18 thoughts on “Invisible Car”

  6. Onlooker,

    Your stipulation is accepted. Nonetheless, carbon-less hydrogen is technologically feasible and grows more so each day. The advertising industry is always overselling something, but in this case, the dream is not impossible to put into reality. Then again, what are they to do in this instance? We’re talking front to back full production processes and technology that relies upon many individual technologies working together. Even when the fuel chain processes become carbon free, will the entire car be carbon free? Probably not and may not for the near future. Cars rely upon all kinds of plastics that are currently derived from petroleum. While there is a movement to plant based plastics, given the huge variety of plastics used, the question remains can we ween ourselves off of petroleum based plastics too? There is also the manufacturing process itself. Unless the plants are powered by carbon free energy and the rest of the materials are processed using carbon free energy, there is going to be some carbon cost to the transaction of manufacturing the cars (if not necessarily operating them) for some time to come. Hydrogen fuel cells and green hydrogen are just two steps among many to ultimately answering the carbonate fuels problem. Where along the line is “emissions free” going to be appropriate for advertising? I agree, it’s a bit premature now, but when isn’t it?

  7. It is a cool video.

    And now, for the first time in my life? I want a Mercedes Benz. Someone please get Janis Joplin out of my head!

  8. “The energy to charge the fuel cells comes from where exactly? Yeah, that’s what I thought. ”

    Spoken like somebody who has no idea how a fuel cell works.

    Fuel cells work (i.e. produce electricity and heat) as part of a electolytic chemical process. They only have three parts – two electrodes (a cathode and an anode) and an electrolyte (either a solution or a membrane). Hydrogen is fed into the anode side of a fuel cell. Oxygen enters the fuel cell through the cathode. A catalyst prompts the hydrogen atoms to split into a proton and an electron, each of which takes different paths to the cathode. The proton passes through an electrolyte . The electrons create current that can be utilized for other work before returning to the cathode to be reunited with the hydrogen and oxygen in a molecule of water. Electrochemical reaction directly supplying electricity instead of mechanical force driven by combustion. That’s where the power to drive the wheels and the water byproduct comes from.

    The issue is how to make carbon free hydrogen and developing safe delivery/storage technologies. Technological advances on that front are being made almost daily. For example, this: http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressreleases/nanotrees_harvest_the_suns_energy_to_turn_water_into_hydrogen_fuel/

    1. Gene

      It’s all very interesting how this works to produce energy from the hydrogen to run the car, but it’s irrelevant to my comment. I probably used the wrong wording in my comment. I should have said, “where does the hydrogen for the fuel cells come from?”

      Energy must be used to make this hydrogen fuel, and right now that energy (other than a small portion of the total we use) is NOT emission free. So it’s misleading to suggest that this car is EF, just because the hydrogen fuel cell process in the car itself is EF. I realize that some hydrogen could be produced using emission free energy like solar, but we’re not anywhere near being able to do that on a wide basis.

      The commercial would like us to believe that there’s some magic EF process at play here, IMO. It’s misleading.

  9. Great video David. I didn’t realize that water vapor would be a bad thing to emit as compared to the crap that comes out of the gasoline burning engines. My bad.

  10. Nal 1, March 10, 2012 at 9:27 am

    I just thought it was a cool video.

    ———-

    Very cool and I’m a cynic’s cynic… It was fun to watch. Thanks.

  11. It was David. You always come up with cool stuff. Last weekend was the snow designs. I’m just sayin…..

  13. And a byproduct of a a hydrogen-powered car is water. On a hot day this will create steam. Think of your cars current a/c system draining water. What is the number one greenhouse gas, water vapor.

  15. The energy to charge the fuel cells comes from where exactly? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

    The general, non-thinking public will swallow this whole though. So that’s all that matters.

    Maybe someday though.

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