Toyota plans to sell fuel cell car by 2015

They have openly stated to sell tens of thousands annual sales by 2020. This would mean the production version Gen1 ($50k) would not sell a lot. Gen2 which could cost a lot less, may reach that volume. Gen3 should reach mass market.

Hmm.. the chart is even more aggressive with the Gen2 reaching mass production. Exciting time ahead.

 

The fastest BEV charger is Tesla supercharger which recharges in 45 mins. It is not standard so no other BEV can use them (perhaps with a converter?). L2 or L3 chargers cannot refuel a BEV in a few minutes like gasoline and hydrogen. We don't even have the battery technology capable of recharging in a few minutes.

There are 14 open hydrogen stations in CA, probably not for public access yet. There are more H2 stations planned by 2015 all over the world. See this wikipedia page.

I would think all the hydrogen stations combined can serve/refuel more vehicles than all the existing L2 and L3 chargers combined. That's simply due to superior H2 refueling speed in the order of magnitude.

 

As I mentioned directly to you when you posted that chart, the numbers are bogus. I do not know the source of them. DOE in 2012 did a survey of the reformers actually used to produce hydrogen for fuel, and found they were 69% efficient, and it took an addional 11% of electricity to pump it up to 10,000 psi. This is power at the plant, it doesn't include losses in the pipeline. That 67% may project what the DOE has as a goal in 2015, but those goals are always optimistic. On its idea of efficiency to take natural gas and convert it to electricity, the numbers might also be optimistic, but if you build new power plants that are combined cycle, and include transission losses you get 56% efficiency, much higher than that chart. The relative disadvantage of fuel cells versus batteries was also not fully shown. Do a real chart with actual power in southern california that is used in BEVs and PHEVs versus real numbers for filling infrastructure, and the numbers get even worse for fuel cells. FCV are only a little worse in converting natural gas to miles than plug ins, but they are much worse when using electricity.

BEVs and PHEVs are normally fueled at home or work, they need a much smaller public fueling infrastructure. According to the DOE, for the current fuel cell vehicles fueling infrastructure is over $100,000 per vehicle. With a roll out this may drop to $20,000/vehicle, but advocates seem to assume the cost is nothing.

Why? Current "production range" tesla S 265 miles, Honda clarity 240 miles according to the EPA. PHEVs can refuel from any gas station or electrical outlet. In 10 years if need be, the batteries in a car like the S should weigh half as much, or you can double the range for the same weight.

Yet anouther bogus chart. The estimates are around $25B to put up a hydrogen fueling structure for long distance trucks. This is much higher than the cost of the pickens plan. Cross out those high mileage vehicles if you are looking at 2009 or afterwards. You can buy a rather large tesla S or prius phv today as well as an energi in the near future. Better take those midsize and luxury vehicles out of the FC vehicles camp. Very poor assumptions were made when creating the chart. It also distorts with size the size of the various markets. BEV + PHEV should have a much much higher potential market than FCV in the near term (today to 2030).

If you don't drink the kool-aid you might notice that even toyota has been saying fuel cell cars won't be viable until at least 2020. They just say it on other press releases.

 

They said they would like to make it possible to produce tens of thousands in the 2020s. Toyota let slip less than a year ago that the fuel cell vehicles cost right now was around 100,000 euros. It is highly doubtful they can pull $80,000 out of the cost of the car in less than 4 years. The mass production that is supposed to drop the costs is at least 50,000 fuel cells/year. Initially volume was supposed to be there in 2010, now 2020, and in 2020, what year will it be.

How many fuel cell vehicles do they hope to sell between 2015 and 2020?

 

I like to read that survey. From what I have read, it is 80% efficient. A combined cycle power plant can be 60% efficient at best.

According to Toyota calculation the difference between 5,000 and 10,000 psi is 2%. 11% seems high to me. Even if we take that figure, 11% loss to fill the H2 tanks is still lower than 15% loss in recharging the battery pack.

 

I don't work for Toyota so your guess is as good as mine. At $50k, probably the same number as RAV4 EV. Maybe more due to the superior refueling time and driving range. Maybe less due to H2 refueling station availability.

 

You are neglecting battery CHANGING stations.

 

I joined the thread because personally, I'm a fan boy of history. History dove tails into the 2020 "mass market" hydrogen forcast. Hydrogen transportation forcasts every 10 years (as the last 10yr forcast date passes) that hydrogen transportaion will be in 10 years. When the 1990's passed (as did the 1980's forcast), I asked the hydrogen fans, "when the 2000's come and go, what'll you do then ... will you then forcast that it'll be in just 10 more years?"

ok, I guess I got my answer.

