Toyota plans to sell fuel cell car by 2015

Its not that complicated

 

(yes, latest spyshot of HS250h in Hydrogen form being tested )

 

Toyota May Make ‘Tens of Thousands’ of Hydrogen Cars by 2020s - Bloomberg
You have to be careful at how you read that. Tens of thousands are some time in the 2020s, which will get moved to 2029, then probably off in the future.
You Can't Afford Toyota's Fuel Cell Vehicle | Autopia | Wired.com

Maybe affordable means 100,000 euros in europe, and they will sell it at a loss at $50,000 after tax credits in america. It certainly will cost more than a similar PHEV.

I'm not sure who these people are but there should be a good L2 charghing infrastructure nation wide in the next 5 years. That allows a car like the focus ev with a 6.6kw charger and 76 mile range in 3.5 hours. The leaf will add the faster L2 charger to its 2013 my version. Most plug-in advocates talk about unlimited range in phevs like the prius phv and volt. With a tesla S acheiving 265 miles per charge is there really a need to build a fc infrastructure.

Or you could buy a c-max energi today, recharge half your miles at home, and bam, have 550 mile range all across the country. Those hydrogen stations cost about $2M each, and since they are slower than gas stations, we would need more than gas stations. BAM. We have just wasted hundreds of billions of dollars for a hydrogen fueling system.

The hydrogen folks want truck loads of cash to go to build this, but many of us want the best tchnology to win. They are building infrastructure in germany, so all the car companies can test their vehicles. We just don't want to pay to build the hydrogen highway in america. MITI will hapily fund toyota and honda to do fuel cell research, and I hope they are sucessful. Right now though the numbers don't add up to fund a large number of fueling stations that most think won't get used. Fuel cell vehicles need most of PHEVs other than the ice, but need aditionally fuel cells and high pressure hydrogen tanks and hydrogen refueling stations. Why not wait until those first things are developed before paying for that last tremendously expensive item.

Alternative much lower funding could implement the picken's plan to convert heavy trucks to natural gas, and build that much smaller infrastructure on the interstates. I would much rather fund this use.

 

How many gallons of gasoline do the the hydrogen refueling vehicles burn through for every thousand miles the fc test mules drive

 

The irony is just thick...

 

I was rather speechless myself

 

Irony, I would have chosen anouther word.

Let's look at the affordable $50,000 car we might get after tax credits. Remember it is a show car and will change when
Report: Production Toyota FCV-R fuel-cell sedan coming in 2015 - egmCarTech

Note the 4 seater volt type car, and also note that the 435 mile range is in JC08 mode. You might be able to drive the thing 150 miles out past the last hydrogen station, before getting severe range anxiety and turning back. Do the same trip in a tesla S, and you can stop for lunch and recharge and go much farther. Range win tesla S 85 kwh, but that car may cost $20K more for the luxury, speed, range, yes range over the fuel cell. But the real competitors are things like the prius phv, volt, fusion energi, c-max energi. They cost much less, and you can make your own electricity on the roof to suplement the gasoline miles.
Now California wants to add 46 fueling stations to support the huge demand for fuel cell vehicles like this. They claim there will be 50,000 by 2017, which means about $2000 per car to build the infrastructure. But what if things happen like in the past and there are maybe 5000 fcv, that is $20,000 per car and these are on top of incentives that are already higher per vehicle than electrification. How many gallons of gasoline will that $100,000,000 million save compared to those early adopters going for BEVs and PHEV's? It's a sham.
In 2013 four manufacturers will already be making tens of thousands of plug-in cars. Four others will be making and selling thousands of them.
The false arguments of hydrogen
- its the most common element on earth - is just a political farce, when you hear it, you should know that it is an energy carrier

- Electric cars have range problems hydrogen cars do not, hydrogen cars have range problems compared to phevs. They need a truck following them around to serve most of the country.

