[bmnut]

BMW dabbled with that a good few years back with their hydrogen 7 series prototypes if I remember correctly?
The main problem as I understand it is keeping the gas in a liquid state for carrying it and storing it, adapting an ICE to run on it is, again so I'm led to believe, a fairly easy conversion.
Again it would come down to establishing the fuelling infrastructure to support running on it.

[The_Tok'Ra]

Originally Posted by Charlie (Wessex)

Is hydrogen going to be a viable fuel? It seems batteries have a huge amount of hurdles (not that hydrogen won't)?

For busses and lorries, yes. There are now quite a few hydroden fuel cell vehicles in testing now, and JCB have also developed a number of different plant vehicles which are already available to the market.

But the lack of refueling stations is another large issue that's a big stumbling block for that tech to overcome. EDIT:- Ooops I see bmnut already said that.

[paulockenden]

Hydrogen has also been hyped a bit by the existing fossil fuel companies who can see their future fading away. Hydrogen would allow them to cling on to their existing distribution and sales networks. But I think most car companies have now pretty much given up on it. Even Toyota, which invested a fortune, has now seen the light and has properly embraced EVs.

Same for hydrogen in gas pipes to the home (which will never work, because hydrogen is a much smaller molecule and will leak terribly from existing gas pipes - yet it is still being pushed hard by anti green lobby groups. I presume purely to muddy the waters).

[Rhino at Work]

Originally Posted by bmnut

..and I think that's the very essence of it all, the infrastructure is just not ready or in place to support all these grand ideas yet and I imagine is still a good few years off.
Interesting that governments and countries are 'pushing back' (or is it 'rowing back' these days?) on the 2030 target date to 2035 .. for now?

Interesting though that despite the recent very public push back to 2035 for the ban on the sale of ICE cars they quietly didn't change the requirement for 80% to be EV (not sure if this includes hybrids) by 2030.

I agree with you about infrastructure. It looks to me like "leaving it to the market" just isn't going to be good enough.

[Charlie (Wessex)]

I think the 80% is for zero emissions rather than EV per se. If manufacturers don't hit that, then isn't there some astronomical penalty applied to ICE vehicles? £5k a car, or is it more?

There is also a rather large elephant in the room that does get mentioned once in a while. If we replace ICE with EV, where is all the electricity going to come from?

[paulockenden]

Originally Posted by Charlie (Wessex)

There is also a rather large elephant in the room that does get mentioned once in a while. If we replace ICE with EV, where is all the electricity going to come from?

Mostly renewables these days. It supplies way more grid energy than fossil fuels, with the proportion ever changing, and rapidly. Fossil fuels have fallen around 24% this year, compared with last.

And let’s not forget that most charging is done at home, slowly, rather than at rapid charging stations. Either from on-roof PV, or using cheap off-peak leccy.