EV advocate Ghosn eyes fuel cell entry around 2020

This probably sounds funny to US mentality that EV is the "way to go" but we are looking at it from an affluent and political perspective. IN other parts of the world they have to look at the electricity is needed for, well electricity, and may be better to not have to generate an enormous bunch of more electricity for vehicles.

 

From the OP link

As part of the show honda seemed to agree with Nissan. They will be very low volume (400/year) until they do a design with GM around 2020 or 2021.

Japan's current plan is to import the hydrogen, then eventually make it from renewable electricity. That takes a lot more electricity than fueling plug-in vehicles for similar numbers of miles. Which country is planning to run fuel cell vehilces with less electricity per mile than plug-ins? (BEV and PHEV). California and Germany also plan to use more elctricity on fuel cells than plug-ins.

China and the US both sopport plug-ins more than fuel cells. They are not in a rush to get off oil if that is what you are saying.

 

interesting article, but he doesn't tell us 'why' they are going to develop fuel cells. could it be that his statement about 'being too early', mean that he sees them as the future, and bev as a bridge?

 

Nice try. He has been overly excited about BEV. In Nissan's home market of Japan the government really wants hydrogen. Nissan/Ford/Mercedes look like they are going to combine and develop something for the Japanese market for the 2020 olympics. Nissan does not want to make Japanese government angry. Nissan, VW, and Ford strategy seems to be develop enough so that it takes off or the government forces it, to be only about 5 years behind. That means if Hydrogen is in only 10 years because of breakthroughs, they will be able to do volume in 15 years. 15 years from now is when Japan is planning to have a nation wide fueling skeleton.

Mercedes and Ford gain because the japanese government is subsidizing their fuel cell R&D.

 

That's all FCEVs *ever* are, the future. Drilling industry benefactors love the idea.

 

nevertheless, it doesn't discount or explain ghosn's comments.

 

no not a bridge. He is bullish and still betting big on EVs.
Carlos Ghosn Thinks The Future Is Electric - Gas 2

EV advocate Ghosn eyes fuel cell entry around 2020

I'm sure the team they are part of are behind, but nissan also is investing big on bevs. They want to spend the bulk of their alt fuel R&D there.

Toyota is definitely ahead on press releases and optimism. Seeing the honda fuel cell in reviews, it may be honda/gm are ahead. Rememeber honda is releasing this before they add the gm technology. Either way Toyota and Honda are the big cheer leaders for hydrogen, and will sell the most fcv over the next few years. Toyota is planning to lease many more than honda, and is priced lower. Honda has more horsepower, and appears more refined from the brief reviews, it is just a small step from the clarity.

Toyota piggybacked on the US government GM money in the beginning, they were fuel cell partners until gm cut its R&D budget. Agree the taxpayers and GM management wasted a lot of money on gm's fuel cell. After getting rid of the dead wood gm cut back R&D and partnered with honda. They have the most patents.

Ford is partnered on this nissan car with mercedes. I don't know why it would be behind nissan. They all are working together.

I think Tesla is sitting the prettiest here. They can focus their R&D all on BEVs. They live by them and will win or die by them. No pants down, just commitment. VW could be right. Fuel cells may work in japan, but fail in all other markets. That makes it a bad bet for a US company without lots of money to waste.

 

you're discounting his statement, but your not explaining why they are going to build an fcv. just to keep the government happy? i don't buy it.

 

i'm not discounting it. I'm trying to show you it in context.

The Japanese government gives Honda, Toyota, and Nissan a lot of money, through pro auto company regulations. Nissan wants electric infrastructure in Japan, and does not want to piss off the Hydrogen advocates in the abe government. They therefore do both. It is partnered with mercedes and ford to make this R&D as cheap as possible. This is the B team. Toyota/BMW and Honda/GM are the advocate teams (A), but Toyota is more confident now than Honda/GM since those two companies have both lost a lot of money investing in fuel cells and under investing in hybrid R&D.

