Featured Toyota Chasing Tesla Styling With 2nd Generation 2021 Mirai Fuel Cell Vehicle

Make it an electric and call it a gen 5 Prius and I'm all over that.

 

^^^same^^^

 

They should have stuck with something like this.

 

Here's some fuel cell info.

 

Thanks William! That was a great example of the strengths of hydrogen fuel cell technology.

I’ve always thought hydrogen had great uses for storing excess renewable energy production.
Interesting that they didn’t talk at all about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Their model is to use the system to transport hydrogen and use it to create electricity to charge electric cars (as well as provide heat and water).

 

yea gee, it makes one wonder - when entire regions of Hawaii, Australia, Samoa, Etc needed the most ECONOMICAL source of power storage when grid power goes out .... why is it that battery backups were chosen, instead.
Tesla’s enormous battery in Australia, just weeks old, is already responding to outages in ‘record’ time - The Washington Post

yea - i wonder if that's because fcv's are FAR from being famous as nimble & race ready.
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Don't get me wrong, batteries have a bunch of advantages over hydrogen. However, there are use cases, spelled out in the video, where hydrogen works well.

 

Batteries are good for frequent short duration grid outages of limited size. Once they are drained, however, they are as useful for power generation as bricks. They are also easy to build, have a limited footprint and require no additional resources other than the switch gear. The economics, however, are questionable when compared with other solutions when once considers the cost per kilowatt hour delivered. And there is no question that for long duration outages or "off the grid" power, large batteries just can't compete with power generation, including nuclear, pumped storage, geothermal, solar, wind, gas- or coal-fired turbines or hydro. Batteries don't generate power. Fuel cells do.

 

actually, both are fuel storage systems. The difference is, the hydrogen for fuel cells typically comes from the cheapest non-renewable .... like coal. Running the numbers - just burning the coal in a steam turbine generation system would be less expensive to get electricity, than the hydrogen from Coal system. Either way, both release CO2 unless it's sequestered. That's why solar and wind farms are typically married to battery backup systems. That's why hydrogen systems ARE becoming less popular, even as massive battery backup systems grow. There may be a more economical place for large fuel cell storage in some markets, someday. Maybe "in 10 years" .
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The same could be said for hydrogen tanks...once they are emptied they are as useful as bricks.
No, wait, they aren't as useful as brinks because bricks don't roll around, you can use bricks as door stops.


Mike

 

If you have a grid with natural gas ccgt and renewable, then batteries can do a great job making the grid less expensive and more reliable. Batteries can quickly react to power fluctuations, allowing cycling gas to turn on and come up to demand, or to store the electricity. The australian battery that tesla provided made back 1/3 of its cost in the first year. 70% was specified to provide power for grid reliability, while 30% could be used to shift timing of energy for the grid.

Now hydrogen fuel cells when fueled by electricity, first take electricity to split water, then use the hydrogen (oxygen could be collected and sold too) and oxygen from the air to produce electricity. This can be used for shifting energy to more valuable times on the grid, but there are losses in both directions so it is less efficient than a battery but until very recently much less costly. Economics may soon make batteries less expensive here as well, but large low pressure storage tanks are fairly cheap, so power can be shifted over weeks or months with hydrogen if fuel cells get cheap enough. In a car like the mirai, this type of fuel cell will necessarily be less efficient than a battery requiring around 3x the electricity.

Finally there is the fuel cells fueled directly by fuels such as natural gas or methanol, or indirectly from coal or other less refined fossil fuels. These can provide energy to the grid, cars, or businesses from these fossil fuels.

 

I'm no fan of Hyundai or Nissan, get it "no fan in the Leaf" - oh well, bad joke.
Anyways, I saw a Hyundai Fuel Cell SUV about 4 years ago on the road locally. I guess they've been hard at work on hydrogen since than too.
Watch Out Tesla and Nikola! The New Hyundai Neptune HDC-6 Concept Semi Truck Is Here With Hydrogen Fuel Cell Power (Debut) - The Fast Lane Truck
Rigs can be a bit pricey for the regular Diesels, can only imagine what one of these run for!

 

Look at the gills on that Nio.

Bob Wilson

 

Ha!
They ain't got NOTHING compared to THIS set of gills


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There are a ton of Nexos available around Southern California. Love the self park & retrieve option, but dislike the loss of range going from Blue to Limited trim to get that. Offering $13k/3 yr of fuel plus 3 yr free maintenance, (all Hyundais have free maintenance), with great lease rate for the Blue trim, I think my wife might actually go for one...

moto g(7) power ?

 

I have seen low mile Auctioned 2016 “Mirais” go for as little as $5000

I wonder how hard it would be to convert the Mirai back to the Lexus HS hybrid donar it’s made from and use the tanks for CNG?

$5000 is a nice cost for new sheet metal , hard to work out the economics due to the cost of shipping.

Funny part is the Mirai transaxle once you get the plastic coverings off looks like a normal Prius transaxle with a cover over the place where the engine would normally mount hmmm.

 

Danny / the OP's thread is coming up on 10 months old now ... not a complete zombie yet - though somewhat getting nearly as beat ... having every pro & con issue hit, & hit & hit again. Gotta admire our commitment . . . . carry on . . .



It'll be a real popcorn eating experience - watching (or not) whether Toyota will still try to beat the public with hydrogen at the Olympics ... what with the likelihood of no Olympics due to the pandemic.
Maybe they'll take that as a sign from the gods
Then we can beat that notion.

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Hmmm I just read an interview with Keiji Kaita, executive vice president of Toyota Motor Corp.'s powertrain company and field general manager of its battery business. Their Solid State battery is coming along and he noted it was able to refill in 15 minutes from 0 to full. They are working on expanding it’s potential but of course they won’t have the scaling the current Li-Ion batteries enjoy (Read: so it won’t be cheap). The electrolyte is sulfur based which was interesting and they are pushing 90% performance for 30 years. Like the anode and cathode, now you have to deal with the electrolyte deforming because it is now a solid. They have to work on mass production because it requires an ultra-dry nonaqueous clean room. Yes they have prototypes and have installed them in running concept vehicles. The cells are about the size and thickness of a thin spiral bound notebook.

The Olympic delay gave them another year to work on the concept cars and the batteries. Unfortunately the article is from a subscription based account so I’m hesitant to post the link.

Mr Kaita expects to aim for a 2025 limited production and yes it will be with the new JV they just set up with Panasonic.

So the question remains, will they find a cheap way to compress and deliver hydrogen or will their own battery powered vehicles solve the hydrogen question?

I mean will it look like this: H2 Dual Filling Station | Air Liquide Energies


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