This Is Why Fuel Cell EVs Are Much Better Than Battery-Powered Ones

Hyundai is one of those few exceptions. The South Korean carmaker has been selling the Nexo for the past couple of years, a vehicle that gets its electricity in an entirely different way that most EVs out there, using a technology that may prove much better in the long run than battery-operated cars.

They call it fuel cell. Hyundai is not the only one that has developed it (Honda, Toyota, BMW and others are also toying with this idea), but the Nexo is perhaps the most successful such car to date.

Taking advantage of Earth Day on Wednesday, April 22, Hyundai released a short but very enlightening video demonstrating just how this technology works, and in the process once again brought to light the reasons why it could be much better than battery powered cars.

Essentially, both BEVs and FCEV operate in the same way: they take electricity from somewhere and send it to one or more electric motors that spin the wheels and provide forward motion. The big difference is where that electricity comes from.

In a BEV, that electricity comes from a battery. Of course, it doesn’t miraculously appear there: they need to be recharged from the public grid. That translates plugging it in somewhere, and at times waiting for a long long time until the car is able to move again.

Then, there’s the fact that, more often than not, a BEV’s performance (read range) is heavily affected even by the tiniest of details, like outside temperature.

An FCEV on the other hand, like the Nexo, is a sort of powerplant on wheels. It generates its own electricity on the go, not unlike current ICE cars, but instead of burning fuel, it splits hydrogen.

The heavy battery you would normally find in a BEV is replaced in the Nexo by a lighter system comprising three hydrogen tanks and the powerplant tasked with splitting the hydrogen. The car can be fueled just like an ICE vehicle, at the pump, in about five minutes, with enough fuel getting in to keep it going for 380 miles (611 km).

The electro-chemical process that turns hydrogen into electricity is simple and straightforward, and its only byproduct is water: hydrogen is moved from the tank into the powerplant’s stack, where it is split into protons and electrons. Then, protons go on their merry way way, combining with oxygen to generate water that is evacuated from the car, while electrons generate the electric current needed by the car.

So, FCEVs are lighter than BEVs, refueling them takes a lot less time, and the range can be greater than in your average electric car. Then what’s keeping them from becoming mainstream?

Except for the lack of interest in investing in this technology and the needed infrastructure (read hydrogen fueling stations, hydrogen generation), nothing, really.

Having invested so much going down the BEV path, established carmakers are reluctant to see the benefits of this other technology. The man that had perhaps the biggest contribution to the rise of the electric vehicle powered by batteries, Elon Musk, once called FCEVs “mind-bogglingly stupid, ”fool cells” or a “load of rubbish.”

Others in the industry do not see them as such. KPMG surveyed back in 2017 over 1,000 senior auto execs and most of them (78%) believe fuel cell vehicles are the real breakthrough. True, the source attributes that view to “their strong attachment to the existing infrastructure and traditional vehicle applications,” meaning an FCEV is much like an ICE: it has fuel tanks, and can be refilled at the pump, fast.

That alone should get you thinking.