Finally, some first hand reports on living with a FCV

You are comparing 84 miles vs 312 miles range vehicles. Mirai has one less rear seat but it is a substantial (Lexus grade) Camry size car.

In the coal electricity intensive states, Mirai would be cleaner. In other states with fair amount of coal and natural gas mix, they may be a tie but 5 mins refuel and driving range would have Mirai a clear advantage.

I own a plugin car and my feelings are not hurt by that ad.

That Lexus ad has factual information for BEVs. It does not apply to PHEV nor does it claim to be. Those are valid concerns for BEVs.

That's how you interpret it. The way I read it, they were being realistic. They highlighted the shortcomings of BEVs and introduced a solution with FCV. Toyota said BEV is good for short range small vehicle but FCV is for mid to large long range vehicles.

If BEV works for you, buy it. FCV is to address long range driving with short refuel time. There is no need to be insulted or feel napoleon complex.

That's a poor excuse to attack FCV and it is not a valid justification.

Hello, plugin FCV. Charge at home for 30 EV miles and hydrogen fuel cell for longer driving.

Yes, for now. Don't you wish they stop building them to prove yourself right?

The infrastructure will grow, just like public EV charging stations but the scale of hydrogen would be multiple magnitude larger (in term of driving range to refuel time).

 

Despite all the naysayers, FCV is here to stay and grow.

DBCassidy

 

And I could have gotten 500miles on the last tank in the Sonic. For the majority of people longer range really means just visiting a refuel station less often. With the Mirai, they will be visiting the hydrogen station more often than they did with their old ICE based car; most people don't wait until the tank is a distance past the low fuel light before stopping. The Leaf needs to refuel everyday, but it refuels at the person's home and doesn't need to be baby sat while doing so. No more pulling off their daily route, standing around in possibly inclement weather waiting, and then pulling back into traffic, ever.

The Mirai had to be bigger to contain the fuel tanks, battery, and fuel cell stack. It needed the Lexus level appointments to justify the high price to potential buyers/leasees. The interesting comparison will be to the Volt.

At this present time, but the grid and plugins aren't going to stop improving to let the hydrogen infrastructure catch up for FCEVs. How much coal will be on the grid in those states by the time a hydrogen station opens up there?

But not concerns for the BEV that a potential Lexus buyer is looking at.

Then why doesn't Toyota have any BEV at all? Except for China, where they are being forced to build one, Toyota doesn't have any BEV. If they think BEV and FCEV can live together, why ignore one? Realistically, it will be awhile before hydrogen stations move outside of California, but it appears Toyota is fine with others getting the beach head in the BEV market. Wait too long and getting into the BEV market will be like getting into the full size truck market for them. The R&D costs would low for them. Toyota could just put the motor and control unit from the Mirai into a Corolla or the new Prius platform.

Many of us 'anti-FECV' people have suggested this, and it may be a future product from Ford and GM. It may need a little longer range, but using grid power eases the pressure of expanding the hydrogen network.

I drive past 7 gas stations on the way into work. How long do you think it will actually be before there will be one hydrogen station in the Philly area. There is only 3 stations selling E85 within 20 miles of the city, and how long has that been around. Here are the EV chargers around Philly PlugShare - EV Charging Station Map - Find a place to charge your car!, and at least one of them is a Supercharger.

It could grow. For a very high cost.
I think by the time Toyota sells their 3000 Mirai in California, we'll see the first BEV with an Al-air battery range extender(my bet is Tesla or Nissan). There will be 200 mile BEVs out then that will be priced lower than the Mirai. Say it has 150 mile plug range in order to fit the Al-air. Then, if the person has a long trip, and doesn't want to wait for fast DC charging, they just have to add some distilled water every couple hundred miles or so.

Regardless, it will take time for a hydrogen infrastructure to grow; years. In that time, the development and improvement of plugin batteries and chargers isn't going to stand still. Neither will the development of renewable ICE fuels. Nor will the grid stop getting cleaner.

Which is why the hydrogen FCEV lobby is pushing the cars out now, despite the cost still being too high for the cars. They are afraid of that.

