Hydrogen vs. Battery

[WannabeOwner]

you don't pay at the pump for your petrol?

Rarely. The Supermarket I use definitely has pay-at-pump, but perhaps because they don't have anything much to sell at the tills; but whenever I go to Supermarket there is a queue of cars for the pumps, so card-at-pump only offsets wait-in car for queue-to-pay!. All the BP / Shell / Esso ones I can think of don't have pay-at-pump - probably to encourage purchases in shop to augment thin margin on fuel.

BP has done a deal with M&S and has M&S food in shop, which is very good, convenient, and I expect has been very successful (except that the old till layout is inappropriate, and the original BP till staff are now also doing Coffees etc. which, in addition to food purchases on top of Fuel, and fiddling about with loyalty cards ... and and and ... slows the process even more ...

Anyways, charging EV at home is saving me over 8 hours a year fuelling the ICE

 

[Saghost]

Several hydrogen stations in SoCal ran out of hydrogen and are not expected to get any for a week.

Hydrogen fuel shortage in Socal is leaving Honda Clarity and Toyota Mirai owners stranded - Alt Car news

Three people in front of the Clarity owner at UCI quoted in the middle of the article - and it took him 50 minutes to refuel.

What happened to the refueling in five minutes, as fast as gas they kept promising?

 

[Saghost]

Several hydrogen stations in SoCal ran out of hydrogen and are not expected to get any for a week.

Hydrogen fuel shortage in Socal is leaving Honda Clarity and Toyota Mirai owners stranded - Alt Car news

The funniest part of this is that the VTEC thread linked in your article features a Clarity owner loudly and endlessly blaming this problem on Toyota - for selling too many Mirai.

 

[dpeilow]

An update today Partial failure of Air Products hydrogen supply assets behind SoCal hydrogen fuel shortage - Alt Car news

All in all, 3 weeks from the start of this problem to when it is likely to be resolved.

 

[arg]

Three people in front of the Clarity owner at UCI quoted in the middle of the article - and it took him 50 minutes to refuel.

What happened to the refueling in five minutes, as fast as gas they kept promising?

The 5 mins has only ever been true if the station was idle and ready to go when you started. If it needs to re-fill the pre-pressurised, pre-cooled vessel it uses to supply the car, that takes longer.

 

[GregRF]

This morning while driving my kid to preschool in our Model 3 I saw a Mirai headed in the other direction. As he came up to us he gave a big fat bird to me. Now I'm 100% certain this had nothing to do with my driving, so I can only contemplate that he was upset about the car I was driving.

Since then I've been racking the old noggin about his motivations for this act. Hates the brand? Jealousy? Thinks I'm someone else in a similar car? Hates having to fill up with hydrogen? Hmm...

 

[jelloslug]

Three people in front of the Clarity owner at UCI quoted in the middle of the article - and it took him 50 minutes to refuel.

What happened to the refueling in five minutes, as fast as gas they kept promising?

It takes quite a while for the fuel station to get back up to full pressure between cars. While the first car in line will get a fast fill up, each one after than will have to wait for the station re-pressurize each time.

 

[jelloslug]

This morning while driving my kid to preschool in our Model 3 I saw a Mirai headed in the other direction. As he came up to us he gave a big fat bird to me. Now I'm 100% certain this had nothing to do with my driving, so I can only contemplate that he was upset about the car I was driving.

Since then I've been racking the old noggin about his motivations for this act. Hates the brand? Jealousy? Thinks I'm someone else in a similar car? Hates having to fill up with hydrogen? Hmm...

He was irritable because he just spent the night waiting in line for a fill up.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

The funniest part of this is that the VTEC thread linked in your article features a Clarity owner loudly and endlessly blaming this problem on Toyota - for selling too many Mirai.

More complaining that Toyota isn't doing enough for the supporting infrastructure.
Hmm, infrastructure not the manufacturer's problem. Where have we heard that before?

 

[jelloslug]

The funniest part of this is that the VTEC thread linked in your article features a Clarity owner loudly and endlessly blaming this problem on Toyota - for selling too many Mirai.

I thought that Toyota was going to have 60 stations up and running by 2016?

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

This morning while driving my kid to preschool in our Model 3 I saw a Mirai headed in the other direction. As he came up to us he gave a big fat bird to me. Now I'm 100% certain this had nothing to do with my driving, so I can only contemplate that he was upset about the car I was driving.

Since then I've been racking the old noggin about his motivations for this act. Hates the brand? Jealousy? Thinks I'm someone else in a similar car? Hates having to fill up with hydrogen? Hmm...

Maybe he could see your smug grin through your untinted windshield and it was proactive defense.

 

[Saghost]

More complaining that Toyota isn't doing enough for the supporting infrastructure.
Hmm, infrastructure not the manufacturer's problem. Where have we heard that before?

