Two Pieces Of News On The EV Front,

firstly, due to lack of demand, 

images Fiat, the car manufacturer Fiat will reintroduce a petrol-engined 500 city car in the next two years, the same 1.0-litre mild-hybrid petrol powertrain from the older-generation 500 will now be retrofitted into the new 500e, 

a bold move indeed and perhaps a sign of the times by Olivier Francois who confirmed the new petrol 500 Ibrida will arrive in early 2026 due to a 'slower than anticipated uptake of EVs across Europe' in an interview with Autocar, the second piece of news concerns councils in the UK getting cold feet about installing on-street electric car chargers, apparently official figures show that the number of on-street electric car chargers installed by councils fell by more than 80 per cent last year!

photograph Ubitricity, an audit of Government data by the Daily Mail reveals that town halls delivered just 656 charge points last year, this was down from 4,066 the year before, the article is here, this comment by Tory MP Greg Smith sums it up, 'The lack of charging points is certainly putting off people from switching from their reliable petrol or diesel cars - that they can fill up in minutes - to a battery electric vehicle’, adding 'Councils are not daft and don't see any great revolution happening in electric vehicle ownership. The 2030 date was always bonkers.' to put this in perspective, the last Tory government's target was to create 125,000 on-street residential chargers by 2030, if the new Labour government keeps this, an average of around 58 a day need to be fitted between now and the end of the decade, I have always said the answer to this nonsense is, Go Green Go Clean Go Hydrogen!

As Many Regular Readers Will Know,

I dislike EV cars for so many reasons, 

photograph Toyota, especially the horrendous child abuse that every EV driver is a part of, 

I have always maintained that the way forward is hydrogen vehicles, and it appears that the organisers of the Paris Olympics do so as well, which is why 500 hydrogen Toyota cars have been chosen to take competitors and officials to all of the events in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, well you can imagine the embarrassment if a competitor is late to the start, as there were not enough charging points for 500 extra EV's! where as a fill up with hydrogen is on par with normal petrol/diesel fill up times, of course there is opposition, a group of more than 120 scientists, academics and engineers have written an open letter to the organisers of this summer’s Paris Olympics calling for the Toyota Mirai hydrogen car to be replaced as the official vehicle of the Games with a battery-electric vehicle, which reminded me of this:

the original post is here, I should also mention that there will be ten hydrogen fuel-cell coaches.

Is This The Death Knell For EVs?

as Porsche says, "No More EVs",

in September 2022, Porsche revealed that it had a prototype hydrogen combustion engine sports car which was for testing it on the famous Nürburgring racetrack in Germany, Porsche CEO Oliver Blume is also speaking about the company’s hydrogen projects, and he says that “The battery-electric drivetrain will be the best for shorter distances, while the hydrogen-based drivetrain will be the best for longer distances”, The fact that a brand like Porsche has switched to hydrogen shows that not everything is going to go through EVs. In fact, others are following the same path, such as Ferrari, Hyundai or Kia. However, this new engine will mark a historic milestone by solving the problem of autonomy and taking thermal efficiency to a new level, something we would never have imagined, the full article is here, and that is not all, 

image GE-Honda, here is the GM-Honda system in the CR-V e:FCEV in February, Honda unveiled the production version of its CR-V e:FCEV plug-in, which goes on lease sale to customers in Japan and the US later this year. The FCEV is powered by a fuel cell system made by a GM and Honda joint venture called Fuel Cell System Manufacturing (FCSM), based in Michigan, with a range of 372 miles on a full tank of hydrogen plus a further 37 miles of battery range (according to the WLTP test cycle) and a refuelling time akin to that of a petrol or diesel car, the CR-V e:FCEV is built in Ohio at Honda’s Performance Manufacturing Centre, the article is here, as I have always said from so many years ago, Go Green - Go Hydrogen!

I Know I Keep Banging On About It,

but I really feel that hydrogen is the way forward, 

photograph Joseph Brent./Wikimedia Commons, to our energy needs, both for cars, homes and industry, and here is some great news, to produce hydrogen the insanely rare and expensive mineral iridium has to be used, but researchers from the RIKEN Centre for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS) in Japan have found that instead of iridium, manganese could be used instead, with just a trace of iridium need for use as a catalyst, 

with the new catalyst, hydrogen production was possible continuously for over 3000 hours (about four months) at 82% efficiency without any degradation. “The unexpected interaction between manganese oxide and iridium was key to our success,” says co-author Ailong Li, going forward, the team has already begun working with industry partners who have improved the original iridium-manganese catalyst. They also intend to continue studying the chemical interaction between iridium and manganese oxide to reduce the required amount of iridium further, what great news for the energy industry, for the article which first was published in Nature, have a look here.

