Hydrogen Fuel Cells Are Becoming Too Big to Ignore

To get gas like speed, yes it would need a huge government subsidy. People are moving the bar from 15 minutes, to it has to be as fast as gas, because people are rolling out the electric technology, fast chargers and battery swap that easily can do that 15 minutes.

To get speed, porsche/bosch are planning a demonstration of 300 KW chargers and batteries. They can get to 75%, say you feel bad under 10%. Then on the 10% of miles you want the speed, you can charge from 10kwh to 75kwh (65kwh charge) in about 15 minutes. If that is fast enough and people are willing to pay we have the tech today ;-) I don't think we need to go beyond this. Moar people will be fine on a long trip going to the bathroom and playing with their phones for 15 minutes while they wait. in the nearer term telsa is at 135kw, and will soon up it to 150 kw. I expect some 300 kw chargers to pop up in the next few years, but they won't build a lot because people don't want to pay $50 for fast, when they can do 30 minute for free (forced prepay when you buy your tesla). This fast is only on very expensive cars today, but by 2020, I expect that 30 minute technology to 80% charge to be available on cars that cost less than $35,000 (tax credits will have run out for tesla, chevy, and nissan by then).

 

So, you have actually refueled a FCV and have the refueled times you actually experienced?

DBCassidy

 

As a similar situation, consider the following:
1) In the 1960s, turning on the TV was followed by a few minutes of waiting for the tubes to warm up before anything showed up. (Boy, I'm dating myself with this admission.)
2) As solid state technology advanced through the 70s and 80s, the wait time shrank to just seconds. That was cool.
3) As the early HDTVs forced the shift to instant responsive LCDs and Plasma, the waits jumped back to a lot longer for the processors to boot up. Huh? Some money was saved by incorporating this wait. This is the part where the outcry of unacceptability never happened. Why? Seems most folks realized that some tradeoffs were involved, but were willing to pay for faster turn on times when that option came about.
4) The latest HDTV bought turned on a lot faster than the first one bought. Seems that market forces solved the longer wait problems...and will continue to do so. Every competitive edge is sought in a functioning market.

All in all, most folks will put up with a longer refuel time if the other advantages make it economically rewarding to do so....just as really fast recharge times will reward the companies figuring out how to do it.

 

What's the problem with The Future of Personal Transportation?

The Present.

We are still an ICE fossil fuel burning dominated world.

Which is why I keep some objective distance between myself and discussions about electric vehicles, fuel cells and the debate about what future we are heading towards.

As much as many of us might want a more aggressive movement towards the future, as long as the wheels can be kept spinning on gasoline, I think the vast majority of wheels will be kept spinning on gasoline. I think when the argument FOR Hydrogen FUEL cell is based around the reality that you can use Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles in a manner more like a conventional gasoline powered vehicle in terms of refueling, that underlines the problem between the resistance of today and movement towards the future.

Prius Chat may attract a specifically different audience, but I think most people aren't looking for change, either electric, fuel cell or even hybrid. That is, as long as they can pull into a station and fill up with gasoline, with acceptable financial sacrifice, then that's what they will do.

When things change, and operating a gasoline powered vehicle becomes cost prohibitive for a majority of people? That's when I think the movement towards change really happens. Then I think the work being done today with Hydrogen Fuel Cell and Electric Battery technology gets appreciated by default.

But until then? I enjoy the bridge Toyota has built with hybrids. I do look towards the future, read the articles and keep an eye open. But I don't expect a great change overnight in any direction. It's just NOT going to happen.

 

Perhaps the movement toward Hydrogen is really about old line car companies wanting to not change, while california and japan keep wanting to cut tailpipe emissions. The hydrogen car allows old line companies to keep up barriers of entry, since it takes billions to design a fuel cell car, and they will probably require a dealership netowrk to service as they are too complicated for the jiffy lubes and oil changers to work on.

I've never heard anyone say, I'd have the convience of driving to the hydrogen station and pay big hydrogen money just like big oil, instead of charging in my garage or work or parking space . You ask people under 40 and they probably would prefer to plug-in, but have the convience of gas in a phev or regular car on longer trips. You ask people over 40 and they aren't going to want to pay for that hydrogen car. Well at least that is what the polls say.

