Featured Warning from Toyota President - Akio Toyoda

Because you're suggesting that the lack of a Li-ion listing for the Prius on Toyota's web site is because they are planning something for the mid-cycle refresh.

You commented to a conversation about which Prius trims in the US use Li-ion or NiMH. Instead of simply confirming that the Eco, Threes, and Fours do use Li-ion, which you likely knew, you chose to attack GM and introduce mid-cycle changes into the topic. Which would invite speculation on what those changes might be.

 

Interesting spin, but no substance. I compared upgrade approach to upgrade approach... which is on-topic of the moving forward.

Also, I made no reference whatsoever to the Li-Ion listing either. Again, we are talking upgrades, not current offerings.

 

The engineering also includes:

• Inflamable - nothing inside the NiMH burns.
• Rehydrate - adding water and/or potassium hydroxide restores capacity.
• No irreversible reactions - unlike many LiON chemistries, NiMH doesn't poison itself over time. They can leak H{2} which leads to dehydration but that can be resolved by replacing the lost water.
• cost - negotiable especially as they are trivial to recycle.

Bob Wilson

 

And we'll all glow a little more every day......

A gas plant blows up and hundreds are injured or killed compared to the millions for 1 nuclear plant...

So pipelines for oil and gas (not rail!), if only there was a reasonably close friendly source while transitioning to clean energy...
Hmm guess not better keep subsidizing those unfriendly's, lets get those tankers loaded we've got water to boil...........

What would have happened if Carter or Regan had steered to safe alternatives, ah water under the bridge....

Has anyone factored in these fires for our atmospheric carbon load and how many decades worth of carbon tax we'll have to catch up on, you know $$ to stem global war-, er I mean climate change... going to have great crops and lawns if this stuff ever washes out of the skies....

Wonder what the sun's been up to today??.......

Distribute the power and we all prosper, peace!

 

With 440 nuclear power plants around the world, way too many of them in operation beyond their planned lifespan, what could go wrong? When the population control crazies start talking about too many people, I mention the number of nuke plant messes and eco-restoration work this planet is in need and suggest we'll need 10 billion just to clean up the mess made by the first 4 billion of us.

 

It's a red ball in the haze here.


(About 8:30 am today.)

 

No, you are talking upgrades. Which is fine if you weren't quoting a series of comments asking and discussing what the various Prius trims currently equip in terms of batteries.

NiMH does have some pros over Li-ion, which I admitted could make it the better choice in a few EV applications.

As for cost, Nickel is simply the rarer mineral in comparison to lithium. The recycling happens because of its value. Tesla's costs for Li-ion are under $200/kWh. Haven't looked into NiMH costs recently, but its big push at cost reduction happened during the time of the Prius' major growth. The cost was around $500/kWh last I looked about a year ago. Toyota's cost should be lower, but not enough to beat Li-ion. If it did have a better cost parity to Li-ion, the larger required buffer for longevity will increase the per pack cost for a vehicle.

We got plenty of coal plants working beyond their lifespan that are likely causing more harm.

 

That is no excuse for claiming I said something I didn't. Ignore.

 

I never claimed you referenced the lack of Li-ion listing
I merely pointed out that your bringing up mid-cycle refreshes and Toyota's practice of being quiet in a mini thread that did mention it opened up the speculation.

 

I can think of a few disasters, associated - rightly or wrongly - with the name Hindenburg, but why would anyone off-topic on this thread …

 

Could part of the reason they're migrating from NiMH to Li-ion be pure marketting: it's new, it's improved? It's also more compact I think.

But when I first read about the the change in battery chemistry my emotional reaction was just the new-and-improved thing.

 

I stayed with the tried & true NiMH, myself. Let somebody else be on the bleeding edge.

 

li-on has been around awhile, i think they have a pretty good handle on it.

 

When was the last time a coal plant disaster forced the permanent evacuation of an entire city or province and took many, many decades and hundreds of billions of dollars for a cleanup process with no end? I have no idea what the intention is behind the point you're trying to make other than appearing completely ridiculous. Please DO NOT elaborate!

 

New coal plant designs use less coal per kWh and lower emissions. Understand I'm not anti-coal as much as against inefficient coal burning while we add renewables.

