The Toyota Mirai (FCV) Thread

Not quite sure what this has to do with my post. My post had to do with lack of charging infrastructure, because of cost, in the next decade. Until there is a nation wide hydrogen infrastructure, taking cross country trips in a fuel cell vehicle just is not doable, so how do we compare with the inconvenient versus impossible. Most 200+ mile bev owners won't take many cross country trips. The question is are the superchargers + home charging more convient than the limited hydrogen station infrastructure.

Yes, 1:15 is what I heard for a full charge, 1:20 or !:30 easily might be it on a cold day and shaing a supercharger.

Efficiency from the supercharger plug to the car should be higher than EPA, but there is a loss greater than the usually used 93% going from the power source though the super charger. I have no idea if its more efficient or less when all is said and done, and I don't know which superchargers are solar and which are not. I would normally fudge the answer by saying 90% is done on slower home, work, or other public chargers, which means total efficiency won't change much, but be my guest do you have a guesstimate? Super chargers are much more expensive than those home chargers, but to a tesla owner that is a one time $2000 charge indluded in the price of the car. I believe that when the model 3 comes out, most will have been built, so price to enhance the network will drop. Using toyota's estiates they will produce less gen I and gen II fcv between 2015-2024, than tesla should produce the single model III in 2020.

Now say Japan suddenly decides to build 5000 hydrogen stations to rival the number of L3 chargers. Then if the government also subsidizes the hydrogen to cost the same as gasoline, it will be as convenient. They only expect to provide the infrastructure for 100,000 fcv by 2025, it would need to accelerate after that.

CHAdeMO Association That is a much less expensive proposition in Japan than the infrastructure needed in the US to provide the same level of service.

 

I believe the recommended strategy is to arrive at a SuperCharging station and then charge until you are about 80% full. For example, this video shows charging with a
CHAdeMO adaptor and also SC 60 kWh and 85 kWh cars. They start off with 68 km of range remaining (~42 miles).

The 60 kWh charges to 229 km of range thus adding about 100 miles of range in about 43 minutes.

The 85 kWh charges to 301 km of range this adding about 145 miles of range in about 40 minutes.

So, on a longer trip in an 85 kWh car you would do a full "range" charge overnight and then drive about 200 miles to the first SC, then add ~150 miles in 40-45 minutes, drive, add another 150 miles, etc. until you get to your destination for the day. Said another way, drive 2 hours and then stop to charge for 45 minutes or so.

If you stop at the SC with less than 68 kW or 42 miles then you charge time will speed up a little since the battery generally charges fastest at lower state of charge. I think if you do this you can get closer to a 30 minute stop to charge 150 miles under optimal circumstances.

So, SF to LA would be about 400 and two SC stops in an S85. Drive about 3 hours, 45 minute charge, 2 hours, 45 minute charge, arrive in LA after another 30 minute drive with ~150 miles of range in the battery for local driving. That adds up to 7 hours and 2 SC stops.

In an S60, it would be drive 2 hours and 15 minutes or so, charge 45 minutes, drive an 1 hour and 20 minutes, charge 45 minutes, drive, charge, drive another 30 minutes with ~100 miles of charge remaining for local driving. Total drive time is about 7.5 hours and 3 SC stops.

These are ideal so add some extra time for non-ideal traffic and SC contention.

Driving in a "gas" car instead would take about 5.5 hours and probably a couple of "gas" station stops since on average the car would begin the trip with a partial tank.

 

With SC network you can maintain over 80 kmh average speed, is that not good enough?

Here is practical proof:

 

i'm pretty sure most people who drive SF to LA in an S85 charge at only one supercharger. Going south that usually means Tejon Ranch; going north, Gilroy.

For a gas car, you get gas once at the beginning of the trip, unless you're driving a PiP, in which case you *will* need to gas up twice due to the tiny gas tank.

 

You certainly could do that but I was assuming in both the SC and gas scenarios that you wanted a reasonably full charge or tank once you got there since "LA" is a big geographical area as is SF.

So you could drop the Tesla S85 scenario down to closer to 6 hours and the S60 to a bit under 7 hours.

 

Yep I'm still missing something.

Doesn't time bring down the price of tech. I fully expect the price of the tesla model III to be lower than the model S, because batteries, inverters, charging hardware, are all falling in price and weight. These lower priced batteries seem to be able to be charged faster.

At the same time higher volumes of BEVs mean higher utilization rates at the super chargers, which means less cost per car for the network.

