Toyota has lobbied for the help, and they have even grabbed an additional credit per car, while battery swapping credits are based on swapping percentage, which we know would be extremely low even if there were swappers at every Supercharger.
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Toyota 'Mirai' Fuel Cell Sedan
- Thread starter ivog
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Toyota has lobbied for the help, and they have even grabbed an additional credit per car, while battery swapping credits are based on swapping percentage, which we know would be extremely low even if there were swappers at every Supercharger.
I've had a chance to sit in (though not to drive/ride) a Mirai and have had one on one discussions with the main US marketing people. Believe it or not they are aware of all of the arguments above. They believe they have a long term strategy that can work. They have done a remarkable job of improving the efficiency while dramatically reducing the size of the fuel cell stack (it fits under the driver's seat). The technologic knowledge gained is impressive. That said, I still share and echo those here who point out the long term impracticalities. It leaves in place the need for a provider of hydrogen and a middle-man dealer with the consumer stuck at the bottom of the stack paying for all of the above with little or no control over the cost or source of energy supply.
There are some ways to implement hydrogen sourcing that are easier and less expensive than trucking, but there's no way, in the long haul, that the numbers work out. I've pleaded with those with whom I have contact, but this is a very high managment decision on Toyota's part to pursue FCV over EVs (not that they've completely abandoned EVs, but they're intentionally downplaying them to avoid distraction from the FCV program). We can only hope they see the light sooner rather than later.
There are some ways to implement hydrogen sourcing that are easier and less expensive than trucking, but there's no way, in the long haul, that the numbers work out. I've pleaded with those with whom I have contact, but this is a very high managment decision on Toyota's part to pursue FCV over EVs (not that they've completely abandoned EVs, but they're intentionally downplaying them to avoid distraction from the FCV program). We can only hope they see the light sooner rather than later.
tonybelding
Active Member
In the past some really horrible and doomed products have reached the market only because a company felt they'd put way too much time and money into them, and they just couldn't pull the plug. By comparison... Steve Jobs was notorious for canceling far-advanced R&D projects at Apple whenever he decided the results were not "insanely great". I was therefore amused recently to read complaints from a SpaceX employee about Elon Musk deciding to scrap six months of R&D work because the result wasn't sufficiently "badass".
Having said that... I don't think the Mirai can be entirely blamed on Toyota management's ignorance or stubbornness. There is a logic behind it, but you have to put yourself in Toyota's metaphorical shoes to see it.
There's a lot of collective wisdom in the car industry that says the masses won't accept BEVs and their limitations, especially with regard to range and charging time. The Nissan Leaf and Model S have begun to erode that argument, but they are still a blip, a quirk, in the eyes of the industry as a whole. This is supported by market research: If you ask random people what they want in a ZEV, most of them (who know little of these subjects) will say they want something that works just like the gasoline car they're already familiar with, except that doesn't burn gasoline. A HFCEV fits that description. A BEV does not.
This also ties into the CARB regulations. Major car makers (including, but not limited to, Toyota and Honda) have convinced CARB that HFCEV range and fast refueling will allow them to be used for more driving each day, thereby displacing larger quantities of gasoline than the same number of BEVs. Therefore, HFCEVs should get more clean air credits than BEVs. Since all HFCEVs and BEVs are, from Toyota's viewpoint, compliance cars destined to lose money, it makes sense to produce the smallest possible number of them and thereby lose the least money. Since HFCEVs are worth more credits, Toyota can get away with producing fewer of them.
Toyota is one of the biggest car makers in the world, and virtually all of those cars have an internal combustion engine. From their perspective, changing to any kind of different power plant would seem like a very expensive way to undermine their own business. I expect them to make as many ZEVs (of whatever kind) as the law requires, and not one more. In other words... Toyota is the new Kodak.
bluenation
Member
that's a very good post, thank you.
the disappointment is increased when you also realize the CEO toyoda was a new generation, a fresh face that tackled the old guard and stopped the factory expansionism, concentrating on improving already existing factories' standards (in light of the unintended acceleration incidents, which was his first test of leadership). i thought that proved toyoda to be fresh, new, 21st century guy. and his personality is charming too!
it's too bad. i'll still love toyota because of what they've done, but....eh.
