How will the battery electric vehicle and fuel cell electric vehicle affect

our current transportation sector and society, and which is more

implementable in our current transportation sector?

Geoffrey Steiner

Senior Project Advisor: Steve Smith

12th Grade Humanities

Animas High School
27 February 2017

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 Part I: Introduction

For every gallon of gas we burn in our vehicles we produce about 4,500 liters of CO2(g)

or around 1,200 gallons. The US alone has around 253 million vehicles running daily, burning

plenty more than just one gallon of gas. CO2 is a greenhouse gas the more we add to our

atmosphere the worse the greenhouse effect becomes. This means the more CO2 we emit the

warmer our planet gets and the more our climate changes. This is why we are creating cleaner

options for transportation like the Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) and the Fuel Cell Electric

Vehicle (FCEV) which have come out in recent years as good options. These vehicles give

solutions to this problem.

In this paper I will speak to both the FCEV and BEV. In particular, I will talk about the

pros and cons to the battery and fuel cell and which comes out on top in range, ease of use,

availability, and the costs both on the consumer and on the environment. As we move forward

into cleaner transportation options it is important to know what we are buying into, how each of

these will affect our world, and the costs to implement them. As of right now the BEV reigns

superior to the FCEV in its availability and cost, however, as time moves on the FCEV may rise

to the occasion as a better option for consumers because of its range and charge time.

Part II: Historical Context

We are not sure as to when the battery was invented. Take, for example, the Parthian

Battery which was found while constructing a railway in 1936 near Baghdad, workers

uncovered what appeared to be a prehistoric battery, also known as the Parthian Battery [shown

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in Figure 1]. The object dates back to the Parthian empire and is believed to be 2,000 years old

(Buchmann). This battery had an iron rod surrounded by a cylinder of copper sitting in a pool of

vinegar. It generated about 1.1-2.0 v most believe it was used for electroplating, the process of

creating a layer of precious metals over a material.

The first

practical use of a

battery was by

Alessandro Volta in

1800. He created what

he called voltaic cells.

These cells worked similarly to modern

batteries. Having two different metals for the

cathode and anode or the positive and

negative end. The insulator was made of paper or cloth and the electrolyte was salt water. For

example, in a AA battery, which you can see in figure 2, we have 3 main components: a carbon

rod, a zinc anode and an electrolyte paste. The zinc and electrolyte paste go through a process

called oxidation. This reaction will relieve the zinc of two electrons and combine with the

electrolyte. Those two electrons will travel through the circuit and power the load, whatever that

may be. It will then reach the carbon rod and undergo a process called reduction to store the free

electrons. However, these batteries were not rechargeable, to do that we have to be able to send

electrons in the opposite direction so that they can reattach to the anode or zinc in this case. The

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first rechargeable battery came in 1859 from Gaston Plant. It was a lead acid battery which is

still used today in Internal Combustion Engine(ICE) vehicles.

Robert Davidson of Aberdeen was the first to put batteries into vehicles in 1841. The

battery was not rechargeable and only went about 1 miles at 4 miles per hour, just 1 mile faster

than average walking speed. This car was not very practical because it did not go very far or very

fast and every time you used it the batteries needed

replacing. The first practical use of a battery in a car was

in 1884. The batteries made by Thomas Parker were

rechargeable high-capacity batteries. In reality these

batteries were lead acid batteries configured for more

energy. In figure 3 you can see one of his cars with

Thomas Parker sitting in the middle.

The fuel cell was created by William Grove in 1838. He

noticed that if two platinum electrodes had two ends immersed in

an electrolyte and the other ends sealed in containers of

hydrogen and oxygen that the water level would rise up into the

containers and a current would flow between the two electrodes.

The term fuel cell was later coined by Charles Langer and

Ludwig Mond in 1889.

