Regardless of what Toyota and the coal companies want, hydrogen is not happening.I'm not concerned about this.
It would take much more than a $7.5k discount to make me buy a hydrogen car such as Toyota Mirai. Hideous, slow, dangerous, inconvenient and expensive to fuel, no thanks. If you gave me the car, I would immediately sell it (if possible) and buy a BEV.
Is the situation different for hydrogen semis? I doubt it. Trucking companies don't care about looks or acceleration, but they do care about fueling costs and availability and the occasional explosions at hydrogen stations. Batteries and renewable energy are getting cheaper; fossil fuel extraction and "brown hydrogen" ain't.
Yes, Manchin bows to his fossil fuel campaign-donors, but they are delusional if they think this token incentive will help them. The Green Tidal Wave is coming for them all.
In order for hydrogen to take off, someone would need to fund a massive network of fueling stations. While EVs can charge at home, hydrogen requires stations every fill up. Toyota needs 10,000 hydrogen stations in the US to make this interesting. Since they aren't building out the network, nobody else will either. It's DOA.
Likewise for semis. Companies like Pepsi can invest a $10-100k and have super cheap fuel delivered to their facility for free. Just the savings in fuel stops will be massive. Long haul trucking is arguably the only potential for hydrogen. I'm pretty sure most drivers will be ok with stopping once a day for juice will be just fine for most truckers.
Manchin probably knows this, but doesn't care. It's a cheap way to keep his constituents and donors happy and as you suggest ultimately has little to no impact. In 20 years the only brown hydrogen people will talk about will be the kind that stains your drawers.
I know that's methane... don't @ me.
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