 

Wait a $45K after incentive 0-60 in 8 second 4 seat Lexus with free fuel for 3 years but only 86 stations planned by the end of 2021, so hard to find on any long road trip. Yep much more desirable than a 84 mile 5 seater aer bev that you can fuel in your garage, and another car that you would need for either for a long road trip. At least toyota and nissan think there will be more sales for the leaf during this generation of the mirai in california, and that doesn't count all the sales of it and other plug-ins in the rest of the country. Oops I got fixated on a shiny object for this tangent. Ignore it and pick a more luxurious 4 seater like the i3-bev or something else that is higher quality.

But we were talking ghg footprint from your link and that had the leaf and volt around mirai so I commented on your link. If you didn't like the leaf being in the link you should have said so.

The 0 mirai that will be sold in those coal states would have an advanatage if California lavied a tax on them to build renewalble hydrogen. Wait, 0? What is your prediction of mirai leases and sales in the coal states in the next decade? Do you think they will clean up with the clean power plan? Do you think they will build renewable hydrogen. IMHO if they get hydrogen it will come from coal and natural gas, but that is me.

My feelings are not hurt either. I just can tell they are lying. Can't you. A director of Lexus also said people would have to be forced to plug-in phevs, otherwise they would just buy them from the credits and HOV stickers. A lie is a lie, whether you want to defend the liers motives or not.

You seemed to be pretending that toyota is being a good corporate citizen here, and we should all fall in line and tell or polticians to give it money, and get rid of money for plug-ins. Well we just disagree here, no matter how silly your argument is here about your fragile feeling for any attempt to correct lies from your favorite corporation. That was what that hurt feeling thing was about right. I hurt your feeling when I gave you the context.

You mean the one they filmed with a i3-rex, in this convoluted story where a guy with a nornmal car gets loaned the i3 rex to drive to vegas. Yep the made up owner somehow loaned this car for a road trip and the ad agency pretended it couldn't fill up on gas, so they removed the gas tank door in post? They could have at least found a i3-bev and re shot. OH made up fake anti-plug-in scenary is not factual information. It is at best misleading, at worst fraud, and Lexus pulled it before they were sued.

Sure expect you would not be able to return to mirai without a tow or hydrogen truck from Vegas. Oopsie.

Again just because I correct the false and misleading things lexus and toyota put out about plug-ins does not mean I am hurt. I think the country is hurt if Toytoa is able to slow plug-in adoption by getting these lies belived, but you seem to think that is fine. I mean you agree that There will be less than 50,000 fcv on the road in the US by 2021 right? You agree that there will be more than 1 million plug-ins by then. You seem to be arguing that physics or something else is preventing those near term trends.

I have no problem, as I have often repeated with people doing fuel cell R&D. I have no problem with toyota building and honestly promoting fuel cell vehicles. The problem comes with the exageration and lies. Oh there I guess I hurt your feelings again? Is that it. Just SUCK IT UP BUTTER CUP! Those things Lexus has been saying are lies. You drive a phev you know it.




OK so we have an outdated chart here. I believe toyota cancelled there short commuter EV the EQ. The imev is not doing well. The gen II volt has its range. Unfortuanately those hydrogen buses don't look viable anymore. BEV and CNG has overtaken them, as advances in those technologies have been much quicker. Where are bev for passenger cars and bev and phev for SUVs. Yep Those will be on california roads in greater numbers than fcv next year to. Time to update the graph. It doesn't hurt my feelings, its just misleading and wrong - probably not out of malice but from not updating it.

Oh did I hurt your feelings. Just kidding on all that we are adults. I don't understand your use of that term other than if you have no argument. My arguments have been against near term fcv. You know the next 10 years where the economics don't work and breathroughs are needed. I have not attacked your preciuos future tech, only said it needs a lot more work. Its pre-commercial. I think its best crack is in Japan where there is much higher population density and no oil so fewer stations. Its a bad fit you know this decade in the US. I gave you numbers for the next 6 years. If you agree, then you will probably agree that there will not be a lot in the next decade. Infrastructure is too expensive to build fast.