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 As with the battery it took a while for the fuel cell to be used in vehicles. In 1959 the fuel

cell was put to work in a tractor by Allis-Chalmers. It had 1,008 fuel cells and could pull a total

of 3,000 pounds, but it did not run off hydrogen, instead it used propane. The fuel cell also found

use in space. NASA has used the hydrogen fuel cell to create replenishing supplies of oxygen

and water for crewmembers.

Part III: Summary of Past Research

There are a lot of electrical components that go into making each of these vehicles, but

for the BEV and FCEV we will mainly focus on the source of energy and its characteristics

because otherwise each of these vehicles are about the same.

The basics of a battery include two

electrodes of dissimilar metals and an electrolyte

with an insulator. As Alessandro Volta studied

200 years ago, a battery only works if there is an

electrical potential difference between the anode

and cathode. In other words, the two metals that

are the electrodes cannot be the same. Otherwise

the electrons dont have the electromotive force

or the motive to push them through the circuit.

Take for example the battery in your ICE vehicle: the lead-acid battery. The anode and cathode

are lead oxide and lead. The electrolyte is sulfuric acid a highly corrosive chemical at a pH of .3.

So, you could imagine that the battery can be hard to build. As said in Battery Packaging -

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Technology Review, a lot of production steps today still require manual handling, as indicated

above. This is partly due to the precision required, partly a lack of measurement technology, and

partly an economical issue. (Maser 8). However, you can imagine that as its popularity/demand

grows there will be more motive to make a lot of these steps automated.

One weakness to the power source for the BEV is that batteries die over time. I am not

talking about them running out of energy and needing a recharge. After thousands of recharges

the battery will no longer be able to hold a charge. This is called a non-energetic failure. This is

inevitable with current battery models. What we do with them afterword matters because of

what the battery is made of. Li-ion batteries, for example, are found in most BEVs and have

very toxic and corrosive chemicals inside them that will harm the environment if we just dump

it. Another thing that can happen is

an energetic failure, this is typically

a thermal runaway. Thermal

runaways are very dangerous fires

that burn for long periods of time at

very high temperatures. This

means Under no circumstances

should batteries be incinerated, as

fire can cause an explosion.

(Buchmann) The higher the energy

capacity of the battery the more it

burns and Li-ion batteries are

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among the highest in that category. If you throw out one of these batteries on a hot summer day

and waste management comes to pick it up that day you may see what you see in figure 7. This

puts toxic chemicals into the air and doesnt help anything. The flame itself is not that hard to

put out. Regular techniques like dousing it in water and using a fire extinguisher work well to

put the fire out. Even when you do recycle batteries it is hard to actually recycle them. For one

it takes 6 to 10 times more energy to reclaim metals from some recycled batteries than from

mining (Buchmann) and the flat cost to recycle a ton of batteries is $1,000 to $2,000.

(Buchmann). The fuel cell, however, does not degrade over time. The platinum does not get

used up and the PEM just needs to

be kept clean in its container. If

anything it can be replaced until

your motors die or something else

important to the cars function

dies.

Both of these vehicles are

hard to put together, but the BEV

takes the up and up here because it

does not require platinum and a Proton Exchange Membrane(PEM) which has to be pure to

operate properly. Every fuel cell needs platinum and there are hundreds of them stacked on each

other to power the car. The reason the fuel cell needs so much platinum is because it is the

catalyst that causes the reaction to occur. A fuel cell works by forcing hydrogen to break apart

and create two hydrogen cations. The electrons that broke off the hydrogen ion go through the

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load and that powers your motors as well as your other accessories. Meanwhile the hydrogen ion

or proton is jumping from nafion molecule, to nafion molecule attracted to the other side of the

fuel cell where the negative charge is. Once it reaches the other side it bonds with a free electron,

another proton, and an oxygen atom from the air. This process is shown in figure 7. Hopefully as

research continues and fuel cells become

more affordable this problem will become

less of an issue because right now it is a

hefty on the consumer.