It will take a decade for people to get used to plug-ins. Then they will have seen a neighbor or a coworker or a friend with one, and they will get desirable. Then the problem is cost. If they get the cost low enough people will switch to get out from big oil. The problem is the incubation phase, which we are in now. We just passed 1 million plug-ins world wide. In 10 years we will probably gong at 2 million a year, and then it acceleartes if costs fall. If gas is cheap and costs stay high, then maybe we get stuck at 2 million a year. Hybrids seem stalled here, with toyota/lexus/etc selling 1.2 M this year but only projecting growth to 1.5M in 2020 (that includes the handful of fuel cells).

Hydrogen, yes I agree probably, won't get popular until gas is more expensive per mile and there is a big infrastructure. Otherwise I think the cap is 100,000/year.

Expect a big change in plug-ins between now and 2020. I expect to go from around 120,000 in the US this year to over 500,000 in that year. The sports sedan segment looks like it will be 40% plug-ins by 2025 according to audi.

Fuel cells still need breakthoughs. Perhaps the doe money to bring out plug-in fcv will help. Maybe somone can figure out how to make hydrogen cheaper. Maybe the fuel cells will use less precious metal. Hopefully in only another 10 years.

 

Are you talking about Plug In Hybrids or just Electric vehicles?

Because as Toyota will tell you....the Plug in Prius is a hybrid.

I'm not as optimistic that the change will be that rapid or all encompassing that quickly. Especially for full electric vehicles and/or hydrogen cell.

I do think evolution and change is inevitable.

 

Well as toyota has told us the gen I is canceled, as it wasn't good enough, and they have been told they need more electric miles in the next one. Don't take gen I marketing spin as a fact. Look at there actions and what they said customers wanted before they canceled production.

Plug-in electric vehicles include both PHEVs and BEVs. PHEVs are electric vehicles.

As forbes says hybrid is a thing and not just an option because toyota made it a thing, but they aren't the ones driving the electric vehicle revolution. People that plug-in like driving electric miles, and don't just want better gas mileage.

I said 500,000 in 2020, that is not rapid like iphones, its rather a slow pace for technology, but since car generations move slow, and people keep their cars a long time, Think hdtv. Lots of people stil have the old ones, my mom included. First HDTVs were france in 1949 (our ev-1, of tvs). NHK in Japan put out a fairly modern one in 1972 Standards evolved slowly (L2 is now established, L3 is in flux still in the US, with tesla leading in charges, and chademo leading in chargers (although teslas may be using these as well with adapters. Things were slow for hd tv even in once the US adopted a standard in 1994. It took content, sets, price reduction on big sets, to get adopted. I'm an early adopter but didn't buy a large screen flat panel until 2008; That's when I moved and I let the movers have my old 32" tube tv as part of the tip. Lightning took out that plasma, and somehow my surge protector waranty didn't work. Now I have a 55" UHD, even though I only get a little streamed content. The price has come down that much.

The price drops for plug-ins will probably take 10 years, think 2025. That is when the early majority will start buying in, just like hd. Generations are slower. Tesla is the big push. Big auto doesn't really want this, but chevy and nissan saw that it was likely. Now bmw, vw group, and even honda seems to be jumping on board (their fcv really is a plug-in platform too, and they expect to sell 20x more plug-ins than fuel cells on it). The change is not uniform accross the country. The top states get a lot more cars California, Georgia, Washington, Florida, New York, Texas. You won't see many in Indiana or wyoming.

 

Like spinning the end of a production cycle to mean cancel.

Who? Even Volt owners have been talking up blending lately. The reality of ERDTT has finally got them to acknowledge the hybrid side... especially since i3 continues to remind then of what Volt was originally intended to be.

 

My take:

I hate batteries. I have since I was a kid. They still bother me because they are expensive and they deteriorate. You may not have that hatred for batteries, but I do.

I very much like the idea of getting ride of an ICE in my car. It is dirty, outdated, mechanical, and also wears out too quickly. I like the quiet operation of an electric vehicle.

So for me an electric vehicle that runs on hydrogen rather than big batteries is attractive.

I don't give a hoot about all of the technology, barriers to building stations, etc. All I care about is would it work for me. We must have 50 gas stations in our little city, but we only frequent two of them. If there was only one fuel cell station in our city that would work for me. It may not be as convenient as plugging in at home but, as I said, I hate batteries. We take several 550 mile trips a year to visit our daughter. This already isn't a problem because there are stations already in place for those trips. Any other trips we'd just take our other car. So an FCV would work for us for all trips around town, and those regular long distance trips. For us we'd need to hit a refueling station about once a week or less. Pretty much the same as we do now in our Gen II.

