Featured Toyota chief speaks out on EVs

But they can put in a charger, and homes without an HOA don't get chargers for free.

What are the options when the government doesn't install hydrogen stations?

Which is why hydrogen pipeline costs more.

Tanks take up a lot of volume. The gen1 Mirai tanks hold over 32 gallons, and that doesn't account for the thick walls. Then the requirements for pressure vessels means space wasting shapes.

This and fuel cell drive trains being less efficient, means the Mirai only have about has much range as a BEV competitor. While being heavier and having less cargo space.

But no maker of hydrogen cars wants to make them a PHEV. Partly because they need the make large fuel cells now to reach economy in mass production, and because they may not want FCEV seeing that battery alone could work for them.

PHEVs are exercises in compromise. A hydrogen FCEV one will have a short EV range, or hydrogen range under 200 miles.

There are other renewable potential fuels that give quick refills with lower cost for infrastructure.

 

Which is stupid.

That's entirely false.

Which they don't, except for narrow situations.

No. They are an exercise in the smart utilization of resources. They have one power source for peaks and one power source for average. This makes sense when your peaks are 5-20 times as big as your average. You end up with a battery that's 5-10 times smaller than the battery in an EV and a fuel cell stack that's 5-20 times smaller than the fuel cell stack in a fuel cell vehicle.

Let's see - 1/5th + 1/5th < 1, right?
And 1/20th + 1/20th << 1 right?

Only if designed by a moron. It's perfectly possible to design one, with a conventional OML, that's got a battery range of 40-60 mile and a hydrogen range of 400-600 miles.

They have an even less efficient cycle life than hydrogen, and they're more dangerous in a crash.

 

Among the myriad reasons this does not work, how does this H2 PHEV (which only Lee Jay and no manufactures see as marketable) handle hills and mountains without pissing off those H2 PHEV customers and those driving behind them?

Consider not just those few who were prepared with a fully charged battery prior to the start of a grade, but also those many more who were not.

 

Try to pay attention.

"They have one power source for peaks and one power source for average."

A happy coincidence is that a 40 mile electric range battery handles around 3/4 of all vehicle miles traveled *and* the biggest hill in the US (which is less than 60 miles from me, BTW).

The car manages the battery state of charge based on a knowledge of the upcoming grades on the route. That's trivial technology these days. My phone can do it so my car could too.

 

Not if you don’t have a private garage.

 

You are still not paying attention. Try to pay attention.

What system gets up a hill or mountain at highway speeds with a near empty battery and as you say has a "battery that's 5-10 times smaller than the battery in an EV and a fuel cell stack that's 5-20 times smaller than the fuel cell stack in a fuel cell vehicle."

No. Just no. That's not how drivers plan and execute. Fine for Lee Jay edge case of 1 but not for the market. Even your magical, non-marketable, can't make it up grades for non-Lee Jay's H2 PHEV costs too much. But since you know better than all the manufactures...carry on.

 

The new Mirai holds 5.6kg in 3 tanks for 402 miles. It has only 9 cubic feet of trunk space.
40 to 60 miles EV range would need a battery of around 20 kWh. Space saved by the smaller fuel cell goes to the battery.

You haven't answered what happens to those high pressure hydrogen tanks when the fire starts elsewhere on the car.

You do not need a garage to charge a car at home.

 

Here’s a real world use scenario of one of multiple problems that would face a potential H2 PHEV:

We live at the base of the Sierra Nevada with >1 million in our local area alone. Many this winter hop on I-80 and climb 7000’ at 70+ mph to get up to Donner Lake or Lake Tahoe or pass through to Reno. That’s 70+ near relentless miles uphill.

Even a well planned, engineer-minded driver with such an officially rated 40 EPA mile H2 PHEV max charged the night before (range reduced due to cold temperatures + >1/3 reduction due to grade), freezing his @$$ off because the heat is kept off to save some range, and tiny fuel stack providing at maximum average power output designed for no grade along the way, won’t make it more than half way up the climb before - uh oh, no more EV range. Then he is left with that tiny fuel cell stack power alone to rely on. That person gets run off the road and that’s a customer who will not forget the experience. AI can do nothing to save him, planned or not.

