Toyota 'Mirai' Fuel Cell Sedan

[JohnSnowNW]

What? How so? Have you looked at Toyota's balance sheet and R&D budgets lately?

FC cars are just one R&D avenue for Toyota, not a major expense unless they start investing in global infrastructure heavily (I doubt this will happen). They want to sell just 30k FC cars by 2020, that's nothing but a large experiment:

Toyota expects to sell 30,000 fuel cell vehicles a year by 2020

30k is a fraction of a percent for Toyota. As we all know Toyota is selling around or over 10M cars per year today, probably more in 2020 because they have room to grow in places like China etc.

FCEVs are and will remain a fraction of their annual revenues for another decade (at least). Anyone who thinks FCEV development will somehow endanger Toyota's financial position is mistaken.

Also, Toyota has R&D on solid-state batteries etc., there are many ways to Rome. Toyota will consider next-gen batteries once they are ready in the 2020s, they just don't like specs of current-gen batteries for mass production.

Didn't they offer stock to the tune of $4.2B specifically to help with their FCEV program?

Yes, yes they did:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-28/toyota-plans-4-2-billion-share-sale-to-develop-fuel-cell-cars

 

[vinnie97]

What? How so? Have you looked at Toyota's balance sheet and R&D budgets lately?

FC cars are just one R&D avenue for Toyota, not a major expense unless they start investing in global infrastructure heavily (I doubt this will happen). They want to sell just 30k FC cars by 2020, that's nothing but a large experiment:

Toyota expects to sell 30,000 fuel cell vehicles a year by 2020

30k is a fraction of a percent for Toyota. As we all know Toyota is selling around or over 10M cars per year today, probably more in 2020 because they have room to grow in places like China etc.

FCEVs are and will remain a fraction of their annual revenues for another decade (at least). Anyone who thinks FCEV development will somehow endanger Toyota's financial position is mistaken.

Also, Toyota has R&D on solid-state batteries etc., there are many ways to Rome. Toyota will consider next-gen batteries once they are ready in the 2020s, they just don't like specs of current-gen batteries for mass production.

I said I hope it would, not that I believe it would. There's too much public money being funneled into the venture unfortunately (the municipalities are likely to go bellyup first).

 

[Doug_G]

To be fair that's speculation. May well be that some/most/all filling stations are able to fill the whole tank from empty to full in 5 minutes. We'll see as actual owners start reporting/reviewing.

It would probably take a very long time to get the tank absolutely full to the rated pressure, unless the pressure in the filling hose was far higher than the tank. And then the question comes down to safety, because if you overfill the tank, potentially kaboom. Especially if that happens repeatedly.

Wouldn't be at all surprised if it were 5 minutes to half, and 20 minutes to full. You're equalizing pressure, not pouring liquid in.

 

[tftf]

Didn't they offer stock to the tune of $4.2B specifically to help with their FCEV program?

Yes, yes they did:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-28/toyota-plans-4-2-billion-share-sale-to-develop-fuel-cell-cars

So? That's just around 50% of their annual R&D budget. For example back in 2011 Toyota had the biggest R&D budget in the world:

Focus: RD spending | The Economist

It has since fallen a little (because of a weaker JPY, these comparisons are usually in USD), but Toyota is still in the top 10 globally.

Toyota is in for the long run - both with battery tech and hydrogen. They have a strategy plan until 2050.

 

[green1]

Toyota is in for the long run - both with battery tech and hydrogen. They have a strategy plan until 2050.

And yet, all their massive investments have yet to produce a single viable alternative fuel vehicle. They've so far ignored EV, and gone CARB credit hunting on H2 (there's no good reason to even think about H2 other than to scoop up government money, there's zero practical upside to the technology, and many drawbacks, for safety alone H2 vehicles should be banned, even China knows this!)

 

[JohnSnowNW]

So? That's just around 50% of their annual R&D budget. For example back in 2011 Toyota had the biggest R&D budget in the world:

Focus: RD spending | The Economist

It has since fallen a little (because of a weaker JPY, these comparisons are usually in USD), but Toyota is still in the top 10 globally.

Toyota is in for the long run - both with battery tech and hydrogen. They have a strategy plan until 2050.

How is it not a major expense when they don't expect to sell but ~10,000 globally before 2020? That's a drop in the bucket for the amount of money they're going to have to spend on the technology to make it viable...and then they have to make money on it.

