I just spent a week in California, and every time I visit, I understand why the people there fight so hard to preserve their environment. Few other states have been endowed with such beauty and so many natural resources. The entire country owes a debt of gratitude to California, as well, for pushing stricter emissions standards that have resulted in better outcomes for everyone. At the same time, state leaders are ignoring technology they’ve long popularized in exchange for a pipe dream.
Today’s Morning Dump is going to be all about dreams, both realistic and unrealistic. BMW and Mercedes have long pondered a tie-up, but it’s never quite happened. Now we’re one step closer to that coming to fruition, and it has a lot to do with gasoline engines. Volkswagen has long dreamt of supplanting Tesla with its electric cars, and that actually is happening (at least in Europe).
Mitsubishi hopes to regain some of the luster it had in the 1990s, when it was briefly the fastest-growing Japanese car company in America. First, it’s going to have to get over some persistent recalls, including one over sagging liftgates.
California’s Plan To Counter Feds Mentions Hydrogen Eight Times, Hybrids Zero Times
The modern electric car was born in California. The proliferation of catalytic converters, the creation of some of the earliest controls on emissions (thanks, Gov. Reagan!), and an aggressive framework to protect the environment from climate change all have roots in the Golden State.
You know what else California was instrumental in proliferating? Hybrids! The second-gen hybrid Toyota Prius became the unofficial mascot of the State of California around the turn of the century. Using a small battery and clever engineering, the Prius dramatically increased the fuel economy, and that’s a big deal!
You know what California is buying a lot of, right now? Hybrids. According to a report from the California New Dealers Association, hybrids are the cars driving the market in the first half of 2025:
Hybrid sales in California are up more than 50% year-over-year, and that’s in a place that already buys a lot of hybrids. Any time someone gets out of a regular gas-powered car and into a hybrid, it’s a victory for the environment. Is an electric car better? Absolutely. Should California do things to continue to incentivize electric car purchases and charging so that consumers, especially low-income ones, can afford to buy them? Also, yes.
I personally think that it’s a net bad thing that the Federal government is backtracking on the progress we made in electrification, and I understand why Californians are upset that the Trump Administration has pulled the waivers that allowed the state to set a higher standard for automakers. Even with all the work the state has done, approximately half of the most polluted cities in the United States are in California.
Electric cars are a great solution for many Californians, which is why the state still has the highest adoption rate of EVs anywhere in the country. EVs are also expensive, and will continue to require some level of subsidization for the near future, which is why the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is stating in its strategy letter that it might try to replace the expiring federal tax credits:
Federal clean vehicle tax credits will end after September 30, 2025. Subject to available resources and scaled to match our resources and policy goals, funding could provide point-of-sale rebates, vouchers, or other credits to keep new vehicle sales robust and expand the availability of used ZEVs on the secondary market. Incentives should support new and used vehicle purchases and leases and be available for individual vehicle purchases as well as bulk purchases by fleet operators.
These incentives should probably have an income component (how efficient is it to help millionaires buy Teslas?), and the catch here is that the state needs to be able to afford the subsidies. I also appreciate that California is suggesting that more work needs to be done to expand charging access, reduce charging cost, and utilize Vehicle-Grid Integration, which could be a huge win for a state with more-than-occasional grid issues.
At the same time, shifting more of the fleet (57.5% of sales so far this year have been traditional ICE-powered vehicles) towards PHEVs, hybrids, EREVs, and electric cars is likely the cheapest, easiest, and most direct path towards reducing air pollution in the short term.
Does California’s strategy document mention hybrids at all? It does not. It does talk a lot about hydrogen:
Leverage private investments to bring down the cost of hydrogen. Explore opportunities for state-connected projects to buy hydrogen fuel facilitated through ARCHES (for use cases in buses, trucks, rail, ports, power sector) with the goal of providing demand certainty for hydrogen producers and infrastructure providers and driving down fuel costs
There are, by my count, eight references to hydrogen. While there’s maybe a possibility that hydrogen can be used at some point in the future to power large trucks and buses, the technology has not seemed to mature or to gain any kind of traction. It’s energy-intensive to produce and difficult to transport. I am not implying that hydrogen has no place for certain applications, nor am I saying there should be zero investment in the technology, but the best-case scenario for the wide commercial adoption of hydrogen technology is decades away. Hybrid technology is here, right now, and it works.