Here are the hydrogen challenges from fueleconomy.gov
Fuel Cell Vehicles: Challenges
Those are not solvable in the next 5 years.

 

Toyota has the foward vision to do a fuel cell car. In the past, when the big 3 domestic auto makers were trying to develope the "Supercar", Toyota was snubbed atwhen Toyota asked to join the "Supercar" project. So, secretly, Toyota developed the G21 project G= global, 21= 21st century. The program, later got a name: Prius!!! This is a car that has shook the world, and continues to do so. It is, after all the worlds 3rd best selling car. (after 1st place Toyota Corolla and 2nd place Ford Escort).

Toyota, has the drive and the financing to do the fuel cell. GM, is keeping a watchful eye on what Toyota does. History, hopefully has taught GM valuable lessons (remember the '73 oil embargo, high gas prices) Toyota capitalized on this. Then, again with the worlds' first affordable hybrid car, I remember GM, (when gen1 Prius arrived) said there is no market for hybrids. Talk about GM missing the boat completely.

DBCassidy

 

The doping of the fabric, static electricity, ignition of the onboard diesel fuel, and other factors probably contributed the demise of the airship. If the hydrogen were to be ignited, why was there not a huge explosion? Rather there where survivors who were able to get away from the burning airship. Hydrogen, once released into the atmosphere, rises very rapidly.

Of course hydrogen is not safe, but neither is gasoline or batteries.

DBCassidy

 

but why lies? Again, I dont have anything to do with hydrogen or EV's, nor do i lean either way... I am just interested in why are all these strong willed, often deceiving arguments being made?

How in the world would you stop for launch and recharge 85kwh battery?

Via 120 volt port? How long will that last? 0.5 miles?

Supercharger? How much will they cost? Tesla claims 160 mile range in 45 minutes of charging. Hydrogen - 2-3 minutes, 500 miles. Thats how muchm, 50x more efficient? So you need to install... 50x more "Superchargers" to satisfy same amount of vehicles.

And how will already failing powergrid be able to handle million EV's? It cant... unless you... upgrade it... at what cost?

As to your claims about Toyota's hydrogen car are just silly... thats not the car they will sell, it is a test car and they claimed 400-500 miles in "real life" which is probably double of Tesla's "300 mile" claim for their 85kwh pack.

I cant imagine what upgrades are needed to electric network in the USA if they sell 1,000,000 EVs... those are huge expenses.

 

Watch this Fully Charged video. Now tell me distributors are worried about electric cars.

The answer is that they aren't: TOU rates and natural idle time will take care of it.

Incidentally there are significant upgrades already happening to regional US distribution in order to support rising demand and greater renewable capacity. Nothing to do with electric cars, everything to do with rising population and wastrels.

 

The grid requires upgrades regardless of plug in adoption.

If that is so, they have made strides in improvement.

The Half-Hour Fill-Up

If hydrogen does go main stream, the refill time will likely be around 4 minutes. The cars' efficiency will have to greatly improve for a 500mile range. Right now they only have about 150 mile range per fill. There is no getting around the bulkiness of the tanks to simply install more.

 

If you don't have a dog in the hunt, you should listen to the information. No lies here.

You do partial recharges, you don't have to fill it all up at once, just extend the range. There are L2 chargers and 220 volt outlets all over the country. Hundreds in my city alone. On one you can charge up to 25 miles per hour. On the slowest 12A 110 setting you add about 3.5 miles in an hour. Stay over night somewhere and even 110 adds to range. You can get some idea from these guys that have gone accross the country in the roadster, and the S has longer range.

