Toyota plans to sell fuel cell car by 2015

I don't understand why you want to cherry pick just the cleanest electricity state? This is not United California. This is United States of America. We need the average all the states.

As far as I am concerned, hydrogen upstream emission isn't available on the EPA site. We'll probably have to wait until 2015. Sure, we'll use whatever latest data EPA uses for the electricity in 2015.

Eventually, FCEVs would be sold in all states. Perhaps EVs may not be suitable to sell in Coal heavy states.

 

I'm saying we should stop at 50 refueling stations in california, and congress should stop adding more money to hydrogen than the DOE requests. FC vehicles don't appear viable until at least 2020. Lets find out if they use methanol, or cng, or metal hydrides before we waste a lot more money. Plenty of places to test these pre-commercial prototypes.

That is why those that can't refill at home and/or work may want phevs. These solve the infrastructure problems until faster chargers are available. We don't really need a huge expensive fast charging structure for plug-ins.

My bias against wasting government money on 10,000 psi refueling infrastructure is that it is unlikely to be a winning technology. Why invest a lot of government money into an almost sure loser. The bias in comercialization resources should be for vehicles that are ready for comercialization . California wasted resources in the late 90s on BEVs when they weren't ready for comercialization. This created backlash, and may have delayed support for hv, which were ready. We already have collusion charges against the california hydrogen highway.

 

Almost all the fuel cell vehicles are targetted for california in the US. California is not the cleanest energy state, but it is the only state in the US that plug-ins will compete with fuel cell vehicles. Ignoring that fact is a willful distortion. How many fuel cell vehicles will be sold outside california?

Why use pre 2015 data? Will there be more than 2000 vehicles in the US at that time. Who cares if they only have tiny demo fleets.

 

I don't agree with the notion that FCEV will only be sold in CA. Use whatever data EPA has to really compare. Isn't it fair and simple?

 

First off, fuel cell vehicles are not EVs. If they are, so are diesel locomotives, the huge earth movers, and any gas guzzling, pure serial hybrid car that might come along.

Foreign FCVs are already here. Why must we spend to extend the refueling network we already for further road testing when their home countries are already going too? Southern California has dense enough population for good data to be collected for now.

The average fill time is reported at under 5 minutes for hydrogen into 5000psi tanks. The new 10,000psi tanks will take longer. Assuming there is a pump that can top it off at the station. With the current number of FCVs on the road, the stations are rarely busy. How will multiple cars filling up affect fill times? Pumps can slow at a full gas station. The few number of cars also mean the tanks likely aren't far from full most of the time. How will a low holding tank, with low pressure affect fill times?

Those questions will get answered. If we spend billions to extend the refueling system, and the answers aren't good, do we throw yet more money at it?

Again, the majority of BEVs will at charged at home. Even now, with these low range models, that is the case. Improvements in range will make level 2 charging even less needed. Tesla isn't putting any superchargers in a city. Since the cars equipped for them can handle in city use with a home charge. Home chargers are comparatively cheap. Most seem to be around $2000. There is a thread in the EV section on how to built your own for under $600. Professional installation should only be a couple hundred dollars.

FCVs need fast refuel times, because refueling stations are the only way to get energy into them.

The bias isn't against the fuel cell. Its against the use of hydrogen as the energy carrier. A hydrogen refueling station cost 3 times more than a gas station. How is the hydrogen going to get there? Trucks handle the final leg, but if they go any real distance the costs increase because of hydrogen's low energy density. It needs to be liquidfied for that. which takes a decent amount of energy. Because of hydrogen's nature, pipelines are going to cost more than natural gas.

There are natural gas fuel cells for home power already available. Work is going on for methanol powered ones. NGFC cars means we just build CNG stations that can service CNG ICE vehicles while the fuel cells expand, and there is already distribution for it. Same deal with methanol.

That very well may be. The heavy push for them now is running before learning to walk though.

Because southern California is the only place in the country which has any refueling infrastructure for consumer level hydrogen FCVs, and will be for several years. Using the nation averages for PHVs while there are only S.Ca numbers for FCVs isn't fair.

 

You really are ignorant of fuel cell facts. Ask toyota where it hopes to sell fuel cell vehicles in 2015. Check out where the public stations are that can handle more than a couple thousand cars.

Ignorance is not an answer. To cover much of the nation requires the government to spend tens of billions of dollars. This is not going to be approved so that toyota, hyundai, and honda can sell only thousands of fcev vehicles. They need to prove somebody will actually pay for them, and that test in the US is in california. No one expects the test to be passed before 2020. Not Toyota, Hyundai, or Honda.