Really I dropped the links on you To me after doing business in Japan it seems much better to go along and lose a little money, than fight hydrogen and get the government angry where it won't support your program. Nissan is going along with the Japanese consensus that fcv will work some time in the future. Honda and Nissan both don't think they will work very well until the next generation, and Toyota's estimated production shows that it agrees, even though it makes noises like 3000/year world wide is some breakthrough. Toyoa has things increasing a lot in the next generation, It is the costs and infrastructure, that work against profitable sales now, as ghosen said. You may have other incite. Nissan is working with Honda and Toyota to pay station operations and maintenance costs so that there will be stations for the Tokyo Olympics. I'm sure nissan wants cars there too, and ford and mercedes like that the Japanese government is subsidizing their fuel cell R&D (although they would love the soft trade barriers to fall so they could export more cars to Japan).

 

the only thing i take away from his blog is: 'the most practical alternative TODAY is ev'.

 

Wind and solar are a helluva lot more efficient at delivering renewable electrons in comparison to H2, the means to extract it being woefully inefficient in comparison and is just being kept around in a vain attempt to keep the old fuel station paradigm alive.

 

Again efficiency is not the key, its price and/or pollution. If you pay for a wind farm, you can probably charge the same number of plug-ins off peak (10 pm - 6 am) as you can make hydrogen for that uses all the wind. The first combination stabilizes the grid, the second simply uses it, which makes the plug-ins much less expensive to fuel (off peak wind is the cheapest renewable for plug-ins or hydrogen).

Now if the government subsidizes the fuel cell energy more, then to a user it likely doesn't matter. That seems to be the Japanese strategy. Who knows maybe in 20 years there are big breakthroughs and wind/solar/geothermal hydrogen get much cheaper, then its not as much of a problem. For the next couple of decades it is going to be government though, and the Japanese government seems to like hydrogen.

Is there anywhere where this technology is not much more expensive than wind electrolysis? Wind electrolysis has the benefit of locating the turbines where wind is best, and selling the excess electricity. Photo catalyst requires either the solar is built at the station or hydrogen is liquified and transported. Then it must be over built, and excess hydrogen is either stored or wasted, or perhaps you turn it to electricity and lose efficiency and put it on the grid.

There is no reliable h2 network of stations in the world. When one is built we can see if its as reliable as home/work charging suplemented by public chargers. Hydrogen stations are expensive to build, much more than battery swap stations, but the cost of swap stations means that people would rather pay less and charge at home or at plug public stations. I don't understand why electricity is harder to store than hydrogen, since it can be stored in your plug-ins battery at night while you sleep, or in grid batteries, or in grid hydrogen. The worst case for electricity storage is hydrogen, so hydrogen can not be easier to store than electricity.

Where did that h2 come from. What did you use to compress and pump it? Yep probably grid tied renewables, regular grid electricity and methane based SMR. If you use the same net rules, H2 has to be less reliable than grid electricity since it requires at all public stations grid electricity to dispense.

 

^Of course price is key, but practical H2 production is not any better in that regard either, nor is it in pollution other than in the lab.

USB, your home would work just dandy in the event of a power failure with battery backup. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if home PV + battery is more affordable than this H2 factory you regularly remind us about.

 

You probably haven't looked into it, but there is a reason the grid was created. Let's use ERCOT as an example, and distributed computing as another.

The texas utilities at the beginning of WWII found that there wasn't enough electricity to power the factories for the war effort. They connected the power plants in other areas to provide this power, which was much less expensive than quickly building new coal or gas power plants right by the factories. This also allowed the power plants emissions to have fewer negative health effects.

Fast forward to LBJ's rural electrification, and rural areas could be supplied with electricity much easier if plants could be built after the wires laid and power demand learned.

Later on the grid allowed the cities of central and east texas to use the wind in solar that was much cheaper to develop than in the population centers where the wind and solar are not as intense, and there is less space to build them. This has driven grid improvements like smart grid, where utilities can charge a lower rate if a customer allows the grid operator to lower usage. Infrastructure is much cheaper than if there was no grid.