As the BEV and FCEV come out of

production and go to the consumer's hand

there are a multitude of things to think

about. Starting with availability or how

easy it is to find a dealership that sells each

of these EVs. Right now the BEV is easier to find and easier to buy due to the price difference.

In most major cities you could find a Nissan dealership and a Leaf EV within it. Whereas with

the FCEV there are not nearly as many dealerships with the Mirai or Clarity. The only place you

can find these is in California and that is because of how hard it is to find a hydrogen fuel station.

There are only 20 hydrogen stations in the US and all of them are in California. This is a huge

problem for the FCEV because BEV already has an infrastructure set up for it. Most people have

a house that they can plug their BEV into and charge overnight. Even then you can charge your

BEV at more than 62,300 public EV charging stations in North America(Infrastructure Data &

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Analysis) covered by the PlugShare website. The FCEV does not have the ability to plug into the

wall overnight and be ready to go by the morning.

The FCEV needs an infrastructure to fuel it, just like the ICE, but the only place that has

these H-gas stations is California; at least inside the US. It is not going to be cheap and as

quoted from Fuel of the Future? Charlie Freese, head of the fuel-cell program at General

Motors says, Further down the line, some 11,000 stations might be needed to provide blanket

coverage across the United States. Thats something you could do for roughly the cost of the

Alaska pipeline, he says, referring to a proposed $35-billion project intended to carry natural

gas from Alaskas North Slope to the North American market. The implementation of a

infrastructure like this will take time and cannot be rushed, but is extremely necessary for the

success of the FCEV.

Another notable problem with the FCEV when talking about the infrastructure is

hydrogen pricing for the consumer. Right now hydrogen can be absurdly priced at somewhere

around $16 per kilogram of hydrogen or about $7.3 per pound, at least in La Canada, Calif., it

was $16.63 per kilogram.(Wong) A Mirai tank can hold 5 kilograms or a pressure of 70 MPa

(10152.6 psi)! That means refilling the Mirai costs at most $85. Which is weird because what the

DoE says it should cost is $4.50 per kilogram if the hydrogen is from steam reforming, shown in

table 4. Another important thing to consider when thinking about fueling the FCEV is that it

does not take hours to recharge unlike its BEV counterpart. Instead it is much like a conventional

ICE and refills on hydrogen in 5 minutes or less.

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 This is a big advantage that the FCEV has over the BEV. The BEV will always have this

problem, as there is no way to super-charge a battery with such a high capacity in 5 minutes or

less. If we did, the battery would explode, in a very literal sense of the word, leaving flaming bits

of acid and molten metal around it. Not a pretty scene. Of course hydrogen can be the same way

when put in the wrong situations. If hydrogen is kept in a contained area like a bubble or in a

small room where it cant disperse it becomes highly explosive in the presence of oxygen.

BOOOM! When you think about it, it scares you because this is the thing that you depend on

taking you everywhere and it could just explode? Well, no, and we are already living with this

fact. Conventional ICE vehicles have a very noxious gas that blows in the presence of oxygen,

and in fact that is the only reason an ICE works. Octane even burns hotter and longer than

hydrogen. Hydrogen is just one quick and loud explosion that leaves behind water. As usual we

just have to be careful. There are many preventative measures that can and are being taken for

both of these vehicles. The BEV have monitors that maintain heat so that batteries dont reach

the point of thermal runaway. As with the FCEV there are plenty of hydrogen leak detectors

spread throughout the frame. The tank is an hydrogen exclusive area and since hydrogen cannot

react with other hydrogen to make an explosion the tank cannot just combust, it needs the

oxygen from the air. Even when the hydrogen escapes it floats up at about 65 m/s and disperses

quickly enough among oxygen that even if you lit the fuse, so to speak, the hydrogen may be too

thin to really cause a chain reaction.

