Mirai gets 67 MPGe - official

My car has never been filled by a portable unit - our dealer opted out of getting it. I've only seen photos of them.

I show 8 "Toyota Approved" stations open in So Cal and an additional 5 that are "non retail" which means I'd need a code to access them. I show Northern CA "Toyota Approved" stations open in Coalinga (mid state by Tesla's Harris Ranch supercharger), San Jose, So San Francisco (SFO airport area) and West Sacramento.

See cafcp.org This site also allows you to sign up for text messages/emails to alert you when stations are put off or on line. Will definitely use that when I travel to Nor Cal (Use 92660 as a sample zipcode)

Hydrogen filling is not linear, the pump will stop periodically during filling, I assume to rebuild pressure or adjust to the fuel temperature (I really don't know and am guessing). But the whole process is pretty quick - I timed filling my emptiest tank (only 20 miles range remaining having driven 301 miles) and it took 4 1/2 minutes to fill 4.395 kg. I've filled 6 times so far without any problems at 4 different So Cal stations. Costa Mesa, UC-Irvine, Diamond Bar and La Canada Flintridge. San Juan Capistrano was having some more testing done although it shows open right now.

The Mirai takes the 10,000psi H70 pump to fill completely. If for some reason only the H35 pumps were available, you'd only have the pressure to be half-filled. I believe the trailers were only H35. I haven't had that problem; all the stations I've been at have had both available.

My MPGe to date as measured by the car with 1,417 miles is 65.31, my best day's commute was 75.7 MPGe over 117.5 miles.

 

Mark, thanks so very much!
I really appreciate the real world information and viewpoint of an actual owner

 

The hydrogen filling time depends five variables:

1. hydrogen temperature in the tank
2. hydrogen temperature in the pump fill tank
   
3. pressure of the car's tank
4. pressure of the fill tank
5. ambient temperature

The goal is to fill the tank without the hydrogen igniting. The gas heats up in the car's tank during filling. The colder the hydrogen at the station, the faster it can be pumped in before hitting the top safe temparture limit. The hotter outside air and tank hydrogen is to begin with will cause the system to slow to limit heat build up.

High station pressure is important because the higher the pressure delta between it and the tank. the faster it can fill. The station pressure is the hard limit on how fast the tank can be filled, with the temperatures imposing the safe limit.

Filling up in the middle of the day, during a summer heat wave, could mean longer fill times, as the system tries to avoid hitting the safe temp limit. Arriving after that station has been busy, and it doesn't take many cars for these early stations, you will see longer fill times. It takes time for the compressor to repressurize the fill tank, and chill the hydrogen back down. Worse case for the most advanced station should only be 15 minutes though.

As for the pump pausing. It could be for pressure build up or hydrogen temperature, but I think it is just get current readings on the variables above. The little pressure gauge on my 12v air compressor drops a psi or two after I turn it off.

 

I've never really timed a gasoline fill so I did it last weekend on my wife's subie using the middle setting of the pump handle hold feature. 15 gals= 1 min 45 secs.

Because I drive across town to one of the cheapest locations (store card), total time including roundtrip, possible wait for a pump, paying, etc. is usually over 30 minutes. I try to combine it with a shopping trip but that doesn't always happen.

 

Can't say filling a gaseous fuel can never be as quick as a liquid one, but the extra cost might make it prohibitive for a commercial station. Even if it happens, the gaseous station will still be limit in the amount of cars they can fill in a specified time frame due to the requirement to refill the fill/pump tanks to a pressure higher than what the cars' tanks. A liquid fuel station is just limited to the size of its tanks, and when the delivery truck arrives.

 

you mean there are actual electrolysis / Electrically manufactured hydrogen? If so - why?!? .... that's horribly less efficient than just burning natural gas for hydrogen ... at least until the fracked natural gas glut ends....
.

 

I'm not sure if they do or have an electrolysis station. If they do, it likely have PV on site.
Regardless, California is mandating a portion of the hydrogen needs to be renewable/carbon neutral. Even if all of that renewable is coming from sources like landfill gas, and none from electrolysis, the electricity used needs the be renewable. I would not be surprised if NG hydrogen counts as partial renewable if the station uses renewable electric.