McMuggets
Member
So this car acts as an emergency generator. Does Tesla sell an adapter for it for the universal mobile charger? 
Toyota Mirai is a Car That Turns into Emergency Generator - AutoGyaan
Toyota Mirai is a Car That Turns into Emergency Generator - AutoGyaan
So this car acts as an emergency generator. Does Tesla sell an adapter for it for the universal mobile charger?
Toyota Mirai is a Car That Turns into Emergency Generator - AutoGyaan
Most of the electrics of various stripes sold in Japan can do this now - all the ones I've seen use a CHAdeMO connector to do it. Tesla is supposed to be shipping a CHAdeMO adapter one of these days...
Walter
It has two other things going for it as well.
1. The fun trick of the water coming out of the tail pipe is a wonderful sleight of hand. Like a audience member watching a magic trick the untrained person gets a "wow, that is incredible!" moment. That will get the public behind their product.
2. Toyota has its government throwing a vast amounts of money behind the project to support the technology. There are plenty of others wanting to put their hand in the pot as well. Big oil is not dumb and they want to keep the vast amount of money flowing into their coffers. Not to mention CARB putting their support behind the technology. Just wait until the US government starts giving tons of money to help build lots of hydrogen refueling stations. So they have big business and governments behind their project as well.
Too bad their product just isn't all that good and it is terribly expensive. That will be a very hard sell to the buying public long term. A magic trick isn't all that exciting when you've seen the same trick over and over.
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rolosrevenge
Dr. EVS
I never understood why people thought water coming out of a hydrogen car was anything especial. Water comes out of the exhaust from gasoline too. It's one of the reactants from combustion after all. Considering how much smaller an H2O molecule is than a CO2 molecule, I'm surprised they don't have a filter system that allows you to capture the water from an ICE exhaust.
What would you want to do with the water? The one place I know of that it was useful, they did filter it out (condense it.) Most of the later rigid airships had systems like that - the water from the exhaust more or less balanced the weight of the fuel burned, so that they wouldn't have to toggle off expensive lifting gas to keep in trim as they burned fuel.Walter
Getting a tad off topic, but I have a couple videos I took of a Highlander FCV being fueled a few months ago. The Toyota guy does a pretty good job of describing the process and how it measures and remeasures back pressure. They do have a means of metering, though I think the issues is that the process is not terribly precise because it's based upon pressure, not volume?
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McMuggets
Member
It would seem Toyota is too late to the green game. Distributing electricity and storing it in batteries to propel cars is already admitted by various independent think tanks to be more efficient than trucking hydrogen around. There's also something very scary to me about driving around with a compressed Hydrogen tank. I know they say its "safe" and all that... but the Hindenburg was considered "safe" too until they decided to fill it with Hydrogen. Don't tell me that a car with all those mechanical parts won't spring any leaks of a compressed small particle gas with long-term usage. Also, what happens if you crash the car and some sparks are created?
Hydrogen fuel cell vs. battery-electric cars: Which is greener? | ecomento.com
Hydrogen fuel cell vs. battery-electric cars: Which is greener? | ecomento.com
I don't know the exact specifications of the current implementation of the metering, but it isn't difficult to meter the hydrogen very accurately. You usually have an intermediary storage tank (with cooling). This storage tank has a given volume, pressure and temperature. And with these three bits of information, you know exactly how much hydrogen is in the tank, whether you want this information in kg, standard cubic meters or moles. Measuring the amount of hydrogen in the intermediary storage tank before and after the filling tells you exactly how much hydrogen you have removed from the tank.
dauger
Member
Yes, that's a poison pill for any other carmaker. Would BMW, MB, GM want their product's fate linked to Toyota's whim? No way.
By contrast, the unlimited license for production and supply patents is a "tell": It means Toyota does not believe it will reap long-term value direct value from those because Toyota will never seriously engage in Hydrogen infrastructure, so don't look to Toyota to build it. That's very different from Tesla's Supercharger network. Toyota is affirming its dependence on someone else to build the Hydrogen stations.