Another key factor when thinking about how we are going to fuel FCEVs is to consider

where we get the hydrogen from. Right now there are two main ways to get hydrogen; steam

reforming and electrolysis. Steam reforming uses hydrocarbon molecules and steals the hydrogen

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from them. The negative to this is it leaves CO2 as a product. It is the most efficient and cost

effective way to make hydrogen, but it makes the FCEV just barely better than an ICE in CO2

emissions just because of the efficiency of the FCEV. Electrolysis on the other hand does not

emit CO2, it just breaks apart water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. However, it is on the

slow side and takes a while to make hydrogen, while being less efficient than steam reforming.

This does not make electrolysis an invalid way to produce hydrogen. In the article Low cost

hydrogen production using solar photovoltaic panels regarding the production of hydrogen via

solar photovoltaic cells connected to hydrolyser, the author stated, A small-scale electrolyser

unit can produce about 2.5 kg of hydrogen in a day, whereas larger units have an output of about

25 kg.(Sonwani and Prasad 1) A small scale electrolyser can make half of the tank for the Mirai

in a day. This is an interesting way to make hydrogen because this gives the consumer their own

fuel source.

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Table 1

Various statistics on different BEVs.

BEV Cost Range Battery Miles/ Curb Torque Annual

(Miles) Energy kWh Weight (lbs.-ft.) Fuel Cost

Model S 71,300$ 208 60 kWh 2.9 4,464 lbs 317 650$

Nissan 30,680$ 84 24 kWh 3.3 3,291 lbs 207 550$

Leaf
Sources: Schurig, Darren. "BMW I3 Confirmed as Most Efficient EV Yet." Inside EVs. N.p.,

2014. Web. 26 Feb. 2017. <http://insideevs.com/bmw-i3-confirmed-efficient-ev-yet/>.

"2017 Nissan LEAF Electric Car." Nissan USA. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.

<https://www.nissanusa.com/electric-cars/leaf/>.

"Design Studio." Tesla. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.

<https://www.tesla.com/models/design>.

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Table 2

Production of CO2 based on BEV kWh/mile and cost to run BEV per mile.

BEV Fuel Coal Natural Oil Nuclear Solar Wind Hydro-

Source Gas electric

Liters of 113.15 L 64.65 L 92.37 L --- --- --- ---

CO2/Mile

$/kWh 10 14 14 10 13 7 8

$/Mile 3 5 5 3 5 2 3

Tesla

$/Mile 3 5 5 3 4 2 2

Nissan
Sources: "U.S. Energy Information Administration." How Much Carbon Dioxide Is Produced per

Kilowatthour When Generating Electricity with Fossil Fuels? Department of Energy, n.d. Web.

26 Feb. 2017. <https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=74&t=11>.

"Levelized Cost of New Electricity Generating Technologies." IER. N.p., 28 Feb. 2014. Web. 26

Feb. 2017. <http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/studies/levelized-cost-of-new-generating-

technologies/>.

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Table 3

Some general FCEV specifications.

FCEV Cost Range Miles/ Curb Torque Tank

(Miles) kg H2 Weight (lbs.-ft.) Capacity

Mirai 57,500 $ 312 62.4 4,078 lbs 247 5 kg H2

Clarity 60,000 $ 366 73.2 3,528 lbs 221 5 kg H2

Sources: "Google." Google. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2017. <https://www.google.com/webhp?

sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=mirai&*>.

Voelcker, John. "2017 Honda Clarity Fuel Cell Rated at 366 Miles of Range by EPA." Green Car

Reports. N.p., 24 Oct. 2016. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.

<http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1106845_2017-honda-clarity-fuel-cell-rated-at-366-

miles-of-range-by-epa>.

Hall-Geisler, Kristen. "Toyota Mirai Has Longest Range Of Any Zero-Emissions

Vehicle."Popular Science. N.p., 7 July 2015. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.

<http://www.popsci.com/toyota-mirai-has-longest-range-any-zero-emissions-vehicle>.

