In reply to Hooo:
> WTF indeed! It sounds bizarre that there would be any advantages to using an ICE over an electric motor. So what was the reasoning behind it? Are they still pursuing the same path?
Hi whilst not at all wanting to answer Pauls question for him, as I'd also like to hear his reply as he's made this thread so far very interesting for me at least, something of progress to get past the usual second law shut down of topic. So my take on this would be:
The internal combustion engine has been around for a very long time and is much more used than electric motors to power vehicles, and all the tooling is there to cast blocks, crankshafts, drop forge rods and pistons, machine cylinder heads, then you've got all the injection, ignition, hot end recycling devices, emissions control systems etc, plus the compression ignition lump in things like super tankers isn't going to be replaced by a 30m diameter electric motor anytime soon, so at least one manufacture was going to run a heat engine on hydrogen, Good old Beemer
As all we're talking about is a fuel change, Paul mentions the main reasons about why this isn't very practical for OE manufacturers right now and everything he listed is generally as I assumed plus more.
Just to clear a couple of points up here, the Jokey OP about someone giving me their pride and joy was a bit of a light hearted way of waiting for the usual second law shut down tactic, so to clarify what Paul said wrote up thread. Yes I have some ideas of a small fuel cell scavenging as much of the excess power from the motor, effectively only to raise the octane of the fuel more than likely on a petrol engine, as it's just easier to use a water injection system on a diesel to get the Nox emissions down. However later stages of development would primarily be using hydrogen as a main fuel source.
The Big boys and us backstreet tuners are looking at the problem from opposite ends, and what is listed as not very practical to some has no real relevance to others, consider the example if you've spent the best part of 700 hours restoring a car shell to show condition having put about £700 into the shell in panels and paint, and If that shell was listed on ebay right now as a 0.99p auction, I'd be lucky to get £350 back for this, terms like practicality have a complete different meaning.
A tear down and rebuild of an engine, with selected pistons, possible ceramic coating of head and other engine parts, changes to combustion chambers, stand alone fuel and management systems, or even go back a generation and don't even worry about fuel maps, just modify something like Kjet, time the cams up, and set the ignition timing and once you'd got your motor suitably tested you could knock 5 of those engines out a week, running on hydrogen, scrap yards are filled with old early fuel injection due to the scrappage scheme of a few years ago.
Post edited at 09:22