84K views · Jan 9, 2019 · 1:06 · 1 HN recommender · 3 mentions · discussed 2023–2026
A 2001 University of Miami experiment ignites a leak from a gasoline fuel line in one car and a leak from a hydrogen connector in another. The hydrogen fire burns out quickly while the gasoline fire consumes its car.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN cites it in hydrogen car debates, with some seeing it as evidence of relative safety and others finding it unconvincing.
“There are videos out there of what a leak+fire looks like on a hydrogen and gasoline car.”HN comment, 2026
“There are videos out there of what a leak+fire looks like on a hydrogen and gasoline car.”
Side-by-side hydrogen versus gasoline car leak fires
Safer than liquid fuel. There are videos out there of what a leak+fire looks like on a hydrogen and gasoline car. You would rather be trapped in the hydrogen car. this video
“The firefighters will mainly sit and watch while H2 gets vented or burns off.”
Hydrogen leak fire compared with gasoline
The firefighters will mainly sit and watch while H2 gets vented or burns off. A lithium battery fire is much more worse, not even mentioning the smoke. this video
“People upload safety videos to YouTube of Hydrogen cars turning into four-meter flamethrowers as if that's reassuring”
I'm particularly salty about the Hindenburg and don't feel as strongly about Chernobyl, Fukushima, Challenger, so if you're referring to those, that's different. The Hindenburg didn't use Hydrogen for cost reasons, it was designed to use more expensive Helium and the US government refused to export Helium to Nazi controlled Germany, so they redesigned it for Hydrogen. I'm not saying that it wasn't representative of air travel at the time , I'm saying air travel at the time was unsafe and airships were well known to be involved in many crashes, and the Hindenburg was not particularly less safe, it's just that aeroplanes were much smaller and carried fewer people and the accidents were less spectacular so they somehow got a pass and aeroplanes were . I'm saying air travel became safer and so would Zeppelin travel have become, by similar means - more careful processes, designs improved on learnings from previous problems, etc. Look at the state of the world today, AirBus have a Hydrogen powered commercial aircraft[1]. Toyota have Hydrogen powered cars on the streets. People upload safety videos to YouTube of Hydrogen cars turning into four-meter flamethrowers as if that's reassuring[3]. There are many[2] Hydrogen refuelling gas stations in cities in California where ordinary people can plug high pressure Hydrogen hoses into the side of their car and refuel it from a high pressure Hydrogen tank on a street corner. That's not going to be safer when it's a 15 year old car, a spaced
