Chicken or Egg in West LA

I was recently trained to use the West LA Shell station which also houses a hydrogen refueling pump.  It's located off Santa Monica Blvd and Federal, about a mile west of the 405 freeway. The only problem is, it only gives half a tank per fillup. 

As we've discussed before, there are two prevailing pressures at which hydrogen fuel is delivered currently; 350 bar (5,000 psi) or 700 bar (10,000 psi).  Everyone who has fuel cell cars on the road today all use 700 bar, except  Honda and the FCX Clarity.  Those silly Honda engineers will give you a million reasons why 350 is better than 700, in the same way they used to explain why a V6 AWD luxury sedan was better than a V8 RWD luxury sedan.  My point being, Acura sold significantly fewer RL sedans in its history than Lexus LS/GS or Infiniti Q/M sedans.  But I digress.

The West LA Shell station was one of the first fully retail stations to dispense hydrogen, and was built in 2008 when many car manufacturers stil used 350 bar, and was made available primarily for customers of Honda's FCX Clarity. Fast forward to 2011, when most manufacturers are now operating cars at 700 bar.  What does the West LA station mean for us 700 users?  It means that we can still use it, but because the hydrogen is pressurized at only half the pressure we're set up for, it will only be able to give half the energy.  So if I get 180 miles from one full tank of hydrogen at 700 bar, will only get 90 miles from half a tank, filled up to the max using 350 bar.  As you can imagine, this means much more frequent stops to fill up with hydrogen than just going to a 700 bar station.

So why doesn't Shell just switch over and start offering 700 bar?  Well, as with all things in life, it's all about $$$.  The current station's hardware associated with producing and storing hydrogen are all stored up above in the roof structure.  In order to offer 700 bar, additional tanks as well as refrigeration systems need to be installed in order to quickly compress the hydrogen further.  Meaning more weight and the need to completely rebuild the structures through additional capital investment. 

So Shell won't spend more investment to refit 700 bar until more people use the station. But with only 350 bar, not many of us 700 bar cars will use it.  Once again, it's the viscous circle of "chicken or egg", which continues to be the single biggest challenge with Fuel Cell vehicles.