– How do hydrogen cars work? Are they better than electric cars?
In: Technology
Hydrogen cars work off fuel cells, the technology used for electricity during the Apollo program to the moon. It’s like a battery but it uses gas pumped into the electrodes. Electricity is generated in a chemical reaction where Hydrogen gas is on the negative terminal and Oxygen gas is on the positive terminal, which turns into water.
There are pluses and minuses compared to electrical cars. Obviously you can get faster refuel times than electrical charging and therefore they might be better for longer range traveling, however there is currently no good hydrogen infrastructure to recharge tanks so right now that benefit is mostly hypothetical.
Electric cars are more mature, design wise, but there are a lot of companies working on hydrogen cars, like Toyota, Honda and Hyundai among others. In fact, I believe every major car company has made at least a concept hydrogen car. Right now, today, I’d go electric, but I certainly hope they can make big advances in hydrogen, because I don’t have a lot of faith they will ever get reasonable Electric car recharge times without damaging the battery life.
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