I actually know the answers to this. I've been involved with a raging discussion on LinkedIn about the relative merits of fuel cell and electric vehicles. I've learned a few things.
First, you need a battery to recharge to have a place for regeneration energy to go. Otherwise, you have a vehicle with no way to slow itself except friction brakes. This can be very dangerous on long, steep downhill stretches. Also, it's more efficient if you have the ability to capture regeneration energy instead of wasting it as friction heat. Second, it turns out that fuel cells really are a constant load generator. Once turned on, they can't be turned all the way down without having to go through a restart which can take minutes. One metric given was a 1:5 turn-down. If the fuel cell can generate 100 kW, it can't be turned down past 20kW. This means you need a place to put the electricity it's generating while stopped at a traffic light. One item of interest I would like clarified: Every announcement for that vehicle states the battery at 24 kW; not 24 kWh. Of course, this doesn't make sense, and I would assume as you did that it was really kWh. If you found a reference that said 24 kWh, I would be interested in a pointer to it. That would also mean that this particular fuel cell vehicle has the same size battery pack as a Leaf! Mike > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of Peter Eckhoff > Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2013 9:26 AM > To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List > Subject: Re: [EVDL] Hydrogen vs Electric cars > > It is interesting that the Hyundai car comes with a 24 kwhr pack. Would this > not make the the fuel cell a constant load generator? > I assume the pack is for acceleration among other things electrical. > > > On 3/10/2013 10:06 AM, Mark Abramowitz wrote: > > On Mar 10, 2013, at 1:22 AM, Martin WINLOW <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> it will never work and consequently why 'we' should not be wasting our > time, energy, brain power and money in researching it - or at least not in > preference to a much more realistic alternative... such as EVs. > > Shh! Don't tell the stockholders of Hyundai (who have started mass > production), Honda, Toyota, Nissan, VW, etc. who are doing exactly that, and > betting 100's of millions, if not billions of dollars that you are just plain wrong. > > > > While the charter of the group may allow discussion of this (which I am > happy to do), I doubt most really find it productive in the context of what > usually gets discussed here. > > > > (Speaking only for myself) > > _______________________________________________ > > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > > http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > > For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA > (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub > http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org > For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA > (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