In an ideal situation, most Californians would switch over to electric cars immediately. There would be abundant, affordable charging and a market full of cheap electric cars. That hasn’t happened yet. I think the day is coming, and it is logical for California’s government to continue to push for it, but there also needs to be a reality check. There aren’t enough affordable EVs being built today to make that possible, nor is the charging infrastructure able to support everyone owning an electric car.
As society builds towards that future, the idea of incentivizing and encouraging hybrid purchases is not giving up. It’s not forsaking the future. It’s not a failure to meet people where they are today as you prepare for tomorrow. It’s just common sense.
[Ed Note: As a California resident, I still think the infrastructure isn’t good enough, to the point where I wouldn’t recommend an EV if you can’t charge at home or at work. Offering a hybrid means folks who aren’t ready to deal with the costs/inconveniences of an EV don’t have to keep driving a guzzler. Hybrids are a huge deal, and will be for some time. The “they’re a stopgap solution” argument against them makes literally no sense; that they’re the best solution given our current circumstances shouldn’t be considered a bad thing. -DT].
BMW And Mercedes Might Tie Up On Engine Technology
After years of battling one another for market share, Mercedes and BMW are reportedly looking at the state of the world and deciding that perhaps it’s better to work together to survive than to perish separately.
According to Manager Magazin, a potential partnership is centered around the one thing Mercedes boss Ola Källenius didn’t think he would need anymore: Gas engines.
Källenius’s offensive was initially surprising. He intended to build almost no combustion engines after 2030. Instead of investing too heavily in his own drivetrains, he ordered four-cylinder engines from the Chinese Geely Group. Owner Li Shufu (62) is also a major shareholder in Mercedes.
But the situation has now reversed. Källenius suddenly appears to be as open to new technologies as his BMW colleague Zipse; moreover, he needs significantly more engines than he thought for plug-in hybrids, the combined electric and gasoline powertrains. The conclusion is: If Mercedes wants to build the best cars, Källenius also needs state-of-the-art combustion engines. As fuel-efficient and powerful as possible.
The engines from China, currently being installed in the first models, are apparently not enough. Moreover, they could pose a political problem in markets like the US .
BMW CEO Oliver Zipse, on the other hand, has never given up on the combustion engine. He apparently has the capacity for the required engines; in 2024, almost 1.2 million three-, four-, six-, and even a few eight-cylinder models were produced in Steyr.
BMW makes money and keeps its plants open, both companies can reduce development spend, and Mercedes can keep its gas-powered cars running a little bit longer.
Volkswagen Is Finally Finding Some EV Success In Europe
Post-Dieselgate, the German automaker we mostly refer to as Volkswagen tried an aggressive shift into electrification and software. It was a very VW approach that involved spending a metric crap ton of euros on engineers, with extremely mixed results.
A new round of vehicles with revised software and some annoyances smoothed out is starting to get more traction in Europe, with more on the way, according to Bloomberg:
In September, Volkswagen plans to unveil the first of its next-generation EVs, the compact VW ID.2all, a €25,000 hatchback meant to kick-start an era of fresh growth. Blume speaks of what he calls a “model offensive,” with 30 new cars in 2024 and the same number expected this year. “The current environment is extremely challenging,” Blume says. “And we’re holding our own.”
The group’s vehicle sales increased in the second quarter, driven by a 38% gain in global EV deliveries from the previous year. VW’s updated ID models—a hatchback, an SUV crossover and a full-size sedan—have garnered praise for fresh interiors and revamped software. In Europe its latest battery-powered cars have outsold Tesla’s in recent months, benefiting in no small part from Elon Musk’s political antics, but also from improved quality. The group is on track to be Europe’s top EV maker for 2025, ahead of Tesla, Stellantis and Renault. And in China the first models tailored to local tastes, developed with a Chinese partner, are due to hit showrooms next year.
CEO Oliver Blume and the company he leads still have a long way to go, of course, but Tesla’s fall from grace might provide a nice lift for the automaker.
If You Have An Outlander, You Might Want To Watch The Liftgate
I have hit my head on any number of liftgates and hatches over the years, both because I tend to buy five-door vehicles and because I rarely know where my body is in space. The numerous blows to my noggin are probably no surprise to anyone who regularly reads TMD.
