Apparently the Mirai uses 30g of Platinum, down from 100g in the previous generation.
That is about $1000 worth of platinum.
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Why 'Fool' Cells.... WHY?
- Thread starter nwdiver
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Apparently the Mirai uses 30g of Platinum, down from 100g in the previous generation.
That is about $1000 worth of platinum.
Bangor Bob + n+1 
Actually, to my way of thinking, the only FCV what would make ANY sort of sense at all in the least, would be one with a plug, as in a plug-in Prius, instead of a Prius which a Mirai is--an expensive, cramped, slow Prius. Why? well, its like the old joke but backwards: "better to not do it at all, but if you must do it, make the best possible fist of the hand you are dealt." The why a plug-in FCV, is because with a plug in with electric-only capability, then the battery has to be bigger and more capable than a non-plug-in. Besides, if you make it a Volt instead of a Prius, then by the time the plug-in battery starts to run out, the HCV has had a chance to boot up and start contributing, so you can have 'slightly less pokey' performance. From automatic Yaris with AC on, trundling uphill , to manual Yaris with AC on, but on trundling on level ground. In fact, if you had a split battery, one side in use while the other charges, 15 miles change sides, then you might be able to reduce somewhat the necessity of the built-in annoyance factor of all those weird noisy air pumps etc of the Mirai.
Of course, designing a more capable HCV would require a higher price...say a $70,000 bigger battery car done in the size of a Camry sized body so that at least you might have the interior size close to that of a Corolla. But then you could get a Model S 70.
Who am I kidding? Making a semi-capable car at a larger price is just not going to happen.
Actually, to my way of thinking, the only FCV what would make ANY sort of sense at all in the least, would be one with a plug, as in a plug-in Prius, instead of a Prius which a Mirai is--an expensive, cramped, slow Prius. Why? well, its like the old joke but backwards: "better to not do it at all, but if you must do it, make the best possible fist of the hand you are dealt." The why a plug-in FCV, is because with a plug in with electric-only capability, then the battery has to be bigger and more capable than a non-plug-in. Besides, if you make it a Volt instead of a Prius, then by the time the plug-in battery starts to run out, the HCV has had a chance to boot up and start contributing, so you can have 'slightly less pokey' performance. From automatic Yaris with AC on, trundling uphill , to manual Yaris with AC on, but on trundling on level ground. In fact, if you had a split battery, one side in use while the other charges, 15 miles change sides, then you might be able to reduce somewhat the necessity of the built-in annoyance factor of all those weird noisy air pumps etc of the Mirai.
Of course, designing a more capable HCV would require a higher price...say a $70,000 bigger battery car done in the size of a Camry sized body so that at least you might have the interior size close to that of a Corolla. But then you could get a Model S 70.
Who am I kidding? Making a semi-capable car at a larger price is just not going to happen.
You only need 6A on average per car to have a meaningful charging installation. With Type 2 and dynamic load sharing, where the speed is ramped up and down according to the number of cars charging, the max charge rate becomes less and less important and the average charging rate becomes more important.
16 hours/day * 365 days/year * 6A * 230V = 8060 kWh
That's enough for at least 32,000 km/20,000 miles per year worth of driving.
When you have say 50 charging points in a charging installation, cars will use the chargers at different times, and as long as you have 9 out of 50 cars present and charging at 32A, the max power draw of the installation is in effect. In other words, as long as there is always 9-50 cars charging for 16 hours per day, all 50 cars will need to drive an average of at least 32k km per year to be able to use up all the energy supplied. The average here is 13k km per year, so almost always a car plugging in would get more than 6A.
The above system is of course not free, but it's entirely possible to place such a system where there is street parking. With a parking fee, the electricity and depreciation of the charging points can be covered.
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How efficient do they have to be? If they can beat the price of gas then I'd say you have a market. We have used ICE for a very long time and they are not efficient at all.
Providing charging in places like this is going to require significant investments. Who is going to pay for that all? I don't see that happening any time soon. At lest Germany isn't even close to the goal of 1millions EVs on the road in 2020. And even if we reached that it's not close to an amount of cars that such investments make sense. So at best we are looking at a 10-15 year timeframe where something like that might be considered.
