A petition to Toyota to build electric vehicles

Fun fact:
It takes only about 0.25 kWh of grid electricity to refine a gallon of gasoline but it realistically takes at least 12x that much or 3.0 kWh just to compress a kg of hydrogen to 10,000 PSI so it can be dispensed into the tank of a hydrogen fuel cell car.

Updated based on energy.gov data posted below by austingreen.

 

Not to ignore the manufacturing cost.

 

the industry always drills cheap/easy to get to/sweet stuff first. But unlike the Arabian mega fields, the fracked sites dry up incredibly fast. It'll be interesting to see what costs are once the easily fracked stuff goes away. I haven't been able to find any time frame/data on when that point will be hit, but at the current rate fracked wells are considered 'spent' that time can't be too far away.

just wondering - does the 6kWh of energy include aerial/geological survey/research for future drill sites - energy to drill both dry & productive sites ... energy for cleanups (ah la Valdez/deep water horizon) .... or is that quantity of energy amortized into some other bucket.
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Oil extraction gets more expensive over time, no matter where or how it's extracted. The first wells were almost as easy as punching a hole, installing a casing and opening a valve. Over time, new techniques were developed, such as better seismic data, hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, to name a very few. Wages also climbed considerably, governments want a bigger cut and all the costs have skyrocketed. It's not like printing money as some people like to imagine. Of course, those players with easy-oil like Saudi Arabia hold a big stick over those who have to work a lot harder to make an oil dollar, but as demand increases, so does the price of oil. Once in awhile, you will see those with a big stick trying to give the smaller players a thrashing (as we are seeing now with $60 oil) but what else is new in the world.

 

Would BEV Petitioners buy this car if this information was released to them prior to purchase?

"BMW i3 PSA: No, There is Nothing Wrong With Your Battery!"
"As the temperatures drop, so will your range. That’s life with an electric car, but there are ways to minimize the effects of the cold."
"48 miles was all I could muster before my range extender turned on last week. My battery is fine, it’s just cold!"
"With temperatures in the 40′s, I was averaging 60 to 65 miles of range per charge."
"With temperatures in the low 20′s, my predicted range is usually in the low 50′s for a fully charged battery."

*Editor’s Note: This post appears on Tom’s “The Electric BMW i3″ blog. Check it out here.
http://insideevs.com/bmw-i3-winter-range-reduction-tips-offsetting-cold-weather-impact/

 

Nissan and Tesla did release such info early on.

 

Thank you!

This led to:

Source: http://www.fleetcarma.com/nissan-leaf-chevrolet-volt-cold-weather-range-loss-electric-vehicle/

I knew the Leaf range numbers were based upon some average protocol but could never find a credible source. What I need next is the average and distribution of speeds for the different data points.

I am 60% sure that if I drive about 60 miles out of Huntsville at 65 mph or slightly less and get a booster charge, I can make the Huntsville-to-Nashville trip in 3+ hours. The chart show 45-85F is the good range speed and not that far off of what our Prius do.

The trip to Nashville has deadlines: (1) physician appointments, (2) air flights, or (3) concert or show performances. So I need to know how to leave in time to reach Nashville. Once my appointment is over, I have hours, even a sleep-over to get back home.

Bob Wilson

 

http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/9013_energy_requirements_for_hydrogen_gas_compression.pdf
Theoretically the best you can get is 1.35 kwh for compression + 0.12 kwh for precooling = 1.47 kwh ideal for filling to 700 bar in 5 minutes. In real life though we don't do as well.

That leaves us with real world costs of around 2.85 kwh to fill 700 bar (10,000psi) tanks quickly from 880 bar tanks. Those that are more efficient today can fill a maximum of 40 cars a day, and would fail if lots of cars appeared at once. You can read for all of the assumptions. It is doubtful there is sufficient economic pressure to have tech breakthroughs here as this is only 1.38kwh above theoretical best. At 12 cents/kwh electricity you only will save $0.16/kg of hydrogen even if you made it as efficient as theoretically possible.

OK so is this bad? No not at all. It just needs to be accounted for in the cost. 3kwh to compress is tiny compared to the 70kwh of electricity to create the hydrogen through electrolysis. Electricity is created with more substantial domestic energy. Oil is a more scarce resource and much is imported.

The problem for hydrogen here is flex fuel methanol could be used with much smaller changes in auto technology and fueling technology. Methanol can also be made from natural gas like hydrogen, also biomass, and even hydrogen carbon dioxide and electricity. A flex fuel plug-in prius likely would be cheaper to fuel than a mirai. It definitely would be less expensive to build, and if similar money spent on infrastructure would produce lower ghg.

 

Nice reference for H2 compression! Thanks.

So, 3 kWh in reality (best case commercial estimate) for the compression aspect of 700 bar (10,000 PSI) refueling that newer fuel cell cars will use.

Does electrolysis of H2 from water really take 70 kwh? I think I've seen some estimates around 55-60 kWh but I haven't studied that closely yet. Obviously it is much more efficient to use the energy to charge a battery directly rather than making H2 and then generating electricity later.

