Technology in Mirai

looks complicated.

 

i suppose time will tell, if we ever get that far. i'm sure fcv's have already logged a ton of miles though.

 

Sergiospl - I note the frame stopped right here, but I don't know if that's the way Toyota built the video to advertise, or whether it's something else. But the 2:48 mark was where I had to say, "WOOOaaah".



The message is, "you can distill hydrogen with renewable power!". Toyota fails to mention that same electricity that'd get a hydrogen car 200 miles would get a BEV between 700 miles & 800 miles. And that's why hydrogen is distilled from non-renewable's, instead of electricity. ok, it's NOT quite as dishonest as Phillip Morris used to be;



.... that is ... if you believe in varying shades of truth
now - if Toyota's PR dude would have been honest, and simply said, "but no one is distilling hydrogen from water because it's a wasteful use of electricity ... but we're still working on it" . . . than folks could live with that.
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hill, you're on a roll today!

 

I'm not trying to be "on a roll" - & i don't like raining on hydrogen hopefulls. I'm hopefull, despite the apparent need to defy physics to make hydrogen economical. The FC lobby needs to be honest with the facts. With facts in mind, per usb's request, here you go

Just How Energy Efficient is the Toyota Mirai? Time to do Some Maths - Transport Evolved

Hydrogen efficiency is much worse via water/electric distillation - and less worse, via natural gas. That's pretty much a given. It's disingenuous for the hydrogen lobby to spin it otherwise ... even via omissions. Yes, cow poop, solar electric & other exotic hydrogen distillation processes technically are possible - and it's the technically possible that keeps getting pushed onto the public - not because the technically possible will ever be economical - but because it feels more technological than using non-renewable natural gas - which to date, and on into the foreseeable future, is the only way to burn up less energy to distill hydrogen.
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I'm not quite sure of the source of this strawman.

PV on roof and at some charging stations. Let's take a home charge at hills house for his leaf, but you can use the same reasoning for wind or solar that a tesla owner uses. Solar power is generated at the roof, lets say Hill uses 13 kwh a day on average to charge his leaf and built enough extra kw of solar on his roof for this. If hil charges his car while the panels are active, great he is charging directly, but lets say he is doing something better for the california grid and charges while he sleeps. Say 14kwh is then goes through a grid loss of about 7%, and someone uses it instead of natural gas generated electricity. That natural gas not used in an out of state plant during peak, is then offset by extra natural gas burned when hill charges his car, probably using more efficient local plants, and putting less strain on the grid. Still this gets that 7% grid loss so hill really needs to generate 14 kwh of solar to offset around the same natural gas as it takes to charge his car 13lwh. well he would but he probably has made his local grid more efficient in southern california YMMV.

OK so 280 kwh * 93% efficiency is 260 kwh (hey that renewable for the hydrogen also probably will take this hit). Hill's leaf is more efficient but lets use the 101 mpge of the new tesla S 70d a much faster car with more interior seating than the mirai. 260kwh/33.7kwh/gge*101 mpge = 779 miles, close enough to 800 miles for government work.

What about that 15% charging loss? The charging loss is included in the epa's mpge rating. You can't count it twice.

 

complete elimination of fossil fuels is unlikely, or at least way off in the future. it remains to be seen which forms of energy production and storage (if not all) will work out best for personal transportation. with the science though, is there any need for a climate change type of debate?

 

I am not even sure why complete elimination of fossil fuel is the goal.

NREL cut down their estimate of strong fcv penetration to 15% It is hard to imagine we will get to 50% fcv in the next 50 years in the US. If you force them all to be renewable I doubt that 15% is viable, it probably would be much cheaper to build long range bevs if we count the solar panels and wind turbine cost to get to 15%. Tesla has found nobody cares to use their swap station, so this fast charge is more government hype than real requirement. No why not just admit that hydrogen is much cheaper when made from methane, and even california is 67% natural gas as a goal, and that much renewable is making the test much more expensive.