As I Have Said So Many Times,

the way to go green is to go hydrogen,

and after just a one year collaboration between between Kawasaki, Yamaha, Suzuki, and Honda, focusing on the development of a hydrogen-powered engines for a wide variety of vehicles, this is it, the only thing it produces when running is 442 horsepower at 6,800 revolutions per minute is water from its 5 litre V8 engine, despite the growing attention towards electric vehicles as a solution to reduce pollution in the automotive sector, Yamaha’s recent release of the V8 combustion engine has shaken existing expectations, go green, go hydrogen! For the full story have a look here.

A Great Piece Of News For Common Sense,

a new hydrogen production facility for vehicles has been announced,

image GETTY, this state-of-the-art facility will be built in Bradford, providing massive support for the UK’s fuel cell vehicle progress, Gareth Mills, Managing Director at N-Gen, said: “We are extremely proud to be bringing a flagship hydrogen production facility and significant investment to Bradford, We expect the facility to be a valuable addition to the Bradford economy, providing a viable way for local businesses to decarbonise, as well as attracting new companies and jobs to the area, by placing the city at the forefront of the transition to clean energy.”

image HYGEN/N-GEN admittedly it is for industrial users, but it is only a small step before the gas can be used in cars and motorcycles, distribution experts Ryze will be contributing to the process by delivering hydrogen to “industrial users” across the region, the industry has been supported by the Government through the £23million Hydrogen for Transport Programme and the £270million Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) scheme, and the biggest bonus of all, no child labour in any part of its manufacture! to view the full article have a look here.

I Had To Laugh When I Read This Headline,

'The UK's EV sector is rapidly unravelling',

image Volta Trucks/PA well who would have thought that? it is a fact that EV make more pollution and contribute to child abuse in manufacture and use than anything else, other than than a bicycle, from the story:

'only a couple of years ago, investors were prepared to throw bags of money at them at heady valuations. Lunaz was once reportedly worth $200 million, Volta had raised 300 million euros at a 600 million valuation and Arrival once hit a giddy $13 billion market cap on the Nasdaq.'

as for cars apart from companies applying for the tax credits, I would guess that the public uptake on EVs is pretty poor, as I have always maintained that without governments making you buy EVs they will never sell in the numbers hoped for, for myself, go green, go hydrogen! as an aside, 

the article I referred to is here.

I Have Never Fancied Being Hurtled Into Space,

the thought of sitting on top of tons of highly explosive rocket propellent has never appealed to me, but,

all images courtesy of Space Perspective, if I were to go into space, I guess I would choose this method, the Space Balloon, designed by PriestmanGoode, the balloon gondola I think you would call it has already been built and tested while the Marine Spaceport Voyager ship, from which the spacecraft will launch, is currently in the final stages of preparation,

the company plans to conduct its first manned test flights later this year, with plans to start sending the 1,750 people who bought advance tickets for a Neptune flight into space starting in 2025, 

according to Space Perspective, it will be the largest human spacecraft in operation save for the space stations,

 accommodating a captain and eight passengers at an expected cost of $125,000 per seat compared to $450,000 on SpaceShipTwo,

according to the company the capsule can accommodate the largest windows ever flown to space, "The space capsule is like nothing the world has ever seen," said Space Perspective co-founder Taber MacCallum, "We are on the cusp of a staggering shift – not only in the way we humans experience space but also what we conjure in our minds when we think of the spaceship that gets us there. We are redefining the category and paving the way for accessible space travel for years to come." 

so if you fancy being suspended under a huge balloon filled with highly flammable hydrogen the booking form is here, thinking about it, sitting on top of a tube of rocket propellent or under a huge bag of hydrogen I guess I will not go for either option!