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McMuggets
Member
Very true. Toyota just basically hopes everyone else will jump on the hydrogen wagon and build out the infrastructure etc. The more car companies buy into it, the better for them.... if the thing has legs then they will collect royalties on patents after 2020. If not, then no real cost to them (because hydrogen is dead if only Toyota takes it on). Thing is, at least it'll keep most of the current jobs for maintenance and mechanics. Also maintains the dealership model too. Not that this is good or bad, but maybe they'll get support simply because EV's seem to take away a lot of the "engine mechanic" jobs.
ChadS
Last tank of gas: March 2009
I was at an event for fleet managers yesterday. There were several industry reps talking about various fuel alternatives - electricity, lpg, cng, hydrogen, etc.
A guy from a national laboratory was one of the speakers. He was very positive on hydrogen and I cringed a couple of times as he talked about how there is "almost no footprint if it is generated from renewables", "it is just like an EV with a different battery," and "you can't take a trip in an electric car without waiting hours for charging" (of course completely ignoring PHEVs as always, and making BEVs sound worse than they are). But most of what he said was quite reasonable; he was mostly painting a picture of where progress is on all of the various issues. While confident all problems would be overcome, he did readily admit we aren't there yet in a number of areas. A local fleet manager asked a pointed question about how we in WA would get hydrogen given that there are no production facilities anywhere near here and our legislators aren't spending billions on H2 stations, and after pausing a minute, he simply said that it would be a very long process here; though it is moving faster in CA and he has some hopes for the Northeast as well.
My impression of his talk confirmed most of my earlier suspicions on H2 cars: with serious effort (which they seem to be applying) they probably really can overcome a lot of the cost, safety, reliability and performance issues for the vehicles; if not immediately at least in a reasonable timeframe. But there isn't a good answer to the infrastructure question. (And other than the one very incomplete comment noted above, there was no discussion at all of lifecycle environmental costs: while hydrogen can be made better than gas, I don't see any way it can approach electricity; I keep hoping they'll find a way to produce hydrogen as a nearly-free byproduct of some other process). Hydrogen is domestic and cleaner than gas so I'm all for looking at where it makes sense to use it, but I don't think passenger cars are a good candidate. A large fleet of large vehicles might be; but that wasn't mentioned yesterday.
A rep from Toyota then got up to talk about the Mirai. She was a very nice lady; I had talked to her briefly before the event. But she had flown in from out of state to largely read an over-the-top marketing blurb about the car. It mentioned more than once that is is "high performance". She then added a few personal comments, including that the Toyoda family is spending billions on this technology as a gift to the world, and that is why the patents are free to use (she did not mention they are only available for a few years; once there is even the tiniest hope of infrastructure and volume being where anybody could make any money, you'd have to license the tech from Toyota). She was extremely dismayed that Shell pulled out of a project on H2 stations and simply said "I have no idea why they did that". She said if she had any money, SHE would build an H2 station because she knows it is the future. Although she repeatedly said the car was awesome and ready now, she admitted there was a "chicken and egg" problem (she said EVs didn't have infrastructure at first either, which somebody in the audience pointed out wasn't completely true) and wasn't sure how the infrastructure issue would be addressed. An audience member expressed disappointment that she had not brought a Mirai for test drives, but she pointed out they couldn't do that because hydrogen is not available here.
Like reluctant Toyota employees I met a few years ago that were first showing off the PHEV Prius, she appeared to be honestly convinced of H2 superiority - not just adhering to a corporate message. I respect their good intentions, though I think they have not truly considered all the data. (Of course most people haven't - it's very complicated, and they aren't paid to - so I don't mean that as a snide personal jab. But I do think it's why we disagree sharply on strategy to achieve similar objectives).
After the event I talked to the fleet manager that had asked about H2 infrastructure in WA. She got really worked up that "they keep saying these cars are coming like we can just BUY one" (the Mirai is a low-volume compliance car and WA is not a ZEV state - and doesn't have H2 stations! - so it won't be offered here) and started in again on H2 availability - she had apparently looked in to it in great detail, and doesn't see how it will ever work here.