If there are no fuel cell cars in a state, why would you force phev to compete with fuel cells there? Fuel cells have already failed the first test, where there were supposed to be over 8000 sold in california this year and each of the next two. California is asking for an easier test this time. I expect the car companies to fail this one as well, but lets at least see how they do before pretending fcv using 10,000 psi hydrogen tanks will cover the country.

It certainly is not fair and simple to say the car company promises on fuel cells will be fufilled, but plug in progress will stop today. It also is appropriate to apply the grid where it is being used for plug-ins and not burden them will old power in states where they do not sell.

 

According to you, Volt is not an EV then.

A battery converts chemical energy into electricity. Fuel cell does the same. The difference is how the chemical energy is refueled. Battery converts electricity back to chemical energy but fuel cell simply refills with more (hydrogen).

The first electric cars ran with lead acid batteries. We can go on and say the current lithium EVs are not EVs because they use different chemistry. It is getting ridiculous, don't you think?

Yet, nobody is complaining. The same would be true for H2 stations. What's your point?

Range anxiety is caused by the recharging speed, not the plug availability. The faster you charge an EV, the lower the life of the battery pack. It depends on the chemistry and how the battery is designed for fast charge or energy density. It is usually a trade-off. The bottom line comes down to the added cost and weight.

The energy loss due to compressing H2 into the 10,000 psi tank is less than the loss in recharging the battery pack.

FCEVs are coming and they will make the gas extenders obsolete. H2 refills just as fast as gas. A well designed PHEV that uses both the battery and gas engine equally should be the best choice until the H2 stations and cost of FCEV come down further.

Then why are you raising so many FUDs? I don't go around and raise FUDs about the Supercharger high voltage, amp it puts out, grid overload, electricity transmission loss, EMF, etc...

Are you for the electrification or not?

Here is a key point you guys are trying to dance around. The upstream emission of H2 will be about the same in every states. That's not the same for electricity as it changes widely depending on the coal and other fossil fuel used in the power plants.

 

You offered a gentleman wager and now threw out the gentleman. Ooops.

Ignoring the remaining states and just focusing on California is not ignorant?

The chart you referenced in your wager is not just for California.

 

[presumably you mean H2O emission?]

Emissions from making Hydrogen depend on how you make it, just like electricity. You can make hydrogen with a solar panel which converts water directly into hydrogen (no electricity). You can use electricity from a coal plant to electrolysis it. You can strip it from natural gas. And others. All of these have very different emissions.

 

The volt is a phev, it is not a BEV. It uses both wall power and E0-E10 to provied power. YMMV, and some can use it as a pure BEV, but that is rare.

I guess by that definition a diesel electric locamotive is an electric vehicle. That is fine as far as it goes. The ice converts diesel chemical energy to electricity. It simply refuels with more diesel.

There is a great deal of range anxiety in current fuel cell vehicles. Go far from one of the few stations, you may not be able to come back.

It depends, and that is likely false. How are you compressing the hydrogen. Do you liquify, it then truck it, then expand it into the tanks? Do you pump it in a pipeline you need to build then use electricity? If the hydrogen is there it takes about 15% of its energy in electricity to compress it. But there are losses as it sits. This is about the same as battery losses, which means you much have different losses defined.

That is simply ridiculous. If you want to refuel a fcv in the middle of montana in 2015, you need to liquify the hydrogen then drive it in a truck. It can take many times the energy, and it becomes prohibitively expensive. If you are going to count these states include all the diesel and electricity to get the hydrogen there and into the cars. Are you willing to pay $40/kg? If not you should not count those states. They won't have consumer purchased cars. You are making a false argument. You are saying if magically we build this infrastructure, but do no work at all on the grid, and people pay for these cars, then they are cleaner. That is a lot of poor assumptions.

Toyota isn't even selling the phv in most of the states. How many states do you think they will sell the fcv-r or whatever they call it? If the vehicle is not for sale in the state, you can't use that state for comparison. Dealers in other states will not service a fcv.

 

What year do you expect fuel cells to look like that chart? Where will they be sold. I am using the test market in america. Tell me how many fuel cell cars will be sold to individuals in iowa in the next 5 years?

 

I meant the emission to generate hydrogen.

95% of the hydrogen is produced from natural gas through steam formation. I don't see that changing in the future because it is the most efficient and cleanest method.

 

Volt promoters and GM ads like to call it an electric car.