My barrier is the price of the car. That won't come down for many years. If I could buy one today for $30K I'd be signing up.

 

You are leaving out the most important consideration for the future...pollution elimination. Either we are aggressive about reducing pollution or we are not. What you are discussing is a side issue. It is a big side issue, but it is the result of trying to keep from poisoning ourselves. If it were not for the real issue of pollution, there would be no major reason for discussing FCVs, EVs, H2 power ICEs. You have cause and effect reversed here.

Are folks looking for more expensive transportation? No. Are folks looking for clean air? Yes. Do most people want a cleaner planet? Yes. So what will it be?

What about the option of it becoming unavailable? This may be starting to happen with diesel choices very shortly.

Exactly what time frame are you talking about? 10 years, 50 years, what? It is a low value statement with no time frame identified. Also, what is "great change"? 5%, 50%?

I'm not asking for a prediction of the future, but what is a sensible plan for addressing pollution? From that, what needs to happen with vehicles would fall out.

 

Some Prius PHEV folks certainly say here on this forum that they prefer electric driving and wish they had more range. That's presumably also reflected in the Consumer Reports "would you buy it again?" survey which gives the PHEV noticable lower scores than the non plugin version.

Others are happy with higher blended mpg driving but I suspect that is sometimes because 10-15 miles of range is less than they would need for their common driving routes so they are okay with blending early because they know the gas engine is going to start up on them anyway during their trip.

I've seen pretty much no Volt owners "talking up blending" outside the context of cold winter conditions where they like when the car occasionally starts the engine to help supply waste heat for cabin heating. Others hate ERDTT and want to stay electric even under 15F. I've never seen any Volt driver prefer a default behavior of blending in the gas engine when temperatures are above 35F.

I've seen no Volt owners lamenting the failure of GM to put a 2-cylinder 34 HP motorcycle engine in the Volt so it would be unable to sustain a speed above 70 mph on a flat freeway even with the rpm maxed out.

 

The home fuel cells Japan is pushing are natural gas not hydrogen. Hydrogen infrastructure is much more expensive. Think about it this way. A methane/h2 fuel cell for a building currently costs about the same as a hydrogen fuel cell. The efficiency improvements japan is hoping for have to do with using the waste heat of the fuel cell, but some of this heat is moved to the site of hydrogen production if you insist on using hydrogen, so overall efficiency will drop. The infrastructure to reform hydrogen then build pipelines add even more cost to this less efficient system. Solid oxide fuel cells the type getting installed in buildings already have had the tech advances not to use precious metal, versus pem which still need a breakthrough for this. If PEM have a breakthrough and get cheaper, then the building system can add an reformer and use that heat.

In the US ccgt is much less expensive to build per kw than fuel cells. It is also more efficient even with grid losses than distributed fuel cells unless the heat is used from those fuel cells. Companies are installing these where the utility is over charging them or where they want to shift to natural gas in a coal heavy regional grid, or if they need back up power (hospitals, data centers). Japan is pushing them because their grid is broken and they need to build faster than the utilities are gong to do it, while nuclear restarts are in limbo.

Only reason for home hydrogen pipelines is for fc car fueling, but batteries are so much cheaper than this. Why require a compressor at every home? Perhaps you have not thought that through.

Sorry if the phrase was not as positive as you would like. I did not mean that. Here ended over a year before the next one is ready for production.
Toyota ending Prius Plug-In production in June

following the link on more electric range we get a quote from 2013

I think that is a question for Satoshi Ogiso as he is the Chief Engineer of the prius and managing officer of TMC, who is quoted above. Do you have a better explanation for ending prius phv production so far before a new one is ready, and for not just adding the same battery pack to the gen IV prius to release it. Of course toyota has heard from their customers. They also saw they were number 3 in japan and number 4 in the Us and not even an also ran in Japan on their plug-in car, when they expected to be number 1 or 2.

People do seem to like the idea of a electric car with a range extender that runs like a hybrid. What they don't seem to like is paying more for a plug then having the engine turn on after a short distance. I hope that toyota does what it says and builds the next gen able to go a longer distance without turning on the engine. What is so hard to understand about that.

 

I don't think so.
Not from the auto industry and majority consumer standpoint.

Again I think "we" Prius owners are the exception NOT the rule. The majority of Prius owners DO care about emissions, air quality, and fuel efficiency.

