I previously posted a question on can cars be converted to fun from gasoline to hydrogen fuel cell. many of you said yes but i still dont know how it can be converted and exactly how much will it cost? thanks a bunch!
You would put electric motors in each wheel and connect them via a control box to a battery. The battery would be used to store up power for acceleration. The battery would be charged up from hydrogen-air fuel cells. Now the battery in this system is not expected to provide power on a prolonged basis, more like the way a gas-electric hybrid system does. Braking returns power to the battery and the battery soaks up charge from the hydrogen-air fuel cells when they produce faster than it is needed.
it's a completely different motor. it would be like completely taking out the engine and transmission and replacing them. while not impossible, it would be less expensive to find a car that already has a hydrogen fuel cell. besides which, most states have some kind of smog test, and, while the fuel cell wouldn't emit pollution, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who would approve of your modification. which means, you probably would not be able to register it legally.
Ah, the fuel cell. There are the real kind--the sort that they use in spacecraft--and these work just fine if you can find hydrogen to use in them and if you can afford the hundreds of thousand dollars they cost. Then there's the bogus kind--the sort that we see everywhere on the Internet, and in that video from the Philippines. They use electrical energy from the car battery to dissociate a little tank of water, which they are pleased to call a 'fuel cell,' and then they pipe the hydrogen and oxygen gas into the engine. The problem here is that the inventors don't understand where that energy actually came from: the energy to break the hydrogen bond of the water came from the battery, but the battery must be re-charged by the alternator, and it requires extra energy to turn that alternator when it's loaded down by a battery in need of recharging. The energy to turn the alternator, of course, comes from the engine itself, through the alternator belt. You're actually losing energy, because some of the electrical energy from the battery also goes to heat the water. If you want to gripe about a conspiracy, consider the one that kept you from learning anything useful in science class. Education is about the only cure for silly stuff like this.
Fairly straight forward actually. 1. Replace the fuel tank with the fuel cell 2. Replace the currently fuel lines with what will be required to deliver hydrogen gas. 3. Replace the carburator or fuel injectors with the system designed to deliver the hydrogen fuel to the intake manifold. As for costs, haven't a clue. Will depend on the costs for the required replacement parts as well as the labor to install it along with any government fees to license the conversion.
