Kia bigwig reportedly says mass-produced fuel cell cars would cost $50,000 if made today
Kia Borrego FCEV - Click above for high-res image gallery
Let's face it: Hydrogen technology still has a ways to go before there's any real chance that we'll all be driving fuel cell cars in lieu of electric or fossil fuel-burning machines. Chief among the issues confronting the widespread adoption of hydrogen for automotive use is manufacturing cost, though that obstacle is currently being worked on. According to Byung Ki-Ahn, general manager of Kia's Mabuk-ri site, "Even if we were producing 50,000 fuel cell cars a year, they would currently have to cost $50,000 each."
While it would be easy for hydrogen proponents to latch on to this statement as good news – and, if true, that pricing is considerably better than we would have predicted – there's more to overcome than just the pricey fuel cell stack. For instance, even if Kia were indeed building 50,000 fuel cell cars per year, there would need to be an adequate infrastructure to support those vehicles. Further, a low cost and eco-friendly process for capturing, storing and transporting large amounts of hydrogen still needs to be developed.
Regardless, it's clear that Kia, along with corporate cousin Hyundai, believe these issues will be worked out in time. When asked where the Korean automaker currently sits on a production-ready hydrogen vehicle, Ki-Ahn said, "On a scale of one to 10, I'd say we we're at six or seven. Before 2020, many people will be hearing about fuel cell vehicles made by Hyundai-Kia."
Gallery: Kia Borrego FCEV
[Source: Galway Independent via Hydrogen Discoveries]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Protzenegger 2:05PM (7/24/2009)
I'm still not a fan of driving around in a liquid bomb.
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paul34 2:13PM (7/24/2009)
What do you drive around in right now? Wouldn't happen to be something with gallons of explosive gasoline in it, would it?
Redline 2:40PM (7/24/2009)
Heard about people driving the FCX Clarity yet?
Adam Bruce 3:08PM (7/24/2009)
@paul34
Hydrogen is far more volatile than gasoline. Despite what Hollywood would lead you to believe, gas tanks don't "explode", they burn. Hydrogen explodes.
tankd0g 4:02PM (7/24/2009)
My god the ignorance on this subject is quite extreme. Right now you are driving around with a plastic or thin metal gas tank filled with enough fuel to level your car if it catches fire. If that tank leaks, the fuel spreads out in a puddle to envelope the entire car and those around it.
Hydrogen on the other hand, if it escapes it's cylinder, one which is fiberglass or carbon fiber wraped by the way, it rises because it is lighter than air. If nothing ignites it, it quickly dissipates. If it should ignite, it will burn in a vertical column like a propane torch that you can stand next to without so much as a worry.
If the worse case happens and it escapes into the cabin or other enclosed space, sensors will alert you to this in any car developed to run on hydrogen, safely nullifying the problem as simple as opening a window. If by some change the gas fills an enclosed space, and you somehow have an ignition source go off in that space, then yes, it will explode just like gasoline fumes do.
Millions of hydrogen, propane and other compressed gas cylinders are transported on our roads every single day, many without the safety measures that would be in place on a purpose built hydrogen car like the BMW Hydrogen 7. When's the last time you heard of one of these cylinders going off "like a bomb" on the road?
rwatson847 2:21PM (7/24/2009)
The Hydrogen in in compressed gas form because liquid hydrogen is −423.17 °F.
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Ian 2:44PM (7/24/2009)
My race car has a fuel cell right now... what are they talking about? Oh... a DIFFERENT kind of fuel cell?
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alex 3:09PM (7/24/2009)
While $50,000 is a lot for a car, I'm actually surprised how low this figure is. It makes me think that affordable fuel cell vehicles aren't TOO far away (if we can build the infrastructure)
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Adam Bruce 3:14PM (7/24/2009)
I understand the appeal of Hydrogen electric cars to gas companies. It fits their existing supply chain. It has to be "mined", then "refined", then shipped via gasoline-ish type methods (trucks), then delivered via pumps.
I do not understand the appeal of Hydrogen electric cars to enthusiasts and car lovers as an alternative to pure electric. By moving the hydrogen to electric conversion process out of the car, you get less weight less complexity and less cost.
There are a lot more outlets out there than Hydrogen pumps.
PS I still think the "green solution" for now is a diesel plug-in hybrid that can go full battery as needed.
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duo 3:55PM (7/24/2009)
I think hydrogen cars are the future despite the fact it's taking us a little longer to get there. Once the infrastructure needed is in place to cheaply and easily produce liquid hydrogen it then wouldn't be that much harder to retrofit current gas stations. Granted, there are far more outlets than filling stations but keep in mind that plug-in vehicles take time to recharge. Between that and the fact that batteries weigh a lot I don't see how plug-in electric cars or hybrids are the future even with vastly improved battery technology.
Can you imagine the 24 Hours of Le Mans run with plug-ins? I can't.
tankd0g 4:04PM (7/24/2009)
It's the delivered via pumps part that consumers also like.