The Tesla Roadster Drive Across America
PluginRoadTrip - Washington to San Francisco Trip

L3 chargers cost about $50K each as opposed to hydrogen refueling stations which cost around $2M. I wasn't going there, since they will be sparse. You don't need nearly the number as most people will charge at home or work, and use L2. But the real answer for those doing many long distance trips is a PHEV, not a EV or FC car. There is one hydrogen refueling station in town, about 10 miles from me, and IIRC not anougher one within 500 miles. Adding the time it takes to drive to the refueling station to recharge time, its truely incovnient Availability is of fueling stations is one of those hydrogen hurdles that everyone agrees with, even the strongest hydrogen advocates. It is also that point where many of us don't want to pay for the infrastructure until the cars are ready. Europe is much more willing to pay for the stations, and I say let the manufacturers test them in Germany and Norway, when they work, we can build the infrastructure in the US.

That's answered above, but the California and Texas grids are being upgraded for renewables, which is the expensive part. Adding 10 million plug ins is pretty easy for the current grids. Local distribution will require some small upgrades, but big screens and air conditioners also require upgrades.

You probably want to check back with Toyota on that one bubba. That car is the 2011 Tokyo concept car for them. Toyota has confirmed on numerous occasions that the 2015 target car is a sedan like the concept, and it will not be anything like the fchv-adv highlander test cars. That was just a convenient platform for a mule that could hold the big tanks. Toyota estimated 700 km JC08 on the concept, the tesla S has an EPA 265 miles. When you look at the graphs from tesla S testing, it would get around 700 km on an easy test like JC08. The nissan leaf went 70% further on JC08 than EPA, applying that factor to the tesla S gets 725km.

Toyota has been asked and will not give details other than sedan and the concept car. It could put everything in a Lexus LS I suppose, but my best guess is they will do something like the concept fcv-r. Hydrogen tanks are one area that toyota and everyone else has pointed out as bulky and expensive. I can't see them making them twice as the concept. Toyota never claimed any range on a production car other than similar to gasoline, which is the same claim honda has. The honda clarity gets 240 range EPA.

The other toyota concept along with the fuel cell fcv-r is the phev NS/4. They are both what toyota calls sedans, and should compete in the mind space. The NS/4 is also short on particulars, but I would expect that many things would be as good as if not better than the ford fusion energi . That includes being less than $40K without tax credits, over 40 mpg gas mileage, and provide most people with at least half their miles electric. The car also does not need a huge expensive new infrastructure. Which concept do you think will become the better car? Most of us find the fcv-r will have very limited appeal compared to the NS/4. Check back in 2015, to find out if you are right about toyota's fuel cell vehicle.

 

Oil companies, lobbyists and politicians love hydrogen because it keeps everyone at filling stations consuming a fuel even more expensive than gas!

From an environmental perspective, hydrogen sucks. Yes, the byproduct of its consumption is water, but the cheapest way to produce it is by burning fossil fuel.

With electric cars, you can cut the cord to oil companies by installing enough solar panels on your roof and the result is truly free of pollution in both production and consumption of the energy source!

 

Creating Photo Voltaic panels does create pollution. It looks like one of the better methods, but it is not without environmental cost.

 

Okay, some people in this thread has a dog in the hunt. They show up and notice they are the only one there.

Problem is, the hunt has been over for quite awhile.

They really need to wake uo and smell the coffee.

DBCassidy

 

There were only two oil companies promoting fuel cells, Shell and BP. Since the gulf spill BP seems to have stopped its support, and IIRC Shell only has about 10 stations world wide. The other oil companies hate the idea, as it competes with gasoline, but is more expensive to make, so they will lose money. CARB is trying to force oil companies to open hydrogen fueling in California, and there will be lawsuits. This leaves some car companies, many politicians, and lobbyists that will make money. Car companies like it because governments pay for the R&D, but most admit the tech won't be ready until at least the 2020s. Current hydrogen costs at fuel stations in the US are $8-$13 per kg which is about equivelent to a gallon of gasoline. The stations give this away for less than cost or sometimes free to most of the "test" cars. If you spend about $5B on infrastructure prices might go down to $3-$6 /kg. That is a big net loser for oil companies, unless the government pays them to do it, and even then they don't like it.