Bob Wilson

 

Yeah that's a huge problem trying to go entirely electric over loading the power grid that is not going to handle millions of EVs sucking up massive amounts electrical current simultaneously. That's why I think Hydrogen fuel cell is a better technology as an alternative to petroleum. Although the Mirai is technically a Hybrid like the Prius as it contains both a Battery pack and Hydrogen fuel Cell as two resources for electricity. Hopeful Toyota can phase out the need of a battery pack and build an entirely pure Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric car. Batteries is a problem as they are very toxic to the planet and very difficult to recycle. They degrade over time and become very expensive to replace that cost thousands. I like the Idea of Hydrogen Fuel Cell because is has far more density and energy storage compared to batteries. Its perfect for long range and commercial hauling in the trucking industry. Going up steep hills and pulling thousands of pounds of weight can put a lot of stress on the battery that can cause accelerated battery degradation and sudden range drop in a short amount of time leading to frequent charging. It only takes 5 mins to fill up with Hydrogen compared to 30-40 charging a battery powered car. Its all about keeping the same experience just if you owned a regular gasoline car. No long wait times. Essentially any existing gas station can be easily be converted into a Hydrogen Station. Fuel cell prices will eventually come way down as more Hydrogen Fuel Cell pumps are deployed.

 

Could you point us to the source of your information? The reason is they are dreadfully wrong and if we teach them, we won't have to deal with more mislead people.

That's why I think Hydrogen fuel cell is a better technology as an alternative to petroleum. ​

Commercial hydrogen is made by steam reformation of methane and releases 4x by weight CO{2} to 1 kg of hydrogen. As for the grid:
Source: Southern California Daily Energy Report

You'll notice the peak, daily load happens in the afternoon and is half that load at night when the majority of EVs are charged at home. To encourage this, the utility offers lower cost, night rates, called Time Of Charge rates. I recently used the TOC feature to charge in the early morning to let the car cool. The larger charging stations capable of +100 kW rates are linked to the utility which has the option to reduce their load. Even my home charger can coordinate with the utility:
JuiceNet Green Emission-Minimizing EV Charging Feature

Although the Mirai is technically a Hybrid like the Prius as it contains both a Battery pack and Hydrogen fuel Cell as two resources for electricity. Hopeful Toyota can phase out the need of a battery pack and build an entirely pure Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric car. Batteries is a problem as they are very toxic to the planet and very difficult to recycle. They degrade over time and become very expensive to replace that cost thousands. ​

The battery handles regenerative braking. You'd have to double the amount of $16/kg hydrogen. As for battery recycling, it turns out they can be 'mined' just like the original elements. A pile of batteries is actually a battery mine with even higher profits than traditional mines because there is no waste slag and overburden.

I like the Idea of Hydrogen Fuel Cell because is has far more density and energy storage compared to batteries. Its perfect for long range and commercial hauling in the trucking industry. Going up steep hills and pulling thousands of pounds of weight can put a lot of stress on the battery that can cause accelerated battery degradation and sudden range drop in a short amount of time leading to frequent charging. ​

Both Tesla and Nikola are pursuing battery and fuel-cell trucks. The Tesla prototypes are already running battery packs from the Reno Gigafactory to the Fremont factory. Nikola is suing Tesla because the Tesla truck works and Nikola sell lawsuits and PowerPoint presentations.

It only takes 5 mins to fill up with Hydrogen compared to 30-40 charging a battery powered car. Its all about keeping the same experience just if you owned a regular gasoline car. No long wait times. Essentially any existing gas station can be easily be converted into a Hydrogen Station. Fuel cell prices will eventually come way down as more Hydrogen Fuel Cell pumps are deployed.​

Thermodynamics rule the price of hydrogen, $16/kg, the equivalent of one gallon of gas. Although steam reformulation of methane is ~$2-3/kg, there is the overhead of purification (there are fuel cell toxins in the gas,) compression, trucking, and maintenance. In contrast, making hydrogen from electricity (the same grid) takes ~3x the kWh needed to recharge an EV. Then you add the same overhead costs.

Bob Wilson

 

A fuel cell can be a better converter of chemical energy into motion than an ICE, but having a PHEV configuration is a necessity, it would seem.

For one thing, fuel cells show best performance in a stable range of parameters; this probably means that if you force a FC to continuously modulate its output it would be at the expense of its efficiency.

Also without the battery it would be impossible to harvest the kinetic energy of deceleration or going downhill, which would certainly not help with the range (I don't think we already have a FC that can be "reversed" into an electrolytic cell, although it's not impossible).

Finally, the battery can be charged overnight in pretty much any home, so why give up these "cheap" miles? There are some other considerations in favor of the battery, but we'll leave them out for now.

I agree that the batteries we live with today are far from perfect; but their performance, quality and prices have improved, and in a few years we may have much better/cheaper Li-Ion batteries, or batteries, based on a different chemistry, or maybe some kind of a cross-breed between a battery and a supercapacitor. Ubiquitous inductive charging may be a part of the solution, or at least a workaround for the charging time challenge.

To sum up: if successful, the FC would replace the ICE, not the battery - I think. Also, I am not convinced that hydrogen is the best fuel, logistically speaking.