I guess I don't know what to say if you don't consider the potential of losing multiple billions of dollars as significant. Especially, when that's just one vehicle their pouring their money into. If FCEVs don't take off, in favor of BEVs and PHEVs, they're going to be hurting.

 

[hiroshiy]

Light Duty Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Hydrogen Fueling Protocol | Department of Energy

Here's a look up table for H2 refill, on page 26.

 

[1208]

 

[Johan]

Light Duty Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Hydrogen Fueling Protocol | Department of Energy

Here's a look up table for H2 refill, on page 26.

Thanks, very interesting.

Some interesting takeaways:

This document is from 2014. The last slide says, for example, that the Scandinavian Hydrogen Highway aims for "20 stations in 2015". Their own homepage (H2 Stations | Scandinavian Hydrogen) says they have 15 stations planned for 2015. It's now almost december and the map shows they have 2 in Sweden, 2 in Denmark, and 6 in Norway (10) + 1 in production. Also I've heard rumors that all these 6 in Norway are not operational.

One other intresting takeaway is that in order to achieve fast refueling on a regular hydrogen car tank (5-10 kg at 70 MPa) to 90-100% SOC you need to pre cool the hydrogen to -20 to -40 Celcius (-35 seems to be a common value). This is called a type A or B filling station. This is because increasing the pressure of the vehicle tank quickly (=filling it) increases temperature and the tanks in the cars are not rated for >85 Celcius so this temperature limitit must be respected. There is not mention of how much energy is required to perform this cooling.

Also this table was kind of interesting, obviously the 85kWh BEV is a Tesla. Not sure how accurate it is.

As per this table a 30 kWh battery yields a "highway range" of 130 km (fair enough) but would a 5 kg H2 tank make for "500+ km" of equivalent range. I think not...

 

[renim]

And yet, all their massive investments have yet to produce a single viable alternative fuel vehicle. They've so far ignored EV, and gone CARB credit hunting on H2 (there's no good reason to even think about H2 other than to scoop up government money, there's zero practical upside to the technology, and many drawbacks, for safety alone H2 vehicles should be banned, even China knows this!)

Toyota has spent far greater time and money on H2 than CARB hunting, a simple prorata of patents 'release' by Tesla and Toyota should provide insight.

China loves hydrogen, they just think that Toyota's way is still inherently unsafe.

- - - Updated - - -

One other intresting takeaway is that in order to achieve fast refueling on a regular hydrogen car tank (5-10 kg at 70 MPa) to 90-100% SOC you need to pre cool the hydrogen to -20 to -40 Celcius (-35 seems to be a common value). This is called a type A or B filling station. This is because increasing the pressure of the vehicle tank quickly (=filling it) increases temperature and the tanks in the cars are not rated for >85 Celcius so this temperature limitit must be respected. There is not mention of how much energy is required to perform this cooling.

Its not the energy content of cooling, its the cost and reliability problems that arise from the intersection of

hydrogen embrittlement
-20C, -40 C brittleness
700 bar fatigue

its serious challenge, so its a costly challenge, with serious reliability aspects.

350 bar is far superior is terms of pragmatism, the automotive H2 backers have basically hung themselves with 700bar.

 

[Johan]

Renim: thanks for your comments. Yes that sharp temperature delta seems like it could be very problematic when coupled with those high pressures that must of course be contained in metal containers. We can all imagine the material stress.

 

[hiroshiy]

Somebody already calculated that to refill H2 on empty tank Mirai, it requires 40kWh of electricity for compressor and precooler to -40C. What a waste of energy.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Somebody already calculated that to refill H2 on empty tank Mirai, it requires 40kWh of electricity for compressor and precooler to -40C. What a waste of energy.

40kWh even including cooling sounds a bit high. That is on the upper end of the the DOE data (33kWh for 5kg).

See DOE paper:
"DOE Technology Validation Project data for compression from on-site H2 production is 1.7 to 6.4 kWh/kgH2 [2]. Additional energy required for pre-cooling (as cold as -40 C)[3] to ensure on board fast fill temperatures are 85 C or lower can be modest (0.15 kWh/kg H2)[4]"
http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/9013_energy_requirements_for_hydrogen_gas_compression.pdf

 

[hiroshiy]

40kWh even including cooling sounds a bit high. That is on the upper end of the the DOE data (33kWh for 5kg).

