If we can use hydrogen to power electric motors, why can’t we use water to run a car?
Can’t you just break down water, use the hydrogen to power the electric motor, and I don’t think O2 as a byproduct is bad, now this is of course an ideal condition, but why hasn’t this been looked into more?
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"Hydrogen powered" generally means burning hydrogen in oxygen to make water: 2(HH) + OO -> 2(HHO). To run a car on water as you say is a lot like trying to make a fire out of ash, rather than wood. You can't burn the ash because it has already been burned.
Technically speaking, no one outside of college demonstration engines are burning hydrogen. Almost all hydrogen powered EVs use fuel cell stacks that mediate the proton exchange through an electrolyte. This allows the capture of far more energy than could be possible by just letting the hydrogen burn, as in a internal combustion engine, for example.
True, but this is basically a battery.
Technically speaking, no one outside of college demonstration engines are burning hydrogen
Toyota has made various working prototype hydrogen combustion engines, so it's not impossible these could end up in production in the nearish future (they've done a hydrogen version of at least the GR Yaris/Corolla engine, a V6, and a V8).
They specifically said they were R&D units and never intended any to go to production. Sometimes they do that to gather data. Hydrogen combustion simply isn't efficient enough for a production vehicle. You'll be surprised by the amount of crazy tests car manufacturers do. This includes methanol/ethanol cars, natural gas ICE engines, solar panels, all sort of crazy experimental batteries.