Nope. Diesel engine is a combustion engine. It uses an electric motor (generator) to convert it to electricity.

Both the fuel cell and battery are electrochemical device. There is no combustion involved.

Trollbait was focusing on the negative points about fuel cell. I do not want to discuss about BEV negative points but I was forced to (pointed out... hey, look at the mirror). The end result would be bad for the electrification (counter-productive). He objects to calling fuel cells as electric cars. However, calling Volt an electric car is ok? Come on.

This is how it is done with gasoline. EPA takes the average to calculate the emission. I would think the same will be done for hydrogen. In order to really compare, we need to take national average for electricity emission as well.

The question is not "if". It is "when". I am not an auto exec so my prediction will mean nothing. Even auto exec predictions are wrong about the plugins. From reading the news, 2015 will be a start. 2020 will be when there will be tens of thousands, per Toyota. Hyundai is more aggressive with hundreds of thousands by 2020.

Which states? I don't know. I think it would be best to start in coal intensive states where EVs are at disadvantage.

 

Well then they are wrong. I believe the tagline is more car than electric. It shure looks like a phev to me.

Fuel cell gets energy from 2h2 + o2->2h2o. tts a chemical energy source Its not reversable in the fuel cell. Bateries have reversible reactions. Both diesel and fuel cells oxidize their fuels. The big difference is fuel cells only have water as its tail pipe emission. Methanol fuel cells may be favored and look even more like an ice. 2CH3OH + 3O2 -> 2CO2 +4H2O. We are free of NMOG, particulates, and NOx.

ITs fundamentally different on a energy use point of view. Much energy needs to be added to liquify the hydrogen. It must be kept very cold and leaks, and a truck is much more expensive and can carry less. This adds to a great deal of energy losses. Really, if it was that simple we could just build a bunch of big expensive steam reformers. Unfortunately going more than 200 miles uses more than half he energy. If there are no fuel cell vehicles sold or supported in a state, then you need to bring in your own truck of hydrogen. Very expensive from a dollar and energy point of view. IF 0% of toyota fcv cars are sold in 40 states, should you use those states to compare phevs? That seems like a very false comparison. Can you tell me if toyota is planning on selling a fcv to the public in any state but california?

Sure it is if. Even if fcv take off, it may not be 10,000 psi hydrogen. It is doubtfull that any meaningful percentage will be sold outside of california. Toyota has been working on these for 20 years. There were supposed to be 5 Million fcv in Japan by 2015. I doubt there will be over 20% of fcv outside california in the US before 2022.

 

Lithium air battery will use oxygen as well.

All the examples Trollbait gave are chemical-mechinical-electrical devices. Fuel cell and battery are direct chemical to electrical conversion devices.

Hydrogen can be reversed from electricity and water as well.

 

I've never claimed it was.

A serial hybrid converts the chemical energy of a fuel into electricity.

Would a BEV plugged into a home powered by a fuel cell be a FCV?

An EV uses wall current. Electricity is an universal energy carrier, and there are multiple options for making it. Some can be done at the point of use. Some are renewable. If we find an efficient, cleaner way of making it, a plug-in doesn't become obsolete, and it becomes cleaner and more efficient.

They are also the means of energy independence and self reliance. A FCV on hydrogen currently trades one fossil fuel for another. The other, hoped for, means of making it would require more electric production than with plug-ins.

The point is that we don't know what the refuel times will be out in the wild with 10,000psi tanks(which aren't in consumer FCVs yet) and busier stations. A higher pressure hydrogen tank isn't the same as a larger gasoline tank. A gasoline pump doesn't have to fight against increasing pressure in the tank. It's the difference between using a hand pump to transfer water between buckets, and a hand pump to inflate a tire to door label pressure and then max sidewall.

Are the current refueling stations up to current specifications. Some were built before 10,000psi tanks were an option. Others may not have the fastest 10k pumps possible. The first means those stations can't completely fill a 10k tank. The second that fill time can be over 10 minutes, possibly up to 30 minutes. The older pumps are that slow. It is even a problem with CNG pumps.

If that's FUD, it is because the info for what the available stations can service isn't easy to find.

I thought range anxiety was a worried feeling whilst driving an electric car caused by thinking that you might run out of power before reaching your destination. Nothing to do with charging speed. A car that can charge faster doesn't help if it can't reach the charger.
Definition of Range anxiety, BuzzWord from Macmillan Dictionary
The standard for level 3 chargers, the truly fast ones, is still up in the air. Level 2s give you the option of patronaging businesses that you would otherwise had used your gasoline car for. Road trips for BEVs are out of the question. That's ok. It will be awhile before a BEV is close to replacing a traditional car for the masses. Might never happen. Even so, a BEV can still greatly reduce the petroleum consumption for many of Americans.