Perhaps it’s a good thing I don’t own a Mitsubishi Outlander built between 2014 and 2022, because according to NHTSA, the 92,000+ vehicles sold have tailgates that might fail and fall on your head:
The cylinder of the tailgate gas spring, which contains high pressure gas, could corrode due to salt water penetration. The high salinity of water promotes corrosion. If significant corrosion occurs over time, the wall thickness of the cylinder could be reduced, causing the gas spring to rapidly lose pressure.
Well, that’s not good. [Ed Note: “Wall thickness of the cylinder to be reduced” is a weird way of saying the cylinder is going to rot out and the hole is going to release the gas pressure. -DT].
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the video for “Bad Dream” by Cannons, but I love the song. It’s super weird and ’80s in a way that perfectly fits the Italodisco synth sound.
The Big Question
Do you own a hybrid? Would you consider buying a hybrid? If so, which one?
Top photo: Depositphotos.com
My Father had one each of the first three generations of Prius. He had recently retired from NYC DEP and was now working in private sector and the new office was North Shore, LI in Locust Valley. There was absolutely zero consideration for the environment as each was purchased solely for the ability to access the LIE HOV lanes solo for the 3days a week he had to commute to Locust Valley from Brooklyn. As soon as he re-retired he switched to a series of ICE Audi’s, the current ride being a Q5
I think this article is painting a false dichotomy.
Hybrids are a great solution, and they already sell themselves without government incentives or investment. They are after all, simply an evolution of existing ICE tech, and require no change to consumer behaviour or infrastructure.
On a basic level, all you need to hybridize a car is an electric motor/generator, planetary gearbox, and a 1kWh battery. The first two items replace existing components. Adding this tech to nearly any ICE is a no-brainer, and it is steadily proliferating one way or another.
The RAV4, -literally the world’s best selling vehicle- is going hybrid-only for 2026. I would expect more popular vehicles to follow in that direction.
Do I own a hybrid? Not currently. We passed over the F150 Powerboost, as the fuel economy advantage (for the price) was slim for our medium-speed rural driving. Next truck or car will definitely be hybrid though, if not fully electric. I can’t wait to skip the gas station once we build our house and can charge at home.
Yes.
The “stupidly shortsighted” in the headline is so cringe.
Hybrids are here.
The state program is to increase zero emission vehicles for the future.
I get that this site LOVES hybrids, mild to EREV, and so do I!
A persistent problem in the US is we are incredibly bad at doing the boring thing that works. This applies to basically everything. High speed trains that are proven and function, boring. Getting cleaner emissions from vehicles in a steady achievable way going from ICE to hybrids to PHEVs to EVs, boring. We want the shiny object weather it is hyperloops or hydrogen cars or AI
“bad at doing the boring thing that works”
The Buick LeSabre would like a word.
I’m not so sure. I took my driving test in my parents’ 1967 Buick LeSabre but my siblings and I each declined the opportunity to accept it for free when they offered. Arguably this made us all bad at doing the boring thing that works.
Counterpoint: the fleet on the road is, in a steady and achievable way, going from ICE to hybrids to phevs to EVs.
California environmental policy is proceeding quite nicely. Don’t allow partisan statements and accusations to cloud the facts. Only the meddling of the Trump administration will slow it down or create ancillary headaches. The comparison to what existed 50 years ago is night and day. The number of people almost tripled, the number of personal vehicles almost quadrupled, and for the economists out there who directly tied growth to energy output (they were wrong), California’s productivity and GDP expanded in a proportional (plus some) manner, without any of the doom and gloom predictions.
I’m not in the market for a hybrid as hybrid trucks seem to just use the motor for Mo’ Powah Baby instead of meaningful fuel economy gains.
I WOULD, however, buy an EREV truck.
Also, Purple Sun is a much better song by Cannons, in my opinion.
I do have one, a 2007 Prius with almost 320,000 miles on it.
I wouldn’t buy a new one though, not because they’re bad, but because the main reason I have one is to save money on fuel, and spending several times as much as the Prius cost on something newer doesn’t save money. MPG really hasn’t improved much since 2007 either, I’m not getting much lower MPG than the new Prius offers.
…casually glosses over the fact that he’s buying a bolt… 😛
Hydrogen and fuel cells were the emissions saviors of the future in 1996. As everyone else has mentioned, we haven’t figured out how to scale hydrogen production economically or in a way that is environmentally sound.
Hybrids make a ton of sense, I’m curious about range extender vehicles. For now, I live in a state with zero EV infrastructure, so, that’s not happening for me. Why spend $50k on a vehicle that can only be driven back and forth to town?
