Toyota negative on batteries because it has more experience than other others on them

Why Do Fuel-Cell Vehicles Make Plug-In Car Advocates So Crazy?
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With this quote:

They include:​

• • The higher carbon footprint per mile required to drive on hydrogen versus using the same energy to recharge a battery-powered car;
  • The substantial cost (in the billions of dollars) of creating even regional hydrogen fueling networks, let alone a ubiquitous North American network that would give the same coverage as today's gas stations do;
  • The concern that hydrogen will end up costing roughly the same per mile as gasoline, while electricity's cost-per-mile to the consumer is usually lower, and often three to five times lower;
  • The belief that automakers are using hydrogen vehicles as a delaying tactic to retard the world's inevitable transition to electric vehicles powered from the grid;
  • The belief that "Big Oil" is behind hydrogen vehicles as a way to maintain its market for fossil fuels, since most hydrogen today is made from natural gas; and even
  • Numerous anti-electric car statements and advertisements by Toyota, a main proponent of hydrogen fuel cells.

These are all worthwhile issues to explore. What we don't understand is the intensity and rawness of the debate (to put it politely).​

Perhaps it is time to 'relocate' the EV vs fuel-cell threads to an "Other cars" forum so we might get some news here. We could also assign numbers to the different arguments so like the old prison joke, we can just call out the number.

Bob Wilson

 

There are plug in hybrids for them.
But since they aren't buying plain old hybrids, why would they consider something as exotic as a FCEV? Perhaps it isn't a good move linking FCEV to hybrid by Toyota marketing.

 

Fair point, but even in the broader Alt energy car movement one hears a lot of noise about 'range anxiety.' Most of Tesla's success is founded on a message of 'EV without compromise.'

 

the 'other 97%' won't budge until forced to. not by ev's, fcev's or anything else. all the anxiety and hand wringing in the world won't change anything. oil prices, gas taxes and government incentives are the only answer. whether you're looking to reduce fossil fuel consumption, clean up the environment, or anything else.

 

Sure they will. They will move to the vehicles that have one or more of the following attributes:

More convenient
More fun/performance
Better driving experience
More cup holders (don't ask me why, but it seems to hold up)

That is the trick, make alternative fuel vehicles desirable for reasons OTHER than being an alternative fuel vehicle.

 

And better looking.

 

Which is why second generation BEVs are going to have 150 or mile ranges, with those PHVs for the people in which that isn't even enough or want to refuel fast.
By the time FCEVs are more common than super sports cars and luxo barges in southern California, plug ins will be at least as common as hybrids are there now. They may even be that common outside of California. With more public familiarity, the slight change, plugging in, in daily routine will be seen as more acceptable and less of a negative. So the gasoline like refueling of a FCEV will lose its edge as an advantage for the public.
I may have been able to go over 500 miles on my last tank in the Sonic. I think most people will be comparing FCEV ranges to their current gas or diesel cars instead of BEVs.

Liked them both. Tesla has shown that you can make an alt fuel car desirable as just a car. Other manufacturers seem to have gotten that message. They are also getting nudged along by CAFE requirements,and it will take higher fuel prices to get sales in the range of having an large impact on emissions and reduced fuel use.

 

i'm in for the cup holders.

 

Agree with the answer. What is the question?

 

I found the following link eye opening because it is from a oil magazine.

Is Tesla's Model-S the Beginning of the End for Oil? - Alberta Oil Magazine | Canada's leading source for oil and gas newsAlberta Oil Magazine | Canada's leading source for oil and gas news

They see the issue rather clearly. All it takes is one significant battery breakthrough to transition BEVs to being superior to oil guzzling cars in every important aspect(cost, performance, reliability)....and the potential losers are starting to worry.

 

how can we budge the 'other 97%'?

 

OR "What is guaranteed about the future of buying cars?"

 

With low natural gas prices in the USA, it makes some sense for FCV at the moment (low H2 cost). I do not know what the nat gas cost situation is in Ca. or surrounding vicinity. CARB's goal should try to be to give H2 FCV a chance without adding surcharges to H2 fuel cost for renewables or whatever.

One of the big mistakes of past design of our elec (coal) infrastructure was the business assumptions that natural gas prices would skyrocket, so even though natural gas was always cheaper, coal economics always won based on the incorrect assumptions about the future. Thus I really to like avoid energy choice decisions based on assumptions about the long term future which we know nothing about. However, some carbon tax is reasonable to assume.

