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This is the Stellantis hybrid fuel cell/battery powertrain solution for use in Citroen, Peugeot, Vauxhall, Opel etc. Great video. Would work in large SUVs and MPVs as well.

https://youtu.be/Rd8jAFI8ZBI

It doesn't have to be fc or battery; a hybrid combining both neatly gets around the queue problem - if charger not available just top up with h2 and keep going + it can act as a significant range extender. Best of both worlds with routine home charging for daily use plus it broadens the customer base to include buyers without a home charger.

Quote:
Hello,
I'm new to these forums, but I can already see a trillion horror stories about how s*** public charging is in the UK :) So here is my contribution to the noise. Please, I need some mercy and commiserations from you all. Deep breath!
Family night out last night to a local food court in Collindale, London. The venue is sandwiched between a big ASDA and Morrisons side by side. Zapmaps showed two chargers in ASDA, so I rock up. Both bays are free, so I park up in bay number one. It's a three pin 13A socket on BP Pulse (formally Charemaster/Polar and now re-branded to BP Pulse).
1. I tap my RFID card - error
2. I tap card again - error
3. I load up the app and find the charging point and try to activate it. After about 4 minutes of waiting and watching the boring app animation, it instructs me to insert the charging cable.
4. The charging pole starts to flash blue - I get excited. By now about ten minutes has passed and kids are going a little mad "come on dad!!!! HURRY UP!!!".
5. Both ends of charging cable connected, the light is still yellow on the P2 charging port. Another 5-6 minutes of trying. The app never fully confirms a connection. The charging pole turns off.
6. I phone the customer service number in the app. No one picks up for about 5-6 minutes. By now almost 20/25 mins have passed for a poxy 3.6kW charge.
I give up.
We drive to the Morrisons. For some reason it didn't register that they have 37 charging ports at 7kW. Zapmaps shows a sea of red. Practically half of them are out of service. I rock up in Morrisons carpark and try at least 4 charging points before I eventually find out that works. I think all in all I wasted almost 45 minutes to plug the car in. ABSURD! If this is my experience in London, god help us all who are driving around the rest of the UK. A simple glance at Zapmaps or the BP Pulse app and it's obvious that charging infra is HEAVILY over indexed on London. And what infra there is in London and the rest of the UK is basically a "pray and hope" experience. So it's not JUST range anxiety, but it's also "will it work anxiety".

We have all experienced queuing for petrol. It seems inevitable that this will start happening more frequently with EV charging because the cost of having enough redundancy built in to avoid it would be astronomical. Holiday start and end days will get the alarm bells ringing first........

https://jetcharge.com.au/blog/charging-lines-warning-for-australia

Since turning up to recharge is a random event, I think the time is coming soon when there will be chaotic scenes at recharging stations on busy routes during peak demand periods - I read a recent study saying that 1 in 5 rechargers are either unserviceable or defective. Demand led pricing like the budget airlines will no doubt come to maximise profits on busy routes. Tail-backs onto motorways/major roads? Hmm.

It doesn't have to be fuel cell in cars. Watch this space for the evolution of Aquarius Engines. Although their current focus is on hydrogen powered generators they also trialled ff range extenders with Peugeot before developing a hydrogen powered variant of their linear piston engine ( which is lighter and cheaper than a fuel cell). Given that their first contract (which was with Nokia) was for €250m euros their potential cannot be ignored. Excellent for refuelling companies like ITM Linfe too.

Rebound coming on H2 stocks. Slow rises are better than fast ones imho.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/27/uks-nuclear-sites-costing-taxpayers-astronomical-sums-say-mps

From last year launch announcement....
ITM Power has successfully sourced both UK and EU funding to support the build and deployment costs and has signed an agreement with Shell to deploy the technology on its forecourts.

Dr Duncan Yellen, ITM Motive’s new Managing Director, said: “This is an exciting role with a company in the vanguard of the hydrogen revolution. The UK has the opportunity to become one of the world leaders in the transition to zero carbon energy and fuel.

Full article...

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/daimler-truck-eyes-bigger-profits-130144728.html

LONDON (Reuters) -Daimler Truck aims to cut costs and boost profit across all regions by 2025 as it goes "all in" for electric and hydrogen fuel cell powered v...

Daimler also struck a deal with Shell under which the energy firm will from 2024 launch hydrogen-refuelling stations between green hydrogen production hubs at Rotterdam in the Netherlands and in Cologne and Hamburg in Germany.

https://mcphy.com/en/press-releases/mcphy-gigafactory/?cn-reloaded=1

Light van fuel cell/battery hybrid design video for Stellantis Group vehicles.

https://youtu.be/Rd8jAFI8ZBI

The principal activity of Stellantis is the design, development, manufacture and sale of automobiles bearing the Abarth, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Citroën, Dodge, DS, Fiat, Fiat Professional, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Mopar, Opel, Peugeot, Ram and Vauxhall brands. It is one of the largest automakers in the world and has 400,000 employees, a presence in more than 130 countries with manufacturing facilities in 30 countries.

UPDATE: Vauxhall has announced that a right-hand drive Vivaro-e Hydrogen is planned for the UK, but won't go on sale until 2023.

This might all still sound like pie-in-the-sky, but the information we have about the technology so far smacks of extremely good thinking. Rather than being ‘full-power’ hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, these new hydrogen vans combine the futuristic tech with present plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) production parts in order to deliver a 'mid-power' solution that’s more cost-effective and achieves an easily renewed driving range of ‘more than 400km WLTP’.

Tesla gave them a bloody nose and they are now playing catch up. Mercedes dropped out of fuel cell cars but may re-enter later. Stellantis group can use their van fc powertrain on MPVs very easily. I still think plug-in battery/FC hybrid will come for large SUVs/MPVs and small vans. Toyota/BMW partnership is gaining plenty of practical expertise and can't do a lot more till sufficient refuelling in place. When that time arrives they will have a head start and understand the market better.

https://h2.live/en

Cars not card......

BMW and Toyota (amongst others) do see hydrogen as one of the future powertrains for larger card in the future. Agree they will only be marketable when sufficient refuelling stations are in place but that will happen as van fleets etc adopt fuel cells. Germany and France already way ahead of UK. This is a recent BMW presentation.
https://youtu.be/xyw_VrOIvuI

As always the 'hidden costs' of nuclear/fossil fuel is totally ignored when comparing energy production costs. The real cost of nuclear decommissioning would radically change the business case for nuclear. The real cost of fossil fuel damage to the environment and health would radically change the business case for fossil fuels. Decision makers and legislators are grossly negligent in ignoring the true whole life costs of the alternatives.