But at this point in time? Look around you. We poison this planet in mass, nearly constantly on all levels. And most people are more than comfortable simply ignoring it.

And again from the MAJORITY of the auto industry? They are going to build vehicles just as efficient in terms of air quality and fuel efficiency as they have to, nothing more, .....and in the case of Volkswagen, sometimes a whole lot less. I actually think Volkswagen is a good example. I think a lot of automakers "Green" commitment goes about as far as is marketable to advantage and really not much farther.

Again, I to think change is inevitable. If only because I believe fossil fuels are a finite resource. But I'm just NOT as optimistic about the timeline to majority change. I think humanity, burns fossil fuels down to the point it becomes undeniably painful to do so. When the infrastructure of fossil fuel consumption can no longer support itself? Then I think people in mass will look to alternatives.

Hopefully the work being done today....yes...on a niche market scale...will mean that when we reach that point there will be viable options available. But I don't think the majority masses look to reach that place, clean air, decreasing fuel supply, or otherwise until the reality of a fossil fuel based infrastructure becomes impossible to accept.

In short? The majority keep filling up their tanks at 15-20-30 mpg, with marginal air quality standards, until it becomes undeniably painful or difficult to do so.

For what it's worth? I wouldn't care at all if in the future, history proves me entirely wrong.

 

I agree that for the majority of consumers, local, much less global pollution is not their number one issue.

I do, however, believe plugin vehicles will catch on more quickly.
I believe this for the same reason the stone age ended.

Just as the Stone Age didn't end because we ran out f stones, the fossil fuel age will end because EVs are simply better vehicles for most situations.

I do agree it won't happen overnight, and there will be a phase where both types of vehicles exist. But it will happen before we run out of fossil fuels.

 

I'm not interested in having the same discussion again. The topic has been repeated several times. Perhaps someone can search for the original threads that already went into this in great detail. It's off-topic for here anyway.

There's an acceptance plateau. Not being able to reach ordinary consumer is a big deal.

Even with large subsidies for Volt, it wasn't able to reach beyond enthusiasts for sales. That increase in numbers could just represent enthusiasts in support of each automaker stepping up, since offerings are very quite limited.

Getting past that barrier is a challenge for all new technologies. Some will be able to deal with high-volume better than others. Fuel-Cell has the potential, especially when considering the industry that will fight EV progress.

 

Just how quickly do you expect Fuel-Cell vehicles to break into the mainstream?
Do you still define that as 50,000 sales annually (and is that worldwide or U.S.?)?

 

Just for the record, I don't think it's a "run out of fossil fuel" scenario. I think it's a "when it becomes painful" in terms of cost and availability scenario.
Exactly where that line is for the majority? Is debatable.

 

Same question. Different thread. This is getting old.

Unlike hybrids and plug-ins, the fuel-cell vehicles are taking a consumer-development rollout approach. There is little to be gained by pushing volume quickly. There is significant benefit from establishing a feedback base onto which advancements can be built. In other words, they are simply including small groups of consumers in the development process to progress the technology without requiring a large exposure. That's called transparency & participation. It's a very effective business technique.

It (60k annual, 5k monthly) has been an industry standard milestone for well over a decade. I couldn't change it even if I wanted to. I don't anyway. It has proven an effective measure against an automaker's own fleet. Less than that clearly indicates their own customers are making other choices.

 

Wait, so what rollout approach are EV makers

Do you still have a Prius? That must serve as a painful reminder in the back of your mind. Like PV, as the economies of scale continue to increase, the price gets lower. That only leaves deterioration as your pet peeve (see below).

Have you seen the complexity of an FCV? Tons of things that could go wrong. An EV is the only way to diminish the mechanical complexity.

Except you're not getting away from batteries with the great hydrogen wonder either. The Mirage (sic) is equipped with a traction battery not too dissimilar from the Prius.

Fair enough but to many of us your battery protestations look as ridiculous as the anti-hydrogen rants must look to you (and these barriers you highlight are why a mass market FCEV still hasn't arrived yet, the very thing you'd buy). The Model S has been in production for 3 years, and the most lost range I've read about is in the vicinity of 20 miles. The Leafs are much worse because of a less robust cooling system. I could never contemplate buying one because of 1) the poor range and 2) the high desert climate in which I reside. However, that's not stopping me from seriously considering putting a deposit towards a Model 3 next year (I drool at the prospect of a 300+ mile option).