BEVs require more thinking about trips. We need to think more. Even if a person misjudges their range, nearly any outlet can give the miles they need. Most will do all their charging at home. So BEVs don't need investment in expensive infrastructure for them to be adopted by the entire country. With human behavior, it helps, but that's more about human needs than the car's.

And the energy to make hydrogen renewable energy will only move a FCV a quarter of the distance of a BEV charged with the same amount.

Why would they be obsolete? We have the means of making gasoline from nearly any organic waste. What about the other possible fuels for ICEs? I guess they could also power a fuel cell directly. But ICEs are cheaper, and improvements to batteries will make any plug-in less reliant for getting around.

What are my FUDs precisely? Info on existing hydrogen stations isn't readily available. The under 5 minute refuel time is skewed by a fleet of 5000psi tank FCVs. Older pumps, that may still be in service, do take longer, or a shorter refuel time wouldn't have been a goal.

Refining natural gas into an energy carrier isn't electrification. It's just switching an addition.

Your responses in the Volt threads makes this a good question for you.

Upstream includes the transport emissions. A lot of diesel will be burned with the current distribution infrastructure.

It will cost billions for a more efficient network. And gaseous hydrogen isn't even a done deal for fuel cells. Why rush out and spend the money to support cars that cost more than the Volt? Hydrides or methanol may end up as the fuel for fuel cells. A fuel cell would make a great range extender for a PHV some day.

 

A battery has a reversible chemical reaction. The fuel cell oxidizes its fuel. You could make it into a flow battery if it collected the water and used electrolysis to reverse the reaction IMHO if these fcv get viable they will have bigger batteries (at least enough to pump out 40 kw) and plugs. That's cheaper than the electrolysis unit.

The big difference between this and a diesel is emissions not the oxidation. The emissions are much cleaner and part of the reaction takes place outside the car (methane to hydrogen or water+energy to hydrogen). Fuel cell vehicles in this way are similar to clean burning vehicles that work on methane, methanol, or hydrogen even if they oxidize the fuel in an ICE.

 

I'm focused on the negative points of using gaseous hydrogen to power private transportation. It's just as disadvantaged if burned in an ICE.

Natural gas fuel cells are actually available for home power. The self reforming part needs to shrink and costs lower for a car, but they are there. The tanks and refueling pumps have the same possible issues as hydrogen, but there is already pipelines reaching nearly every corner of the country. We only need refueling stations to complete the distribution infrastructure. Added bonus, these stations could serve CNG ICEs as the FCV market grows.

Methanol fuel cells are in development. It could use the existing gasoline distribution network. But there might will be issues with sharing that network as gasoline phases out. It can fuel ICEs too.

Hydride fuel is another possibility. The vehicle emissions of gaseous hydrogen, without the troubles of compressed flammable gas under pressure that likes to find its way out. Refueling will be more complex with recovering the spent material. As a range extender, the additional time and hassle will be mitigated by less frequency of fill ups.

 

I had wrong about the F-cell's hydrogen tanks. It does have 10,000psi (700 bar) tanks.

Car and Driver have a review of it from July. The claimed range is 190 miles, and they were filling up about every 150mi. Their refill time was 7 to 8 minutes.
2012 Mercedes-Benz F-Cell Instrumented Test – Review – Car and Driver

A Berkley newsletter on their new hydrogen station from last winter.
Filling the Tank with Hydrogen | ITS.Berkeley.edu
Says fill time of ten minutes. Their working with the Highlander FVC, which I believe has larger tanks than the F-cell. It also mentions other stations, like UC Irving, can be 20 to 30 minutes for 700bar.

Going to have to remember to time it next time I fill up.

 

Chuckle...which is why you keep getting both wrong. BMW and Mercedes did very nice conversions of existing cars to burn hydrogen directly. That is a actually the best way to go as the resources needed to build the batteries and fuel cells of hydrogen powered cars and current hybrids and plug-ins is an issue.

The BMW and Mercedes direct burn hydrogen vehicles and the Honda FCX Clarity fuel cell fleet operating in LA using Shell gas stations all demonstrate how easy it is to transition to hydrogen and avoid the $1T per year costs of US oil imports and use.

All jibes with Toyota and Hyundai announcing hydrogen fuel cell push while cutting back on EV development....all because of this.