The Toyota Mirai (FCV) Thread

Exactly how much are the car companies getting charged for the hydrogen?
With a best case of $5/kg, that is 201,000 miles on a Mirai. Because of range limitation, the people that could possibly rack up that kind of miles won't be in a FCEV. Is Toyota giving enough to let people fully power their McMansion for those 3 years?
$20/kg approaches typical annual mileage for a car.

 

Last I read, Toyota had petitioned for waivers on certain safety issues. Anyone know if those waivers went through? Or did the issues get resolved.
Toyota asking NHTSA for fuel cell car safety exemption regarding electric shocks
.

 

Let me get this straight. We've got a car that
–costs 52k even after all incentives
–gets worse fuel economy than any EV on the road today – and even compared to a PiP for many drivers
–can be refueled at a whopping 3(!) locations in the entire country, ALL of which are in the Los Angeles area.

Damn, is there a waiting list?? Sign me up!

 

Forgot about that. Couldn't find any news on it, but I assume Toyota's plans of extra insulation and shielding were given the green light.

 

I actually had the same thought about the MB B with the 60-70 miles on a charge Compare Side-by-Side

 

yes the safety exemption was permitted.
Federal Register | Toyota Motor North America, Inc.; Grant of Petition for Temporary Exemption from an Electrical Safety Requirement of FMVSS No. 305

We have interesting facts based on the application that toyota will sell no more than 2500/ year in the US, that gives an exemption for up to 5000 units. Since only 200 are expected in 2015 and only 3000 by the end of 2017, that leaves 2800 that might be shipped in the 17 monts in 2016 to may 31, 2017. At that point toyota will either have to redesign the car to meet safety regulations, or perhaps stop shipping this generation to the US.

On another note if the fuel comes from natural gas according to toyota's calculations it is 67% efficient to make 10,000 psi hydrogen, and oil is 84% efficient to make gasoline (toyota's figures not mine). That would mean a hybrid would need to get 53 mpg to be as efficient with oil as the mirai is with natural gas. Say this was a plug-in hybrid It would not even need to get 67 mpge on electricity to be more efficient than the mirai on electrolysis produced hydrogen. My guess in the next generation prius phv will beat the mirai on efficiency for both fossil fuel and electricity.

 

except that the MB B costs 26k after all incentives, i.e. half the price. But apart from that, sure. Nice job with the range though – my battery meter shows 50% remaining after driving 55 miles @ 75 mph, so 70 miles total range sounds about right .

oh god not this again. The Mirai will only be sold in California (it's the only place in the country you can even refuel the damn thing). LADWP renewable power percentage in 2013 was 23%, coal was 42%, and by the time the Mirai is actually on sale, those numbers will be even more in favor of renewables.

My "crappy" B class, rated at 82 MPGe, emits 160 g/mile in LA. Prius lift back emits 183 g/mile from tailpipe emissions alone. I don't know where you're getting 100 MPGe from at all.

lol sorry, not in the places where it will actually be sold and where it will actually be possible to fill up the thing.

absolutely not. the only way to control Mirai's efficiency (today) is by changing your driving style (yes in the future you can improve this by making hydrogen with renewables instead of NG). PHV on the other hand can be improved with more frequent charging and driving on roads that allow you to drive on EV alone.

even person #20 on top 20 MPGe on the board is getting 88.7 MPGe. they will certainly do worse in the Mirai – assuming they even have the capability to fill it..

the hydrogen cost is irrelevant, what's relevant is the gas cost that you are displacing. as Trollbait pointed out, it's highly unlikely anyone will actually drive $15k worth of miles even on the hydrogen. but the real question is what is the equivalent gas cost? At 12k miles/year and all highway miles (worst case for Prius lift back), even at an astronomical gas price of $4/gal (yes, astronomical, current gas prices in CA are around $3.30), the annual fuel cost is $1k. So $3k over 3 years.

congrats, the car is now just $49k, i'm sold.

exactly what i'm doing. the math simply doesn't pan out. like, not even remotely closely.

cool, so on top of all those other things, the car isn't even meeting basic safety regulations? awesome…

my point exactly.

 

actually if you read the full rule making, you will see that their plan is not to redesign the car or stop shipping it. their plan is to change the rules for FCVs because apparently they can never comply with this.

just gets better and better.

 

There is that argument.

For all the faults of a fuel cell car, the main benefits are that it can use domestic fuel and/or a variety of fuels to make the hydrogen, and most of those fuels are domestic (either in the US or in the UK). That removes us from being reliant on the oil producers in the Middle East or Russia.

A balance of BEV and FCV will have a future and oil consuming vehicles will slowly be priced off the road. That can only be a good thing.

 

even YOU gotta laugh ... they can't comply, so do away with the rules .... and yet string a phrase, "still ensure a high level of safety" ... but without the part that's too tough to do. That's the space shuttle Challenger mumbo jumbo revisited
.

 

I do not know, let's cut them some slack. If petrol were released today there would be no way they'd allow it to be stored as it is and certainly wouldn't allow untrained members of the public to fill their car. If introduced today the regulations would be more significant than the legacy ones we have today.

Maybe the rules for hydrogen should be lowered a little or perhaps those for petrol should be raised?

 

The rule Toyota got an exemption for involved not electrocuting passengers and rescue workers in the event of a crash. The fuel cell fuel isn't the concern.