Think of this wacky fuel cell plan without a grid as distributed computing without the internet. For security I've worked at some companies that use CD net. CD's are burned and fed exed, to not go over a network, but what is the point. It is much more expensive and less resiliant. If needs increase you need to buy new computers (fuel cells, plus hydrogen production, plus hydrogen pipeline) and tie them together. The Japanese distributed fuel cell plan uses the grid, it does not replace it.

I don't understand the advantage for the US of that versus the currently distributed architecture. In Japan solar is much more expensive and roof space scarce. That is a reason for them to pay for individual house hold natural gas fuel cells. In the US in most places there is a good grid tied ccgt.

I'm not sure what you are asking to subsidize now.

If its a lot of hydrogen pipeline going to individual houses, I don't see a point.

If its R&D on condo sized natural gas fuel cells, yes, and the US and Canada invented the market and continues to subsidize.

If its subsidizing renewable hydrogen more than natural gas hydrogen, I don't understand the point of that either.

If its R&D on lowering the cost to make renewable hydrogen, yes, and the US is funding it, and created most of the methods.
btw these are the ene farm plans for japan
Japan Promotes Home Fuel Cell on Path to Hydrogen Society - Bloomberg Business

I think about 10% hydrogen can run through those lines but its mostly natural gas powering the fuel cells.

Bottom line for most of america, grid tied solar is better.
Panasonic's household fuel cell (ENE FARM)| Household Fuel Cell | Appliances Company | Panasonic Corporation

 

They'll just stick with good ol' ICEs until fuel gets too expensive, the pollution becomes an issue, or their electric grids built out. It isn't like a FCEV isn't just a first world solution to them also.

The butt load of patents and past R&D means GM is doing more than piggy backing. If FCEV lose the hydrogen, and get ahead, Honda and GM will likely be the power house on the block.

AG covered it, but also keep in mind this Japanese companies and government, and they won't view it exactly like we do, outside the culture.

Hydrogen and fuel cell is one of those solutions that make electricity harder and more expensive too store. For maximizing real estate, none of the hydrogen storage methods are cheap.

At the rate Li-ion battery prices are dropping, the harder and more expensive part for electric storage may soon be behind us.

No man is an island.

I get the desire to be disconnected from all and being independent. It's why people still homestead in Alaska. But man is a social animal, and most of our great advances have been when working as a group.

Let's say home hydrogen production and fuel cells come too market. What advantages over solar and a battery does it have? For direct electric consumption the PV panel will have the efficiency advantage over hydrogen to fuel cell. During dark time, the H2FC system will have the advantage when the hydrogen storage is low pressure tanks. These will take up a lot of space. So other methods will be needed to store the hydrogen, and these all have a level of loss. They still may have the efficiency over PV to battery for storage, but then it comes down to cost.

Cheap PVs and batteries, that can be had today, are going to beat out home hydrogen and fuel cell system that is still in the lab when it comes to off the grid electricity for a home. Tie into the grid, and the PV home doesn't need a battery. So some fossil fuel is used now, but we talking the future if we are talking home hydrogen and fuel cell. On the grid scale, even cheaper wind power becomes a factor, and the scale makes battery storage more economically attractive.

Let's consider the car at these future homes. We know how it goes for the BEV already. The FCEV will be the same; with a slow overnight refuel, and tedious, daily hooking it up to the pump. It could refuel faster, but why spend the extra cash on a system that already costs more than an EVSE so you only have to plug into the pump every third day instead? With a BEV, the extra investment can go to wireless charging.

Let's assume there are stations available for long trips on hydrogen. In this gridless future, how cars a day can a typical sized station actually fill up. There is only so many hydrogen panels that will fit in the space, and it needs to be compressed. Truck in the hydrogen? Why not just go with some type of renewable, liquid fuel for ICE or FCEV plug ins then? The energy density will make it more efficient to get the fuel to the station.

I believe Japan already has a strong market for home or apartment building natural gas ICE cogen units for power and heat. The idea of going fuel cell instead will have a lower barrier to overcome.