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Toyota bets big on Fuel Cell Vehicles

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And I'm guessing another problem will be that no one will want a hydrogen station in their neighbourhood.

Good point. Around here, some years back, a neighbourhood got built right next to a nearby propane filling station, and the local residents lobbied to close it - successfully. There was a huge explosion and fire at a facility in Toronto a couple of years ago that destroyed a bunch of houses. If people are nervous about propane they're gonna be pretty scared of hydrogen.
 
There is still the argument as to how they are generating the hydrogen. Electrolysis uses electricity and water, natural gas reforming with either steam or electricity, yup, uses electricity. Just taking the electricity used to generate the magical hydrogen, you can run your EV for quite a bit.. The question begs then, what use is the hydrogen? Answer: same as it has always been: of no use at all.

Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not an energy source. You can argue the same is true for electricity, the big difference is, we already have massive electrical infrastructure already in place, and numerous ways to generate electricity, you can even do it in your own home (solar or wind), let's see a "home hydrogen generator" :)

This is yet another pipe dream of Toyota, their main reason for this foolishness: 9 CARB credits, versus 3 for the Toyota RAV4EV. You can be sure, none of these hydrogen vehicles will EVER be sold or supported outside of California, Toyota knows the true cost to deploy these nationwide, that's why it will never happen.
 
The original article quotes "about $30 for a four-passenger sedan to travel 300 miles." So $10 to drive 100 miles. This is equivalent to the cost of a 40 mpg hybrid running on $4 a gallon gas.

They are basing those numbers on the Japanese driving cycle where 310 miles equals about 270 EPA miles. And hoped for reduction in the price of hydrogen as demand increases and economies of scale kick in.

We shall see what happens when the car magazines get a hold of them but look for ~65 MPkg. Right now in Los Angeles it is ~$12.50 per kilogram of hydrogen.
 
They are basing those numbers on the Japanese driving cycle where 310 miles equals about 270 EPA miles. And hoped for reduction in the price of hydrogen as demand increases and economies of scale kick in.

We shall see what happens when the car magazines get a hold of them but look for ~65 MPkg. Right now in Los Angeles it is ~$12.50 per kilogram of hydrogen.
Realistically, I'm expecting Toyota to hide the price (like Hyundai is doing by offering "free" hydrogen). People are going to get shocked at the price at the pump given the current prices and that might scare off people from even trying the cars (it'll be very embarrassing for Toyota if they can't even lease a couple hundred of them).
 
So the state kicks in $200 million and Toyota gives $7 million. Seems like they got a good deal.

Because CARB has a "boner" for Hydrogen... why its been just around the corner for the last 30 years. It'll definitely, maybe, almost, happen now, and we can get rid of those pesky EVs :) and our big oil buddies can eventually get back to charging outrageous prices for the "new gas". Never mind that Tesla is the largest automotive employer in the state.
 
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I would love to see a recording of the discussions that Toyota and their engineers had when they made the rav4EV the first time, then scrapped it for fuel cells, then resurrected it with a tesla power train, then scrapped it again for fuel cells.
Elon has said he is optimistic that battery's can gradually improve without the need or a miracle.
I assume Toyota believe that batteries won't get much better.
Time will tell.
 
We already see a move to implement FCs as range extenders for BEVs, because high power FCs are even more expensive to produce, and a battery can better accommodate the spurts of power needed for acceleration and hills in transportation. So the battle has already been won by BEVs, except for range issues amounting to the expense of large batteries, vs the expense of FC implementations.

And FC really amounts to a different battery chemistry in which fully charged "electrolyte" can be refilled, instead of recharged electrically. But we could imagine onboard electrolysis of water being used to generate hydrogen that is then captured and later burned and the water recaptured, in endless cycles without ever filling from a separate hydrogen source. Just add water once in a while to compensate for inevitable losses.

So I'm starting to see the competition between FC and BEV as a competition among battery chemistries. There may be other ways of refilling charged electrolytes, but it is difficult to see how that really beats the existing infrastructure of electricity distribution, which just needs to be upgraded to accommodate higher charge rates in more places on the highways. And of course, we need a standardized connector!
 
Some issues with hydrogen I never see mentioned:

1. The special insulated high pressure tank is and will always be super expensive to manufacture.

2. It will always have to be shaped like, well, a high pressure gas container - cylindrical, which makes it much harder to design a car around.

