My recent realization is that the very high-end of the GPU market is totally unnecessary. A 4070 can play practically any game at 4K with decent framerates. And if you are fine with just "high" settings instead of maxed out, at very good framerates too.
Fuel cells have the potential to help overcome the challenges associated with Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV), namely a dependency on limited natural resources, electric grid capacity, battery charging time and vehicle range. Fuel cells can also be as cheap to manufacture as internal combustion engines and can be produced using recycled and recyclable materials.
Reminder that fuel cells are less dependent on resources than batteries, can be about as cheap as ICEs to make, and can be made out of recycled materials.
Then you are creating an imaginary set of problems for hydrogen. We already have hydrogen cars that can go 400 miles. The range problem is already a solved problem. Future innovations will improve this even further. We already have hydrogen drones and bikes too. So there is no problem scaling down. Not to mention SUVs make up nearly 80% of the market these days. You're basically inverting how the real world car market works.
As we run into the fundamental problems of batteries, such as needing charging stations everywhere, and very high powered ones if we want fast charging, it will eventually become obvious that no amount of advancements will solve some of those issues. We will want to look at alternative solutions.
And again, BEVs are not competitive right now. They are a artificial market propped up by governments around the world. ICE cars still rule the world. And likely BEVs will retreat in the market as subsidy reductions and trade wars make them even less uncompetitive.
Hydrogen got a tiny fraction of the subsidies that batteries got. We probably looking at well beyond $1 trillion for the latter, if you include everything, such as all the subsidies and government loans from China. If were serious about making hydrogen a thing, we would've increase subsidies by a factor of something like 100x.
Battery cars have not "won." In fact, they are barely alive as a self-sustaining industry. ICE cars still dominate, and if anything they are gaining ground with blended solutions like hybrids or PHEVs. This is what I mean by "drinking the kool-aid." BEV fans are making claims that fly in the face of reality. And it's more than likely that if we take away the subsidies, the BEV industry would quickly collapse and shrink to a tiny niche.
The problem is that BEVs only really make sense as urban commuters for people with garages, and smaller ideas like e-scooters or e-bikes. It's not really something that make sense for larger vehicles or long-distance vehicles. And trying to force the issue just means a lot of SUV sized BEVs, which are definitely not a solution to anything. By admitting they're not perfect is admitting we should scale back BEV subsidies and start seriously promoting alternatives.
We are nowhere near capable of replacing all cars with battery powered cars. Their supporters are just handwaving away the problems. In particular, we have no straightforward way of both converting the grid to 100% renewable energy, while also massively increasingly electrical demand for things like BEVs and every other electrification proposal. In reality, it's just a big fantasy.
The "success" of battery cars right now is really due to huge subsidies and a willingness to overlook fundamental problems (such as mining challenges, child and slave labor, no way for non-homeowners to charge conveniently, etc.). If we actually looked at those problems honestly, we'd realize that they are as big or even bigger than the challenges of building a hydrogen infrastructure.
This gets much more problematic once we look at heavy transportation or industry. We have no method of electrifying airplanes or ocean-going ships and many other things. So all of the expense of electrifying cars is just one part of a much larger decarbonization process. And that larger process absolutely requires a hydrogen infrastructure somewhere. So we pretty much have to build a hydrogen infrastructure anyways. As a result, dismissing hydrogen is just not taking climate change seriously.
A much better question is asking what happens when it is not sunny? Because the scenario is always constructed in such a way that exaggerates the efficiency of battery cars. Of course, a solar powered car would be even more efficient in that scenarios, but we don't talk much about those.
The problem is that we have to store energy, often for very long periods of time. For the grid, this is called grid energy storage, and usually includes a wide variety of options. One of which is hydrogen itself, since it is the best to store energy for very long periods.
So in practice, there's not much difference in efficiency, since every idea requires some kind of compromise somewhere. BEVs will often need hydrogen to back it up. But the main point is that once you make the switch to some kind of EV, the issue of efficiency is mostly moot, since you already well beyond ICE cars in terms of efficiency. The rest of the argument is a distraction, mostly made by people who want to promote one idea specially.
It's the primary source of this type of rhetoric. And you sound like someone who fell for it hook, line and sinker.
Battery powered cars are well over 100 years old. They only exist in number right now because of huge subsidies and because governments are mandating they happen. They would not be popular at all otherwise. If we subsidized hydrogen cars to the same extent, we'd be talking about the success of hydrogen cars right now.
The problem is that battery cars are not a viable alternative to most types of ICE cars. People have drank so much kool-aid that they forgot this obvious fact. So they engage in this delusion where the BEV industry is somehow already ascendant, when in reality it is barely a viable business. Which is also why Biden is raising tariffs on Chinese EVs (the OP BTW). Only China is subsidizing BEVs to the levels needed to make it work. Something few other countries are willing to do.
It is another way of converting chemical energy into electricity. Basically, another way of building an EV. And since you don't need nearly as big of a battery to power an EV, it is a sensible way of reducing cost, weight, etc. while still achieving zero emissions. There are absolutely situations where those upsides significant outweigh the downsides.
If people were honestly in favor of EVs or zero emissions in general, they would definitely look at fuel cells seriously. But unfortunately, they don't, because they are mostly Tesla fanboys who want Tesla (and only Tesla) to succeed. So they demonize it, alongside everything else including PHEVs and hybrids. Which is why you see posts from "EV fans" that hate most types of EVs.