Will Hydrogen Cars Replace Hybrid Cars? :New honda cars 2009 review
Thursday, December 25th, 2008Will Hydrogen Cars Replace Hybrid Cars?
by Wendy Gorman
Wouldn’t you just know it, just as the Hybrid Car begins to make its presence felt as the saviour of tomorrows motorist (and the world) along comes another young pretender to the throne - The hydrogen fuelled car. Some people say that hydrogen cars will have pure refeshment water on tap. We shall see, in theory it could happen with a Hydrogen Car but they are way behind the Hybrid Car in their development program and forecasting is impossible. Hydrogen cars do however, have the potential to be better cars than Hybrid Cars in several ways so we need to compare their known characteristics.
Hydrogen cars use a chemical reaction rather than a burning process for motive power
Conventional cars burn fossil fuel and Hybrid Cars use smaller amounts of the same fuel to charge their batteries. Hydrogen Cars do not use fossil fuel at all. Instead Hydrogen Cars depend upon a chemical reaction between Hydrogen and Oxygen that produces a lot of energy plus pure water residue - a completely pollution free process. Hence the earlier reference to water on tap in Hydrogen cars. It is not possible for Hybrid Cars to achieve the same thing without breaking the Laws of Chemistry.
The reaction process in Hydrogen Cars produces up to three times the energy output from the equivalent gasoline based process in conventional and hybrid cars.
Hydrogen fuel burns both hotter and faster than fossil based fuel and is therefore much more efficient. In theory therefore it should be possible to design Hydrogen Cars that canreach incredible speeds with as yet unrealised acceleration compared to Hybrid Cars. There is simply no way that Hybid Cars, dependent as they are (in all their forms) on battery power, will be able to compete on this level.
The question arises “Is the hydrogen car concept for real?
Many people believe that Hybrid Cars reflect reality much more than Hydrogen Cars do. Hybrid Cars exist on our roads now and have already cut pollution emmissions by some 30% to 50%. Why then do we need to indulge in a possible flight of fancy such as the Hydrogen Car by investing vast sums of money to try to achieve the impossible?
The Hydrogen used in Hydrogen Cars is defined as a fuel carrier. It is not considered to be a fuel source in itself.
Indeed, it is hoped by some proponents of this type of fuel process, that in the future it will be possible to produce hydrogen with the use of such sources as wind power and other renewable energy sources.That means that hydrogen has to be produced from other sources. And people are hoping that hydrogen will be able to be produced from things such as wind power or other types of renewable sources. Right now, it looks like all we have is natural gas. That is the most efficient way to get hydrogen. And if that’s the case, then there’s no need to make hydrogen cars. Hybrid cars already cut down on how much gas people use. Who needs hydrogen cars that may end up costing us more in natural gas?
It will be hard create a lot of stations to fuel hydrogen cars
People are saying there is an overwhelming amount of challenges when it comes to creating the multitudes of hydrogen fueling stations that would be needed if millions of people suddenly started owning hydrogen cars. Hybrid cars use gas. And we already have gas stations.
But president Bush has made it clear that he wants hydrogen cars to be on the roads in significant numbers by the year 2020. So it seems that those who oppose hydrogen cars might just have to hold their breath and see if hydrogen cars actually live up to the lofty promises people associate with them. If they don’t live up to their promises, people will probably start running back to hybrid cars in droves. And that’s not too bad. Hybrid cars or hydrogen cars, one of them is going to get us to cleaner air.