The air quality issues still in CA are due to things other than personal auto emissions.
Correct. The majority is agriculture generated from California’s great Central Valley. People will ask, ‘why can’t you do anything about it?’. What do you propose doing to a region that feeds perhaps a full 20% of the country with enough spares for export? You like to eat, right?
Yep, and lack of water to the farms leads to airborne dust that is a big part of the problem.
Easily solved by pumping Mississippi water up the Arkansas valley, then over the hump into the Rio Grand, then over another hump into the Navajo/San Juan/Lake Powell.
Nuclear + desalination would make more sense, but given CA’s politics, your plan might be more realistic! 😀
Perhaps for the millionth time what I’m about to post has been been put into print on various engineering and tech blogs: Nuclear is dead. It’s not politics at this point. It’s the almighty $$$. No investor wants to sink their money into something that will take 10-15 years or more to come on line, and perhaps never show any ROI. Look to the global energy scene to see what is working and what makes money. That would be increasingly cheaper renewables. Industry (and financiers) have already made the decision.
I’ve mentioned this before, nuke foamers seem to ignore how wind and especially solar are almost infinitely scalable down. That not only means you don’t need the site, funding and lead time for a huge installation that are prerequisites for nuclear, but even if you do have it, with wind and solar you’re generating power and income as soon as the first turbine or solar panes is in place. With nuclear you don’t get a positive entry in the ledger until everything is built out to full completion.
Except all us in the Midwest who rely on the Mississippi’s water just how it is for all kinds of things! LOL
There are many causes of air pollution, but auto emissions are indeed a major issue in cities like Los Angeles. California agriculture is also a major source, feel free to come up with a solution for that. Nobody else has.
I live in north Orange County and go to LA frequently. The air quality here is great. Down by the ports, not so much.
Down is the key word. The lower you are in a stagnate area, the more pollution tends to gather.
Technically I own a hybrid because that is what Audi calls the A6 Allroad with a 48V starter but after previously owning a Prius and a PHEV Honda Clarity it really doesn’t feel like it – especially with the 24 mpg average over the first 6 months of ownership.
I certainly won’t go back to full ICE on future daily drivers and I really tried to get into a T8 V60 PHEV last winter when I got this Allroad but they were basically non-existent.
My wife owned a 2006 Highlander Hybrid years back. She enjoyed it, but when she was looking for a replacement in 2017, given the amount she drives the savings in fuel didn’t seem to justify the premium she’d have to pay for a hybrid over a non-hybrid. She ended up getting employee pricing on a Mazda CX-9 through a friend of mine and that sealed the deal.
8 years later she’s mulling the idea of a new(er) car (I’m highly encouraging her to keep it – no car payment is nice in these uncertain times) but she wants a hybrid. I totally support this idea as fuel will likely only get more expensive, but I also haven’t compared pricing on hybrid models vs non recently.
I’d totally drive a hybrid myself but I’m a cheap bastard with a 5 minute commute only 2 days a week so my daily driver cars will probably continue to be something cheap I can buy outright.
I’m assuming this is going to be covered in a separate article, but I was wondering if we’d see the news from the details of the US-EU trade agreement in TMD. It wasn’t widely reported, but get a load of #8 here:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/08/joint-statement-on-a-united-states-european-union-framework-on-an-agreement-on-reciprocal-fair-and-balanced-trade/
Money quote: “With respect to automobiles, the United States and the European Union intend to accept and provide mutual recognition to each other’s standards.”
That’s HUGE news if it comes to pass. Even with the (now 15%) tariffs on cars from Europe, not having to homogolate for the US market might draw in some other European manufacturers.
Whoa, that is huge. Frankly the homologation costs are more expensive than a 15% tariff. This would be especially beneficial to Stellantis as they’ve got a large dealership network that desperately needs more product.
Interesting. I wonder if this is going to be retroactive for those of us who might be crazy enough to import a Brera.
We all know nothing substantive will come of it.
Maybe, maybe not. But the fact it’s even mentioned is mind blowing. Never thought that would even be on the table
Unfortunately this probably means something like Trump expects the EU to change the side of the road they drive on so the can buy a “fair” amount of F150s or they get a 50% tariff.
Most of the EU drives on the same side of the road as us. Post-Brexit the Republic of Ireland is the only EU country driving on the left.
Malta and Cyprus also drive on the left, but their markets aren’t quite large enough to trigger much in the way of transportation and trade policies.