The least expensive way is reforming methane. I would not call this burning. It can retain almost 80% of the energy in the process. The problem is moving it to the stations and compressing it. Just compressing it to 10,000 psi takes 11% of its energy.

+1

Yes, if we get rid of this zero non-sense, and strive for low, we are much better off.

Here is an easy thought experiment. Two PHEV20 type cars will use about as much gas as 1 hybrid, since they use electricity for half their miles. Say if in 2015 when this fuel cell beast comes out the ns/4 pulls about the number of the fusion energi - and remember it has 3 years to improve on it

plan A) Toyota fuel cell + camry hybrid cost $75K after tax credits + need huge infrastructure
plan B) NS/4 + NS/4 (fusion energi x2) cost $70K before tax credits
Plan A and Plan B use about the same amount of gas, but if we create the hydrogen from renewables it takes four times the electricity to make it go. That means the hydrogen will cost four times more to power the car and require four times the equipment. Natural gas in a combined cycle plant powering a phev is only a little more efficient than hydrogen in a fuel cell.

Put bigger batteries in the phev, or even use BEVs, and the energy numbers look even worse for fuel cells. Put the fuel cell in a PHEV20, 10 years from now and you might be at a point where it makes sense compared to an ICE. But it makes no sense at all in 2015.

 

spw, the grid IS is in poor shape - but blaming EV's as a way to support the hydrogen hoax acomplishes nothing. After all, it takes a TON of electricity to distill hydrogen (unless you're wasting NG to do it0). I'm just saying, if one has grid concerns, you have to weigh BOTH energy forms being harnesed as requiring electricit ... whether it's electricity into batteries, or electricity (even LARGER amounts) to distill hydrogen.

.

 

The article says:
"New York and Connecticut also are promising to build a stronger hydrogen infrastructure. . ."

I guess I'd like a bit of steel, concrete, etc., mixed into my infrastructure. But that's just me.

 

For about $100M you can build about 46 hydrogen fueling stations, or 125MW of combined cycle natural gas 7 MW of Wind and 2 MW of solar. Those hydrogen stations can serve about 100,000 cars if you get lucky and put them in the right places. Does anyone really believe california will have 100,000 fuel cell vehicles in the next 10 years? The other sources added to the grid will stabilize it since the cc plant can fast cycle to change for load, and provide the power to charge 175,000 bevs at 15,000 miles/year. Adding those power sources to the grid will also reduce the cost of electricity to other users in places like California. The drop in electric rates will happen because California imports peak from other states, but plug-ins will charge a large proportion off peak. natural gas per mile should be less for the grid tied BEV or PHEV, versus Fuel cell if the power is added in this way. Fuel cell proponents try to charge EVs with the older peaking plants, ignoring that new more efficient power is being added to the grid.

Instead of that 125 MW combined cycle plant california should be adding about 9, 500MW natural gas plants, and plug in users can help pay for that infrastructure. Instead the state is pushing for those 46 stations. The beauty of the power additions I mentioned, is it costs tax payers nothing, and may even drop the cost to electric users. All it takes are tweeks to utility regulation. You would need to build 28 MW of wind and 8 MW of solar to power as many fuel cell cars on renewable as in above scenario, but that just is not going to happen. That hydrogen would be way to expensive at least 5 times more expensive than fueling a bev on renewable electricity.

As more renewables are added to california's grid, it can shut down old natural gas steam generators, and continue to use the combined cycle gas, boosting base load efficiency by 50%. In texas we do have a great deal of natural gas plants to buffer wind, its just taking time to upgrade the grid for even more wind. The more plug-ins Texas adds the more wind the utilities can profitably add to the grid. Adding wind turbines is a hedge against natural gas prices rising, but the more we add the more likely we shut down/don't build coal. In 20 years with enough EVs and wind, maybe coal plants only run in Texas in the summer and are shut down 8 months of the year.