Just 5 Days Ago,

I made mention of a hydrogen powered motorcycle,

photograph MIT/Visordown, the post is here, and like magic here is another one under development by MIT it appears that hydrogen is making a come back, both in cars and in motorcycles, the MIT Electric Vehicle Team, which came up with the idea to build the bike, says it chose hydrogen because of its advantages over battery power, notably: range, refill time versus recharge time, and because of the emissions created by the process of mining lithium, the metal used in the electrodes of a rechargeable battery, but will not use hydrogen in the way proposed by the Japanese, who are using hydrogen as a combustible, instead, MIT is exploring the use of hydrogen fuel cells in motorcycles, which means using hydrogen to power an electric motor that sends power to the driven wheel, 

“We’re hoping to use this project as a chance to start conversations around ‘small hydrogen’ systems that could increase demand, which could lead to the development of more infrastructure," said Aditya Mehrotra, the project leader, for the full article have a look here.

Only Yesterday,

I made a post about hydrogen cars,

and today I found this, a hydrogen motorcycle! 

a consortium that formed around this project comprises Germany's WätaSwärmetauscher Sachsen GmbH and the Fraunhofer IWU research institute, who will be handling the bike's powertrain, more specifically the fuel cell stack and the interface between vehicle and fuel system, then from the Czech Republic the idea caught the attention of 1to1design, the Czech Technical University, and UJV Rez, who will be handling the vehicles as a whole, including ergonomics and packaging,

unfortunately the project does not have any 'famous' names behind it, but hopefully some of the big manufactures will take note, it is easy to pack a hydrogen cell in a car, but a bit tricky finding room for the bulky fuel cell on a motorcycle, but this shows it can be done!

Thankfully Toyota Have Seen Sense,

and will no longer use materials which some manufactures do that exploit children, 

photograph Toyota, in the future if you look under the bonnet of you car, this is what you will see as Toyota says goodbye to electric cars, here is the new engine of the future, with hydrogen cells, I just wish other big name car manufactures would stop using children to mine materials for their batteries, as I have said so often, one way to go to keep us on the move is hydrogen, Toyota believes that by 2030, Europe will have one of the biggest markets for hydrogen fuel cells worldwide due to the growing investment and regulatory measures that encourage market growth, so a big Well Done to Toyota, hopefully other manufactures will clean their act up and change to a method of transport that leaves children where they should be, at school or at their home with their families.

At Last Some Sense In The Automotive Industry With The Headline,

"BMW says goodbye to electric cars",

image BMW at long last car manufactures have agreed with what I have been saying since day one, hydrogen is the way to go, from the article:

"the future of mobility will prioritize performance, rapid refuelling times, and environment-friendly solutions. In line with these trends, hydrogen engines might be the next big thing to enter the automobile market. There are only a few selective manufacturers that are already working on this new technology to be ahead of the hydrogen vehicles, and BMW is one of them. As BMW CEO Oliver Zipse announced hydrogen engines will play an important role in many regions of the world in the long run."

the article is here, and BMW is not alone, 

 photograph Toyota, (ABC News: Emilia Terzon) of Grant Burton from YPG Risk has three hydrogen cars in his fleet that he leases from, 

photograph ABC News: Emilia Terzon, of a hydrogen gas pump, but so far one of only around a dozen places in Australia to fill up a hydrogen car, including this one owned by Toyota in Melbourne's west, but I am guessing more will follow, hopefully the UK will wake up to the terrible child exploitation that EV’s need for the materials to make their batteries and go hydrogen, the full Toyota article is here, but wait there is more,

image: Santa Fabio for General Motors, an employee assembles a fuel cell system in the module final assembly at GM and Honda’s fuel cell joint venture in Brownstown, Michigan, yes GM and Honda are uniting to go the hydrogen route, General Motors and Honda announced that their joint venture company, FCSM, has begun production of hydrogen fuel cells, FCSM, which stands for “Fuel Cell System Manufacturing,” was established in 2017 as a joint venture between GM and Honda, and apparently the move to hydrogen has not been ignored by the Biden administration, who recently proposed new tax guidelines aimed at making it cheaper to produce hydrogen as a less-polluting alternative to fossil fuels, the full article is here, come on the UK dump those EVs and catch up!

