Toyota Sends Hydrogen Stations to Dealers for Sold-Out Mirai

I think this is to be expected. Hyped expectations - 44 stations in 2015 for the low low price of $57M. Who saw it coming?

19 of those stations by end of 2015 went to first element.
Ewanick's next bold bet: Hydrogen stations

Fired for internal fraud at gm, Ewanick joined doc brown from UC-Irvine that had set up the study for CARB that would be used to dole out government cash. Neither had ever built anything like a commercial fueling station, but Honda and Toyota backed them with loans so that they had the capital to win the bids to get California cash for the stations.

After hearing the story, you figure toyota must have known the risk, since they picked them to win the bulk of the money, and even loaned them cash so that First Element could win.

Here is the state of the network as of nov 17.
http://cafcp.org/sites/files/20151115_H2_Station_Update.pdf

4 commercial stations open with 6 more being commissioned by the end of the year. That makes it 10 if they make it. There are 6 demo stations, these are the lower volume stations, that i think are counted as part of the 44. That makes it 16 out of 44, but there were 9 when money was allocated. Only 7 net new stations out of an expected 35, that is slow 20% as fast as promised, but for a new company with no experience doing the heavy lifting, I don't think we should be surprised. Unfortunately this also means cost is higher per station, instead of falling. Carb in july dropped its estimate to 86 stations in 2021, from 100 in 2020 they had made in 2014. When you are only hitting 20% of your goal in 2014/2015 it was of course appropriate to realize they weren't going to be built as fast as promised.

Still that doesn't mean they can't get their act together, but we need to stop the fiction that big oil was wrong in thinking this stuff is not easy or profitable unless government ups the money, which they did per station this year.​

 

From the article:

If only there were a vehicle out there that could be filled up inside your garage, but still allow you to drive nationwide while utilizing a vast existing infrastructure network already put in place...

 

Shhh, you're bursting (hydrogen) bubbles.

 

so they are solar powered and can give 36 cars a half-fill? in how long of a timespan?

 

The chief cost is the truck, compressor, and driver, so why not go grid tied solar and wind. and real mobil refuelers.

Mobile refuelers are one of those things that was always considered by many as necessary in a proof of concept, but those that didn't think stations could every be built as fast or cheaply as the hype.

My guess is time of drive to the dealer and 10 minutes plus half an hour for each car ahaed of you. You don't want to relly on these things. My question to toyota is why not make them public 10,000 psi stations. If they are believers and want to help with the infrastructure, help, don't cheap out. Maybe toyota just doesn't believe many people want these cars even if they build the stations, so why not just lobby for california/East coast/ Japanese/ Geman taxpayers to build them.

 

Sounds good

DBCassidy

 

how many more red flags need to be raised? by god we will use ANY means necessary to make this hydrogen thing work. wow. just wow. and 'sold out'? i think the sold out part has a different meaning when talking h2 hype. more power to them...they are obviously going to need it compared to straight-up charging a BEV. and that's just the physics, folks.

 

There are 4.3Millon - 14. 2 million millionaires in the US, depending on how you count. The lower number only counts individuals not households, and doesn't include the primary home or other non liquid assets like art.

Lets say that 5% drive and live in hydrogen areas of california and buy a new car every 7 years. That means 31 thousand/year of people with $1M in liquid assests in the right part of california could easily pick up a mirai, clarity, tucson, etc - not counting those that simply have high income or are government or businesses.

Physics only says that hydrogen fuel if you include fueling infrastructure will be expensive compared to gasoline today in a hybrid or phev, or renewable electricity in a plug-in. If people want the cars that extra expense won't stop them.

But I don't see 31,000 demanding mirai in california, it is 100 to 200 this year according to toyota, then maybe 1000 next year when the infrastructure is better. I'm not sure if that includes the 100 to 200 this year. 3000 by the end of 2017. In Japan there is a lot of government and business interest but toyota there will lease less than 2700 by the end of 2017, they are reserving production for compliance in california. Could they make more? Sure, but they wouldn't lease many more. No one is clamering for the cars except goernment agencies.

Not a problem with physics, but in finding people willing to pay extra. Right now they don't exist, so its a matter of how much government is willing to subsidize or buy.

 

Now, who would ever make a car like that?

 

Note how fast and easy it is to equip Toyota with temporary H2 supplies. This is what I've been saying we ship H2 cylinder trucks around this country already for decades.

 

It's fast and easy, but not fast refill or cheap.

 

Not very easy. They can only half fill, and ofcourse this is probably $30/kg hydrogen. How easy do you think it will be to get people to buy fuel cell cars that have a range of 156 miles, limited refueling, and fuel costs $30/kg? Yep, probably 1000. How many hundreds of millions should tax payers pay to help get that going?

You can quickly set up the network if you get someone to pay for it.

Rember the promise. only $1M/station. So far california has spent $40M, and willl have upgraded 3 stations and constructed 7 new ones that will be live by the end of the year. Over promise and under deliver. They expected 35 new stations and some uprades to the 9 existing by the end of the year. Next year they spend anouther $20M. They are promising 50 or 60, but we know they will fall short again. Time to admit after $60M you can't build stations with only $1M/station of subsidy, and creating a new company to win the bids is risky.

 

you gotta laugh .... GM's X flim flam artist running the program. 3 stations ... divided into 40 mil. $10 mil a piece. Oh well, it's only a broke state's taxpayer money. Those trucks hauling hydrogen around ... too bad they can't just deliver (a half fill) to the hand full of owners homes. Better that, than going somewhere else and filling half way. Wow - It's like listening to a Monty python episode.
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that minority of people who don't have a single outlet to plug, sure as heck can't afford a car that costs six figures in present-day reality. Remember the kiss method. Hydrogen is the antithesis of keeping it simple, much less keeping it less costly, much less keeping it natural gas or coal pollution free.
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those few condos or apartments that don't even have a 120 v plug .... that might cost thousands to remedy. That might be financially possible, even by having the landlord pay for it. Compare that to the hundreds of billions to even remotely bring hydrogen infrastructure into existence, all on the backs of taxpayers. With hydrogen, gobbling up subsidy dollars at over 3X the amounts ever given to plugins (nevermind Toyota's false/ derogatory commercial ad campaign attempting to kill plugins) - the absurdity is glaring.
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if it'd work - yes, natural gas /coal to hydrogen could do magnitudes more. It's just that those magnitudes are dwarfed by hydrogen's infrastructure costs, which are magnitudes more than the magnitudes of it's benefits. And then you end up with something more expensive, that did nothing to clean up its environmental harm.
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