Fantastic, thet means less infrastructure. But didn't Lexus tell us that people won't plug-in long range phevs? Oops! I think that would be much easier to sell because it would need less infrastrcuture.

The difference between say the tesla super charger network and getting a hydrogen network up is huge in terms of cost. Tesla is just charging $2000 more per car and can build it, because 90% of charging is done at home and off network. Public hydrogen as california has proven (originally 100 stations by 2010, now 86 by 2021 at an added cost of $140M in fees) that growth is likely to be slow and expensive. Sure it can grow, and I am routing for the breakthroughs that will make it more cost effective, but @$5000 per likely car and costs for the cars being so high, it will take a long time.

So build 50 good centrally produced hydrogen stations, and do the test. That could have been done years ago. Instead its always we need this to be green, we need the fuel cell lobby to pick the location, we need to only give the money to members of the lobby, etc. Its slow and expensive the way they are doing ti. Maybe you get a breakthrough out of the $100M/yaer doe is spending. Why do all these piddly 100 kg/day stations? why the east coast too when its not working in easy California. Lots of lobbying for money and it appears people want an excuse not to test well.

Its an uggly and corrupt system they are building and it will always take more money. Cap the cash and make them do it better, or let it die. I think the R&D money is much more important than the commercialzation waste.

 

I don't know about that. It's like installing a back-up generator so you don't have to buy batteries for the flashlight.

 

why do you think it is - that the oil companies - the very entities that stand to profit the most from natural gas sales for hydrogen distillation - refused to build natural gas to hydrogen distillation. In stead - they threatened to sue - to prevent their companies from having to foot the bill to sell their product ... & if forced to cough up the money to build infrastructure - oil companies would rather tie-up the courts for decades.

brethes air - very funny ... but lest we miss the deception - ALL fossil fuel cars 'breath' air - & hydrogen cars are no different. That whole "breath air" nonsense is another huge Toyota lie. If truthful - Toyota's ad should say, "a car that breathes fracked natural gas ... and don't ask about the drilling solutions left behind underground - because under the Cheney loophole;
How Cheney's Loophole is Fracking Up America | Kevin Grandia ,
that toxic fracking solution mixed with your ground water is exempt from investigation." Oh yea, the Totota clean car gift that keeps on giving. Quit regurgitating Toyota's lie that "you CAN make hydrogen from almost anything" - because we don't .... we make it 95% of the time from fracked natural gas. Yes - we are desperate to keep natural gas flowing on the cheep ... but at what cost .... Toyota's high priced experiment? That's just great.
How about we all meet back here when Toyota's hydrogen car truly runs on 95% cheep cow crap .... or 95% cheep biomethane ... or 95% cheep water distillation. Because for now, & for the next 10 years - all that PR about what CAN be done, simply ain't practical & therefore it ain't on the table. So - Toyota's car is just a natural gas car. "but - boo hoo - plugin's got problems too". Yep - but not as bad as The hydrogen high tech hoax. Go with what at least works the cheepest & best for now .
.

 

If Sonic has 84 miles range, would you be ok? Probably, because you could go to a gas station and fill it up in less than a minute. There is no anxiety because the refueling speed is fast. Range anxiety is both the driving range and refueling speed. BEV needs to address both, as FCV already has.

Remember the eQ? There weren't market for it.

Toyota said Lithium-ion batteries are not good enough. They have been working on the next gen batteries. We should see the fruit of that labor soon, hopefully.

H2 station costs about $1 million per station, about the same as gas station. What's the concern?

Everything will improve but at different scale.

There is no battery pack that can go 312 miles and recharge in 3-5 minutes, not even in the labs so it is at least 10 years away to catch up. It'll take 125 home power lines to be able to supply enough power to charge that quick. Tesla already hit the limit with supercharger and had to chill the wire and it would still take 45 mins.

Having more FCVs than there are stations is a good "problem" to have. Remember, one H2 station can refuel much more EV miles than EV chargers.

First you guys criticize the lack of H2 stations. Second, you don't want to install more stations because they cost as much as gas stations. Ok..... That's a good way to keep your criticism going.