Now the power should be cheaper at home as this is off peak, but at least for the super charger network, a good proportion of the power comes from solar, and solar prices are falling.

I would expect a 150 KW charge in 2018 to cost no more than a 90 KW charge of the same energy from 2013. New cars are needed to take advantage of faster super chargers. Bosche and Porsche are talking about 300 KW, which probably in 2025 won't cost much more than today's 135 kw capable systems. It does take time and patience. Bosche talks about 75% charge in 15 minutes on such a system, the last 25% will be slower, so size the battery to charge to 75% on those long trips. If its not fast enough there is battery swap, but of course you have to find enough people willing to pay, or a friendly government to do it.

"In the long run we are all dead" - Keynes
I was only looking out 10 years, which is what would be important for someone buying a car in the next 5 years. In that time period FCV are not going to go on any long (1000+ mile road trips) without a support hydrogen vehicle. For those with access to a plug, which will be many times those that live within fuel cell convent driving distance, that bev can do the trip, a phev can do it more conveniently, and a fcv can't do it at all.

That is the time period for the model 3, which for 99.9% percent of model 3 + fcv potential customers will be more convient to fill/charger than a mirai, tucson fcev, or honda fcv in the US. That refueling convience is on top of an expected lower price and higher performance. I don't expect the model 3 will find a receptive audience in Japan, which may make the mirai more popular there, but I'd bet on tesla in every other country on earth.

 

In my younger and poorer days, I used to not completely fill my tank. That is actually a common practice in Europe and other areas with high fuel prices. The point here is that you don't have to fill any car all the way up at a stop.

Drive 2 hours or so on a Tesla fully charged at home to a SC station. Use the restroom, stretch your legs, check the news, forums, email, read a some chapters in a book, take a nap, etc., and the time spent would likely replace nearly all the miles you just drove. Go another 2 hours, and then stop for lunch, and so on.

The marathon, 16hr drives between New Jersey and central Florida we did yearly as a child would get tedious with the required charging, but there will still be ICE options, with plug or not, for those that don't want to stop for a night or spend the time charging for quite some time. Then faster charging, battery swapping, Al-air batteries, or non-H2 FCEV may be available.

This reminds me of reports from 2005-6 about how driving a hybrid can reduce a person's stress caused from the daily commute. Taking a little extra time on a long trip could have similar benefits.

But the same is true of any hydrogen refueling. The fast refueling stations cost more than the ones that take 20 minutes or more to fill a car. The stations being built by California now may only cost as much as a gasoline station, but they can only handle a fraction of the cars.

How much will a hydrogen station that can handle the volume of cars a gas station along interstate 95 can handle cost? How much for the infrastructure to support it?

Or are you working with the premise that FCEVs will be autoreforming diesel or some other liquid fuel by then?

Until someone comes out and says they are building it, and with this amount of money, it is still just a matter of if. Tesla said they were going to build a Supercharger network for the Model S and later models, and starting building it, if not before, then on the car's introduction. Toyota and the other hydrogen FCEV companies only started throwing some cash into a refueling infrastructure when it became a requirement for them to offer the cars.

 

i mean most people don't drive SF to LA and then decide to go freewheeling around town. after 6 hours of driving the last thing you want to do is drive more. so as long as you have a garage or charger at your destination, a single supercharger stop is sufficient.

 

Toyota Mirai Review | Autocar

 

What would the H20 button do? dispense exhaust water? And I can just plug it in? Is that a Chademo port? Still, it's fugly and wastes energy compared to my EV. Why is this not part of the discussion? FCV will never compete there. Laws of physics and such be damned per Toyota. Why am I going to a central fueling place? That's why I'm driving an EV! to get away from that model of visiting a stupid 'gas' station. Too many variables point to EVs being the smart and efficient choice for passenger vehicles. FCV is just a mirage. Hey, THAT's what the name should be changed to.

 

Because EV and FCV will co-exist.

One solution will not work for everyone.

 

Used Electric Cars Plunging In Value — And Could Give Savvy Shoppers A Jolt

 

Huh. Complaints that plug-ins are less than 1% after 4 years of sales, and FCV are the savior, because Toyota, Hyundai, and Honda expect to sell less than 0.1% fcv in the US 5 years from now (in CARB july 2015 report).

