Toyota's Plug-in Distain - Part TWO

How incredibly slanted.

They didn't mention how cheap the DC charging infrastructure is in comparison.
They glossed over how convenient charging a plugin vehicle is for home owners with a garage.
They also underplayed how much more ZEV credits a FCV will get over any EV.

The amount of debt being shouldered by the tax payer and station owners is scary. There will be a lot of tears.

 

Does plug-in ability say something to Toyota?
Why not making some PHV out of the excelent hybrid cars portfolio Toyota has?...

 

Tagged for later. Let's see what the car fuel future looks like in 5-10 years, and see if hydrogen, or battery powered cars, come out on top.

My money is on batteries, simply because it'll be cheaper to build them and operate for the average users. Sure, not everyone can plug in, but I'd imagine installing electric chargers into an apartment parking lot is going to be a lot more cost effective than spending millions to build one hydrogen fuel station. And while good solar power isn't available everywhere, good luck making hydrogen at home.

I wonder who Toyota and other fuel-cell advocates are going to blame when fuel cell vehicles flop due to their high cost, still limited range, and lack of places to fuel them. I would've considered a Rav4 EV or Plug-in Prius if they were available outside of California/select states. But Toyota seems to want to push me towards a competitor, so lets see what they do with gen 2 PiP, namely if it's available nationwide or only sold in certain states again.

 

I agree, CARB is not pushing for EVs.

 

is there a backdoor to carb's reasoning? sounds like they are more about politics and money than environment these days. i don't blame toyota, the temptation was too great. it would have been nice to see them take the high road though...

 

I found this interesting too: "Automakers and station owners have little incentive to invest without government subsidies to develop cars and stations. "Without government support, this is not a viable business," Poppe said."

 

this must be what hillary meant when she said to business, 'you don't create jobs, government does'.the problem with the concerned scientist quote about needing all technologies for the future is, we'll need charging stations, hydrogen stations, natural gas stations and who knows what else. not a very efficient way to go about innovation.

 

That is an unfair characterization without any foundation.

A group of people (including me) think that CARB is wrong to choose hydrogen as the 'technology winner for cars,' but I for one am not 100% SURE they are wrong. I'll also point out that hydrogen has the potential to scale way past cars, and that may be the real motivation behind CARB's reasoning.

 

The impression I get is that Toyota is exploiting the opportunity to establish themselves as the fuel-cell leader. Since there is a definite lull in the market currently and each automaker is preparing to offer something of their own with a plug, why not? The full diversity choices coming will muddy the waters considerably. I can't imagine delaying until then to add an EV to the product-line would result in much of a penalty. Isn't it inevitable that hydrogen be included eventually anyway? An infrastructure of EV only isn't realistic. There will be a mix.

 

CARB has been a dual advocate of EV and FCV all along.
I can see where CA is under pressure to build EV infrastructure, perhaps FCV gives some relief to EV expanding beyond the ability to support it.

As long as it's my tax dollars (via US green car/PV subsidies) going to CA to pay CA for solar, EV, wind etc. investments, I am happy to have H2 FCV get a slice of the subsidy pie, as it increasingly appears H2 FCV is a fertile area for new technology development. What could be more consistent with CA's charter to be the defacto global center of new technology development?

By the way, InsideEV's says Toyota really needs new EV's for CA and knows it, but Elon Musk out-smarted Toyota and blocked Toyota from getting his batteries. So now Toyota has to wait for the mega-plant to open and just hope that FCV helps them get some CA ZEV credits in the meantime. I do not know if I buy that, but it's just another way of saying there are limits to EV expansion right now.

 

I think there'll be a lot more public transit and taxis soon enough, a long hard look at our God-given right to autonomous, unrestricted travel.

We can all meet again on RiderChat.

 

'Advocacy' can only be understood in terms of money where CARB and manufacturers are concerned. I know that CARB hands out more ZEV credits for hydrogen than PHEV, e.g. I'm not sure about EV credits.

Dear OP:
For the 3rd installment, please write 'disdain' and not 'destain'.

 

In 10 years in america, we don't even have to ask. Even the fuel cell lobby doesn't think anymore in the next 10 years, there will be as many fcv on the road, as we have plug-ins today. Its the fueling infrastructure stupid. It simply would take too much money to build enough hydrogen stations to fuel the number of plug-ins we already have. No one thinks anyone will cough up that much money.

Now japan may be different. It needs many fewer stations and the government may spend a lot more money than america for a much smaller car market.

+1

The fuel cell lobby thinks that people want to fuel at central stations, and fueling at home is a pain. I expect that in the next decade in the US fuel cells will grow bigger batteries and a plug or die.

+1

I hope toyota comes to its senses and realizes that this fcv push anti-plug-in pr may soon start hurting toyota, just as the anti-hybrid pr from gm hurt gm.