I was replying to someone who questioned "a clean Mirai?". Some people have their minds made up before knowing facts about it. They operate on hype.

I like BEVs and I think they can be clean (depending on the grid).

I can see why Toyota took the FCV route. I believe, they are trying to achieve a good cause. They follow low emission in a mass producible practical package. BEV doesn't pass the "practical" smell test, too niche.

You think they have malice motive behind and it is easy to tell from your posts. We'll just have to disagree.

I am sorry if I hurt your feelings. I am not going further down that path and start yelling because I know from experience that personal attack would come next. Let's disagree and move on.

They are aiming to bringing it to the market and are field-testing.

I totally agree. H2 infrastructure is one generation behind the FCV vehicles. However, something has to come first to break the chicken or egg problem. Toyota is not marketing Mirai as a mass market vehicle and advertising that it can drive around the US either. They are rolling out as they should, slowly. Criticizing about the roll out cost as if the mass market version would cost the same is just silly.

Volt is pre-commercial also but it was marketed as a mass market product. That's why I am so critical of the Volt. It didn't have the low emission to justify it's cost neither but Mirai can back up it's environment benefits.

Tesla Model S is also pre-commercial. Model 3 is supposed to be the mass-market product. We should know more about it soon. I can tell you that the current Superchargers are not enough to support a mass market model.

You must be confused in hate.

If you don't plug in FCV-PHEV, you still have the zero tailpipe emission EV miles. For Gas-PHEV, you don't so, why give them ZEV credit?

It'll be a lot neater than the current spaghetti grid. It costs a lot to wire all those with utility poles, transformer, etc. It is not an honest assessment of EV charging stations by dismissing it. In your term, it is a lie.

You should compare H2 stations to gas stations. I wouldn't be surprise if the current gas stations carry both or even better convert it to H2 with renewable source.

There is natural gas and coal, both are fossil fuel, are in electricity right? Those entities would profit from plugins as well. What's your point?

False. FCV with H2 produced from renewable energy would still breathe air.

When will our grid get there as well? The latest Obama plan would cut 32% emission by 2025. You'll still have massive fossil fuel in the grid.

 

A 84 mile sonic wouldn't work. People like to have to spare gallons in their tank just in case, and all the competitors do, so sonic with a 84 mile range would not work, but the i3-rex would. Range anxiety is alieved by having other cars, or uber, etc available, but the 84 mile bev is probably headed toward the dustbin of history as we get phevs with good enough range (15 may be good enough for many we are finding out, gm thinks its 50 epa) and bevs that get in that 150+ mile range.

Yes the EQ was dropped because toyota probably understood there wasn't a market for it. They should update their slide or stop using it..

Hard to remember that today as that is not true. CARB is planning a large number of 100 kg hydrogen stations and give each one $1.5M CARB estimates that these will fill 100 cars a week. If each vehicle averages 4 kg then its only 25 per day. A 4 slot supper charger station can fill 8 cars an hour or 192 cars per day, again that is not per week, but probably 300 cars a week, and those cars if they fuel 90% at home and average fueling is 150 miles then we get 10 refueling a car a year, of once every 5.2 weeks so you need one for every 1500 cars versus one of those others for every 300 cars. Sure you can build hydrogen stations that can service 300 cars a day instead of 25, and those might be close to the cost of superchargers today if they had good utilization, but they are much more expensive per station, and 100 could fill 120,000 fcv, and cars are too expensive for the lobby's manufacturers to actually get those on California's roads The lobby wants more stations and wants renewable, which makes many of these built today will be throw away in 10 years. Instead of what they are doing I would like them to build 50 stations that could serve 100 and 200 cars a day that would last longer, they could probably do that with the cash, and it would be good for a southern California test of around 30,000 vehicles.

I don't think california will "get" more fcv than stations, it is just a way for the lobby to ask for more government money. The consumer is not going to put up with slow refuels, or being the 27th car waiting over an hour at a 100 kg fueling station, so the estimates of vehicles need to be lowered. Yes it is a problem that competent building of stations could handle with the government funds, but I'm not sure members of the lobby don't this want this as an excuse.

