When it comes to people discussing NIO, it's always 1% the cars itself and 99% stocks lol
New Energy Vehicles (NEVs) in China
- Thread starter supercat
- Start date
Nio is a great investment a year ago. Too many EV players in China at the moment to know which companies would survive and thrive.
Ever wonder why hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs) are back from the dead?
From (Canada) in 2019 :
The researchers have developed a new fuel cell that lasts at least 10 times longer than current technology, an improvement that would make them economically practical, if mass-produced, to power vehicles with electricity.
"With our design approach, the cost could be comparable or even cheaper than gasoline engines," said Xianguo Li, director of the Fuel Cell and Green Energy Lab at Waterloo. "The future is very bright. This is clean energy that could boom." [Emphasis added.]
....
Li collaborated with lead researcher Hongtao Zhang, a former post-doctoral fellow, Waterloo mathematics professor Xinzhi Liu and Jinyue Yan, an energy expert and professor in Sweden.
From (Canada) in 2019 :
The researchers have developed a new fuel cell that lasts at least 10 times longer than current technology, an improvement that would make them economically practical, if mass-produced, to power vehicles with electricity.
"With our design approach, the cost could be comparable or even cheaper than gasoline engines," said Xianguo Li, director of the Fuel Cell and Green Energy Lab at Waterloo. "The future is very bright. This is clean energy that could boom." [Emphasis added.]
....
Li collaborated with lead researcher Hongtao Zhang, a former post-doctoral fellow, Waterloo mathematics professor Xinzhi Liu and Jinyue Yan, an energy expert and professor in Sweden.
Plus China saying Hydrogen is advantageous for long-distance trucking, even today.
But the advent of *free* solar electricity is interesting.
Solar panels are now so cheap that commercial developers deliberately oversize capacity to compensate for cloudy days.
It looks like some of the latest commercial grids are sized to only send half of their peak electricity production to the grid.
So what about the other half which is generated during a sunny day? Battery storage or hydrogen production comes to mind.
Hydrogen fuel cells are a stupid idea.
You need platinum to build them, most of the progress in reducing the cost for HFCs is reducing the amount of platinum they require.
The article talks about using a constant power draw to increase the lifetime of fuel cells. But think about it, how practical is something like that? It will require the car to have batteries to have a buffer in high power draw situations. And the battery won't work all the time. Make the battery large enough and you're getting a more expensive hybrid car, a PEV, with platinum in it.
Even if you fixed the fuel cells issues somehow, the major issue with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is hydrogen production cost and storage and that hasn't changed. Wasting electricity to make hydrogen is a complete non-starter. There will be more viable uses for the electricity.
Solar electricity is already the most expensive form of electricity we produce, and they want to waste half of it with cracking hydrogen (because that is the efficiency of electrolysis in case you didn't know 50%). Only someone who does not know the physics or economics would propose something stupid like this.
The most cost viable way to manufacture hydrogen today is by steam reforming methane and that generates carbon gas too. It also wastes energy. Why not just directly burn the methane?
You need platinum to build them, most of the progress in reducing the cost for HFCs is reducing the amount of platinum they require.
The article talks about using a constant power draw to increase the lifetime of fuel cells. But think about it, how practical is something like that? It will require the car to have batteries to have a buffer in high power draw situations. And the battery won't work all the time. Make the battery large enough and you're getting a more expensive hybrid car, a PEV, with platinum in it.
Even if you fixed the fuel cells issues somehow, the major issue with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is hydrogen production cost and storage and that hasn't changed. Wasting electricity to make hydrogen is a complete non-starter. There will be more viable uses for the electricity.
Solar electricity is already the most expensive form of electricity we produce, and they want to waste half of it with cracking hydrogen (because that is the efficiency of electrolysis in case you didn't know 50%). Only someone who does not know the physics or economics would propose something stupid like this.
The most cost viable way to manufacture hydrogen today is by steam reforming methane and that generates carbon gas too. It also wastes energy. Why not just directly burn the methane?
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That is factually and analytically incorrect.
Solar is the CHEAPEST unsubsidised electricity we can possibly produce.
At the moment, this statement applies to really sunny regions, but costs are falling every year.
Solar panels are so cheap that there is actually surplus electricity going to waste.
So it might as well be stored in batteries or used to create hydrogen.
I don't think hydrogen engines will be the norm, but they will occupy a significant niche.
They are cheaper by giving tax credits to wind and solar while charging carbon taxes to coal and natural gas.
Also, those places with high solar intensity seldom have clean running water around in the amount to produce hydrogen.