 

Mirai in CA actually runs on hydrogen generated with 33% renewable and 67% natural gas.

That's way more renewable than CA grid for EVs to run.

Edit: Jeff N beat me to it.

Now that my solar panels are up, the next projects are renovating kitchen and both bathrooms. After those, I am not throwing any more money into this pit.

As a plugin car owner, I have defended H2 because it was pushed to be perceived as purely from natural gas fossil fuel while denying any possibility of coming from renewable. And, plugin advocates unrealistically hype EV cleanliness.

That leads you to your assumption with the statement above. I find that to be very appalling.

Yes, if you guys are off the grid. Otherwise, use regional grid average.

The same with lensovet's employer. If they claim they use 100% renewable, that amount has to be subtracted from CA grid mix average.

 

not true - (& welcome back ) its the hydrogen's lobby (&Toyota) that continue to falsely claim hydrogen is clean, even as Toyota/Japan plan to run lots of Australian coal to feed their future hydrogen project. Yea, yea, yea - hydrogen can be made clean & CO2 free .... and IF it ever CAN be done without being a bigger (taxpayer) money looser - as big a money looser as extracting gold from sea water - i'll beat the hydrogen drum too. It doesn't take a genius to understand why the oil companies refused to build a hydrogen Highway - even though they get to sell the fossil fuels to run it - it's because there's no profit in it.
Big business understands it - big government and lobbyists can't understand it.
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Actually all the Renewables are delayed or in stations that toyota says aren't mirai compatable. That means if you fill up at the toyota dealer or the public stations that can fast fill today, its all natural gas SMR based. Sure some renewables are in the grid electricity to compress and chill, but that is the grid.

Will these delayed stations get built? idk. We will find out. For today its 100% SMR and grid electricity for toyota recommended mirai filling. We should get anouther report from carb in july, and hopefully some of those renewable fast filling stations will be built by then. 33%. No way, and the law says it doesn't have to be there unless the government pays and their are enough cars.

as above mandate isn't working yet. That tri generation from biogas hasn't been upgraded to fast fills yet, and if it is, my guess is when they do they mix in some good ol' natuaral gas to maintain volume. CARB promises are delayed, again.

There is solar electroysis that is liquified and trucked, but again this is not at a toyota approved fast fill station for the mirai. Its in an older slower station.

Now some may say, well maybe 33% of the stations, not 33% of the hydrogen is renewable. That is not true either, but plans are in the future 46% of the first stations will be renewable. We need to see if they are actually built and the percentage of hydrogen that comes from them. My guess is if its less than 33% carb will make up anouther excuse, as for now the volume is too low for the regulation to kick in.

 

And hydrogen advocates unrealistically hype the cleanliness of their fuel, while using dated data on the amount of coal used for electric generation.

Why? Because it would make the EV look a little worse in California? If it is PV on site, and the car charged during the day, the business likely still has excess power going onto the grid.

The renewable electric needed for renewable hydrogen will be coming off the grid.

Depends on how they got there. Renewable electric made on site shouldn't be counted as part of the grid until it goes into the grid. Charging during the day in the case of solar means the electric going into the car is pre-grid as it were.

 

as pointed out by austingreen, this is patently false. none of the currently-running stations are renewable. zero.

lucky for you, I posted those numbers too (but somehow you conveniently ignored them). i'll put them here again:

B-Class is total 160 g/mile

so, what are the emissions for the Mirai that's filled today?

 

Yes, without any source.

According to above, it is almost as clean as Focus BEV which is rated 130 g/mi with CA electricity. So, Mirai should be around 140-150 g/mi using CA hydrogen.

More importantly, B250e is rated 260 g/mi using national grid-mix average, which is higher than a regular Prius rated at 190 g/mi. Depending on the rollout of hydrogen in all other states, Mirai emission is still up in the air (pun intended) but at the worst case, it should be as low as Prius.