Adam Bruce 7:47PM (7/24/2009)
@duo
Recharge times are a function of the battery technology which will only get better as it becomes a priority. Hydrogen is a technology that needs a whole lot of advancement, pure electric works today and works better tomorrow with a little bit of advancement. Heck look at Cell phones. 10 years ago, a 2 hour stand by time was incredible.
As for a Le Mans race with Batteries, I say do it like you do a propane tank for a grill and hot swap the batteries.
duo 12:29AM (7/25/2009)
Swapping batteries is, of course, an option however I don't believe batteries will improve the point a complete recharge cycle only takes a couple of minutes. The beauty of hydrogen fuel cells is that refilling a hydrogen tank takes about as long as filling up with dino juice.
Then you have the environmental concerns that are among the chief reasons these technologies are being developed. Not only does producing a battery tax non-renewable resources the eventual disposal of all these hot swappable batteries will be part of the problem. Hydrogen, on the other hand, may be difficult to process and transport right now but I don't imagine it'll be any harder than drilling for oil and refining it once the infrastructure is in place. And the best part is the sheer abundance of of the stuff! Not only that, you also get a couple of gallons of clean, drinkable water in the end.
Gas-electric and plug-in hybrids are flawed in that they require huge battery packs. Yes, one day these battery packs will shrink but we will still have to deal with the battery packs of the Priuses of today. Hybrids are only meant to be a stopgap until we perfect cleaner forms of propulsion, such as hydrogen.
B 3:48PM (7/25/2009)
Why are you assuming you will have to recharge batteries so fast? What if the their capacity will be enough to complete whole 24h race at once? Impossible? Why not? Perhaps not for cars as now but we have already technologies which allows machines to function much longer. Look at air zinc and aluminium batteries. Air lithium tech is supposed to offer as much as 5000wh per kilogram. I'm sure there will be other interesting technologies too. Hydrogen has DECADES of government sponsored research and yet there are ZERO commercial available (to buy, not lend few vehicles) cars. There is increasing number EV which you can actually buy. Expensive - yes. Not ideal - yes. But you can get them where you are just getting next round promises for FCEV that say "wait next 10 years". Funnily enough FCEV isn't nothing really than EV with fuel cell based range extender. Yet it can not show in any tangible product...
There is a better place battery swap demonstration, which takes no longer than 1.20 minute. That's for a car purposed for a normal commuting use. I'd like to see a comparable result for a hydrogen tank filling yet.
You know what is very important characteristic of a racing car? It's centre of gravity and with batteries (and very light EV motor) you can get that much lower than with any other drive train.
You can bet there will be an entrepreneur who will have enough cash and will
to make a history winning 24h Le Mans using EV eventually.
duo 3:09AM (7/27/2009)
@ B
I brought up charge times because it is an important consideration in the ownership experience of a full-on plug-in EV. For example, your battery's running low so your options would be to either recharge your battery or completely swap out the pack in a charging station, as you mentioned.
"There is a better place battery swap demonstration, which takes no longer than 1.20 minute. That's for a car purposed for a normal commuting use. I'd like to see a comparable result for a hydrogen tank filling yet."
Now I'm not quite sure whether you mean an hour and twenty minutes or a minute and twenty seconds but let's go with the latter. Even if they could swap out your car's battery pack that quickly I highly doubt charging stations will be able to cope with the kind of traffic a gasoline/filling station would see. And that's assuming battery packs are universal across different makes. Just trying to imagine an infrastructure that would make this all work is hard enough as it is. It'll be a logistic nightmare getting this thing set-up.
As for the ease of filling up a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle, it isn't that much more difficult that pumping regular gas in your car.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOVaHFUQASE
Also, I don't doubt that there may be a full EV race car one day that runs on batteries. I just don't think it'll catch on. No matter how you look at it, an electric motor and battery pack will always weigh more than a comparable motor and hydrogen tank. All that extra mass will have an effect on its handling as seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x73Z6ndtjE
You get the instant torque of an electric motor like the a regular EV but weight comparable to an ICE car.
Hydrogen cars, to quote James May, "already fit the life we have."
xtasi 3:34PM (7/24/2009)
you mean i could get a Rolls Phantom with fuel cell for only $50K? sign me up. That 50k figure is useless. It should be more along the lines of "it costs X more". Did they mean a Kia Forte would cost $50k?
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XJ 4:06PM (7/24/2009)
Yes, xtasi. Kia meant they will be creating a hydrogen car just like the Phantom for $50k.
tankd0g 4:07PM (7/24/2009)
One thing that is rarely mentioned in these articles but is being worked on is conversions for existing ICE engines to run hydrogen. In the Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome future, when we are out of oil, methane and hytdrogen can be used to run an existing car without too much modification. And there are a LOT of ICE cars/trucks/bikes out there, that's a huge market. When gasoline because unattainable, someone, somewhere is going to get stinking rich selling compressed gas conversions and the fuel to supply them.
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Adam Bruce 7:51PM (7/24/2009)
@tankd0g
In Mad Max they were combusting Hydrogen and Methane, the same way BMW does. That is different from a fuel cell which creates electricity. A Hydrogen combustion engine is very similar to a gasoline engine. In the linked article, Kia is saying that the fuel cell is expensive.