I tested a hydrogen-powered bicycle. Is this the future?

This previous week, I attended the Micromobility Europe event in Amsterdam, the place I noticed many acquainted firm faces and a number of other new ones within the broader micromobility world. One of the crucial fascinating new startups I noticed on the present was Hydroride Europe AG, which confirmed off a number of hydrogen-powered bicycles and a small at-home hydrogen generator for “recharging” the bike by producing small bottles of hydrogen gasoline.

From a distance, the bikes don’t look a lot completely different than another electrical bike you’ve in all probability seen earlier than.

And to be sincere, they don’t even look that completely different from up shut, both.

You’ll nonetheless spot a hub motor powering the wheel and what seems like a battery holder, both within the downtube or hidden in a rack-mounted unit. However once you flip the important thing and pop the “battery” lid, you’ll shortly notice it’s hiding a bit inexperienced bottle as a substitute of a blue shrink-wrapped battery.

These little hydrogen tanks, across the dimension of a 500 mL water bottle, maintain sufficient hydrogen for round 60 km or 36 miles of using. They feed hydrogen into an on-board hydrogen gasoline cell, which makes use of a chemical course of to transform the hydrogen into electrical energy, with the one output being water.

That’s proper, if the underside of your bike wasn’t so filthy, you may in all probability put your lips as much as it and drink.

My first experience on a hydrogen bike

After trying out the exhibit, I took one of many hydrogen bikes out for a test ride within the Amsterdam streets across the commerce present.

I’m undecided what I used to be anticipating, but it surely felt just about like…. another European e-bike I’ve tried. The facility was positive, modest however positive. The experience was comfy. And it felt like a reasonably typical electrical bike.

To be sincere, I assume that’s the purpose. Hydrogen isn’t meant to be some revolutionary sport changer for efficiency. On the finish of the day, the motor continues to be a primary 250W e-bike hub motor. And thus, the experience appears like a primary 250W e-bike.

The principle distinction is the place the power is coming from. On this case, from a bit white field that appears like a laser printer, but is seemingly an at-home hydrogen generator.

If something, probably the most stunning factor concerning the experience itself was simply how unsurprising it was. I didn’t actually have to alter something about my using because it’s nonetheless an electrical bike, simply not a battery electrical bike.

E-bikes are already prolific. Why hydrogen?

It’s true, battery-powered electrical bikes are in every single place. If there was ever going to be a hydrogen vs battery e-bike conflict, you’d suppose it could be over earlier than it even started.

So why are we even nonetheless speaking about hydrogen bikes? Properly, there are nonetheless a number of benefits over conventional e-bikes. Virtually all electrical bicycles as of late use lithium-ion batteries, which often require problematic or in any other case uncommon supplies to provide. As a lot as battery makers have tried to restrict the quantity of such minerals, we’re usually nonetheless beholden to suppliers from a handful of nations utilizing typically unethical means to acquire the required supplies to provide these batteries.

Hydrogen, alternatively, may be produced in your front room or kitchen utilizing a small hydrogen generator. Heck, you possibly can even purchase one on Amazon if you would like. It nonetheless requires electrical energy to energy the electrolysis course of, which means you’re going to lose some power alongside the best way resulting from inefficiencies within the course of. However similar to how a wall charger doesn’t put 100% of the electrical energy that flows by it into your battery, there are all the time inefficiencies in power transfers. And equally to a wall charger for a battery e-bike, Hydroride’s electrolysis machine may be solar-powered, which means you’re successfully utilizing free power from the solar to provide gasoline. It’s actually a “simply add water” course of to generate your individual gasoline.

As soon as on the bike, the experience is as zero emissions as a battery-powered bicycle. Or, nearly as zero emissions, so long as you don’t depend the occasional drops of pure water produced by the hydrogen gasoline cell on board the bike.

Who is that this for?

It’s true, the corporate gives an at-home hydrogen generator and which means you may conceivably use a hydrogen bike like this as your day by day rider. However as I discovered on the sales space, they’re extra centered on B2B than B2C, with their essential purpose being bike and scooter sharing firms, not particular person customers such as you and me.

And that makes extra sense, for my part. Sure, I settle for that hydrogen has distinctive benefits that batteries don’t. However battery e-bikes have such a maintain on the business that I don’t see main modifications coming there anytime quickly.

However for sharing firms, these batteries are one of many largest complications of their business. The only largest supply of emissions for many scooter and bike-sharing companies is the diesel-powered van that has to go round to swap batteries in these items. And so when you might match bigger hydrogen bottles on these bikes to offer them extra vary (the small bottles already give scooters 100 km or 60 miles of vary), or you may use native hydrogen mills for on-site bottle swaps, that might make a huge impact.

It additionally removes the problem of charging a whole bunch of batteries at a storage depot and the ensuing fireplace issues associated to these a whole bunch of batteries.

To be truthful, a fast examine of the periodic desk jogs my memory that hydrogen isn’t precisely probably the most inert of the gases, both. However we’ve come a good distance from the times of the Hindenburg and are fairly good about safely controlling the storage and switch of hydrogen, particularly in small water bottle-sized packages.

What’s my verdict?

To be sincere, I used to suppose hydrogen was lifeless on arrival for e-bikes. And I nonetheless am not very bullish on it gaining a lot market share. However now I no less than see that it has actual potential for sure particular niches.

Sharing and different fleet utilization appears to be the very best use case, since I don’t see it taking off for common customers. I positively see the benefits of hydrogen for a pizza store with a fleet of supply e-bikes that doesn’t wish to take care of a tabletop stuffed with charging batteries, or for a scooter sharing operation that doesn’t need the logistical nightmare of a whole bunch or hundreds of risky batteries of their warehouse.

However let’s simply say I don’t suppose I’ll be using a hydrogen-powered Trek or Gazelle bike quickly.