I'd love it if stations that would last were as cheap as the lobby claims. So first criticism is they are making this test too expensive by building poorly. Remember this is not CARBs first rodeo, money was appropriated in 2004 to get 100 stations up by 2010. So this is a competence question, and a cost question. They need to stop pretending stations that will last only cost $1M in taxpayer funds, its probably $2.5-$3M.

I don't want this endless cycle of we need more money. Get the stations to work. Build the cars. Do it competently. Do the test. Don't ask for more money like anouther $8000/fcv in federal funds, when you know you aren't going to build the cars.

They cost much more per vehicle in fee and tax payer funds than gas stations. I would
A) Like to complete the test as well as possible
B) Let's not make the test more convoluted. 1 test in southern california (not some in many states that can't work to drive up costs, and help lobbying congress to move DOE funds from better programs to fuel cells. Yes the lobby did this at least 4 times in the past.
C) Stop pretending that fuel cells are as close to commercial viability as plug-ins. Its the infrastructure. Its too expensive today to be self sustatning. It needs technical breakthroughs to lower costs.

 

The actual dispensing of gasoline may take less than a minute, but the pulling into the station, getting out of the car,opening the gas cap, get out the wallet, run the credit card, get back int to car, then pull back into possibly uncooperative traffic, for each of those less than a minute gas dispensings. It adds up.

Since I would have to do that every day I drive to work, that will get real old, real quick, even without winter to consider. With BEV, I eliminate pulling into a gas station, taking out the wallet, pulling back into traffic, and I don't have to get back into the car until the next morning. So what if the fuel dispensing takes longer than a minute. I can watch TV, get on the computer, eat dinner, go to bed, and more while the car is recharging.

Since when did range anxiety include charge time? The top 3 Google hits for the definition don't mention it.
Definition of Range anxiety, BuzzWord from Macmillan Dictionary
range anxiety: definition of range anxiety in Oxford dictionary (American English) (US)
Range anxiety - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Is this another Toyota lie/marketing BS?
For those that do long trips, and need to refuel faster than a BEV DC charger, there are PHVs.

There was no market for it because it had shorter range, was smaller, and was going to cost more than Mitsubishi's iMiEV. Toyota cancelled it before it could be said Mitsubishi had a better product. The iMiEV isn't a real crowd pleaser either, but Miysubishi went on to make a PHV SUV that it is having trouble keeping in stock. After the eQ, Toyota let their partnership with Tesla end, never expanded Prius PHV sales out of the initial states, and is now cooing over just 600 people saying they are interested in the Mirai on their website. Hopefully, we'll see some change in direction with the gen2 PPI.

They also said Li-ion cost them @$1200/kWh. perhaps the batteries were that costly in the beginning, but they are now around $500/kWh, or about the same as NiMH. The price of NiMH isn't going down, but Li-ion still is. So I hope Toyota has something for their sake if they continue with the Li-ion not good enough stance.

The concern is that your figures don't jive with what everybody else has said about the station cost, but no matter. The real cost is in the hydrogen plants, pipelines, tank trailers, and trucking. So the cost of a hydrogen dispensing station may come down to that of a gasoline one. A new gasoline one doesn't also have to pay for all the infrastructure to supply it with gasoline.

Again, for those that want refuel faster on long trips there are PHVs. So there is no need for BEVs to be able to completely do everything an ICE powered car can.

For those that don't mind waiting 20 to 30 minutes to charge 200 miles on such trips, they can drive across the country right now in a Tesla. I'm sure Tesla took advantage of all the incentives it could for the Supercharger network, but I challenge you to find a Supercharger only one. Most of the funds for it come from Model S buyers in part of the car's price tag.

Not for those FCEV drivers waiting longer than charging up a BEV, or simply being unable to fuel their car.

Anyway, let's take your cheap $1 million dollar hydrogen station and the Mirai's numbers. The station can probably only make 100kg of hydrogen; that's enough for 21.7 Mirai. We'll assume the cars all arrive spread apart enough in order to not run into the compressor and fill tank bottleneck, so those 21ish cars come over a 10 hour period. The station with supply the Mirais with 6700 miles of range over those 10 hours.

