Featured Toyota apparently abandons the BEV market for now.

I'll add market conditions to that. Some technologies will be more workable in different areas.

I don't really see my suggestion of using balloons for hydrogen coming to be, but we are well versed at storing natural gas, propane, ammonia, and other flammable gases and low pressure liquids. Make the hydrogen where it will be used, and store it at a much lower pressure than needed for vehicles, and most of the cost and safety issues for it become manageable.

Making hydrogen isn't convoluted. Electrolysis is a pretty well known process. Then you just burn it in an ICE for electricity. Mix it with some natural gas, and it can be used in current turbine plants now. Get creative, and you could probably use the oxygen in the turbine also. The convoluted part comes in if you want to recapture the water vapor for reuse. Perhaps the turbine gets replaced by a fuel cell in the future.

It may not be the ideal method, but we are talking about capturing energy that is over wise lost. It just needs a reasonable return on investment to make the accountants happy.

 

South Korea to increase H2-vehicles to 80,000 by 2022
http://yna.kr/AEN20190116002751320

Hydrogen refueling station no. 37 opened in California.
Citrus Heights (Sacramento area) Hydrogen Station Opens -#37 | California Fuel Cell Partnership

 

Toyota Exec Worries Industry ‘Over-Stimulated’ on EVs, Tesla New Thing | WardsAuto

100% growth in bevs in the US, but Lentz only considers non tesla's.

We do get a feel for hybrids versus plug-ins from the numbers.

We have 361,307 plug-ins from inside evs that leaves around 316,000 non-plug-in hybrids, fuel cells, and natural gas vehicles. Plug-ins accounted for 2.1% of new vehicles sold in the US, hybrids around 1.8%. Toyota does have a plug-in, the prime, but they seem to be losing sales by slow rolling and they seem to not want to admit it.

 

Thank you for that painful taxpayer $$ spent reminder. I wonder if it was the $2million or $3million version to build - which turns on what type of system tech they use, not including maintenance cost, manufacturing or product delivery - or money necessary to pay the attendant.
Let's see ....
Regular self service gas station/franchise purchase (not taxpayers) :
$¼ million + $160K yearly fee to pay attendant, franchise fee & buy/deliver product.

Standalone 50kW-120kW DC quick charger ~ (some % of install only, un some areas) $20-$75K.

Decisions Decisions ....

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Small, rich countries might be able to swing to cost of hydrogen infrastructure. Most others can't.

That is 37 in a state that is bigger than Japan, and has had hydrogen cars available to the public for at least a decade.
New York state is bigger than South Korea.

 

don't be too hard on him, the Avatar says Sweden, where about 1 out of 5 has a geothermal heat pump. Geothermal energy is one of the least wasteful ways to reform hydrogen to then create electricity. Not to say it wouldn't be better to use geothermal for battery storing electricity, just saying it's not such a hideous waste over there in a relatively smaller populated area. Different dynamics.
.

 

Yeah, another small, rich country. The optics are much different for hydrogen when you start considering larger spaces.

 

Toyota Chief Again Knocks On Electric Cars

 

Maybe the best place to get hydrogen into the market is in commercial vehicles. Then, when we build an infrastructure, we bring on passenger cars.
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Backwards thinking. Most commercial trucks, such as UPS or Fedex delivery trucks, do not need the quick refueling. They could be electric and charge slowly at night and have just the right amount of range for a full day of deliveries, plus some safety margin. These are very well known numbers (within the companies). And different routes have different ranges so they could easily roll them in incrementally.
They also own their night time parking so they could install the chargers. They could even install fast chargers and just have an employee to move the trucks or cables.

Mike

 

or maybe it's because there is no money in BEV's and a lot of reliability risk...

"Electric car maker Tesla is planning to fire around seven percent of its full-time staff, as the road ahead will be “very difficult,” according to an email sent to employees by CEO Elon Musk." That's around 3,000 jobs.
"In the letter, published on Tesla’s website, Musk cited “tiny” profits and pressure to deliver lower cost Model 3 vehicles “in all markets” as the key reasons for the decision."
"Tesla stock was down over seven percent in early trading on Friday."
I crush your head crush crush crush
https://cdni.rt.com/files/2019.01/article/5c41d363dda4c8210c8b4595.jpg

 

Local, regional, and long haul commercial fleets have different needs. BEV can meet the local ones, and maybe the regional, but could be lacking for long haul. Comes down to specifics. Toyota, and the hydrogen lobby, should have started with commercial vehicles simply because they don't require a fuel station on every corner like a fleet of personal cars would. The infrastructure investment would have been lower.

Didn't Tesla hire something 20k last year to speed up the Model 3 production?

VW spent a large amount on a BEV dedicated car platform with the first model coming out this year in Europe. The profits can't be that tiny.

 

I picked up more Tesla stock at $320 and have another buy option pending. Hopefully the panic sellers will make it happen. <GRINS>

BTW, you follow "rt.com" news? Guess we know who you follow. <SMIRK>

Bob Wilson

 

Musk's own words mostly. Just avoiding our local media and governments "Swamp Gas" I too used to live inside the beltway. Was that a buy to cover your short? When you getting the larger amp hour battery for the Rex? 2019 BMW i3 gets a 42 kWh battery - PushEVs Russia has the most Hydroelectric power and cheap too.. To bad it's to cold for Bevs.

Interesting spreadsheet on how deep these Bev producers are pushing the battery SoC. Saving grace for these big pack Bevs like Tesla might be how little of the range or SoC is used before they are recharged. Comparative EV and Battery pack specs | Speak EV - Electric Car Forums
re: https://priuschat.com/threads/prime-traction-battery-properties.202909/reply?quote=2834093

 

I had my 1981 Comutacar driving around at -30F, gas pedal was spongy but off I went.

From what I’ve been told modified lead acid (Stronger acid) and standard Nickle batteries work fine in Russian weather.

 

Just like that paradigm-shift experienced by the computer industry decades ago, the automotive industry must now adjust to low-margin sales.

Those who remember that history, it was quite significant. We saw major players leave the game. Approach to sales and product offerings required major change.

Who would emerge as a strong player was not obvious. People turning a blind-eye now to subsidies and pretending base-price is competitive with common choices are in for quite a reality shock.

 

My 2014 BMW i3-REx still has 18.5 kWh capacity which fully meets my requirements ... in 2019.

FYI, I sold some TSLA to diversify my stock holdings and made a nice profit. Then my diversity stock out performed my core TSLA stock. FECIES, screwed up again.

If you’re a Russia-phile, I am OK with that as I like the USA. People should love their homeland. I’ll take the USA and you can have the rest.

Bob Wilson

 

Yes - the chief sales guy / Toyota's head honcho of all things says Electrics not now . . . . meanwhile the guys w/ the brains say otherwise. i

Toyota Mirai Chief Engineer Says Musk&#039;s Right About Electric Cars

It's a simple case of physics meets fantasy-land / wishful thinking. And just like the practicality of flying cars & jet packs ... where the gvmt can sink a ton of dough into 'em .... it doesn't ever mean it'll be practical. oops ... i mean, at least not for (another)10 more years.
(i'll bet that engineer got transferred off to a very small arctic island somewhere ... 'till he sees the Toyota reality)
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Not a California resident, it might be interesting to identify the CARB members who voted for or advocated the 9x credit for fuel cell vehicles.

Bob Wilson

 

after seeing the big grin on yoda's face when introducing the new 86, i think it's gonna be a long wait.

when the top dog is a uge fossil fuel fan, it makes it tough on the engineers