I for one applaud your optimism. I don’t share it, but it looks good on you!
I wonder what this means for pedestrian impact standards. I really hope the EU does not relent on their standards and will, instead, force US manufacturers to consider pedestrian safety if they want to sell a single trans-atlantic car.
Here’s the full section #8:
8. The United States and the European Union commit to work together to reduce or eliminate non-tariff barriers. With respect to automobiles, the United States and the European Union intend to accept and provide mutual recognition to each other’s standards. Cooperation on standards plays a crucial role in enhancing the transatlantic marketplace. The European Union and United States commit to enhance opportunities for technical cooperation between EU- and U.S.-domiciled standards development organizations with the objective of identifying and developing standards for the transatlantic marketplace in key sectors of mutual interest. The United States and the European Union commit to facilitate conformity assessments to cover additional industrial sectors.
Whenever a government agency starts pushing toward a particular business segment (in this case hydrogen), one word is usually lurking the in darks shadows of that government’s halls: Lobbyist.
Any hydrogen used for transportation use would originate as natural gas. You crack the methane molecule to grab the hydrogen. What industry does that continue to support? Oh yeah, the petroleum/gas industry. So you’re correct there are some deep pocketed and powerful lobbyists at work.
This nation is going to “best of a bad situation” itself into a heavily polluted, privatized, and poor collection of fiefdoms.
You’ve gotta skate where the puck is going, not where it’s at.
Bezostan was at war with Muskonia, therefore Bezostan had always been at war with Muskonia.
I’ve owned a hybrid since ’06 and am on my third one. We had a leased Rav4, and at the end of the lease opted for a plug-in Rav4 for my spouse (yes, we are folks who boosted the Rav4 sales number). We can charge on 120v at home and drive on EV power for several days around town. We also drive 700 miles on a one-day drive a few times a year. And we can charge when we are at our desitination as well. Until the infrstructure is robust, we’ll stick with hybrids.
I get the draw of hydrogen. There really isn’t a better way to cut heavy truck emissions in existence yet… but I just don’t think political will alone is possible to make the transition, especially with how troublesome it is to implement. I’m sympathetic, though.
Anyway, QOTD: Funny enough I ended up skipping over regular hybrids entirely. From ICE to plug-in to EV, and now I’m a recidivist because there’s nothing sporty and electrified that you can buy in the US. I’m interested in the Prelude if I end up in the market again, though.
Did the same with the wife’s anonymous crossover and range concern hasn’t been a big deal with all the other benefits of drivability, maintenance and charging. Apparently not pumping gas was a huge win for her.
Kia’s EV6 makes a case for sporty and affordable EV, but honestly the weight is hard to deal with. BMW’s are nice but pricier.
I did something similar by going from ICE to EV. If Jeep ever puts the 4xe system into the Gladiator, I’d consider one of those to replace the ICE vehicle next to the EV.
The problem with hydrogen powered HD trucks is that it take 3 times more electricity per mile vs a battery electric. So economics is the #1 reason. Then there is the problem of fueling. Natural gas trucks were suppose to be the next green thing 20 years ago but never really took off even with a nationwide network of natural gas pipelines mainly because it was very expensive to build the filling stations. Hydrogen filling is multiple times more expensive than CNG or LNG
I think Toyota is doing what we should be doing across all the fleet.
A hybrid makes anyone use less gas. You don’t need a charger to save a lot of gas.
PHEVs are great if you can charge at home or work, but have to take a lot of longer trips and don’t know if the charging network is robust enough.
We as a nation seem to be trying to jump to 3 without considering 1 and 2. We can’t go to a 100% EV fleet overnight. For the 80% or so of cars being sold that are NOT EVs, they should be hybrids not pure ICEs as much as possible.
As someone who got caught up in the idea of jumping right to 3 in the past, I like this take. Keep pushing on EVs and the tech that surrounds them, but the volume should be in hybrids of all the stripes. PHEVs get people ready for an EV by getting them “used to” plugging in every night, which will help further the EV push when we’re more prepared for it.
Step one – Steal underwear
Step two – ?
Step three – Profit!!
We have two hybrids we are more than happy with. This is proven tech at this point.
I don’t currently own a hybrid, but my soon to be wife’s next car will be a hybrid or electric. Hers is always the more efficient of our vehicles because she commutes ~50mi/day and I bike but I think we can still get a few more years out of her Sonata so not shopping yet.