To make the aforementioned scenario work, and assuming we always magically start with a full battery charge, which the average person will not do with high enough reliability, we can up the battery size from there and/or up the stack in that fuel cell, but again even more money.

 

It has been informative to watch this thread get undermined. Whether the context was constructive or not, it wandered waaaaaay off on a tangent... which is the point of certain individuals not actually interested in the topic.

For the record, this is to remind everyone of what the discussion should have addressed, the actual text that the original post didn't provide. There's only a link, which requires a subscription. However, this content was available elsewhere on the wire:

The cost of upgrading infrastructure to support a fleet consisting entirely of EVs would could Japan between ¥14 trillion and ¥37 trillion, the equivalent of $135 billion to $358 billion. "When politicians are out there saying, "Let's get rid of all cars using gasoline", do they understand this?"

It was all about the cost, how rushing to force a mandate for just 9 years from now is a massive commitment. Heck, here in Minnesota, we are pursuing official California rules (committing to most of the CARB initiatives). Approval this year means it will be effective 4 years from now and will only impact a small portion of actual sales. That effort has been a huge undertaking with a very disappointing amount of pushback. Imagine trying to get all 50 states to enforce a 100% switch within just 9 years. How would all that impacted infrastructure be funded? And what about the down-stream impact. Think of all the businesses owning fleet vehicles, not to mention dealers.

Then there's the reality of unintended consequences: The more EVs we build, the worse carbon dioxide gets.

But disregarding all that, we still need to setup end-of-life processes. How will all the batteries be recycled?

In other words, someone needs to speak out about what is not getting addressed. Seeing Toyota get slammed for doing that and other automakers being given a free pass for remaining quiet is a sign of trouble to come. Those of us who remember prior mandates see the warning signs already.

 

That's a very magnanimous John, to worry about dealerships & their loss of high cost for maintenance. Similarly, worrying about 9 years being too fast. Yet Tesla manages to not worry about it, and the VW group already in the process of switching over from fossil fuel to 100% EV isn't worried about switching to EV either.

That's the nonsense that Art Spinella used to spew, and all of his ridiculousness was completely dismantled. Now you want to argue on his behalf?

Another strawman? Hasn't Nissan been successfully recycling their 2009 - 2010 - 2011 etc - spent lithium packs already? Maybe want to provide a link how recycling lithium or nickel packs is more arduous than all the 100's of tons of lead acid 12v batteries getting recycled every year for many decades? After the Sudbury mine BS about toxic Prius batteries, I'm really surprised that you would raise such a staw man, John.
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Yes, what Toyoda said applies to Japan, and a possible gas car ban in 2035. Not what is happening in the US.

There will be a cost to switch, but other ZEV options aren't free. There is also a cost to delaying a switch.

Recycling needs to addressed, and Tesla had that in mind for their battery improvements. Then getting recycling started requires a source of used batteries to support it. Without that, the recycling infrastructure will need more outside support.

 

You forgot the “H” in HEVs. Unless this was specific to Japan?

 

Tesla focused on low-hanging fruit... subsidized sales to early-adopters. Appealing to the masses is far more difficult. The effort to evade the problems of scale & reach is telling. These are textbook issues that this audience clearly doesn't want to address.

 

Tesla continues to grow rapidly to scale with little to no subsidization. Not sure why we have to keep killing that zombie. That’s a text-book example of one ignoring reality and not knowing the audience.

With regard to Japan’s (greening) grid, I think I posted this before but here again:

 

Not exactly sure what you are trying to illustrate by the graph? Yeah, I see the renewable is increasing, but still, over 70% are coming from fossil fuel. That is a higher percentage than 20 years ago. And the point Toyoda made in his talk was that to cover the EV shifted cars in Japan, the total electricity generation must go up by 10-15%, which most likely has to come from coal or natural gas-powered plants. In absence of nationally coordinated renewable energy infrastructure projects, they are going to increase overall CO2 emissions, if the rapid shift to BEV takes place. I did not find his talk giving any negative wrap on BEV, he just cautioned the notion that banning gasoline engine cars will automatically reduce overall CO2 emission in Japan. That is too simplistic. His number of examples and references were strictly for the Japanese market. There was no suggested implication for the global market.