3. If the liquid hydrogen starts to warm despite the insulation, as is inevitable, it will have to vent gas. Park your car with a full tank at the airport for
four or six weeks, return to find your tank empty. 50, 70, 100 dollars literally dissolved into thin air.

4. If that happens, your car will have to be towed - no such thing as a hydrogen reserve canister for a refill.

5. The vented hydrogen from the car will accumulate under the ceiling of any closed garage. It will seep into the electrical wiring tubes from lamps and the ventilation ducts where the smallest spark can set it on fire, and the whole building too. I don't think there is a single parking garage in the world that is equipped to prevent this. Normal ventilation is NOT sufficient. Hydrogen cars will not be allowed into ANY parking garages.

6. People will require at least the same density of hydrogen stations as gas stations. Filling stations will either have to invest a few hundred K to manufacture the
hydrogen on location or invest just as much for a huge tank ... which will also have to be insulated and, again, super expensive ... and will have the same
venting/evaporation issues.
 
In the interview, Lentz says "until you step on the accelerator, you're not producing hydrogen". I think he meant electricity, but it kind of shows how Toyota puts marketing people in front of the media rather than engineers.

In any case, I find it baffling how Toyota and others are still flogging this dead horse. EVs don't meet everyone's needs yet (particularly trucks, towing, people who drive long distances daily and people who don't have a private parking space), but they are a viable replacement for maybe half the cars on the road today, with existing infrastructure plus a cheap plug in the garage, and that will grow as technology improves. And meanwhile, the competition for EVs is gas cars, not HFCVs. Fuel cell vehicles don't even compete with gas cars and never will, for all the reasons others have mentioned here.
 
They are basing those numbers on the Japanese driving cycle where 310 miles equals about 270 EPA miles. And hoped for reduction in the price of hydrogen as demand increases and economies of scale kick in.

We shall see what happens when the car magazines get a hold of them but look for ~65 MPkg. Right now in Los Angeles it is ~$12.50 per kilogram of hydrogen.

That's something like 45% more expensive per mile than a conventional Honda Accord. Ouch. It sounds like one of the two main benefits Toyota is using to sell people on buying these vehicles may be based on unrealistic assumptions:

"Lentz was quick to reel off the benefits of fuel cell vehicles: Their carbon footprint is 50% better than gasoline, and their fuel costs will be low -- about $30 for a four-passenger sedan to travel 300 miles."

If the carbon footprint calculation is based on a conventional car then when compared to a hybrid their vehicle costs twice as much to buy, costs about twice a much per mile to drive, and only offers a marginal improvement in carbon footprint. They really need to find a better angle to market this to people if they want to have even the slightest chance of this effort succeeding.
 
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We already see a move to implement FCs as range extenders for BEVs
Actually, I don't see much of a move toward that. The requirement of a range extender is that the infrastructure is widespread and the range extender plus fuel tank is less expensive and more energy dense than batteries. The hydrogen infrastructure is non-existent (even worse than EV infrastructure) and the FC system is more expensive than batteries and volumetrically is roughly the same energy density (unlike gasoline). So it's not well suited to a range extender role.


The other issue is that hydrogen stations can't survive on the occasional demand in the case of FCs operating at range extenders. The only way they can work (at more reasonable hydrogen prices comparable to gasoline) is with the FCV using hydrogen also for daily commuting.
 
Whenever I hear of fuel cell technology , I think of Ballard Power (bld.to). Not sure if they are the biggest player in this space, but they have been working with fuel cells for close to 30 yrs...and they haven't been able to get the technology to go mainstream. I know they have a fleet of 20 buses in BC doing a 5 year pilot.

I wonder if Toyota will partner with them.
 
Um, nobody is proposing to store hydrogen as a cryogenic liquid on vehicles, unless you're talking about vehicles with rocket engines.. :)


They are talking 700 Bar (10,000 psi) at which state is liquid!

Reference

Compressed hydrogen tanks [5000 psi (~35 MPa) and 10,000 psi (~70 MPa)] have been certified worldwide according to ISO 11439 (Europe), NGV-2 (U.S.), and Reijikijun Betten (Iceland) standards and approved by TUV (Germany) and The High-Pressure Gas Safety Institute of Japan (KHK). Tanks have been demonstrated in several prototype fuel cell vehicles and are commercially available. Composite, 10,000-psi tanks have demonstrated a 2.35 safety factor (23,500 psi burst pressure) as required by the European Integrated Hydrogen Project specifications. Learn more about high-pressure hydrogen tank testing.
 
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