Toyota rep: If you buy the Mirai, you pay for the hydrogen yourself

Yellow carpool stickers ended. The new Green and White stickers were only for EVs, PHEV, or natural gas vehicles.

I think $1,500 tax rebate became only for the plugins.

The federal incentive now is purely for plugins, depending on the battery size. FCVs don't qualify. It needs to change.
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According to CARB page, the Yellow stickers ended on 7/1/2011.

 

The hybrid credit was designed to end before the plug in one was even written.
The difference being that there are mass produced plug ins available nationwide. Hand building 3 a day is not mass production, and California isn't the nation.
The FCEV lobby was saying there would be more cars on the road before now. They were able to get congress to give out a $8000 tax credit at the time of the hybrid ones. The only models that might have benefited from that before it expired were the test leased Clarity and F-cell. The FCEV incentive is already done and gone. Why should they get another federal incentive if the first one didn't help. There isn't even hydrogen stations across California yet, and the cars still can't be listed at a price reflective of their cost.

With more ZEV credits, FCEVs aren't going to take the show. In fact, more credits means a manufacturer needs to put less of them on the road to meet their quota. Do you think Toyota will put out one more Mirai than they have too? Do you think they'll actually get more on the road than the Rav4 EV?

Do hydrogen ICE cars get credits? They provide all the environmental benefits of FCEV with fast refuel times, but would be much cheaper to build. Then the people of California may not be upset about paying for stations they can't use.

At the rate CARB gives out HOV stickers, there won't be a difference in traffic between the lanes.

 

what on earth are you talking about? i was talking about ZEV credits and nothing else.

stickers cost taxpayers nothing, so I have no idea how that's even remotely relevant. furthermore as has been pointed out above, yellow stickers were from the get-go a short-term thing, they expired way before anyone even thought about mass-produced plugin vehicles. on the other hand white stickers have existed for over 2 decades at this point, they go back to the first (!) EV mandate that California had in the 90s. (Funny side note: there were over 1100 GM EV1's built in the mid-90s, over 2 model years, when the total number of vehicles sold in California was a fraction of what it is today. How many Mirais is Toyota building?)

 

(Funny side note: there were over 1100 GM EV1's built in the mid-90s, over 2 model years, when the total number of vehicles sold in California was a fraction of what it is today. How many Mirais is Toyota building?)

Why is this funny?

 

those cars got virtually no subsidies and sold that amount, while toyota is asking for government handouts left and right to sell a fraction of that amount of cars.

so…funny…not in the literal sense of course.

 

They shouldn't as they emit NOx from tailpipe. ZEV credit is only for Zero tailpipe emission vehicles.

Prius got AT-PZEV credits. Now, hybrids nor PZEV ICE cars don't get credits anymore.

 

EV1 was never sold, they were leased/rented and had to be turned back into GM at the end of the mad science experiment. Do you really believe GM was not subsidized? They were subsidized on the back end, and had to destroy all EV1's, to make the oil industry lobbyists happy.

 

The bigger picture still applies. When CA put forth the non-polluting requirement, they left total flexibility to the automakers to choose the technology and how to market it. Even better, the taxpayers were spared funding all the auto industry R&D. GM actually took a good approach of assuming the legislation was here to stay, so they attacked the problem head on. The EV1s were destroyed because the California legislation was destroyed. Once the CA legislation ended every single automaker ditched the extra costs of solving the pollution issues. Now today's approach is to place all the money on one preferred technology. Any pollution gains are incidental.

 

The EV1 makes for an interesting read.
General Motors EV1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The gen1 Rav4 EV, plus others, were sold in the $40k to $45 price range.
Toyota did crush returned leased ones.

 

Please advise were you are getting your information that Toyota crushed leased Gen 1 and or RAV4 EV?

 

I am glad that Henry Ford did not think like you, or we may never of had the automotive revolution. There was a time when gas was not readily available as well.

 

The EV revolution takes the power away from the same old energy giants, flipping personal transport squarely on its head. Pushing impractical hydrogen just gives these same giants time to get their ducks in a row to put the screws to us yet again.

 

I see it as just a transfer of power from one energy giant to another, after all, who is producing the electricity that is charging your EV. Who is to say that this other power will not start raising costs to help fund their infrastructure as more and more EV's are sold?

 

Sure, the utilities can conjure up many excuses to raise rates (practically outlawing coal is enough to do it) just as the oil giants can. The key difference is the ability to produce the "fuel" for an EV has been made palatable to the common man (with rapidly falling PV costs) whereas that could never have been the case with oil production. If utilities create a fee and rate structure that penalizes energy producers, they'll just shoot themselves in the veritable foot by pushing those same customers off-grid. Of course, municipalities can then be called upon to outlaw disconnections from the grid, so it's quite possible there's no escape plan from the screwing in the end.

 

the major difference is that today it is already trivial to make your own electricity to charge your car. hydrogen, not so much.
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you do know why the ATPZEV program was created in the first place, right? Because automakers said that no one wanted EVs (not true) and that hydrogen tech was going to blow EVs out of the water and was just around the corner.

here we are 15 years later, still waiting for it to be right around the corner, and we have FCV supporters actively working to scare people away from buying EVs based on FUD and not much else. sounds familiar? this is literally a repeat of the late 90s. the major difference is that two major car companies – Nissan and Tesla – have bet their future on electrics, so the FCV lobby will have a harder time killing off EVs today.

