LA Times: Carmakers prepare to shift to hydrogen fuel cells

[caraher]

1. Yup. More claptrap

It's clear that hydrogen is more congenial to the business model of traditional automakers. Yes, electric cars have comparatively short range and it takes longer to charge them than it would take to fill a hydrogen tank.

But for the foreseeable future, hydrogen has a negligible refueling infrastructure and building it to a robust level will be vastly more expensive than creating a comparable network of fast charging stations. The dominant source for hydrogen will continue to be methane, so large-scale hydrogen car use will continue to drive increased demand for natural gas. (Yes, we know, electric cars also use fossil fuels when the power plants used to charge them do...)

It would be naïve at best to assume that an automaker's preference for hydrogen means its widespread use is wise policy. Should range and refueling time be the most important performance measures? Only if one is trying to forestall adoption of a competing technology inferior on only those two benchmarks.