This is something plug ins and hybrids comply with. And apparently Hyundai's FCEV, too. Perhaps even the F-cell and Clarity, but they may have been exempt as part of a small scale test program.

 

Toyota would like to change the rule, but no its easy to comply with this rule. Honda will probably do it with their gen II clarity, and every plug-in sold today does it (tesla roadster also got an exemption, but is no longer made).

The problem is at a volume of 3000/year or less for worldwide production, toyota doesn't want to spend the money for a redesign, its cheaper to hire lobbyists, and they are already paying them. My guess is they will try to get all of 2017s production for the US sold before the waiver expires, and if they can't change the rule, and the car is losing as much per unit as they assume, they will wait until the next generation for the redesign. They may surprise us and redesign for US safety standards (which probably are excessive) for a 2018 model, as they keep saying they have $60B so they can afford to lose more on this mirai future.

While I agree with you on the point of domestic fuel, there is only so much extra people will pay. That is the problem, the car and fuel need to be inline in terms of cost/benefit to the consumer.

This is where fcv rhetoric breaks down. The reason hybrids don't sell as well as they could in the US and Europe is partially because people don't want to pay that much more for savings years later. FCV unless they drop in price a great deal cost more for probably more expensive fuel in the future (considering estimates for 10 year out. The other obstacle is choice of vehicle. FCV have these sales problems along with needing to hit initial adopters and not having a good fueling infrastructure. Things that may be solved in a couple of decades but certainly not during the life of the mirai.

On cleaner, the phev's seem to do a really good job at eliminating unhealthy emissions. A fcv will win here but barely. In terms of ghg a 53 mpg E0 car will produce approximately 20% more carbon dioxide when burned than a 67 mpge fcv, but ...if we include likely methane leaks in production the ghg may be a wash. We would have to see how the stations are built, if they are built like today that fcv will produce more ghg on hydrogen than that phev on gasoline, but the future might be better, but can only be so much.

These are painful claims.

A BMW M5 gets about half the mpg of a prius, but a tesla 85d (comparable to M5) only loses out 15% to a mirai. Relative efficiency compared to performance is great in a bev versus a fcv. The bmw i3-rex gets 117 mpge, but with better performance than the mirai, and the ability to extend range at any gas station. Say instead that hydrogen is made from electricity in the most efficient way, a 85D will be 90% more efficient than the mirai, You have to twist things a great deal to say a fcv is both more convenient and more efficient than a plug in.

Do fuel cell vehicles refuel conviently in 3-5 minutes? No first you need to find a station, then you need to upgrade it.
Hydrogen Refueling Takes Longer Than Advertised - Gas 2

As justice scalia said on anouther matter this is "jiggery pokery". The exemption is allowed to violate the safety standards because of the low volume. There isn't a real technical hurdle but these car makers designed the cars for their domestic market and did not follow US safety. Say it only cost's $10M to redesign. Toyota promised less than 5000 cars during the time of the waiver. Even if they built all those cars for the US, which they won't it would add $2000/car. I expect it would cost them much more than this.

The US safety code is probably overblown, but there is not a technical hurdle to meeting it for fuel cell vehicles. Its all about costs, and these companies already are losing money on each one. The waiver allows them to lose less, but if they ever do make higher volume cars they will need to comply.

 

Toyota, Nissan, Honda Back Hydrogen Stations for Fuel Cells | Sci-Tech Today

 

I believe the partners at lotus thought having a light sports car without power steering was an advantage for steering feel and handling. Porsche though chooses a heavier car with power steering. But yes the roadster was a low volume hand built niche electric sports car. It was a proof of concept. The model S is a star (using marketing speak) that provides the profit margin to develop the model 3 a mass market car, probably in 2018. That is about 10 years from from the precommercial to hopefully mass market car. The roadster also inspired the volt, leaf, i3, because people realized advantages (recharge at home, massive quiet acceleration).

Toyota has deeper pockets so can afford to lose more on the mirai, but it doesn't look as inspiring as the roadster. Hey I could be wrong, but that means 2025, and it doesn't seem to have the advantages the roadster had over gasoline cars. The main thing it seems to have over the 2009 clarity is higher pressure tanks and less of a loss per car to toyota.

Then we need one of chu's miracles, technology advancement for lower priced fuel, or much higher oil prices. Simply more cars won't get oil companies to lose money. In Japan I think the government is committed to subsidizing the fuel ca great deal, so a private companies may open subsidized stations.

They only talked tens of thousands a year. I would say toyota is thinking gen III (which is really 8th generation) at the earliest for mass market, and then they have to hope for high oil prices and/or government hydrogen subsidies.

I don't think that is a threat to the cars only the subsidies.

plug-in advocates have long heard false claims against plug ins from the fuel cell lobby. I don't think correcting lies is the same as being anti-fuel cells. Sure toyota came close to the 68 mpge claim from 2009 of fuel cell efficiency, but the claim was from a highlander SUV vehicle. Efficiency is what it is, which is not low enough to build a fueling infrastructure with costs where they are, and fueling stations will be regional or local not national. We are talking at least 20 years to get the fueling and cost breakthoughs. I'd be more than happy if I'm wrong, but toyota seems to be backing away from the soon and lower prices than you expect. I don't think akio toyoda believes his chairman of the board when it comes to fuel cells happening anytime soon.
After Decades Of Promises, Are Hydrogen Cars Really Any Closer? | CleanTechnica