 

What are you talking about? Which energy giant? Domestic or OPEC?

US has a lot of domestic natural gas. Using it would eliminate the need to import from OPEC.

33% of California hydrogen is from renewable. The rest is probably from natural gas.

See below for the sources of electricity.

You've seen solar panels that produce hydrogen that is coming out in about 5 years.


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It is not trivial at all. You need to charge it when the sun is out. The chargers would stop charging if the cloud passes over. Your PV panel need to be tied to fossil grid to have the reliability to charge your car.

If you charge at night, you are not charging with solar but mostly from fossil fuel.

You can use Powerwall to go off-grid but it'll be very expensive. Again, it is not trivial and you downplayed. I agree with you that it is further ahead of H2 and FCV but I think FCVs have more potential.

Irrelevant to the discussion. CARB ZEV credits were moved from hybrids to plugins and they are now shifted more toward FCVs. That's the way incentives work to reach zero tailpipe-emission vehicles without compromises.

That's what they thought 20 years ago and they were wrong. I was against FCVs too. I bought a hybrid when it came out and again with the plugin. However, after many breakthroughs FCVs are becoming a reality but both plugins and FCVs should co-exist.

The difference now is, both technologies are being promoted, instead of choosing one over another. You want to go back to the old days and pick just one as a winner and the other as a loser.

Nobody is killing off EVs. It'll die off if it sucks. I hope not.

FCVs are electric vehicles also. It just happen to have a better battery that can breathe air and refuel very quickly and drive pretty long distance between refueling. It works just like a gas car with EV benefits.

 

Toyota Agrees to Stop Crushing Electric SUVs - EVWORLD.COM
They stopped under public pressure, but Toyota was crushing the first Rav4 EVs like GM did the EV1s.

By the time the Model T arrived on the scene(1908), curbside gasoline pumps were already a common site to fuel the more expensive cars of the time. Before cars, the gasoline from kerosene production was mostly thrown away. First Gas Pump and Service Station -American Oil & Gas History
The first cars, whether ICE or electric, were desirable because they were faster and less work than the horse. Replacing the horse for field work with tractors may have started before cars. So the people wanted cars, and Ford supplied them with an affordable one.
While the FCEV can act like the ICE car in terms of fueling method, the people already have ICE cars, that are much cheaper, and so is the fuel.
Besides having to go a station for fuel, the only advantage the FCEV has over the ICE is tailpipe emissions. That doesn't get most people excited. Otherwise, the Mirai is a 4 seat Camry that is slower and is priced nearly 3 times as much as the ICE Camry. If a person wants a better interior than the Camry, the Lexus version is still more compelling than the Mirai.
BEVs on the other hand have reasons beyond tailpipe emissions that attract people; silent ride, quicker acceleration, etc. PHVs can supply that, plus most of the clean air benefits, while keeping refill speeds for those that require it. Plus, any public charging infrastructure will cost a fraction of what hydrogen will cost.

39% of Californians that got a plugin have installed PV. Many others elect to buy green energy. Plugins give the people a larger say in who and how their transport fuel is produced than gasoline ever did, and will also do so in regards to hydrogen. As others have said, electricity is the ultimate flex fuel.

 

You seem to have twisted Toyota's policy from what GM's policy was: GM crushed all lease returned EV1's as Toyotas was dismantling only corporate lease returns, mostly the ones used by Edison.

• Current lessees shall have the option to continually renew their leases as long as the vehicle is usable, as defined by Toyota and the consumer.
• Toyota will re-examine their policy of not selling fleet RAVs and attempt to give current lessees the option to purchase their vehicles outright.
• Toyota will create a process by which RAV4 EVs deemed not salable or usable will be dismantled for parts to be used by the remaining vehicles.
• Vehicles neither re-leased nor purchased will continue to be used; they will be sold to the public, used in the Toyota corporate fleet or made available for use by non-profit organizations.

A corporate lease return from Edison has seen a lot of use, so they assumed no one would want them after their use.

While the FCEV can act like the ICE car in terms of fueling method, the people already have ICE cars, that are much cheaper, and so is the fuel.

Not sure what cars you are comparing to say that "there are other luxury cars on the market that are much cheaper then the Miria"? The Miria is priced at $57,000. This is very comparable to a XLE Avalon or other luxury cars from BMW, Mercedes. You need to understand that the Miria could have been sold under the Lexus Brand.

Hydrogen fuel may be priced higher, but you get more energy out of the same amount of fuel. It takes only 5 Kilograms of Hydrogen fuel to travel 300 plus miles in the Miria. 1 Kilogram is equal to 1 gallon of gas. So show me a car that can go 300 miles plus on 5 gallons of gas.

 

Mirai is rated 67 MPGe. It'll go 67 miles for a gallon equivalent.

Hydrogen can be produced with any fuel source, including bullsh*t. I don't get the criticism that H2 is tried to the oil industry. It screams FUD and a lie.
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So the other 61% charge their plugin with fossil fuel?