Really? Digging up almost every street in living areas to lay cable is going to be cheaper than equipping a certain percentage of gas stations with hydrogen?
And again who pays for it? At least here in Germany cities usually don't exactly have a lot of money. Compared to larger chemical companies who can easily make investments into hydrogen if they see a market (The Linde Group - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). Am I a big fan of that? Not really, but to me it just seems like that is much more likely to happen.
JohnSnowNW
Active Member
Well, in the US, the public is paying for it...not Linde, not Air Liquide, not Hydrogenics, not Air Products. Also, Hydrogen will not be competitive with petrol for decades...or not until massive subsidies (and therefore more public funds) bring the costs down.
It's considerably cheaper to tear up parts of the road, and run wire, than to build out the 100,000+ stations necessary for FCEV adoption. And if my money is going into either, I'll choose the option that is both cheaper and most efficient.
Methane is one of the most common and easily made fuels, with a large number of potential renewable sources. Nothing says that it has to come from fracking - which certainly is a problem and I think needs to be addressed separately by legislation.
CNG storage in a car still isn't great - but it's an order of magnitude better than hydrogen, with a third the pressure, more activation energy, and a narrow explosive ratio range. I suppose the other bright side of a fuel cell is you can tap that waste heat for "free" cabin heating - and SOFCs like to be really hot. In cold weather it might come close to being competitive, maybe.
Absolutely yes it will be cheaper. Hydrogen stations are incredibly expensive, huge numbers will be needed, and they haven't even figured out how to make them work yet (can't supply very many cars per day). In many cases the streets will not have to be torn up; they can use existing conduits. Transformers will have to be beefed up. There will be strong time-of-day incentives to move the load to off-peak. Advanced load management systems will allow for power sharing, while still ensuring that everyone gets charged up overnight.
Utilities are constantly digging up streets anyway, to run natural gas lines, or fiber, or whatever. Also this sort of infrastructure can be built out gradually, without massive government incentives. Whenever new or ugpraded infrastructure is installed it will automatically be built for charging.
Hydrogen produced locally from electricity also means you need a seriously good grid connection for each station. A hydrogen filling station that supplies 150 FCVs with 4 kg of hydrogen per day will need around 33 MWh/day, or around a 1.5 MW grid connection (6 MW grid connection if you want to do the production in 6 hours off peak). You'll need one of these stations minimally for every 1,050 FCVs on the street.
If you truck the hydrogen in, you'll need a visit from one of these every day (carrying capacity ~700 kg):
If you truck the hydrogen in, you'll need a visit from one of these every day (carrying capacity ~700 kg):
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Civil Engineer's response:
Absolutely, beyond any shadow of a doubt.
You can't pipe hydrogen under the streers. We've been burying electrical cables longer than any one reading this has been alive. Also, we have a way to generate electricity without using many more time the energy in the firm of hrdrogen. The opposite is not true.
Well, you don't have to pipe it. People will just go to the next gas station. And I'm not saying it's a technical problem, it's just really expensive. If it was cheap to put that stuff into the ground I would have had fibre much earlier.
Bangor Bob
Member
Well, at the rate we're using it, yeah. Point granted. Fracked wells have a shocking production decline rate so even ignoring the carbon problem we're going to have to slow-down our use of it anyway - well drilling can't be expanded infinitely, we really have a (15-30 year?) gas bubble going on.
Used efficiently, we can probably get by with methane from renewable sources - landfill gas, anerobic digestion of sewage and agricultural wastes. Ships and planes need immense amounts of energy and it would be nice to use something cleaner and more sustainable than bunker fuel and kerosene.
Some US cities are running successful pilot programs where citizens can pay to install a meter on public sidewalks/street parking. The parking is EV-reserved, but not exclusive to them, and they don't get to keep equipment after they move. However, it has been working.
Also, your arguments are silly because gas stations aren't present along sidewalks, so why do BEVs need to have fueling stations on the sidewalks? I think that people who don't have garages, for local travel, will accept the idea of free fueling in exchange for spending 30-60 minutes doing errands in one location. The supercharger solves this problem as you can use it just like a gas station, and you'll have a full charge by the time you eat lunch and grab groceries. With smartphones, it's not even a big deal for people to sit around for that timeframe anyways--you can stay productive, watch your favorite show with amazing free air conditioning or heat running, and refuel at the same time.
