Really? Tell us something we didn’t already know…
Forget hydrogen and fuel-cell cars, according a variety of speakers at an investor conference today. The future is clearly pure electric pluggable cars, they said.
“We saw a strong shift this year away from the focus on hydrogen and fuel cells as the car of the future to the electric or hybrid car. Small companies like Tesla, and even big companies like GM, with its Volt and flex fuel infrastructure, are just the beginning,†said Ira Ehrenpreis, general partner of venture firm Technology Partners. Ehrenpreis gave the opening address at the Clean-tech Investor Summit in Palm Springs, California.
“Hydrogen is not a fuel. You can’t go mine it anywhere, you have to make it. You’re typically making it with electricity and water, compressing it, putting it in a car and feeding it into a fuel cell. The efficiency of that system is about a quarter of the efficiency of an electric car today. So the same amount of electricity drives your car one quarter of the distance. And let’s not even talk about infrastructure, distribution and the dangers of a 10,000 PSI tank in your car.â€