China Believes In Hydrogen over Tesla.

What is the number they are tripling?

 

That's enough to drive a FCEV bus around 18,000 miles.
NREL Fuel Cell Bus Analysis Finds Fuel Economy to be 1.4 Times Higher than Diesel | News | NREL

It would take 3 years to fill the Hindenburg.

 

Hydrogen is great but will cost more than simple electric vehicles, money will drive people away from it

 

Unless we find a decent way of producing hydrogen*, I thought the consensus of everyone with some knowledge about the subject was that it is a dead end.

For production of H2, most of the time, natural gas is used. And it will come as no surprise that the Dutch busses which run on (an X amount of) natural gas (there's hundreds of them) can drive WAY further than the few experimental ones that run on H2 (made with the same X amount of natural gas).

In the 90's many, many, many governments subsidised the development of H2 in cars. If it had been viable, Tesla would never had stood a chance.

But that's my opinion.

* and a decent way of producing isn't using 'surplus' wind and solar in electrolysis. The efficiency of that is abysmal and could be put to better use by making the grid a little more intelligent.

 

Hydrogen is the future, just not in passenger vehicles.

It goes like this: Giant H2 nuclear fusion reactor at the center of our solar system. Photons emitted irradiate our earth. Photons are converted to electricity in solar panels. Radiation from the H2 nuclear fusion reactor warms the earth and creates wind which turns wind turbines which produce electricity. Radiation from the H2 nuclear fusion reactor warms the earth and sustains the water cycle which turns hydroelectric turbines which produces electricity. Electricity powers BEVs.


I just spoke to my sister in Los Angeles. The Mirai is her only vehicle and she lives in apartment with 40 EV plugs.

She notes “7 out of 10 times” her Woodland Hills H2 station says “service unavailable” on the pump. To compound matters, what online says and what the pump says are often wrong at Woodland Hills. She notes tow trucks are there all the time picking up stranded Mirai.

Next closest stations are too far away (Thousand Oaks, Hollywood, and Santa Monica). Santa Monica and Hollywood are out of fuel all the time.

According to the terms of her lease, you can’t drive the Mirai out of California even if H2 is available there (which is rare).

She is asking Toyota to let her surrender her lease (has about another year on it) without penalty due to how unreliable using this vehicle is, but Toyota is being difficult and so far saying no.

 

When reports of hydrogen plants are talking electrolysis, they aren't talking about just sticking electrodes into a tank of water. New plants will likely use what is basically a PEM fuel cell running in reverse. These are more efficient.

Using wind and solar is fine, and we do need storage methods to align their production up with use. That likely won't be hydrogen, and excess renewable power might be too fickle in order to get green hydrogen price competitive with fossil hydrogen. The price of off peak power will also rise with hydrogen plants coming on line. So cheap green hydrogen would likely require wind power and hydrogen plants to be integrated.

We are already using hydrogen to make a lot of things. A big one is ammonia that mostly goes into fertilizers. if we want to move away from fossil fuels, we'll need a practical way of making green hydrogen. Decarbonizing industry doesn't mean that hydrogen will be practical for personal cars. Maybe commercial trucks, buses, and trains, but there are other fuels for consideration there. Some of which can be made from green hydrogen.

The real block to hydrogen cars isn't in making the hydrogen, it is in getting the hydrogen onto the cars. While hopefully not losing usable space in the car.

A CNG Camry hybrid can go the same distance as a Mirai when the hydrogen comes from natural gas, and we can make methane from green hydrogen. The Camry will just lose a lot of trunk space, like the Mirai, for the tank.

The Lexus GS starts at $51k. Why would someone looking for luxury choose the Mirai over that? Even using premium gas, it is cheaper to fuel, and has better performance. What does the Mirai provide to the ICE buyer that other luxury ICE models don't. Why pick it over a BEV or PHEV, both of which can be had from luxury brands that aren't Tesla?

The Clarity FCX was available to the public in 2008. So they are still having problems with getting hydrogen to cars after 12 years

 

You're right, if she did and many others they would not have acquired a Mirai.

They sold her ultimately by telling her 2 more H2 stations would be coming nearby in 2019 and that didn't happen then or even this year. Can't fuel your car, that's bad faith. So many complained that Toyota offered to let them skip some payments, but still many pissed lessees. They're not going back to hydrogen even with the give away deals.

More people are disinterested in H2 today than they were just a few years ago for passenger vehicles.

 

Let's see. Something happens, and you can't use your new car for weeks or even months. Since the manufacturer waived some of your payments, and provided a rental with free fuel, you shouldn't complain.

That's just BS.

 

That attitude will not get people into FCEVs.

 

They're doing a heck of a job driving people away. Wait, you can't drive away with all those empty H2 stations, you're just stuck. Prudent, you say.

Now they have to send sales person to PriusChat to advertise for them, that's how bad it's gotten.