So the same cost we can build at least 10 fast DC chargers. We'll assume 150 miles per 30 minute charge, and, like for the FCEV, that the cars arrive optimally for charger use. In 10 hours, those chargers can supply cars with 30,000 EV miles. Depending on actual costs we can have double the chargers for the same costs. That would double the EV miles to 60k, but the cars won't realistically arrive at optimal times. There difference between what the stations can provide in 10 hours means that such considerations would still leave the BEV chargers ahead of the hydrogen station, and they can go all night.

Now, the current highest through put hydrogen stations can fill 100 cars with 5kgs in a day. If all Mirais, that is 33,500 miles. So hydrogen stations can catch up to DC fast chargers in miles supplied in time, you are still overlooking the fact that the majority of a BEV's EV miles will be supplied at home. So we will need far less DC fast chargers to support a BEV fleet, than we will hydrogen stations.

First, there is no way that a hydrogen station, of equal number of dispensers, is going to cost the same as a gasoline station. The very high pressure compressors will cost more than solvent certified pumps, and so will the harden material for the pressurized tanks than the plastic ones for gasoline and diesel.
Second, the cost isn't just in the station. So even in the two stations cost the same, the hydrogen station has the costs of building hydrogen infrastructure that is nonexistent to supply it, or it pays extra to make the hydrogen on site.

Question: will a FCEV emit less, the same, or more than a CNG ICE well to tailpipe?Ignore renewables; they cost more, in which case we could use renewable methane. Which is where some renewable hydrogen comes from.

At this stage, it is still up in the air if it will be high pressure hydrogen, using the Dutch water fill method or not,

How are either of these pre-commercial? They are both priced above production cost. Aren't production limited. So how are they pre-commercial? Because they got incentives? Wouldn't that make the gen2 Prius pre-commercial. Is the Corvette pre-commercial? The Volt and Model S both sell more than it.

I

The grid needs to be updated whether plug ins take off or not. So does our roads and bridges for that matter. If those are underfunded, where will the funds for a hydrogen network come from?

So would an ICE with renewable fuel.

You can't decry fossil fuel in the grid, while glossing over its use for hydrogen. Nor claim it will be renewable in the future, while claiming electric won't be.

 

I counted the word lobby 17 times, in this thread alone. You must be in politics. Can we keep it out of the discussion? There is a separate sub-forum for it.

It would be less. Civic CNG emits 306 g/mi well-to-wheel. That's higher than a regular Prius at 222 g/mi. Mirai is around 140 g/mi in California with 33% renewable H2 required by law.

Please, tell that to Hills. I was pointing out that kettle was calling the pot black.

 

Sure, but its hard when you keep repeating their talking points. I know you didn't come to the idea that hydrogen infrastructure was less expensive than plug-in infrastructure on your own. Look at the costs today and projected into the future and you will see 10,000 psi hydrogen fueling costs are much higher.

in order for a cng car to do as well as a fcv you need to make that a hybrid, and refuel at the renewable compressed methane stations. People didn't like the lack of fueling stations and the room taken up by the cng tanks.
Natural Gas and Renewable Natural Gas Vehicles - DRIVE: California's Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program
Now texas likes natural gas for larger vehicles, they are better able to handle the tanks. For long range large vehicles you need to go liquid methane (lng), which is what the picken's plan was partially about. Both texas and california support cng and lng, both states have renewable cng, california has 139 cng and/or lng stations.

Natural gas and other methane (including renewable methane) can help a lot with unhealthy air pollution replacing diesel buses and trucks in polluted cities like LA and Houston, but the natural gas rarely has a lower ghg footprint.

hyrogen may have the same problems as natural gas in smaller vehicles. Here methanol may be key for fuel cells or hybrids or phevs, as it only needs double the gas tank per kwh of power as gasoline, but can be easily made from hydrogen, or natural gas or biogas and has much lower infrastructure costs. The fuel cell vehicles though would emit ghg when running on methanol and mpge would be lower as a reformer would add an energy loss step, but $/mile would likely be lower.