I think there’s a lot of state-level pork and nepotism behind the hydrogen talk, personally. I’d probably start with the two likely suspects, Rep. Von Zeppelin and Sen. Hindenburg to be sure they don’t have some ties to the industry.
In fact, if you google “Zeppelin California” you can find references from the early 1970s where he references smoking stuff and drinking wine, so I wouldn’t be shocked if he was a little off his rocker all around.
QOTD: I’m concurrently shopping for our next TWO vehicles (over the next 3-4 years due to having some new drivers in the pipeline…) and I’m not really considering anything that isn’t a hybrid now. It’s such a no-brainer for average day-to-day transport, if a vehicle is available with a hybrid model, there’s almost no reason to avoid it.
A lot of carmakers are wisely aware of this and seem to be offering gassers almost as “ringers” just to make the hybrids look better. Not really, that would be phenomenally expensive, but that’s how it looks.
For me, it’s down to Sportage, RAV, CR-V, and maybe the new Cherokee. Right now, Kia has the edge because of the warranty, good local dealer, and they just take everything up to “eleven” with features (ventilated seats, HUD, etc).
anybody that talks hydrogen or synthetic fuels needs to be stuffed in a sack, unless they have the secret to scale-up.
I have the secret to scale it up… but it won’t happen in the US.
Per the DOE, you can make a stupid amount of Hydrogen from a nuclear power plant with something like a 5% reduction in electrical power output.
The secret to this is that nuclear power plants can produce hydrogen “naturally”. Vastly simplified, you can break apart steam into hydrogen and oxygen if you hit it with enough radiation.
So, if you run a nuclear plant hotter, it will make a lot of hydrogen. If you design for it, it will even make more electricity. The losses are what it takes to collect the hydrogen and pump it to the higher pressures that hydrogen plants operate on.
This idea of making hydrogen, intentionally making odd elements for medical treatments, and the like is something you hear a lot in the latest designs for nuclear power plants. So much so that some new plant concepts refuse to call themselves electrical generation plants, since they can do so much more.
The challenge is cultural.
Think of it this way. You are the manager of a nuclear power plant. The guy in charge. Your plant makes $2 million/ day with electricity. You can run for 24 out of every 26 months at that power level without any problems. Then one day, some dumbass Engineer comes to you and says “let’s make Hydrogen intentionally!” It will take millions upon millions of dollars to get approval. We will shut down the plant for 6 months (aka 2 years) and make no money while we spend $10s of millions in modifications. There’s a measureable change that you might blow up the plant now. And there isn’t a market for all the hydrogen you produce.
I have long been an outspoken critic of hydrogen for transportation. That doesn’t mean producing hydrogen from surplus renewable energy is inherently a dumb idea, just using it for transportation is.
Such hydrogen should be earmarked for manufacturing. Right now manufacturing uses a LOT of hydrogen almost all of which is made from natural gas. It makes a lot more sense to generate that hydrogen on site with cheap or surplus renewable power while saving that natural gas for peaker plants or transport.
I’ve been critical of it’s use for general transportation as well, but it could be useful as a zero emissions option things like trains, ships, large trucks running routes where refulling can be done, and possibly aviation. Industries where battery electric is completely impractical. As you point out, it’s really only feasible if you have a large surplus of cheap/clean power, which is not likely in the near future.
Trains and trucks can be electrified in urban areas (many already are) and can run on biogas (renewable natural gas) instead of diesel in remote areas. NG has 3x the energy density by volume so those vehicles can go much further on a tank.
Big ships can go nuclear. China in particular has plans approved for a new generation of thorium powered nuclear container ships. That should have happened decades ago but oil was so much cheaper.
Hydrogen for aviation outside of short, MAYBE some niche medium haul routes is a non starter. It simply doesn’t have the energy content by volume and the containers to hold it are quite heavy and bulky which is bad for airplanes. Jet fuel is the only practical solution but that jet fuel can be made renewably too, using, you guessed it, renewable hydrogen. Unfortunately that remains a pipe dream for the foreseeable future so dino juice it is.
I genuinely wonder tho – Would hydrogen not make more sense for long-range trucks and locomotives than diesel or BEV propulsion?
Because when we consider transport we need to look at all transport – not just the private car.
I don’t think so. Natural gas has 3x the energy by volume, has a MUCH better infrastructure already in place. It can also be burned in ICE or NGFC as efficiently as hydrogen so I think that’s a better choice for filling in transportation electrical coverage gaps.