10,000 psi hydrogen in america is not inevitable, it isn't even likely.

Even if fcv become sucessfull, they may have plugs, bigger batteries, metal hydride, cng, or methanol storage. That would mean paying for 10,000 psi is just a fail. Let's do the california experiment through 2018, but if the cars don't come, why not let the extra incentives die.

Methanol or cng infrastructure may also be used by phevs in the future. 10,000 psi hydrogen just seems way too expensive, why not wait to see what makes it in Japan after some technical advancement.


Toyota not having an ev right now isn't much of a problem. Toyota spouting no one wants evs, they want fcv is simply a lie.

Well sure until 2002 carb was an advocate for BEVs, it has never liked phevs. CARB is part of the california fuel cell partnership, which is the US lobby for fuel cells. Yes they work in washington and california. For over a decade CARB has made rules that favor fuel cells over plug-ins. The latest change was last year when CARB concerned that people were discovering the lie that private industry would build fueling infrastructure, passed $220M bill to build hydrogen stations. Also last year they decided to change the rules and give fast refueling extra bonuses, and redefining fast refueling to not include battery swap stations. This changed the ZEV credit system to give a battery swap 300 mile (old epa) bev 4 credits instead of 7, and a fcv 9 credits instead of 7, a net net change of 5 extra credits. State credits for fcv are also $5000 verus $2500 for bev. There was a move in carb to cut off the credit for tesla bases on sales price, but this was stopped when they realized any realistic cut off for tesla would also have to cut the fuel cell tax credit. The fastest refueling alt energy car is the phev, and CARB gives them 0 zev credits, and requires a longer waranty on key components than bev or fcev vehicles. The extra credit scheme ends in 2017, but I expect the fuel cell lobby to ask for more.

I say lets see the experiment through 2017, but let the bonus credits end in 2017. You have to remember that Japan and korea are the defacto site of fuel cell car development, and pouring federal money in really is for asian manufacture. Ford and GM have partnership with the asians but they don't think these things will be commercialized anytime soon. That is one reason japan is pour so much money in. They know they don't have an advantage to export plug-ins to the US, but they may create japanese jobs exporting fcv.

THat stuff was based on internal leaks at toyota and tesla. It said toyota wanted a big discount, but tesla had no incentive to give them one, as they could make more money using the batteries themselves until the gigafactory is opened. Toyota has been a bad partner for most comanies it has worked with, and tesla did not see a reason why they should hurt their profitability to help toyota. The negative pr out of toyota just shows tesla made the right decission. Toyota though probably should have been working with tesla on R&D for a future model when batteries are cheaper. That didn't need to cost much money, but toyota has killed that activity. I expect if the fcv is sucessful toyota will do all it can to bash plug-ins. If it fails to live up to its hype, which I expect, they will work with tesla again.

I think the best quote is this

Is he an enemy of fuel cells? No, he is a proponent that believed the hype.

So lets do the math. In 2004 there were going to be 10,000 cars in 2009, now they are 250 in 2014 twice the time we have 2.5% of the promised cars. That seems like no one is asking for fuel cell cars, I mean they haven't even sold 1000. Maybe in 2019 a decade plus the original 5 years we will have 10,000 fuel cell cars on north american roads.

And here is the big lie. Car companies won't put a lot of fuel cell cars on the road because they would lose a lot of money on each one to sell any decent quantity, even if there was fueling infrastructure. Now the lobby is saying they need more government money for the cars and the infrastructure.

Last year plug-ins sold around 100,000 units in north america. Sales are growing much faster than the auto market. I wonder by 2025, in 11 more years, will there even be 100,000 fuel cell cars in North America even with all the subsidies?

 

Really? so, who is actually knocking at Automaker's doors for one of these "Half-baked" EVs imo, ranged from 76 to 87 ev miles with the right temperature, more like 55 on a cold day?
The Mercedes B-class EV gets 84 mpge.

Compare Side-by-Side

 

When & Who actually said that?

Far too often, statements are taken out of context, then end up becoming an absolute.

 

What's the "DC charging infrastructure?"

 

A DC charge is a catch-all term for the various high powered chargers.
Tesla calls theirs Superchargers, Nissan I believe calls theirs Quick Chargers. I've also heard the term Fast Chargers.

Tesla can build a supercharger station for about $250k. Vastly cheaper than the hydrogen stations.
Of course, not only cheaper, but paid for by Tesla, not taxpayers.

Not for those, but I wrote to Toyota begging them to make the Rav4EV available in Minnesota. It is one of my wife's favorite form factors for a vehicle.

 

I was confused by "DC" which usually means "direct current."

 

That is because all of the quick/fast/superchargers use direct current. Saying DC charger is much faster than fast/quick/super charger