Toyota bets big on Fuel Cell Vehicles

[stopcrazypp]

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.

Ballard sold most of its automotive fuel cell assets to Daimler and Ford (although they still have a partial stake in it).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballard_Power_Systems#Retreat_from_automotive_fuel_cells
They are focusing instead on stationary use and for industrial vehicles (like buses, trucks, forklifts, etc).
http://green.autoblog.com/2014/04/08/hydrogen-technology-better-in-buses-trucks-than-cars-says-ball/

 

[mibaro2]

Ballard sold most of its automotive fuel cell assets to Daimler and Ford (although they still have a partial stake in it).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballard_Power_Systems#Retreat_from_automotive_fuel_cells
They are focusing instead on stationary use and for industrial vehicles (like buses, trucks, forklifts, etc).
http://green.autoblog.com/2014/04/08/hydrogen-technology-better-in-buses-trucks-than-cars-says-ball/

Thanks for the updated information.

 

[stopcrazypp]

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

Reference

Doesn't that depend on temperature too? AFAIK 10k psi compressed hydrogen tanks are not liquid storage and there are none of the venting requirements of liquid storage. I think mhpr262 is thinking of the Hydrogen 7 which did use cryogenic hydrogen, but none of the modern HFCVs use liquid hydrogen.

 

[Skotty]

I still think there is a future for fuel cell vehicles, but it will be in industry and trucking. I think personal transport will be mainly EV, maybe with just a small niche of fuel cell enthusiasts.

To give an analogy, I think EV will become like gasoline is today (personal transport), fuel cells will become like diesel is today (industry/trucking and personal transport niche), and gasoline will be like CNG is today (but for hold outs and antique motoring enthusiasts).

 

[Lloyd]

Doesn't that depend on temperature too? AFAIK 10k psi compressed hydrogen tanks are not liquid storage and there are none of the venting requirements of liquid storage. I think mhpr262 is thinking of the Hydrogen 7 which did use cryogenic hydrogen, but none of the modern HFCVs use liquid hydrogen.

From the reference:

Liquid tanks are being demonstrated in hydrogen-powered vehicles, and a hybrid tank concept combining both high-pressure gaseous and cryogenic storage is being studied. These hybrid (cryo-compressed tanks) insulated pressure vessels are lighter than hydrides and more compact than ambient-temperature, high-pressure vessels. Because the temperatures required are not as low as for liquid hydrogen, there is less of an energy penalty for liquefaction and less evaporative losses than for liquid hydrogen tanks..

 

[rabar10]

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

Reference

Not at room temperature, it's not.

There are a few studies and concept cars that are using either cryogenic liquid hydrogen (BMW H2R and BMW Hydrogen 7, which actually use an internal-combustion engine), at very cold temperatures but only 2-3 bar, or "cryo-compressed" liquid hydrogen at not-quite-as-very-cold temperatures but much higher pressures, 350-700 bar (Hydrogen storage - Cryo-compressed). Both of these systems require either constant cryo-cooling, consumption of the H2, or venting of the ever-increasing pressure in the tank.

Room-temperature high-pressure (350-700 bar) gaseous hydrogen tanks do not have these issues, and so their tanks will stay full over time, but they are not as volumetrically efficient.

 

[Dave EV]

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.

There are a lot of people who can't charge/fuel at home (apartments, condos, etc), so FCV does have an advantage there. Look at how busy Tesla SuperChargers are near population centers - you can be sure that a lot of people are using them for daily commuting energy needs.

Of course - the question is at what price can H2 be sold - it seems that it can't be sold for prices approaching gasoline/diesel (even accounting for the higher efficiency of a FCEV power train). I would love to see what current retail pricing is for H2.

I still think there is a future for fuel cell vehicles, but it will be in industry and trucking. I think personal transport will be mainly EV, maybe with just a small niche of fuel cell enthusiasts.

Possible. But would NG make more sense perhaps using solid-oxide fuel cells especially since just about all H2 will be coming from NG for the foreseeable future?

People have talked about using excess renewable energy to generate H2 as a form of energy storage, but it seems that it would be more effective to inject that H2 into NG to offset NG usage (and hopefully coal) that way, first.

 

[stopcrazypp]

There are a lot of people who can't charge/fuel at home (apartments, condos, etc), so FCV does have an advantage there. Look at how busy Tesla SuperChargers are near population centers - you can be sure that a lot of people are using them for daily commuting energy needs.

Yes, FCVs can serve that role, but that role is clearly is not as a range extender for BEVs (but rather with hydrogen as the primary source of energy), which was my point.

 

[ecarfan]

There are a lot of people who can't charge/fuel at home (apartments, condos, etc), so FCV does have an advantage there. Look at how busy Tesla SuperChargers are near population centers - you can be sure that a lot of people are using them for daily commuting energy needs.

Yes however it is so easy to build EV charging stations almost anywhere, whereas hydrogen fueling stations are crazy expensive.

 

[Dave EV]

Yes however it is so easy to build EV charging stations almost anywhere, whereas hydrogen fueling stations are crazy expensive.

Definitely. What's Tesla's cost to install a typical 8 stall SuperCharger? I recall someone saying about $200k?