This is of course assuming that charging technology and speed will never, ever increase or improve. (Given how much it's increased in the past decade though, it'd be silly to make this assumption).
I think apartments will slowly start to offer EV infrastructure as well to attract renters. Here in the US, it's becoming extremely popular even for low-end condo communities to have amenities like pools, workout clubs, etc. in many areas, just to attract renters. I chose my condo based largely on its ease and ability to charge; people in my generation are the future and you'll see this become more and more common.
Most of those cars spend ~8-10 hours per day in a company parking lot somewhere, too - which means that if the drivers are in the 80% that drive less than 40 miles per day, a basic outlet at the spot at work is all that is needed (simple 120V standard plug here in the US, most basic common single phase 230V in Europe I would assume.)
Getting the companies on board with an incentive and putting provisions into all of those parking places is probably easier than the street project. From the estimates I've seen for the cost of hydrogen filling stations, either project is likely to be cheaper than Hydrogen.
Hidden benefit - If we're doing major installations for charging stations, attach WiFi feeder points to a bunch of them and run fiber optics along with the new power lines. Instant city WiFi grid for minimal additional money, which can then make the city money from subscriptions.
I suggest you add another poll option. Provide a way for fools to be parted with their money
Those fools being the governments that give them HUGE subsidies per car. It also allows these OEMs to get easy ZEV credits, even if there is no demand. "We built them, but no one bought them. Oh well..."
It is very much a technical problem. As another member posted, it would take far more fuel deliveries per unit of time than traditional gasoline. Hydrogen leaks through everything, and must be under immense pressure, or even more shipments will be needed. I'm sorry to say that even installing 120V/16A plugs on street lights would be infinitely more efficient a use of money than building on hydrogen fueling station.
The tanker truck is pretty interesting. 700kg of H2 can fill 140 Mirai's.
Gasoline tankers go up to 11,600 gallons, but it looks like most are ~9000 gallons. 9000 gallons will fill 750 Prius or 530 Camrys.
So you will need between 4x and 5x more H2 truck visits than gasoline truck visits to the station to serve the same number of vehicles.
Not the biggest nail in the FCV coffin, but interesting.
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It's a bit worse than that. A Mirai has a EPA certified range of 312 miles. A Prius has a EPA range of about 595 miles, a Camry about 476 miles. So one tanker like the one in the picture has enough hydrogen for a Mirai to travel 43,680 miles, while a 9000 gallon tanker has enough gas for a Prius to travel 450,000 miles and a Camry to travel 252,000 miles. Thus, you need shipments of fuel 6-10 times as often. (In Europe at least, the rule will be closer to ten times as often, given that we use more efficient vehicles and more diesel.)
Also, shipments of hydrogen as large as the truck pictured is currently not legal in Europe. And there should be a real discussion about whether we want these bombs on our roads. 700 kg of hydrogen detonating will destroy everything in a 100 meter radius, probably blow out all windows ina 1000 meter radius, and it's obvious the container hasn't been engineered to withstand a collision, unlike the tanks in the Mirai and other FCVs.
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So I stumbled on this article which, while incredibly well written has some questionable numbers in it. Specifically it makes references to Tesla Model S having an actual mpg in terms of oil burned that is barely above the ICE average. Basically I was hoping one of the incredibly intelligent engineering types could do a takedown of it if it doesn't pass muster. Also the whole premise is that he's using a 150 $ solar panel and a 12v battery for his energy needs... It smells of viral advertising for Soylent the food substitute.
"Without sustainable power production electric cars are not that great. Charging an 85kWh Tesla would still burn the equivalent of 10 gallons of oil at the power plant.[a] With a range of 265 miles the Tesla Model S really uses 26.5 mpg, barely over the average american fuel economy of 23.6 mpg."
http://robrhinehart.com/?p=1331
"Without sustainable power production electric cars are not that great. Charging an 85kWh Tesla would still burn the equivalent of 10 gallons of oil at the power plant.[a] With a range of 265 miles the Tesla Model S really uses 26.5 mpg, barely over the average american fuel economy of 23.6 mpg."
http://robrhinehart.com/?p=1331
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