There are other options. You can producte H2 directly from sunlight. https://setis.ec.europa.eu/setis-reports/setis-magazine/fuel...
And we might run out of Lithium. Or Cobalt. Or Vanadium. I doubt that we run out of Hydrogen.
- Batteries are the most efficient in the long run and very dynamic at power release, but they are heavy (more than half the weight of Tesla's truck is the batteries), use lots of rare resources and take pretty long to recharge. It's getting better, but if you really want to drive a few thousand miles with short fuel breaks in an emergency, you can't.
- Hydrogen fuel cells suck at dynamic release, they really want to have a constant power draw. They're less efficient than batteries, but you can refuel quickly and don't have to carry the fuel weight with you all the time.
Taking all the technical challenges of storing hydrogen and making efficient fuel cells aside for the moment, combining the two technologies is really awesome in a way. You can get rid of two thirds of the batteries — and suddenly you have a car that's all of: easy to instantly refill, still dynamic to accelerate and overtake on the highway due to the batteries, but you also just have to dimension the fuel cell for average, not for peak power draw.
Considered the hydrogen is CO2 neutrally generated, it's really the optimum solution.
What kind of emergency would involve driving a few thousand miles quickly? I can only see a few hundred (hurricane evacuation).
At those distances, why wouldn't you fly?
Lithium-cobalt is not the only chemistry. I’m optimistic about alternate chemistries in the long term. Especially now that the battery market is growing so rapidly. There are massive investments in research.
I doubt we’ll run out though. They’re not that rare. Besides, it’s a renewable resource, not a combustible one.
From that link platinum is 3.7E-6, others [Li, V, Co] are O(2E-3), or more, by percentage of Earth's crust.
There are internal combustion engines that use hydrogen as fuel. A hydrogen powered car does not need to be electric.
Since pure battery electrics will always have lower operating costs (if the hydrogen is produced from electricity and not oil/gas), and that a BEV is cheaper to assemble (less parts, less piping), the market for hydrogen cars is completely dependent on the price of batteries.
As batteries get cheaper, and rapid chargers get faster, the niche that hydrogen can occupy gets smaller.
The thing is, hydrogen cars are electric cars. It's possible some of them will even include a larger battery and become plug-in. So every hydrogen car sold will also benefit the development of better BEVs.
To me, this is a clear feedback loop that benefits pure BEVs. And where will BEVs be when hydrogen cars actually hit the market with significant numbers and models? What if 150kWh batteries are standard? What if 400kW charging is standard? What if the price is not much higher? These are all within reach. It's just a matter of time, and the hydrogen economy does not seem to be moving fast enough that its got time to spare.
But I fully support all subsidies and financial support for development of hydrogen fuel cells. Maybe it won't be success in cars, but it could be in other fields.