Joby Aviation believes its VTOL could zoom travelers from Nashville to New Orleans or Boston to Baltimore.

“Joby took a pre-production prototype of one of its battery-electric aircraft and outfitted it with a liquid hydrogen fuel tank and fuel system. The modified, hydrogen-powered VTOL was able to complete a 523 mile flight above Marina, California…”

  • @[email protected]
    1•5 months ago

    Second, even if we were to produce hydrogen from water, the cycle of electrolyzing, transporting and using hydrogen is associated with enormous energy losses, and we still have to get that extra energy from somewhere

    Is it worse than hauling enormous batteries, though? I know hydrogen looses like half the energy on generation, but to me it sounds the same as if we do all-electric and spend the same amount of energy for just moving the batteries around. I’m too cooked atm, but is anyone up to do the research/math on this?

    • @[email protected]
      4•5 months ago

      Batteries take up about 15-20% of the vehicle mass and have around 90% efficiency

      Hydrogen cycle has, at best, 60% efficiency (assuming amazing logistics and fuel cell for hydrogen-to-energy conversion); also, hydrogen systems also weigh a lot, but even if they would weigh literally 0kg, they would lose on efficiency anyway.