He did say that towards the end. Are any FCEV manufacturers contributing to fueling infrastructure at all?

I certainly haven't heard about Honda doing it either - and 1-200 per month isn't much of a flood, either.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I thought that Toyota was going to have 60 stations up and running by 2016?

Maybe they spent all the money on cheap leases and subsidized fuel.

 

[GregRF]

Maybe he could see your smug grin through your untinted windshield and it was proactive defense.

Then I give him kudos for his great eyesight!

 

[mspohr]

An update today Partial failure of Air Products hydrogen supply assets behind SoCal hydrogen fuel shortage - Alt Car news

All in all, 3 weeks from the start of this problem to when it is likely to be resolved.

This points to another glaring problem with H2; lack of infrastructure. Electricity is everywhere. Every house and business has electricity and there is a robust infrastructure in the electricity distribution network. H2 does not exist in nature and has to be manufactured, compressed, transported by truck and the infrastructure to do this is very thin even in California. In the rest of the country it is almost non-existent.
H2 auto manufacturers have pushed off the job of building infrastructure to "someone else" unlike Tesla which, in spite of the robust electric infrastructure, has invested heavily in charging infrastructure to make it fast, convenient and robust.

 

[Saghost]

This points to another glaring problem with H2; lack of infrastructure. Electricity is everywhere. Every house and business has electricity and there is a robust infrastructure in the electricity distribution network. H2 does not exist in nature and has to be manufactured, compressed, transported by truck and the infrastructure to do this is very thin even in California. In the rest of the country it is almost non-existent.
H2 auto manufacturers have pushed off the job of building infrastructure to "someone else" unlike Tesla which, in spite of the robust electric infrastructure, has invested heavily in charging infrastructure to make it fast, convenient and robust.

Because Tesla wants to change the market to electric cars and is willing to do whatever it takes.

The others mostly seem to want the green cred and to get through the regulation as cheaply as possible so they can get on with selling their cash cow ICEs.

 

[gregd]

Nothing will help the progress of BEV transportation more than a good old-fashioned gas line. Even if the "gas" is hydrogen.

 

[dpeilow]

Hydrogen supply shortage leaves fuel cell cars gasping in California

"We are actively working to resolve this unexpected disruption, which has been caused by a contemporaneous series of unrelated issues at several liquid hydrogen production and supply sites. We are addressing the matter as rapidly as we can and are hopeful to have the situation remedied and have restored regular hydrogen supply in the early days of August. We regret any inconvenience that may have resulted.... We regret any inconvenience fueling customers may be currently experiencing, and reassure you we are focused on resolving the issue as soon as possible," Air Products spokesman Arthur George said in an email.

Multiple issues at multiple sites taking the supply out for 3 weeks is even worse than I had thought. I could sort of forgive if it was a single point failure in the early days because we had that with BEV charging too on occasion at individual locations (even if industrial H2 has been around decades), but having multiple points of failure take your fuel supply offline for 3 weeks just shows how vulnerable fool sell drivers are and it will only get worse if there are more of them.

 

[RubberToe]

Also posted in the Mirai thread, but Toyota says mass production of FCEVs coming soon:. Total of 6,0000 built so far, shooting for 30,000 per year. Still enjoying the popcorn waiting for these guys to get a clue. I wonder if this could have anything to do with not being able to admit you made a mistake, on a corporate level?

Toyota Claims Mass Production Of Fuel Cell Vehicles Will Start Soon

Brief of Toyota plans

• decrease costs of hydrogen fuel cells
• build economies of scale
• increase production capacity and move from hand-built cars to series production
• lower costs and prices
• increase range by some 50% from 500 km (311 miles) to 700-750 km (435-469 miles) and even 1,000 km (620 miles) by 2025
• introduce more car models (including SUVs) and trucks/buses, sharing parts between them

 

[S'toon]

Also posted in the Mirai thread, but Toyota says mass production of FCEVs coming soon:. Total of 6,0000 built so far, shooting for 30,000 per year. Still enjoying the popcorn waiting for these guys to get a clue. I wonder if this could have anything to do with not being able to admit you made a mistake, on a corporate level?

Toyota Claims Mass Production Of Fuel Cell Vehicles Will Start Soon

Brief of Toyota plans

• decrease costs of hydrogen fuel cells
• build economies of scale
• increase production capacity and move from hand-built cars to series production
• lower costs and prices
• increase range by some 50% from 500 km (311 miles) to 700-750 km (435-469 miles) and even 1,000 km (620 miles) by 2025
• introduce more car models (including SUVs) and trucks/buses, sharing parts between them

I sometimes wonder if executives get caught up in the "But we spent so much money, we can't stop now" mode of thinking.