Like I said, 50% of the energy is lost when doing electrolysis. It is nowhere cheap enough.
If it was that cheap it would be in use to produce ammonia for fertilizer, the fact it isn't shows this is all BS.
Maybe it will be cheap enough in 10 years time but it isn't now.
The second article you posted mentioned them "considering" removing subsidies for solar in 2050. That tells you all you need to know.
Enron like scams where solar and wind power companies propose lower electricity prices (with government subsidies per kWh generated) to get a hold of the electric grid while charging higher prices afterwards to roll in the cash aren't relevant.
Also, those places with high solar intensity seldom have clean running water around in the amount to produce hydrogen.
Like I said, 50% of the energy is lost when doing electrolysis. It is nowhere cheap enough.
If it was that cheap it would be in use to produce ammonia for fertilizer, the fact it isn't shows this is all BS.
Maybe it will be cheap enough in 10 years time but it isn't now.
The second article you posted mentioned them "considering" removing subsidies for solar in 2050. That tells you all you need to know.
Enron like scams where solar and wind power companies propose lower electricity prices (with government subsidies per kWh generated) to get a hold of the electric grid while charging higher prices afterwards to roll in the cash aren't relevant.
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We're talking about unsubsidised wind and solar here.
Did you miss the part where in the latest auctions, the developers are now making payments rather than taking subsidies?
And is there anything wrong with charging a tax to reflect that cost of carbon emissions or other pollutants from coal or gas?
You seemed to have missed the point. In reality, multiple countries are in fact ending subsidies because wind and solar are now competitive. Continued subsidies would accelerate the change, but the trajectory would continue nonetheless.
And we are talking about the impact over the next 10 years.
In the 10 year period from 2010-2020, the cost of solar electricity has decreased by 82%.
By 2025, we could expect solar electricity to drop another 59%.
So I reckon we will see wind and solar projects grow explosively over the next 10 years
Did you even bother to read the article you posted all the way through?
"Enerland and other bidders are selling Portugal energy at prices as much as five times lower than the cost to generate it, estimates Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). But they are not throwing their money away. They’re betting the superior economics of solar power, and a coveted connection to the country’s crowded electricity grid, will cover any losses over the first 15 years (solar facilities are expected to last about 40 years). After that period, they can sell their power at prevailing market rates (now more than $50/Mwh), and pocket any difference as profits. Their grid connection never expires."
"In a high renewables scenario, energy sector subsidies, now around 1% of global gross domestic product (GDP) would fall to 0.2% by 2050. Solar subsidies should shrink and disappear completely by 2050"
It's an Enron level scam. They get the grid connection to their own facilities by selling energy on the cheap in the start, then they jack up the price.
"Enerland and other bidders are selling Portugal energy at prices as much as five times lower than the cost to generate it, estimates Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). But they are not throwing their money away. They’re betting the superior economics of solar power, and a coveted connection to the country’s crowded electricity grid, will cover any losses over the first 15 years (solar facilities are expected to last about 40 years). After that period, they can sell their power at prevailing market rates (now more than $50/Mwh), and pocket any difference as profits. Their grid connection never expires."
"In a high renewables scenario, energy sector subsidies, now around 1% of global gross domestic product (GDP) would fall to 0.2% by 2050. Solar subsidies should shrink and disappear completely by 2050"
It's an Enron level scam. They get the grid connection to their own facilities by selling energy on the cheap in the start, then they jack up the price.
Yes, the hydrogen will probably be limited to big vehicles like trucks. You probably know the reason; the following explanation is for others.
Hydrogen becomes liquid at ultra-low temperatures. Cryogenic hydrogen might be fine for the occasional rocket, but is probably impractical for daily use. So big tanks will be needed for the gaseous hydrogen, which probably means trucks.
(You can increase the density greatly by combining hydrogen with something else to make a liquid such as methanol, but then you would have get the hydrogen back out, and that wastes energy.)
So for normal people, an electric car powered by lithium batteries will continue to be the most popular new energy vehicle. China's vast investment in electric cars and charging stations is safe.
There has been much work in reducing platinum to a thinly plated layer over other materials. See
Good thinking about the need for batteries. We would need something anyway to store the energy recovered by regenerative braking. However, a big expensive battery won't be necessary; a small, cheap ultra capacitor should be good enough.
You are wrong: solar energy is so cheap that it's worthwhile to overbuild. See
"Solar is so cheap, we need to build far, far more than we need."
The article was based on work done in 2014; solar panels have gotten even cheaper since then. We may as well make hydrogen with the excess solar power, even if the process is not so efficient.
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