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Yesterday's announcement by Nikola Motors has had a big impact on hydrogen shares...down 10%+ across the board. I'm skeptical about the reality/suitability of their claims though. Even if you can double the range from battery technology, the vehicles still need to be recharged and that's still limited by Volts x Amps x Time. I'm having difficulty picturing how the charging stations/infrastructure would support trucks recharging. If it's roadside recharging it requires mega Volts or Amps in order to get Time shorter. Or if it's overnight then it's still high-ish Volts and Amps, needed wherever truck drivers sleep in their cabs overnight. There's going to have to be dedicated truck-sleeper parks on the scale of Tesla's supercharger network before long distance truckers would switch to BEV trucks. Personally, I still think hydrogen is the better solution.

https://nikolamotor.com/press_releases/nikola-corporation-to-unveil-game-changing-battery-cell-technology-at-nikola-world-2020-67

That's true lumphammer, but it's like that with a lot of things in life. The key point is that you've turned that energy (static renewable source) into a mobile energy source which can have more commercial value than the original static energy has. As most of us here are interested in markets, it's important that something has commercial value even if it does take more energy to produce than the ultimate energy released.

...and there they are. 900,000+ of shares in three transactions. That's what the MMs were trying to fill this morning...possibly even started yesterday. At least it makes sense now.

Perhaps a substantial share purchase is coming through the system and MMs trying to encourage some sales to feed it. If it is we'll see it soon enough, depending on how large the purchase is. But looking at the current list of trades it looks reasonably balanced to me so I'm probably wrong.

They will once the truck conversions start to ramp up...https://www.h2-view.com/story/clean-logistics-converts-diesel-trucks-to-hydrogen/

How about this for a zero carbon vessel...ok if you've got money burning a hole in your pocket?

https://robbreport.com/motors/marine/inside-the-radical-new-hydrogen-powered-yacht-concept-that-could-change-the-marine-industry-as-we-know-it-2870615/

https://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/3081372/uk-bus-firms-vow-to-buy-only-ultra-low-or-zero-emission-vehicles-from-2025

After reading Lesserof2weevils post and businessgreen link I noticed the one about buses too. A bit disappointed though that they're only suggesting buying new green vehicles from 2025. Are they seriously going to carry on buying new diesel vehicles for another 5 years? What a waste.

I like all forms of renewable energy; solar, wind, tidal and others. It's going to be interesting to see if any result in changing local weather patterns though. The article has the obligatory photo of a solar array in a desert somewhere. I do wonder how long before the sun-shade from the panels turns these deserts into lush pastures as their limited rainfall evaporates more slowly and in years to come eventually producing cloudy skies and sub-optimal solar panel performance.

Personally, I wouldn't pin all my hopes on better charging rates. The Volts and Amps get tricky to handle up at the levels required for rapid charging, and then there's the issue of how to get that power safely into the battery without degrading the battery life. Porsche are aiming for stations of 350kW, which is probably something close to 850 Volts and 400 Amps (or maybe 1700 Volts and 200 Amps). For context UK household electricity is 240 Volts and 13 Amps.
I'm not sure how EV charging cable connectors make their connection but I worry that even 0.01 Ohm resistance would generate 1.6kW of heat if it were trying to carry 400 Amps. I believe the feed cable from these sorts of stations is water cooled, but what stops the connectors from burning up?

Listening to "The Fully Charged Show" podcast this week it was a discussion on VtoG recorded at their Fully Charged Live event in June. They also mentioned that managing the battery along with the grid helps improve the life of the battery. I'm a bit of a sceptic so I'm not convinced that this is enough to counter the degradation which I'm sure will remain an issue with Lithium batteries.

Impressive though. Hats off. How long does it take for the solar to pay for itself?

I've felt for a while that only a BEV would justify me installing solar, but as I want a FCEV rather than BEV I'm not sure I'll ever reach the justification I'm looking for...unless it's a plug-in FCEV like the Mercedes.

Could be. 4kWh though, that's only 50 pence per day...I'd love that.

7kW electric shower, dishwashwer, washing-machine and electric oven are the main culprits. Work from home so all-day PC, lighting (Leds though) and kettle/microwave coffee breaks all add up. Sounds about right to me, but maybe I've got a leak.

My household uses about 16kWh of electricity per day. My EV estimate below came to around 8kWh daily charge so about half a day's general electricity consumption (btw, my household heating and hob is gas everything else electric). Therefore the large truck estimate below would come out to about 20 days worth of my household electricity to operate for one day.

I'm not sold on the merits of measuring in 'toasts' but here goes...

Estimating daily car use at 33 miles today's EV is around 400 toasts (depending how dark you like your toast). Estimating that commercial vehicles could average 330 miles per day and about 25% efficiency of a car you're looking at 16000 toasts per day for a large truck.

Seaangler, it is a little daunting, but I take comfort from web sites like www.4coffshore.com/offshorewind/. The scale of the future wind farms is enormous. And places like Australia have so much energy hitting them every day, both solar and wind, when you calculate the availability it's plenty...just has to be captured. And that's why storage of the local excess has to be hydrogen too because the energy has to be transported and the scale of it means it can't be electric cables. It feels like many of the countries that have made a strong commitment to renewables are now generating around a third of their electricity from solar, wind, hydro and others. And the pace of installation seems pretty hot right now... am I too optimistic to think the UK could be reaching 100% by 2025. Even Scotland already generates more than it can actually use on certain days. As soon as enough people realise that battery storage doesn't have the capacity to be any use, and that doing nothing with the excess generation is less efficient than actually converting it to hydrogen the better we'll all be. As you say, the sheer scale is enormous but broken down into individual wind farms, solar arrays, storage, and distribution I'm convinced we're already well on the way.

bilboburgler, I 100% agree.

bilboburgler, your numbers are perfectly valid, but there are several related factors which give rise to my doubts. The high demand comes from the very same vehicles that are supposed to be offsetting the demand by 'selling back' resulting from the fact that we still operate a predominantly 9-5 working day.

And then there's the human factor. It would only take one or two times that your car doesn't have enough or as much in the 'tank' as you needed/expected for people to stop supporting this sort of good-will, as they would have had to waste time at a slow rapid-charger to top back up mid-journey.

There should be no need for all this extra complexity if we stick with the model we've had for ages...drive a long way, refuel quickly when required (but with hydrogen) and then drive some more. Unfortunately I'm not in charge, but I'm willing to wait it out to see who comes out on top. My money's on convenience winning long-term, but I'll be interested to see how many are persuaded by a financial incentive over convenience.

Me too, I have a number of hydrogen investments. It seems easier to me to produce, deliver, and use hydrogen as the fuel rather than relying on plugging my car in every night simply because it's now considered part of the national grid instead of my personal transport. I'm a bit sceptical when we need to invent bizarre workarounds to 'fix' the major weakness of the original idea...so far we're proposing vehicle grid sharing, second-life battery use, and 1000V/350A battery chargers.

Yes, I am aware that FCEV has a relevant shortcoming in the need for gas storage/delivery at 700bar/10000psi, but I still think I'd rather have that then all the paraphernalia required to support BEV ownership.

Hi Seaangler, I know, that's exactly what I understood was implied. I'm one of the minority that think BEVs are not a good solution for transport and would prefer FCEV to be the adopted solution, and strain on the grid is only one of the reasons for my opinion.