Industry uses a LOT of hydrogen. Enough that all the surplus renewable power available is nowhere near enough to generate the hydrogen needed to quench that thirst.
A hydrogen fuel cell vehicles consume about 3x more electricity per mile vs a battery electric vehicle if we are using green hydrogen.
It simply doesn’t make sense to take electricity, create hydrogen, compress that hydrogen, transport it, put it into a vehicle, convert it back to electricity with a fuel cell, and then use that electricity to power an electric motor.
Manufacturing, power generation, and excess capacity absorption are decent uses for hydrogen that will likely have a future.
The only real advantage of hydrogen for power generation, and excess capacity absorption is it’s currently cheaper than other methods. Unfortunately its also very inefficient so you get out maybe 40% of what you put in compared to 75-95% for other methods.
So no recall for the Outlanders, just a friendly Autopian PSA?
It’s also interesting that the recall covers two different generations of Outlander, which are not structurally related in any way, and share almost no parts. (The liftgate gas cylinder apparently being one of the few exceptions.)
I’ve clocked my dome on the liftgate of my Outback, and the easiest fix was to add 3″ of lift and 2″ wider diameter tires to the car.
Follow me for more lifehacks.
California likes to virtue signal (look no further than their governor on social media lately) and this stuff is no exception. It’s better to look like you’re fighting your enemies than to actually make progress where feasible and cost-effective.
This, of course, does not make them unique in our political climate, but it means I take them exactly as seriously as I take their political opponents, who are very skilled at this form of governing.
I don’t own a hybrid and never have; fuel economy rarely being among my top priorities when buying. I have no particular opposition to them anymore, since reliability seems to be mostly good, but I also have no reason to buy a new vehicle at this time, so it might be a while yet.
“California likes to virtue signal”
Yeah – because California’s various governments over the past several decades have never made any actual progress on cleaner air, water, defending personal freedoms and worker’s rights, etc.
(◔_◔)
More than one thing can be true at once.
If you think this hydrogen over hybrid policy is likely to improve anything tangibly, defend it on the merits.
I’m no expert – but as I’ve stated elsewhere, Hydrogen can perhaps make more sense as an alternative to diesel or BEV long-distance trucks and locomotives.
Long-distance trucks I get, but why locomotives though?
Electric power via overhead wires should be a no-brainer, should it not?
Much more promising for those applications are synthetic/e fuels or alcohol.
They, like H2, require abundant clean energy to produce in a carbon neutral fashion, but have the upsides of being much denser, safer to transport, and can use existing liquid fuel infrastructure. Not to mention existing vehicles can use them or be retrofitted to.
I would not have called it virtue signaling if CA announced a major investment into producing these kind of fuels.
The statement refers to hybrids 48 times. Matt just doesn’t seem to realize that ZEVs include hybrids.
I have about as much respect for Newsom as I have for Trump.
California politics sometimes seem to be individually idiotic, but collectively benevolent. I’m not sure who this Reagan hippie was, but he apparently kicked the liberal agenda into high gear when he was in charge /s
Newsom just rubs me the wrong way, and I say that as a lifelong Democrat. There’s nothing genuine about the guy.
If Newsom is the only national democrat willing to loudly call out Trump for the lying fascist he is, he will earn my vote.
I was a kid living in Sacramento when Reagan was in office.
I remember the protests all around the Capital and the Old Governor’s Mansion.
(I wanted to be a Hippie. Dad made me get a haircut)
Yeah – Reagan definitely helped propel liberals into action.
Same as he did when he was in the White House.
What is strange to me is, there does seem to be a way to tout the virtues of hydrogen while also impacting the air quality in California if they pushed to have ships converted to hydrogen fuel cells. That eliminates some of the difficulty in transport (of the hydrogen fuel) since a shipyard is the perfect place to build the facilities necessary to support the needs of the shipping industry.
Ships produce a lot more pollution than cars anyway and California has a lot of shipping happening along the coast.
I guess that would take too long though. There are heavy costs associated with such a big conversion like that and the technology has not been scaled yet outside of proof of concepts (based on my reading which is not extensive, I could be wrong here). But that would at least be something I could get behind and might make a real difference. Maybe China will take it up or something.
Ships do not produce more pollution than cars. That is an old debunked claim that only looked at SOx, didn’t take into account that high sulfur fuel was banned in US Territorial waters years ago and internationally in 2020.
B58 all the things.