The war on the auto sector between electric batteries (nano titanate, lithium ion, nickel metal hydride and nickel cadmium) and fuel cells seems to replicate the late war between the Super 8 camera and the VCR technology.
If the electric batteries developers - Altair Nanotechnologies, Valence Technology and A123 Systems - accomplish their promised goals, then the fuel cells technology can be overidden and even become a pre-flop - a flop that doesn't even happen. That is, fuel cells, which, furthermore require a hydrogen station apparatus, batteries could never be launched.
Electric batteries developers say that batteries can be charged at stations or at the user garage. Altair has announced that Nanosafe batteries can sustain 15,000 cycles (charge/discarge), last for 130/250 miles per charge, charge in 10 minutes at the station or 2 hours at home. That would make the hydrogen technology... obsolete.
Unless the fuel cells technology achieves the neo-alchemic dream of transforming water directly into energy and a consumer can put water in the tank which would be processed in hydrogen and then in energy, an electric battery charged with 3 dollars (!) will be absolutely better.
Les jeux sont faits. So, let's wait for a supplier chosen by a major player and see the big contract coming...
Disclaimer: in my portfolio, I own shares of Altair.
If the electric batteries developers - Altair Nanotechnologies, Valence Technology and A123 Systems - accomplish their promised goals, then the fuel cells technology can be overidden and even become a pre-flop - a flop that doesn't even happen. That is, fuel cells, which, furthermore require a hydrogen station apparatus, batteries could never be launched.
Electric batteries developers say that batteries can be charged at stations or at the user garage. Altair has announced that Nanosafe batteries can sustain 15,000 cycles (charge/discarge), last for 130/250 miles per charge, charge in 10 minutes at the station or 2 hours at home. That would make the hydrogen technology... obsolete.
Unless the fuel cells technology achieves the neo-alchemic dream of transforming water directly into energy and a consumer can put water in the tank which would be processed in hydrogen and then in energy, an electric battery charged with 3 dollars (!) will be absolutely better.
Les jeux sont faits. So, let's wait for a supplier chosen by a major player and see the big contract coming...
Disclaimer: in my portfolio, I own shares of Altair.
2 comments:
I agree. The advantages of a more efficient electric car with its existing infrastructure makes the notion of a hydrogen based transportation system totally absurd.
GM has seen the light and so will all of the other automakers. They will simply take their electric fuel cell development vehicles, remove the fule cells and hydrogen tanks and put in batteries instead. Hydrogen simply is a poor choice for a fuel and too expensive, and hard to deal with. Bob Lutz last week said straight out loud that their fuel cell development program had evolved into an electric car development program.
Then, the question is... which will be the suppplier?
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