Featured 2023 Prius to launch plug-in hydrogen electric vehicle. Corolla to offer hydrogen combustion engine

Fuel cells have probably only become practical in the past five years. We've been burning gaseous fuels in ICEs for far longer. Designing an engine to make good use of hydrogen for a fuel would cost a lot less than developing fuel cells. Past ICE cars that could use hydrogen were bi-fuel though. Putting hydrogen into an engine designed for gasoline meant bad hydrogen fuel economy to maintain engine performance, or a reduction in performance on hydrogen in these engines.

Hydrogen infrastructure still isn't practical.

I was referring to the first FCEV available to the public for lease in California; the Clarity FCX. It was out two to three years the Leaf and Volt came to market. Fuel cells were much more expensive, and had shorter life back then. That Clarity, if available for sale, may have had a $1 million price tag.

Gaseous fuel, whether hydrogen or CNG, tanks for road legal vehicles have an end of use date set by manufacture date. It exists because tank materials age, inspecting the inside isn't practical, and recertifying them isn't worth the cost. I'm sure that date has a healthy overhead with a worse use case in mind. Lower pressure tyoe IV(carbon fiber) CNG tanks have a 25 year lifespan.

Fuel cell output decreasing with time and use. The DOE had a automotive fuel cell reliability target of average fuel cell output loss being less than 10% over 150k miles for a non-plug in FCEV. I want to say to was 5000 hrs of use. The current fuel cells are at 120k miles. The first Mirai may have been at the 90k mile point. With care, most engines will easily reach 150k miles while only losing a few percentage points of power output. Fact of the Month April 2018: Fuel Cell Cost Decreased by 60% since 2006 | Department of Energy

That's for cars designed for the fuel cell providing most of the energy. These have a powerful fuel cell with a hybrid sized battery. FC buses use a different design philosophy; lower power fuel cell with a big battery. Most of the energy for driving comes from the battery, with the fuel cell running at a point for best efficiency and life most of the time to keep the battery charged. A quick search for a fuel cell bus specifications found one that had 120kW FC stack. The Mirai's is 114kW. The bus's battery is larger than a Model X's while the Mirai has one the size of the Camry hybrid's. Specifications for AC Transit's Hydrogen Fuel Cell Bus

According to your link, the midlife replace cost of a Mirai's fuel could be up to $30k. Which could happen at 120k miles, because the duty cycle on the fuel cell is more abusive than the one for the bus.

The midlife costs in that link do seem suspect. They ignore the FC bus's battery, and the fact that EV bus batteries last 12 yrs vs. 6 yrs they used. https://afdc.energy.gov/files/u/publication/financial_analysis_be_transit_buses.pdf

 

That is an interesting report and it shows the sort of analysis that heavy vehicle users will be doing around the world. In this case for the bus network, the refuelling infrastructure was cheaper for FCEB than for BEB and the extra range of FCEB was important.

 

This is true but we don't know, especially where Toyota is involved, what they have in the pipeline that they have not talked about or released. As an example, they would have been working on the new NiMH bipolar battery for 10 years. All we hear are a few patent murmurs and then they release, without warning and in a high volume Japanese car, a battery that delivers twice the power of the current NiMH. So it's difficult to predict exactly where Toyota is at on things like FC efficiency, life expectancy, degradation and cost because they don't talk about it.

Hydrogen infrastructure is the big issue and really that means heavy vehicles are the obvious starting point, hence Toyota's focus on making FC truck engines in Kentucky. If the new Prius is available with an FC option, then we may well learn more, however its unlikely to be high volume seller although probably more than Mirai.

 

I am sure the fuel cell and the hydrogen tanks are not rated even to that date. I am sure that these components could be replaced and useful life extended, but it might cost as much as a bev to do this. Toyota may not want to make spare parts past that date. I'm sure if they do if you replace parts at a toyoga dealer they will change the sticker.

Toyota made a big deal about selling instead of only leasing, but in reality an individual is quite foolish to buy instead of lease. Some government entities and corporations may want to buy to pump up the hydrogen lobby.

 

That one might be an example of biased comparison.

Here is the NREL's analysis of Foothill's BEB fleet, https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/80022.pdf. It reports that the actual average electric paid buy the bus company being 18 to 19 cents a kWh. The Board report uses 35 cents. There is no mention of Foothill doing a battery replacement, under warranty or not, at the 6 year mark with the BEB's they were operated. It did talk about low voltage battery(think Prius starter 12V) failures, which were mostly due to not having an auto shut off feature in these early bus models.

For fuel cell bus comparisons, the Broad report was using Orange County Transportation Authority as an example. this is the NREL's latest report for that bus company, https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/78250.pdf.

The $4 million the Board report quotes is way off. Stations for cars can go over $2 million. The OTCA just paid $22.9 million for 10 new FCEBs and a fueling station for them. Going by the Board's bus prices, the station was almost $12 million.

News - OCTA Debuts Nation’s Largest Hydrogen Fueling Station and 10 Zero-Emission Fuel Cell Electric Buses

And then Toyota was talking about the benefits of solid state batteries before even having pilot scale production of them. They bet a lot on fuel cells and hydrogen. Keeping quiet about any big advances won't help fuel cells against batteries at this point.

The DOE's reliability numbers for FCEVs come from cars on US roads, which are mostly Mirai's at this point.

While the Prius has seen an average 10% improvement in fuel economy between generations, the gen2 Mirai only had 1.5%. Now it is 2 to 3 hundred pounds heavier. Assuming that extra weight means a 5% efficiency penalty(an old rule of thumb for ICE is 1% per 100#), the efficiency improvement might be 7.6%.