This NREL document from last year says that H2 stations today cost about $3M and can supply about 333 kg/day. Future stations after 2016 will cost about $5M and supply about 1200 kg/day.

Typical FCEV seems to take about 1 kg H2 per 50 miles, so today's H2 station can fuel cars for about 16k miles/day and future stations could fuel about 60k miles/day.

The capacity of a 8-stall SuperCharger is around 3.6 cars/hour, delivering around 32 MWh/month, let's round to 1 MWh/day to make the math easy. 1 MWh is good for about 3,000 miles, so really need to deliver about 5x more energy (5 MWh/day) which would take about 25 stalls to do at the same blocking rate.

Anyway, simple extrapolation would indicate that might cost about $1M, though there are probably economies of scale to be gained, so the cost would likely be significantly less. Though if you add battery storage and solar PV, that will increase upfront costs but reduce operational costs. Lots of variables.

To get up to the future hydrogen station example, you need to expand by another 4x which would mean around 80 stalls. Cost of SuperCharger sites would still be significantly less than the H2 station.

All of this ignores the fact that by far most charging for EVs doesn't even need to happen at SuperChargers, but instead at home, work, etc, so less SuperCharger would be required in the first place than H2 capacity.

It's still very interesting to try to estimate just how many SuperCharger sites would be required if significantly more vehicles on the road could use them - and then compare to hydrogen.

 

[jerry33]

Room-temperature high-pressure (350-700 bar) gaseous hydrogen tanks do not have these issues, and so their tanks will stay full over time, but they are not as volumetrically efficient.

A truck tire exploding at 8-10 bar is scary dangerous. An earthmover tire at 8-10 bar has a kill distance of 300 m (not counting any shrapnel). I don't even want to think about a 350-700 bar container in the back of my car.

 

[Dan5]

When I was in college, we visited a chemical plant and a few days before they had an accident where one of the tanks flipped and the valve got sheared off and went through the wall and damaged 3 cars in the parking lot.

 

[Lloyd]

When I was in high school, a scuba tank at 2500 psi got knocked over in the bed of a pickup. The valve went though the cab, they found the tank 4 blocks away!

 

[Merrill]

The fuel cell for automobiles has been around for at least 20 years, it was always dangerous and expensive. Has anything changed in regards to technology to make it something that vehicle manufactures could embrace.

 

[stopcrazypp]

The fuel cell for automobiles has been around for at least 20 years, it was always dangerous and expensive. Has anything changed in regards to technology to make it something that vehicle manufactures could embrace.

They've improved the power density and reduced the amount of platinum used. So instead of being insanely expensive (in the millions) it's supposedly about ~$100k for a fuel cell. Toyota says they can get that down to about $50k and sell a car in the $50k-$100k price range. That's enough to make it worthwhile to pursue at least as a compliance vehicle (given an FCV gets 9 ZEV credits, which has a market value of up to $45k).

 

[TonyWilliams]

A truck tire exploding at 8-10 bar is scary dangerous. An earthmover tire at 8-10 bar has a kill distance of 300 m (not counting any shrapnel). I don't even want to think about a 350-700 bar container in the back of my car.

And the compressed gas in the tire in non-flammable.

 

[mhpr262]

Yep ... the inherent danger is something I should have mentioned in my post too, didn't think of it.

I hadn't assumed that hydrogen would be stored in non liquid form because the range would be pretty poor. They wouldn't have the venting issue though. But what are the chances of sucess of a FCV that is more expensive to buy and operate and more dangerous than an EV ... while offering less range ...

 

[qwk]

I really don't see how Toyota can think that hydrogen has a future, given how dangerous it is. I'm sure it's just a way to kick the "EV can" down the road.

 

[Vger]

The thing I find so nuts about this, is that Toyota got to collaborate with Tesla closely on the RAV4 EV. They thus had ample opportunity to see how successful Tesla was with BEV technology and fast charging. How could they run diametrically away from that?! If there was no good alternative, that is one thing, but they held the key to compete with Nissan, Kia, GM, Ford and others right in the palm of their hand and threw it away. It may be a titanic (no pun intended) business case study of strategic blindness in ten years!

 

[Dan5]

Toyota is essentially screwed with fuel cells, at least in the US.

What we have to do it look to the near future;

First, you must build the stations and then you must compete with both the price of the car and the cost of the fuel.

Let us look at 2017; Tesla's generation 3 is going to come out. That is supposed to be less than 40 K.

Toyota is currently where Tesla is at a price point with the Roadster or 85 Model S.

Then we get into the build out of H stations needed. Tesla can manage with 300 in the US since most people charge at home, well, you are not going to drive 150 miles out of your way for gasoline, most is 10. So you need about 67,500 stations and you need to build them in 3 years in order to compete.

Now let us say that they somehow manage to come out with a 40 K FCV at the same time the Gen III comes out and for the same price and let us say that you manage to build 15,000 stations (only hitting the large markets- mop up latter).

Now hydrogen is pretty expensive, electricity is cheaper, which one would you purchase?

Not to mention who would be willing to take a risk spending Billions of dollars building stations?

Not to mention that you have a competing technology that by its very natural decreases (batteries) in cost every generation due to improvements in chemistry.

If lithium air or silicon batteries are introduced, it's the death knell for hydrogen