 

Let's say you have a hydrogen station at a density of 1 every ten miles. (Los Angeles would have 6.4, US 50k), A Honda Clarity would have a range of 230 miles + 10 miles getting to the nearest station. This would reduce its actual efficiency by 4%. That is half of its advantage over a BEV according to the chart given (and in dispute).

 

Here you go, section 2.2
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/pdfs/learning_demo_final_report.pdf

They do note that they expect these numbers to go up for new stations built in the future. Toyota's figures must be looking at future improvements, but I don't know what the assumptions are.

60% is not the maximum efficiency of combined cycle, its the efficiency of the new 300+MW plants being installed today. The numbers can increase in the future, but I would rather use today's numbers. With a 93% efficient grid, this works out to 56%, averaging to the plants built in the last decade we should be seeing around 50% efficiency.

I was using EPA to estimate pump versus plug losses. The honda clarity, which claims a 60% efficient fuel cell gets 60mpge. The bigger, faster, tesla S gets 89mpge. Toyota is not talking about their fuel cells being more efficient than honda's fuel cell, but they may be more efficient in the rest of the car. I would assume efficiency gains in the rest of the car though could be applied equally to future toyota PHEVs and BEVs.

 

You are right. I forgot about battery swapping stations. The swaps can be done in a few minutes but the actual charging will still take time so there is still a bottleneck when fuel is converted into electricity.

 

I am fully aware of the history as well. I remember the hydrogen zero emission hype that was always 10 years away. It was over-promised and under-delivered. None delivered in fact.

That doesn't mean FC made zero progress. In fact a lot of progress were made and it seems we are very close to mass production. Since then, we have discovered we have goldmine sh*tload of NG and we have a way to convert NG into hydrogen efficiently (80%).

An optimist view of EV is double the range in next gen. That could translate to 1/2 the battery cost while keeping the same range. FC cost reduction is forecasted at 1/10 per gen. That's a game changing alarming rate.

 

Who cares? Do you care that it takes a month for oil to be pumped, shipped, refined, shipped again?

 

Given that they are currently approximately $1,ooo,ooo per, should I wait 2 generations when they will be $10,000, or until 3 generations when I will be able to buy a new car for $1,000? Kids will wonder what the whole fuss was about when they can buy a new hydrogen car for $10...

 

I am fully aware of the history as well. I remember the hydrogen zero emission hype that was always 10 years away. It was over-promised and under-delivered. None delivered in fact.

That doesn't mean FC made zero progress. In fact a lot of progress were made and it seems we are very close to mass production.

 

EPA MPGe figure includes pumping/charging loss plus vehicle efficiency. Vehicle efficiency is different for FC (59%) vs EV (85%). You can't use EPA figure to estimate the pump / plug loss.

Toyota's fuel cell is definitely more efficient. DOE tested FCHV-adv and got 68 miles per kg of H2 (about a gallon of gas). They also got 431 miles in real-world driving. Pretty good for Highlander SUV size vehicle.

 

The cost of battery to store energy in a gallon of gas (33.7kWh) is a lot. I can't see a battery swapping stations having boatload of battery packs laying around (self-discharging) in a huge warehouse -- just so a full battery pack is available when an EV rolls in.

 

Your original point was:
"Hydrogen also has superior refueling speed. This translates to more vehicles served per fueling station. BEVs lack the infrastructure to refuel/recharge in minutes..."

The existence of battery swapping stations negates this. A battery swap is probably faster (1:13) than hydrogen fueling, and there is more existing infrastructure to do that.

 

LOL. I wish that rate can sustain forever. I doubt it and I don't know the rock bottom cost to manufacture but I don't think it'll ever go down to $1,000.

 

Yes there has been a bunch of progress. And getting the fuel stack to use only 10 % of current levels of platinum is a small start. It's such a very expensive metal that crooks are already using sawzalls & angle grinders to remove catalytic converters from cars. So even as toyota reduces the cost of the fuel stack, platnum costs continue to spiral ever upward, which sort of makes toyota's technological process a wash - or moot. What would Toyota's hydrogen ride cost, if platinum stacks made in (theoretical) quantities of 10's of thousands (all with platinum) - and if we were putting even more demand on the rare metal, that it already has? . . . . . and stacks are a consumable? The hydrogen project reminds me of a humorous poster over my desk. It shows a quick moving hawaiian lava flow moving across an asphalt road. The caption below the lava photo says;
"Some things cannot be overcome with tons of money, determination, and a positive attitude".

SGH-I717R ? 2