Huge improvements have been made reducing the fuel cell cost. The hurdle now isn't technology, but production levels. Toyota was building a production line for the current fuel cell in the Mirai to get away from the expensive hand building. It was schedule to start last year, but who knows where it is at with the pandemic.

The cost for that fuel cell could be at $5700. If Toyota was making 100k of them a year. The Mirai's best year was just over 10k sold globally. Factor in the trucks and buses(Toyota's latest uses two stacks) it can go into, plus the upcoming BMW FCEV, and production levels is far from that. Batteries got to the mass production savings with most plug ins being local use, charge at home types, or by adding a cheap ICE to it. Fuel cells absolutely need a viable hydrogen network before hoping to even reach those levels. That major expense is what really stopped hydrogen cars.

Heavy vehicles may have been obvious as first for hydrogen, but the car companies did put a lot of gold and sweat into FCEV cars. Makes sense to start small for development. Bigger vehicles just use multiple stacks if needed, unlike engines. Toyota and Hyundai are actually trying sell a FCEV car.

My bet is on the hydrogen Prius being an ICE.

The reason for that sticker is the tanks. The end of use date for high pressure fuel tanks is a US DOT requirement.

The fuel cell may need replacement before then. That comes down to the actual amount of output loss vs. what the driver can live with. Odds are now that a fuel cell will need to be replaced before a BEV battery.

 

Possibly ... but Foothill have had lots of experience now with BEB's so I can't see why they would be biased. I think the main issue is the BEB's don't have the required range for the longer runs currently operated by CNG busses. So its probably a case of FCEB for the longer runs.

The NREL report was based on the first 6 years of operations and the BEB's had only done about 135k ... whereas CNG busses do 330k in 6 years. The board paper is looking at a full 12 year life and so I assume they are factoring in mid life costs.

I would imagine a bus charger will cost a fair bit more than a car charger due to higher charging rate and related infrastructure.

 

We have to wait for a Toyota announcement however the way the Forbes article was worded, it only talked about the Corolla getting the hydrogen ICE and talked about the Prius getting Plug-In Hybrid & FC.

 

Range is a legitimate concern. the bias would be from whoever prpared the report.

It seems Foothill is going mostly with BEB to replace the CNG fleet, with a test fleet with FCEB planned in the future(presentation link below).

If a six year old engine is still operating within spec, a bus company isn't going to rebuild or replace it because of the date. The time period was long for major issues with the battery pack that would point to replacement to become apparent.

Another NREL report I linked to earlier pointed out that the batteries in BEBs were lasting 12 years, and some bus manufacturers even had warranties that covered the battery for 12 years.

It was the electric rate difference that caught my attention.

Then this Foothill presentation(p30) has the hydrogen fleet costs higher than battery.
https://scag.ca.gov/sites/main/files/file-attachments/tt020221-foothill-transit.pdf?1614108457

Are you referring to this?

"The $4 million the Board report quotes is way off. Stations for cars can go over $2 million. The OTCA just paid $22.9 million for 10 new FCEBs and a fueling station for them. Going by the Board's bus prices, the station was almost $12 million."

That was discussing hydrogen station costs. What gleaned from the NREL report, the quoted cost for chargers in the Broad report also seemed low, but not of the hydrogen station magnitude.

Earlier reports on Toyota developing hydrogen engines rumored it going into the Prius.

The heavier evidence is that Forbes has edited the OP article.
"Toyota plans to launch an all-new 5th generation, 1.8-liter Prius gasoline-hybrid in December 2022, and will add a hydrogen-powered PHEV version to its lineup in 2023. This will be the first time that Japan’s largest carmaker has blended its two signature technologies, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen power.
...
To avoid confusion, we should explain here that the Mirai’s powertrain and that of the Corolla race car, and 2023 model year Prius for that matter, are very different. The Mirai generates electricity to power its motors from a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen in the fuel cells, where as hydrogen engined vehicles like the upcoming Corolla, are similar to conventional engined cars except that they burn hydrogen in place of gasoline. And the next generation Prius will use hydrogen to power its plug-in hybrid system, in stead of gasoline."

 

Do you a have source for the earlier evidence. Also is the 'OP article' another source to the Forbes article ? Certainly it would be simpler to swap out the petrol tank for hydrogen tank than make the Prius a FCEV with a larger battery. Maybe Prius will establish a Toyota model for PHHEV.

 

I'm confused (not hard to do!) , but what has Elon or Tesla done to set us back 10-20 years ?

stuff I consider most people would know nothing about, without Elon , Tesla etc:

electronic payments (PayPal)
electric cars (Tesla)
HIGH PERFORMANCE electric cars (Tesla)
self driving (Tesla)
private sector rockets (space x)
reusable rockets (space x)
user interfaces that don't suck (line every other manufacture) in cars (Tesla)

the only thing I can think of that's negative is the lastest "crappy steering wheel that isn't a wheel"

 

Unfortunately no to the earlier reports. It came through my phone feed a couple weeks ago, so details to help find it aren't available. Can't discount that I did find it, but it was edited like the Forbes article.

I checked out some articles that were citing the Forbes article that didn't have the heavy fuel cell and Prius mention. Followed their link back to Forbes, saw it was different than originally posted, and then rechecked the link in post #1 to see it going to the same changed article.

Swapping out a gas tank for a hydrogen one is no small endeavor. The Prius tank is 11.3 gallons, and makes efficient use of space by conforming to it. The gen1 Mirai holds 5kg of hydrogen for 312 miles of range, which will be about 260 miles for a hydrogen Prius. the hydrogen is held in two tanks that have a liquid volume of 32.2 gallons(I may have overstated that earlier). Because the hydrogen is stored at 10k psi, the tanks have thicker walls than a liquid tank. More importantly, the physics of containing that pressure means the tanks can only be cylinders.

In short, hydrogen tanks take up a massive amount of space in a car. