Porsche hasn’t given up on hydrogen fuel cell car technology
January 17, 2024The automaker’s parent company might not be looking into H2, but this brand is still looking into it.
While Porsche continues to look into alternatives to gasoline and diesel by researching synthetic fuels, it hasn’t given up on hydrogen fuel cell car technology as a potential option in its future.
The German luxury sportscar company appears to be keeping itself open to a range of potential options.
Porsche recently filed a patent application in Germany relating to hydrogen fuel cell car technology. This indicates that the automaker’s engineers still have at least some focus on the use of H2 as a potential clean energy propulsion technology for the future.
Last year, the company produced a hydrogen combustion engine car, which was a 4.4-liter V8 within the “luxury-segment reference vehicle” category and with a weight of 2650 kilograms. This was widely believed to be the first true interest the luxury vehicle brand had shown in H2. That said, the car had a combustion engine, which is different from a fuel cell car, which uses H2 to generate electricity, meaning that the car requires a much smaller battery than an electric vehicle, and does not need plug-in charging.
Interestingly, Volkswagen announced early last year that it was not interested in fuel cell car tech.
As Porsche’s parent company, it was assumed that Volkswagen’s announcement applied to the sportscar brand as well. Volkswagen has instead focused its intentions on electric vehicles.
At the same time, Porsche has made millions of dollars’ worth of investments into synthetic fuel development that will substantially reduce carbon emissions from tailpipes. The goal has been to find a synthetic fuel that will have net-zero emissions output.
Where will Porsche go with H2?
While the latest learned about the hydrogen fuel cell car intentions at Porsche don’t go any further than spotting the patent filing, it remains interesting to know that the automaker hasn’t entirely abandoned hydrogen fuel car concepts.
That it has gone so far as to file a patent suggests that using H2 as a part of its clean propulsion technology strategies could indicate that it has not given up on the potential offered by this carbon emission-free option.
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Hydrogen combustion, whether by directly burning hydrogen gas or by burning a synthetic fossil free hydrocarbon, still produces toxic nitrogen oxides (NOx). Whatever the fuel used, it requires energy to produce it; burning it is far less efficient at up to 30% efficiency than a hydrogen fuel cell that converts the energy directly into electricity at around 65% efficiency to drive electric traction. The electric motor can also be used to recover energy with regenerative braking when slowing down or braking, which an internal combustion engine cannot do, further improving the efficiency of a fuel cell traction system. As the energy density of the fuel system becomes very important for racing, it is likely that race cars such as Porsche will be powered by liquid hydrogen or liquid ammonia into a fuel cell for electric traction.