It Looks Like My Dream Of A Hydrogen Car Bubble,

has nearly burst,

photograph Autocar of a hydrogen Toyota Mirai, after decades of research into hydrogen fuel cells, many car makers are now backing away from the technology, Honda last year announced it was ending its Clarity fuel cell programme, citing low demand, in 2020, Mercedes-Benz stopped its long-running F-Cell programme, due to high costs and an inability to lower them, and naturally the UK government is partly to blame for focusing too much on BEVs, argues Celia Greaves, CEO of the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association. She said: “There are orders of magnitudes in the difference between levels of support we’re seeing of hydrogen fuelling infrastructure versus chargers.” on the good news front Toyota is working on fuelling existing internal combustion engines with hydrogen, but Harrison said this research is so far aimed at motorsport. “Whether that makes it beyond motorsport experimentation into any sort of engine application, we’re some way off making a judgment on that,” he said, for the full article have a look here, such a shame that a golden opportunity to go green, go clean, go hydrogen for cars appears to be lost.

If You Liked The Lord of the Rings,

you might find this of interest,

 Amazon's new TV series based on JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, has been kept under wraps pretty well so far, but today a teaser, it does not show much, but it does reveal the name of the series, 

and here is the teaser, 

The Rings of Power will premiere on Amazon on September 2, as far as the clip goes it might look like CGI but in fact the sequence was was actually hand made at a foundry, as can be seen in the above behind the scenes clip, to achieve the effect, molten metal was poured onto a reclaimed redwood board, sparkler dust, argon dust and liquid hydrogen were also used to get the practical effect, amazing.

Only On Monday,

I made this post,

about hydrogen powered scooters, in France, 

and then today I read about the UK's hydrogen-fuel cell electric cargo bike trial, which is being launched in Aberdeen, the electricity being produced to power small sized batteries to propel the cargo bike, meaning that the bikes will give out zero emissions, the bikes are made by Oxfordshire based manufacturer Electric Assisted Vehicles (EAV), who are building six eCargo bikes for the project, which is set to start in 2022, the thought being batteries are so heavy where as fuel cells are a lot lighter, it makes perfect sense, also “It’s a simple fact that the raw materials for battery production are in short supply.” said Adam Barmby, CEO and founder of EAV. “EAV focuses on weight reduction, so we use less energy and therefore require less batteries",

“The Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, recently delivered a speech at the Dubai Expo 2020 stating that the UK will be taking a global lead in developing hydrogen-powered transport.” said Nigel Gordon-Stewart, executive chairman of EAV. “Nowhere is the use of hydrogen fuel cells in lightweight vehicles more effective than within the urban environment.” Go green, go clean, go hydrogen!

What A Totally Brilliant Idea,

instead of having E-Scooters,

why not have a hydrogen scooter? images: Mob-ion, the French Gov’t, via Ride Apart, originally launched as a prototype back in June, the hydrogen-fueled Mob-ion TGT promised more than 150 miles of zero tailpipe emission riding from hydrogen canisters about the size of a reusable water bottle, 

European and Asian scooter riders use their bikes as everyday transport. They depend on them, in other words, to get to work, go to school, and to run errands, and many scooterists in densely populated European cities (like Paris), don’t have access to home garages for overnight charging,

just pick up a filled canister, leave your empty one and off you go! “There is no need to refuel at a charging station,” reads the French government page (through Google’s translator). “Just go to one of the dedicated vending machines. Kind of like going to buy some drink cans.” but I guess in the UK we will stick with E-Scoters, as it happens France has plans to invest more than €7 billion by 2030 to develop more hydrogen solutions like this one, of which € 2 billion will be spent between now and the end of 2022, go green, go clean, go hydrogen!

I Do Not Like Battery Powered Electric Cars,

they are environmentally unsound on so many fronts,

but I just had to mention this car, why? the car could produce up to 3,200 horsepower! thanks to a total of four electric motors each producing around 800 horsepower, these are powered by a 100 kWh battery, which weighs approximately 992 pounds, the curb weight of the Arash AFX is said to be in the 2,000 to 2,500 pounds range, all of the above means it is going to be fast, very fast! image source: Arash,