This is topped with speculation that plug-ins will depreciate fast, because new plug-ins will be so good. Some lack of logic there. Crazy depreciation on old leaf maybe with the new one, the model S was just made up and wrong all along, and the drop in ford and gm plug-ins really weren't predicted to be bad at all.

Let's get back to reality. Plug-ins have a pause this year because of new models and cancellation of the prius phv. All analyst expect strong growth in 2016 and 2017 with the new models including the gen II volt, gen II prius phv, model X, a3 phev, outlander phev, 30kwh leaf, etc, etc.

That article just seemed like it was written by lutz about the prius being dead.

 

The question is how much of that flexibility will be supplied by PHVs and HVs versus FCVs.

PHVs with a 40-60 mile EV range (with a high Utility Factor) can reduce CO2 emissions as much as FCVs. For example, a Mirai on steam reformed methane has about the same ~200-220 g per mile tailpipe plus upstream emissions as a 2016 Volt weighted with a gasoline+grid Utility Factor using US national grid average emissions based on 2009 data.

Their rough CO2 equivalence remains intact as you add renewable energy to either the H2 or electrical grid. California is mandating state-subsidized H2 stations to include at least 33% renewable while also mandating that retail grid electricity contain 33% renewable energy by 2020 and 50% by 2030.

For many people, home charging a PHV will be possible and more convenient for routine local use while both a PHV and FCV will have similar convenience during long distance trips (assuming the existence of H2 infrastructure).

The balance of PHV vs FCV will likely be determined by manufacturing cost and consumer vehicle and fuel pricing.

 

This is largely irrelevant to someone buying a Volt today for $34,000.

Few of the earliest adopters bought cars thinking they would really save much money. I managed to get mine without the $10,000 dealer markup my local sales manager was pushing for.

By the way, if you follow the link to the underlying article you find out that owner is happy and doesn't care about the resale value because he's planning to drive the car for many years. I have similar plans.

 

Hydrogen Cars Vs. Electric Cars -- It Comes Down To Efficiency (Elon Musk Video) −

no worries. I'm not alone.

Toyota vs. Tesla - Can Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Vehicles Compete with Electric Vehicles? - Tony Seba

what part of this is hard to understand?

 

When we look at toyota's own slides, for their own sales, they expect to sell more phevs in 2050 than Fuel cells, and they are the most optimistic.

When we check with the DOE forecasts way out in 2050, they think the cars will be short run bev lowest in price, FCV, then phev, then 200+ mile bev. This makes sense. Toyota looks to be spending about $50K from reports on the FC + hydrogen tanks. If they get volume up to 500,000 fcv per year they can probable drop fc cost for a low power 100kw to about $5100 and tank cost to $1500 in 2015 dollars. That won't be until 2025 at the earliest. That's $6600. The cost of batteries will be under $200/kwh soon, by 2025 they should be below $150/kwh. You build a 30 kwh 100 mile bev (2016 leaf type) battery cost is $4500, 60kwh 200+ mile bev and you are talking $9000. Build a 20 kwh phev with a $3000 battery and $4000 engine gas tank emissions control and you are at $7000.

Then the problem is what does the Fuel cost? What is the performance? What about the rest of the car?

If a Phev with 60 mile electric range is only $1000 more than a fcv to a customer, and there are gas stations everywhere, charging at home, and that phev performs better, who will buy the FCV? If it is for no fossil fuel, then why not buy that bev where you can fill it with your own solar or purchased wind?

That's the challenge. That is why it won't happen this decade. Next decade? We could have breakthroughs that change the math. Mercedes has the f-cell and b-class EV. you can see some of the trade offs today.

2030, japan says they will have a nation wide hydrogen network. This is the earliest that I expect good Fuel cell sales.

The future? Past 2050, maybe fuel cells take off!

 

Since we know quite well "charging at home" will not be realistic for countless millions of apartment/condo dwellers, the answer should be obvious.

 

Wait what? Its a lot cheaper and easier to install chargers at apartments and condos then to build a nation wide hydrogen system. Japan thinks maybe they can have nation wide refueling skeleton in 2030 , but the us would cost much more and there is no way it will be built until much later. By then don't you think lots of appartments will have chargers. What about work places. Many do already in Austin.

Which means your answer is probably mine. They won't choose the fuel cell, unless they can't get access to electricity daily, and someone builds convient hydrogen refueling. Until then phevs and bevs and hybrids and gasp regular gasoline cars. When is that in the US? 2040? 2050? Never? That may depend on where you live. In Japan maybe 2030 in Tokyo.