 

Continuous decrease in the last 7 years and coal chief among them is decreasing. Most recent trends are the most important especially considering plans to accelerate renewables to their grid. Renewable rate is increasing fastest.

Will not be coal, but renewables and possibly NG for a short time. Even BEVs run on NG sourced electricity are cleaner than internal combustion, but the Japanese grid future is even better than that.

As we have pointed out on this forum over the years, that can't happen. The Union of Concerned Scientists has released "wells to wheels" data over the years that shows what grid source mixes are required for driving an electric vehicle to produce less emissions than driving a 50-mpg gasoline car. Japan is already there and does not use enough coal and has a large enough buffer so more BEVs in Japan will decrease overall CO2 emissions in all reasonable scenarios.

Yes, we have been noting that Toyoda's statements are specifically not correct for the Japanese market.

The Ministry of Environment (MOE) foresees that by implementing effective measures in addition to existing policies, renewable energy sources will expand to 33% of the domestic power mix by 2030...

The total renewable installation capacity is expected to reach 164.91 million kilowatts in 2030 (moderate forecast), equivalent to that of 165 nuclear power plants. Although 60% of the renewable energy source is solar power, which would make the actual generation output about one third of nuclear power generation, we can still expect that by 2030, renewables will generate no less than all of the nuclear power plants in Japan when in operation.​

MOE Forecasts 33% Renewables by 2030, Nuclear Plants Not Prerequisite for Energy Mix | Japan for Sustainability
Japan Renewable Energy 2020 Outlook - Business Opportunities

 

Japan's grid is better than the worse ones in the US. A shift to plug ins would mean increase in electricity production, but Toyoda's statement likely ignores the reduction from a decrease of ICE cars on the roads.

We should also keep in mind that these statements were made to Japan's association of car manufactures. Many of which are likely in the same position that Toyota is in regards to EVs.

 

Compare Japan’s grid (above) to Ohio from 2016 for example:




New Data Show Electric Vehicles Continue to Get Cleaner - Union of Concerned Scientists

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/28/climate/how-electricity-generation-changed-in-your-state-election.html

 

Thank you for pointing out some details. Although I am not knowledgeable enough to be in a position to debate your referenced opposition to the points made by Toyoda, I still think his true message was somewhat taken out of context. As commented by @Trollbait

He was commenting as a chairman of Japan's association of car manufactures at the news conference. And his whole point was to ask news media and the general audience not to have a narrow and often very extreme view. At no point, he was opposed to BEV in a general sense.

It is interesting to point out that the OP's linked article fails to mention the second half of Toyoda's talk. In his talk which I read and watched in its entirety in the unabridged version, he points out that Kei cars are still major means of mobility methods and life-lines for many areas in Japan. Almost 40% of total consumer vehicles in Japan are Kei cars and trucks. He commented that over 85% of roads in Japan are so narrow that only Kei car size vehicles can pass. Those Kei cars are almost all gas engine cars. Banning the use of gas engine cars including those Kei cars may be very detrimental to society. He further begged in his talk "it is easy to believe the quickest way to the carbon-neutral society is just to get rid of gasoline engine cars when the media coverage is just focused on EV shift. But for Japan, it is very important to think about how to let Kei (ICE) cars co-exist among HV, PHV, FCV, and EV. In order for Japan to leads the way to a carbon-neutral society, we must think about how to achieve that goal while keeping that conventional mix of vehicles." *
*quoted part is my own translation from his talk

A part of Toyota's answer to Kei car survival is C+Pod BEV. OK, Toyota finally starts selling BEV... sort of | PriusChat

 

The thing is that the gas ban doesn't include hybrids. At least, not when non hybrids are banned. There are hybrid kei cars.