Just as electronic vehicles were making a serious splash on the market, along came hydrogen cars as another zero-carbon driving alternative. While hydrogen fuel-cell cars are still small, like EVs, they may become a sustainable transport solution to be reckoned with.
If you’re curious about how hydrogen cars work, here we reveal the differences and similarities between them and electric vehicles – as well as which models are available in Australia.
What is hydrogen?
Easily produced from water using renewable electricity, and burning without harmful greenhouse gas emissions, hydrogen is a sustainable energy carrier. Its application for powering vehicles is nothing new; dated as far back as 1807 when Francois Isaac de Rivaz designed the first hydrogen-fuelled internal combustion engine.
Hydrogen used in cars is pressurised and housed in tanks designed to contain this extreme pressure making hydrogen a safe fuel alternative. When spent, the only tailpipe emission hydrogen gives off is water, so it’s a clean and green driving choice of fuel.
How does a hydrogen car work?
Like electric vehicles, hydrogen cars have an electrically powered motor. But unlike EVs, hydrogen cars need to be pumped with hydrogen, in a similar way you’d fill up a traditional car with petrol or diesel.
In place of a lithium-ion battery, hydrogen cars have hydrogen fuel cells. When hydrogen gas is fed into the car’s tank, this then feeds the fuel cells, comprised of anode and cathode terminals.
Next, oxygen is pumped into the cathode, while hydrogen flows to the anode, splitting positive hydrogen ions from the gas. These build up into a positive charge which powers the car’s electric motor.
Are hydrogen cars better than electric vehicles?
It is still too early to tell if hydrogen cars are better than EVs. What is known is that both offer their own benefits so it’s about choosing the car that aligns with your needs and slots into your lifestyle.
Both are carbon-neutral, although getting liquid hydrogen into fuel pumps does require fossil fuel energy. That said, you can be fully charged in just a few minutes like an ICE car, as opposed to charging an electronic vehicle for hours.
In 2022, Australia welcomed the arrival of the Hyundai Nexo and Toyota Mirai; both the market leaders in hydrogen motoring. With plans for more hydrogen stations to be built across Australia in the works, hydrogen car infrastructure may well catch up to its rapidly growing EV counterpart.
Summary
- Like EVs, hydrogen cars have electrically powered motors, but they are fuelled by hydrogen gas, not electricity itself.
- Hydrogen cars’ fuel cells are what generates the electrical charge to make the motor work.
- The Hyundai Nexo and Toyota Mirai are the main hydrogen vehicles available in Australia.
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Sources
https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/electric/how-does-a-hydrogen-car-work/