"Honda FCX Clarity." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Feb. 2017. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX_Clarity>.

Table 4

Production of CO2 based on hydrogen source and costs to run a FCEV.

FCEV Liters Liters Prius $/kg Cost to Refuel $/Mile $/Mile

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Hydrogen CO2/Mile CO2/Mile Two Eco H2 FCEV Mirai Clarity

Source FCEV Prius ICE MPG

Steam 76.5 L 77.5 L 58 4.50 $ 22.5 $ 7 6

Reforming

Electrolysis Liters Liters Prius $/Liter Cost to Refuel $/Mile $/Mile

CO2/Mile CO2/Mile MPG H2 FCEV Mirai Clarity

Prius ICE

--- --- 77.5 L 58 6.60 $ 28 $ 11 9

Sources: "Hydrogen Production." Fuel Cell Technologies (2015): 1-44. Department of Energy,

2015. Web. <https://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/06/f23/fcto_myrdd_production.pdf>.

"2017 Toyota Prius MPG & Price." Toyota. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.

<http://www.toyota.com/prius/features/mpg/1223/1224/1225/1226>.

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 Part IV: Conclusion

This research shows clearly that the BEV is the better choice for consumers and

companies alike. Right now the BEV is the most implementable because of its availability and

current infrastructure. However, there is a possibility of the FCEV coming in as a runner up,

because of its range and ease of use.

The EV competition is just starting. The BEV has a large headstart because the battery

has been vastly improved as we have experimented with electricity. From the beginning with

Volta we have seen batteries increase in capacity, voltage, and rechargeability. The FCEV still

has aways before it catches up with the BEV. The fuel cell has not seen as much attention as the

battery has, thus it has not reached the point the battery has. However, this is both good and bad.

As the battery reaches its limitations in energy density, the fuel cell, however, still has a while

before it reaches its highest energy capacity. However, because is missing key factors like being

durable, easy to make, and most importantly affordable it still has aways before it is ready for the

average consumer.

The BEV also has another huge leap ahead of the FCEV: there is already a large electrical

infrastructure. Every house uses it and after you buy a BEV it is not that hard to get a wall outlet

in your garage that powers your car or you could charge it back up at one of the many available

car chargers. However, the only place you could live and own a FCEV practically is in

California. This is due to the amount of hydrogen stations available. Even then, there are only 20

hydrogen fuel stations in the state of California, but these numbers will slowly grow with time as

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company interest grows and possibly the Government providing infrastructure assistance. Either

way it is going to take a lot of time, a couple of decades at least.

Another problem that the fuel cell will have to solve within that time is the production of

hydrogen. As stated in the analysis section, the cheapest and most efficient way to produce

hydrogen is through the process of steam reforming. The reason this is a problem is because it

outputs CO2 at a similar rate to the conventional ICE vehicle. There are cleaner options under

research right now and yet again this will take time to find a good alternative to. For example,

the use of a solar photovoltaic cell to create hydrogen via electrolysis or for that matter the use of

renewables such as wind and hydro-electirc to create hydrogen. Whereas with a BEV we can just

plug them into green sources that are already available. Countries like France have large amounts

of nuclear energy and can sell BEVs that run completely clean. However, in the US we dont

have that luxury yet. Due to this fall back we have to account for the amount of CO2 we will

produce even when we do not see it coming out of the tail pipe. In the case of the BEV we are

still going to emit CO2 via the power source, whether it comes from oil, coal, or natural gas.

To summarize, there are things that make the FCEV comparable to the BEV. Things like

range and refilling time. However, because there are so many hurdles that the FCEV has yet to

overcome like the hydrogen fuel source, the necessary infrastructure, and efficient, durable,

cheap fuel cells it is not the easiest to implement right now. The BEV already has a working

infrastructure and an affordable price working for it. Thus, the BEV is currently the easiest to

implement and I believe that it is in our best interest to move toward this cleaner form of

transportation.

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