 

CARB is not adding surcharges to H2 for renewable, they are spending more to build stations that comply with their mandate to have a high percentage of renewable hydrogen. This make the experiment more expensive, There latest report written in July has them only having 86 hydrogen stations in 2021 after spending $140 M california money + more federal money. Since many will only be able to fuel 100 kg of hydrogen a day (25 vechicles x 4kg) the CARB that are inadequate to fuel the 34,000 fcv that car manufacturers think they can lease in total by 2021. This comes from california auto fees and federal income taxes. Central SMR based hydrogen is around $2/kg, but you need to build storage tanks and pumps at the station and buy liquifyers and hydrogen delivery trucks. California just subsidized a station that can use this central hydrogen for $1.6M that can fuel 100 cars a day. Figure that really means 450 cars a week, to fuel 34,000 fcv you need at least 76 stations, and the 86 would work. There are 10 stations today, 76x1.6M = $121M, you probably could do it in budget. If central wind or solar hydrogen gets cheap enough you could replace the central SMR hydrogen, and these stations would stay around. That is not what CARB and the fuel cell lobby plan, they plan a mix with a lot of bio methanol and electrolysis low volume stations.

Hygen claims they can build the electrolyzer/station/etc for about $1.5 for renewable, then your only added cost is renewable electricity. If you can buy the renewalbe cheap, it only cost $3.50/kg + taxes + profit after the state pays to build the station. Pretty cool, until you realize the station can only fill 100 cars a week, and if you fill once a week that is $15,000/fcv. If you want to build this way it would cost $510M to supply enough stations for a test of only 34,000 cars. These stations probably have a useful life of less than 10 years as they won't be designed to fill much more than 1 car an hour. You can see how you would need a lot more of these type of stations.

The big damning law came in 1978 that produced the coal heavy electricity mix we have today. You can look back at who was in charge and see it was east coast coal interests. Regan tried to reverse the bad laws but congress was really pro-coal. California was exempted from these coal laws, and I'm sure as a californian you would be pretty skeptical of the coal lobbies arguments. By the time of bush 41, people could see a lot of the damage all this coal pollution had wrought, and the laws changed then and under Clinton.

Here the problem is CARB wants to pretend renewable hydrogen is cheap, and fcv are cleaner than plug-ins. As the numbers come in on costs it is harder and harder to pretend. Let's revisit in 3 years and the costs and numbers should be much more clear. Remember CARB thought we would have 100 hydrogen stations by 2010, now its after 2022.

 

Totally agree about the obtuseness of making regulations on business assumptions or any assumptions about the future. I completely disagree about the "CARB's goal should try to be to give H2 FCV a chance...." CARB's goal should be reducing pollution.

 

CARB's original old goal was to reduce smog by having ZEV (BEV and FCV). Left-handed smoke shifters. I think CARB has moved on from smog/pollution (NOx/HC) control to CO2 reduction and petroleum reduction, so that's part of the problem with FCV, unless there is a non-fossil fuel source of H2, then FCV may reduce smog but actually uses some fossil fuel. But smog control is where FCV first came in as a way to divert pollution from the smog zone. Even though a Prius is partial ZEV, you still have the gaso stations etc as smog source, by whatever evap emissions factors they assume.

BEV's run on nat gas too, to the extent some in CA charge from the grid. It would be interesting to have an estimate of fuel source breakdown to the BEV's and PHEV's in CA.

 

It does seem counter-productive for CARB to choose technology winners, but IIRC regulatory law requires that any proposed pollution reduction be shown to be "economically reasonable" or similar wording. How can they do that without identifying specific technologies ? This is the reason why industry is always so quick to declare that any proposed gadget is too expensive -- from catalytic converters to batteries. Nonsense along similar lines occurs with safety regs in cars. Seat belts, for example.

Industry is its own worse enemy.

 

Sort of confusing is CARBs logic.
ZEV were requested years ago for smog control on the assumption ICE's were dirty and made smog.
Enter Prius: a very clean ICE.
Does Prius solve the smog problem? I do not know. CARB changed the targets to CO2 reduction and petroleum reduction, and said they still want to mandate ZEV's.

The thing is the US taxpayer is footing part of the bill on all this via incentives.
If I am any example of a US taxpayer, we've been patient with subsidizing BEV and now I would like to see some FCV science.
My earlier calc was by 2020 I think, CA may have more EV charging stations than gaso stations in the whole USA.
That's gotta be a monumental investment. So give us a couple FCV filling stations. I would assume CARB is thinking they may need FCV to help meet the 25% petroleum reduction targets by 2025 or whatever.