 

With electrolysis yes, and often even higher. In industrial production you can get lower costs as you can use the waste heat, solid oxide electrolysers, and sell the oxygen, but that requires the likelihood of liquefying the hydrogen and trucking it to the station adding costs. So cheap and dirty electrolysis and compression at the station works out to around 75kwh/kg hydrogen or a little more than double the energy was be used.

The more efficient method is through proton exchange membrane electrolysizers, basically a PEM fuel cell is run in reverse, with water and electricity as the consumed and hydrogen and oxygen the product. The problem here is cost, as the cost of the fuel cells even with the lower electricity is higher than traditional electrolysers. I think we would rather spend less money and build wind mills and solar panels than put fuel cells into all these individual stations. This is one area for possible technical breakthrough though, and costs could drop rapidly. The other areas are solar direct splitting with a catalyst, and of course the least expensive is steam reformed natural gas.

 

I'm OK with pretty much any alcohol but perhaps you might have a handy reference comparing methanol, ethanol, gasoline, and diesel:

• combustion energy/unit volume
• current$/unit volume (wholesale price)
• octane
• feedstock(s)

Just curious, no rush.

Bob Wilson

 

Gasoline varies quite a bit on energy but the rough rule of thumb is ethanol has 70% the energy, methanol 50%. I can get you exact figures if you want for summer and winter blends of gasoline, plus the two alcohols. During the california experiment they found that a M85 blend fixed the problems of no visible flame and cold starts.

Prices vary widely. Ethanol based on crops, methanol on the price of natural gas, and gasoline on the price of oil. These rarely go in the same direction. In november ethanol in nebraska was $2.37, methanol was $1.40, and wholesale gasoline (before taxes) was $2.25. That made gasoline the cheapest per unit energy, methanol second. In June methanol was the cheapest. An open fuel standard would allow users to switch based on price.

Ethanol and methonal have around the same octane and it is higher than regular gasoline. Rounded RON is 109, MON is 89 for methanol 90 for ethanol, and aki is 99.

Chief feed stock for ethanol is corn then sugar, although any plant can be turned they are often uneconomic. Cellulistic does not look to be happening pending some break though. Most industrial production of methanol is from natural gas as this is the cheapest feedstock, but biogas, biomas any celulistic plant is suitable. It also is produced from hydrogen + carbon dioxide + electricity, but this is mainly for government research. Long term methanol should be the cheapest, but in the next couple of decades they can switch around. The problem for 10,000 psi hydrogen is simply the cost is so much higher than methanol, yet the benefit is not there.

The chief problems with methanol are regulatory. The hydrogen and ethanol lobby don't like it for obvious reasons. California destroyed their methanol stations. Evaporative emissions with certain blends may be higher than gasoline, and if a car is labeled for e85 carb with test with the worst blend, hurting the ratings instead of seeing the possible environmental benefits.

btw: toyota made a fcv with a methanol reformer in 1997, honda in 1999, mercedes in 2000. This solves the hydrogen tank and fuel price problems of fcv. They found though that response was slow. This can be corrected today with a big battery buffer. MPGe though would be lower than in a flex fuel prius though.

 

So, no petition in Germany for BEVs!

 

I don't know why there would be a german petition. Toyota hasn't been flooding Germany with press releases against bevs, it has been the US. I doubt most german's care if toyota makes any cars at all. It has very low market share there, IIRC less than 3%.​

 

Speaking of the Germans - I couldn't help but notice while going out to my car today .... the blue Mercedes ev charging up. Nice going MB ... I wish I could say the same for Toyota.




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heard a ten second blurb on the benz b model yesterday. on sports radio of all places. i thought i was hearing things, googled it, seemed pretty good, reviews were metza metza, i think the leaf might be a better buy, or i3 with range extender.

 

2014 Mercedes-Benz B-class Electric Drive: 36Kwh, 85/83 mpge, 84 mile range

Mercedes-Benz B-class Electric Drive Reviews - Mercedes-Benz B-class Electric Drive Price, Photos, and Specs - CARandDRIVER

 

what raised my eyebrows was the 'extra-range' setting;

Mercedes B-Class Electric Drive | PluginCars.com

And... I believe I read it charges @ 10kw's .... that, with leather heated lumber support seating - look'n good!


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Didn't Nissan do that in reverse, offering a "not extra" option afterward to allow owners to avoid 100% recharge?

There's some recharge setting option with Tesla too.

 

Nissan had 2 problems. 1) it first used a battery without active cooling that appears to have needed this cooling. It claims the new battery fixes this (toyota's phv battery doesn't appear to need it, but mercedes, gm, tesla use less expensive batteries with liquid cooling) but I prefer to wait and see. 2) It didn't warm people not to charge to 100% when the battery was warm, again the new battery may fix this problem but we don't know. Renault uses a form of active cooling and does not appear to have nissan's problems.

I think mercedes is putting a big warning out to not regularly charge to 100% by charging extra just for the button. It will take years to see if there are any problems in the tesla supplied mercedes pack.