See DOE paper:
"DOE Technology Validation Project data for compression from on-site H2 production is 1.7 to 6.4 kWh/kgH2 [2]. Additional energy required for pre-cooling (as cold as -40 C)[3] to ensure on board fast fill temperatures are 85 C or lower can be modest (0.15 kWh/kg H2)[4]"
http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/9013_energy_requirements_for_hydrogen_gas_compression.pdf

Thanks for the correction. I myself wasn't able to find a good reference and was not confident about the kWh number. Even at 33kWh Teslas can go 110 miles with that amount of electricity.

 

[Yggdrasill]

Generally, the whole process of making hydrogen from water, compressing it and filling the car takes about 55-60 kWh/kg. This is with the most modern equipment today, and long term *maybe* 50 kWh/kg is possible.

The energy in the car reesulting from these 55-60 kWh will be 33 kWh. And then you pass this hydrogen through a fuel cell with around 60% efficiency, leaving you with around 20 kWh for moving the car. The Mirai is able to do 100 km on this energy, which works out to 550-600 Wh/km (880-960 Wh/mile) gross and 200 Wh/km (320 Wh/mile) net.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Generally, the whole process of making hydrogen from water, compressing it and filling the car takes about 55-60 kWh/kg. This is with the most modern equipment today, and long term *maybe* 50 kWh/kg is possible.

Is there a figure for how much of that is Electrolysis? Would be interesting to consider on the basis that some/all?! might be generated from surplus renewable electricity generation.

 

[Yggdrasill]

Is there a figure for how much of that is Electrolysis? Would be interesting to consider on the basis that some/all?! might be generated from surplus renewable electricity generation.

The electrolysis obviously takes most of the energy. If we're saying 55 kWh/kg, I would split the energy into 50 kWh for the electrolysis, 4 kWh for the compression and 1 kWh for cooling and everything else. (No transport - assuming on-site production.)

Making hydrogen from "surplus" renewable energy is problematic, in that there's rarely any surplus renewable energy. Electrolysers are expensive, so you ideally want them to run 24/7. Reducing the running time increase the amount of equipment you need for a given amount of hydrogen.

- Say you have a 100 kW electrolyser, and you run it 24/7. Annually that's a production of 17,520 kg at 50 kWh/kg, which is enough for the annual mileage of 100-120 hydrogen cars.
- Now, how about if you only want to run it for 8 off-peak hours? Annually that's a production of 5840 kg at 50 kWh/kg. To produce 17,520 kg, you need a 300 kW electrolyser.
- How about making it from peak production wind, which is about 15% of the hours here in Norway for an average wind farm? Annually that's a production of 2628 kg at 50 kWh/kg. To produce 17,520 kg, you need a 670 kW electrolyser.
- How about making it only when you have negative electricity prices, which is about 20 hours/year in Germany? Annually that's a production of 40 kg at 50 kWh/kg. To produce 17,520 kg, you need a 43,800 kW electrolyser.

Making hydrogen off-peak may be workable, but this isn't surplus energy, and it isn't just renewable energy.

 

[Johan]

Surplus electricity is an oxymoron. And one certainly can't base the fuel needs of any large fleet of vehicles on"surplus energy".

 

[GSP]

Yggdrasill posted this great 16 minute video of Murai production. I found it to be an interesting example of low volume automotive production process.

Robert Llewellyn's Fully Charged - Page 30

GSP

 

[WannabeOwner]

Whilst there is no renewable energy surplus at present (my understanding is that any renewable energy is used first, by the grid) my hope is that in X years time we will be, say, 99% renewables and then when the wind blows at night we will have surplus.

Perhaps making Hydrogen is better as a means of "storing energy" than pumping water up hill?

Actually if anyone is able to show a comparison of the two I'd be interested to know. If pumping water up hill is better than I'm fresh out of any thoughts as to why Hydrogen would be useful at all.

I can imagine that small-ish batteries in each home, enough just to tide the house over, or feed back to the grid, during peak demand might be better for surplus, or off-peak, electricity. I have PV panels on the roof, any surplus not used in the house is "sold" back to the grid; would it be better [in general, or environmental, terms] for me to "keep/store" all the spare power I generate from my PV panels? or is exporting my excess to the grid, and then buying some back at night, the best way? Should people like me, with PV on the roof, have a PowerWall or somesuch? I'm not ecstatic about having my own home electrolysis kit!!