You have probably never heard of Arash Motor Company, based in the UK, the supercar startup was founded in 1999 back when it was known as Farboud before being renamed Arash in 2016,

the companies first car launched under the Arash name was the AF10, a totally mad hypercar powered by a supercharged 6.2-liter V8 and four electric motors producing a combined 2,800 horsepower,

on social media, Arash has shared photos previewing its first electric hypercar dubbed the AFX, 

a look inside the interior, which has room for two occupants who sit in racing seats fitted with harnesses, there are also two screens mounted on both sides of the cabin in place of traditional side mirrors, will the car ever be produced? well Arash can deliver, as the company has been building absurdly-powerful supercars for over 20 years, would I like one? How on earth could I charge it? We live on the top floor at the rear of a huge Victorian building, we would need a 150 foot + charging cable to reach the car, and let’s face it, with our green government's huge U turn on charging points just 2 days ago,

photograph: Geoffrey Swaine/REX/Shutterstock, where the government backtracked on proposals to require every shop, office or factory in England to install at least one electric car charger, prompting criticism by environmental campaigners, the original plan required every new and existing non-residential building with parking for 20 cars or more to install a charger, however, wait for it! the Department for Transport (DfT) has now revealed it will only require chargers be installed in new or refurbished commercial premises amid fears over the cost for businesses, I wonder if someone, somewhere said hydrogen cars could be the future? Go green, go clean, go hydrogen!

Keeping To A Aircraft Theme,

meet the latest in hydrogen planes,

not yet built, but named Fly Zero, the 279-seater plane by Aerospace Technology Institute will, it is hoped, fly from London to San Francisco on the west coast of the US without stopping, or from London to New Zealand with one refueling stop, hydrogen on board the Fly Zero will be stored in cryogenic fuel tanks, which will keep it in liquid form at minus 418°F. and the good news is that it will not emit any carbon emissions during its flight, the aircraft's wings will span 54 meters (177 feet), each with its own turbofan engine attached. According to ATI, the "highly-efficient hydrogen-powered aircraft" will have "superior operating economics compared to conventional aircraft from the mid-2030s onwards." At the moment, the firm has received over £1.95 billion (US$2.6 billion) in funding since it was started in 2013, with £15 million (US$19.8 million) of that going towards the Fly Zero concept, go green, go clean, go hydrogen!

Keeping To A Transport Theme,

last month, the chief of Japan’s Toyota Motors, 

 Akio Toyoda, attended a race that demonstrated an experimental hydrogen vehicle, photograph REUTERS/Bobby Yip, a Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at China's International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China, this new vehicle is powered by hydrogen, bur here is the twist, the vehicle contained a traditional gasoline-powered engine that had been converted to run on hydrogen. "The enemy is carbon, not internal combustion engines,” Toyoda said. “We shouldn't just focus on one technology but make use of the technologies we already possess." Toyota recently launched the second-generation model of its Mirai hydrogen vehicle and has plans to offer several more models in the coming years, in Germany, BMW and Volkswagen Group are both developing hydrogen-powered passenger vehicles along with a series of new EVs. in more news about all battery cars the expense of them is set to rise, 

photograph by Brendon Thorne/Getty Images, prices for battery grade lithium carbonate have gone up 300 per cent in the last year, reaching $28,765, while prices for nickel and cobalt have registered a 62.4 per cent growth year-on-year. Lithium supply shortages are also to blame for the price surge, as experts believe they will continue in the next few years. “Battery makers appear set to pass on lithium price increases to the automotive manufacturers and other downstream customers, which could have a major impact on electric vehicles coming to market between 2022 and 2024,” the agency told the outlet, go green, go clean, go hydrogen!

If Like Myself,

you believe hydrogen cells not batteries in cars is the way to go,

 

this is great news indeed, (Image: Getty), Bosch are looking to upgrade technology in the UK. from 2021 to 2024, Bosch plans to invest one billion euros (£850 million) in fuel-cell technology, and estimates that the market for mobile fuel-cell components will be worth around €18billion (£15.37billion) by the end of the decade, Bosch is looking to develop the next generation of powering vehicles, as many companies look to transition away from fossil fuels and look at alternative fuels focusing at the moment on larger vehicles, Tiffany Mittelstenscheid, senior product manager of the fuel cell stack at Bosch, spoke of the investment and their plans, from the article:

“ Already today you can drive from the northern part of Germany to the south of Italy in a hydrogen car, there are already some stations and the target is to have a fuel station at each major connecting point, especially in the big cities, there will be more than one to make it easier for the driver, it is like the chicken and the egg. You need to go step by step, I am really excited to see progress in the major regions of these specific hydrogen focused programmes. We have this in the UK, in Europe, and also regions like China, Korea, Japan and the USA.”

and even better was this finding, they found that the public also agree with them as 55 percent of survey participants think hydrogen should be used to fuel vehicle! way to go! go green, go clean, go hydrogen!