While there are many electric vehicle brands, there are only two methods for powering electric vehicles; fuel cells or batteries. Both produce electricity to drive electric motors, eliminating the pollution and inefficiencies of the fossil fuel, or ICE (internal combustion engine). Why is this important? With President Biden’s new $2 Trillion Plan to rebuild infrastructure and reshape the economy with EVs in mind, the industry will no doubt move forward, quickly.
This plan calls for point-of-sale rebates for purchasing American-made electric vehicles, as well as prioritizing national EV charging networks. The project promises to have at least 500,000 charging stations installed by 2030. This plan also aims to provide one hundred percent clean busses by providing funding for the nation's school bus fleet and federal transportation fleet. President Biden's plans for rebuilding infrastructure and reshaping the economy closely align with the California state executive order that requires all new cars sold in the state to be zero-emission vehicles.
So as you move forward in fleet electrification, you will want to understand that one method of powering your EV is far superior in efficiency, cost and availability. Here’s what you need to know.
Comparing Efficiency
The main challenge is that hydrogen takes more energy to produce and is less efficient than electric vehicles. To understand the way chemical energy converts into electrical energy, let's dig deeper into the hydrogen production process. Because hydrogen is not readily available in its natural form, it needs to be extracted from water and go through electrolysis. Through this process, an electric current splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. If the electricity used comes from a renewable source like solar panels or wind turbines, then the hydrogen produced is considered renewable. However, most of the United States’ hydrogen comes from steam reforming, which combines high-temperature steam with natural gas to extract the hydrogen. This process requires a good deal of heat and is less efficient. While hydrogen fuel cells themselves don't produce pollution, the process does.
After production, it has to be cooled and stored before being shipped to pumping stations using trucks and trains that use more fossil fuel energy. Once it finally reaches a pump, it is finally ready to enter the vehicle. At each stage, moving energy into hydrogen down the supply chain, we lost energy from heat. By the time the energy pumps into your fuel cell, little of the original power is left. Direct charging a battery electric vehicle only amounts for 5% energy loss during transport, storage, distribution, and another 22% energy loss from tank to vehicle totaling 73% overall efficiency. In comparison, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles lose 56% of energy during electrolysis, transport, distribution, and another 30% loss during tank to the wheel, totaling 22% efficiency. Hydrogen is a great alternative where there is no time to charge, but it is far less efficient than EVs when it comes to energy. How does that translate to costs for your operation?
Costs of Using Hydrogen
Hydrogen is very dense, which means you can fit a lot of energy into a small amount of space, which will provide longer driving distances for fleets without adding much weight. In comparison, electric vehicles require a heavier battery and provide shorter driving distances. However, charging stations for fleets are readily available and easy to access, especially with rebates available to recoup 50% of the cost.
The location of where hydrogen is produced can have a significant impact on the cost and delivery. Harvesting, storing, and transporting hydrogen is not only time-consuming but costly. Alternatively, companies can produce hydrogen on-site, but there are still some inefficiencies that arise. For example, electricity needs to be transported to the station itself to make the hydrogen, and the infrastructure needed to do so can be pretty costly. With the US and global sales for electric vehicles dramatically increasing and technology advancing, EVs are becoming less expensive to operate every year.
Hydrogen has four times the annual fuel cost as electric vehicles. Hydrogen is measured by the kilogram. The average cost to fill up a hydrogen tank is $13.99 per kilogram or approximately $0.21 per mile, while it is around $2.64 to charge a vehicle with a 70-mile range or $0.04 per mile. Hydrogen is significantly more expensive and requires a lot more infrastructure investment.
Infrastructure Availability
There is no need for specialized infrastructure that doesn't exist. Even if filling up a tank takes a fraction of the time that it does to charge a vehicle by electricity, pumps will not be as easy to find as a charging station. Several utility providers such as SDGE and SoCal Edison offer rebates to purchase and install qualified EV fleet charging stations in California and are great immediate options. These companies install make-ready charging infrastructure for medium and heavy-duty vehicles working with fleets. Fleets that cannot provide the necessary capital for charging infrastructure can partner with a third party to provide charging as a service. This helps meet sustainability goals, eliminate emissions, and ultimately save fleets money on fuel costs, operational costs, and maintenance.
Looking Ahead
Again, with Biden’s plan to rebuild infrastructure, and reshape the economy with EV’s in mind, this will help rapidly expand the market for electric vehicles, driving costs down because of increased demand. This plan will not only help to rebuild, and build new infrastructure but also benefit electric vehicle companies over hydrogen fuel cell makers because the infrastructure will be readily available with customers ready to adopt.