 

The numbers in that graph seem to show the Mirai refueling on 33% renewable stations, which don't yet exist.
I'm surprised you missed that information.

I'll see if I can dig that up for you.

 

A hydrogen station company has to provide 33.3% renewable hydrogen in the mix for the chain of stations they operate, and are state funded. The logistics makes it easier to have a 100% renewable station for every two other ones that they run, since renewable is made on site or really close by.

None of those 100% renewable stations are open now. These are the ones that will also have a low through put in terms of filling cars, because of production rates.

I will not be surprised in CARB lowers the renewable limit, as they are allowed too.

 

Moving the goalposts - you gotta love it. I'll bet I could have won the last Olympic Marathon - if during the middle of the race - realizing I'm in last place - I - and I alone, could set my own personal finish line at the 10K mark.
.

 

Mary Nichols is the CARB queen, peasant. She and she alone (almost) decides what the goals will be.

 

My source is the california fuel cell partnership. They are the ones that report which stations have been built, what is retail, etc. you know the fuel cell lobby publicizes it before CARB.


According to above, it is almost as clean as Focus BEV which is rated 130 g/mi with CA electricity. So, Mirai should be around 140-150 g/mi using CA hydrogen.[/quote]
http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2014/10/How-Clean-Are-Hydrogen-Fuel-Cells-Fact-Sheet.pdf

Except that didn't happen. Instead of 46% it turned out that 0% of the retail stations were from renewable sources. Note many included me projected that renewable hydrogen would be harder to build than CFCP and CARB were letting on. Well CARB hit 0% instead of 46%. Worse yet there are 6 mobil refuelers that are trucked long distances to refuel adding diesel ghg to the calculations. What are they today? Worse than 210 g/mile in a mirai today. Yep the assumptions in that graph were wrong.

Well lets say it is around a prius today, and using the maths put forth helped with $45,000 of credits and fuel subsidies. That doesn't seem so hot. Each mirai actually puts out more ghg than a leaf, i3, volt, tesla model S in california. Why does it get so many more credits? Right some magic will happen and all those stations will get built green. Hey it could happen, but I'm still waiting

I would A) like to just build the 100 stations the fuel cell lobby has been asking for, but build them cheap not slow. CARB has proved that building renewable stations is harder than it has been saying. If you are going to use figures based on promises, look at the promises for the grid as well. Could it go to 33%? Sure. But it is far from a sure thing. Its not really required today, the volume of hydrogen pumped for the rule to actually kick in is not estimated to hit until 2018, and with fuel cell adoption lower than carb projected that may really be 2020.

 

simple !
eventually with more time .... more taxpayer funded research ... more takeaways from better tech, more & more taxpayer funded infrastructure billions ... eventually it'll work.
Wait - was that a rhetorical question?
.

 

I've got no problem with the tax payer funded research. Definitely if we get 4 or 5 miracle breakthroughs it could work. The problem is the over blown hype has slowed progress in things that can be done.

Open Fuel Standard. Both the fuel cell people and the ethanol people don't like this one, but prior to carb embracing fuel cells california had flex fuel methanol cars. A flex fuel prius or volt would only cost $100 more than the current models, if that. Then if we get breakthroughs with cheap renewable hydrogen, it can simply be made into renewable methanol and added to gasoline. A flex fuel prius would be about as efficient on the stuff as a mirai is (its cheap to use hydrogen/electricity/water to make methanol, the expensive part is the hydrogen).

Plug-ins - these are finally taking off, but california slowed progress when carb first put in the electric car mandate then killed it. Waranty requirements are much higher on phevs which were the logical step in 2004. CARB still is emasculating the i3-rex as a bevx with a tiny gas tank to make sure people don't develop the best technology, and favoring the fuel cell. Definitely if the zev mandate had been weakend instead of killed for plug-ins the ovonics patents would have stayed, and we would be further down the line. Still I'm hopeful that by 2030, costs for plug-ins have fallen far enough that only long distance drivers, and those that don't do many miles a year will buy new cars without a plug. Infrastructure and attitudes move on a S-curve ;-)