A guy from a national laboratory was one of the speakers. He was very positive on hydrogen and I cringed a couple of times as he talked about how there is "almost no footprint if it is generated from renewables", "it is just like an EV with a different battery," and "you can't take a trip in an electric car without waiting hours for charging" (of course completely ignoring PHEVs as always, and making BEVs sound worse than they are). But most of what he said was quite reasonable; he was mostly painting a picture of where progress is on all of the various issues. While confident all problems would be overcome, he did readily admit we aren't there yet in a number of areas. A local fleet manager asked a pointed question about how we in WA would get hydrogen given that there are no production facilities anywhere near here and our legislators aren't spending billions on H2 stations, and after pausing a minute, he simply said that it would be a very long process here; though it is moving faster in CA and he has some hopes for the Northeast as well.
My impression of his talk confirmed most of my earlier suspicions on H2 cars: with serious effort (which they seem to be applying) they probably really can overcome a lot of the cost, safety, reliability and performance issues for the vehicles; if not immediately at least in a reasonable timeframe. But there isn't a good answer to the infrastructure question. (And other than the one very incomplete comment noted above, there was no discussion at all of lifecycle environmental costs: while hydrogen can be made better than gas, I don't see any way it can approach electricity; I keep hoping they'll find a way to produce hydrogen as a nearly-free byproduct of some other process). Hydrogen is domestic and cleaner than gas so I'm all for looking at where it makes sense to use it, but I don't think passenger cars are a good candidate. A large fleet of large vehicles might be; but that wasn't mentioned yesterday.
A rep from Toyota then got up to talk about the Mirai. She was a very nice lady; I had talked to her briefly before the event. But she had flown in from out of state to largely read an over-the-top marketing blurb about the car. It mentioned more than once that is is "high performance". She then added a few personal comments, including that the Toyoda family is spending billions on this technology as a gift to the world, and that is why the patents are free to use (she did not mention they are only available for a few years; once there is even the tiniest hope of infrastructure and volume being where anybody could make any money, you'd have to license the tech from Toyota). She was extremely dismayed that Shell pulled out of a project on H2 stations and simply said "I have no idea why they did that". She said if she had any money, SHE would build an H2 station because she knows it is the future. Although she repeatedly said the car was awesome and ready now, she admitted there was a "chicken and egg" problem (she said EVs didn't have infrastructure at first either, which somebody in the audience pointed out wasn't completely true) and wasn't sure how the infrastructure issue would be addressed. An audience member expressed disappointment that she had not brought a Mirai for test drives, but she pointed out they couldn't do that because hydrogen is not available here.
Like reluctant Toyota employees I met a few years ago that were first showing off the PHEV Prius, she appeared to be honestly convinced of H2 superiority - not just adhering to a corporate message. I respect their good intentions, though I think they have not truly considered all the data. (Of course most people haven't - it's very complicated, and they aren't paid to - so I don't mean that as a snide personal jab. But I do think it's why we disagree sharply on strategy to achieve similar objectives).
After the event I talked to the fleet manager that had asked about H2 infrastructure in WA. She got really worked up that "they keep saying these cars are coming like we can just BUY one" (the Mirai is a low-volume compliance car and WA is not a ZEV state - and doesn't have H2 stations! - so it won't be offered here) and started in again on H2 availability - she had apparently looked in to it in great detail, and doesn't see how it will ever work here.
Johan
Ex got M3 in the divorce, waiting for EU Model Y!
Thanks for that interesting report Chad!
For the record I've contacted both Honda, Toyota and Huyndai here in Norway asking if I can be a test pilot or lease an FCV early just because it'd be an interesting experience that I'd love to blog about from the perspective of someone who is sold on EVs, very sceptical about FCVs but I do try to keep an open mind at all times.
For the record I've contacted both Honda, Toyota and Huyndai here in Norway asking if I can be a test pilot or lease an FCV early just because it'd be an interesting experience that I'd love to blog about from the perspective of someone who is sold on EVs, very sceptical about FCVs but I do try to keep an open mind at all times.
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