe there's another solution to long journeys - some kind of direct train-like system that took over the car entirely and spat you out when you reached your exit. That would also be very much safer, reducing the element of human error on fast routes.

When will the Americans learn the word enlarge?

Not unless they give me the same performance and enjoyment of my current car.

It's a perfectly cromulent word.

Ah, I see. Pop culture is now influencing American language.

Bah! Humbug!

Yes - it's the Simpsons Effect.

You know Honda have the hydrogen powered Clarity in California?
Well now the EU has agreed a common hydrogen fuel system (ie the size/type of nozzle to fill your car), why can't we get something like that over here?
Seriously, London is a prime candidate for that? There'll be lots of cars/vans/buses that'll never go outside the M25, so kitting out lots of petrol stations with H2 will be practical. Outside London is a bigger issue for a pilot scheme as you'd need H2 everywhere, as very few cars would remain in the boundaries of other cities.

I think you've rather underplayed the leakage issue - it's effectively impossible to stop hydrogen under pressure leaking. The molecule is so small it's impossible to make a seal it won't permeate through by one way or another. OK, when you're driving around you've got no real problem because you're evacuating it into the wider atmosphere but it has issues in other areas. Say for example you go away for the weekend and leave you car in the garage. Unless you remembered to empty the tank before you left, there's a fair chance you'll come back to an empty fuel tank inside a car sat in a garage full of flammable (and unbreathable) hydrogen gas. Nor currently can you store it for long periods at filling stations; they'd lose so much of it they'd go out of business using current storage tanks so you have to go for small storage tanks and 'just in time' deliveries.

Personally, I think this is largely an 'engineering problem' and though we'll never get rid of it we will learn to minimise it to the point where it's no longer an issue. The ideal to me seems to be fusion plants feeding very cheap power into the national grid and each home having it's own 'cracking plant'. Keep the hydrogen generation as close to the car as possible and generate the minimum required for immediate use, that way you store the minimum amount at any given time. Given future possible car technology, it might even be possible to dial into the satnav the driving you plan to do in a given day and have the car tell the garage cracking plant how much hydrogen is required for the journey which is then generated and fed to the car. That way you never actually store it for any length of time at all.

I think the hydrogen fuel cell is something we will come to rely on in the future - both for 'motor power' and possibly also for personal power generation but not yet.

I'd have an electric car that can do 75MPH consistently, has four seats and decent boot space, has a range of over 300 miles and recharges in less than 4 hours. I'd have a hydrogen power car when I have a hydrogen filling station either in my garage or within 30 miles of my home. As far as I'm aware, neither of those is available yet.

Jon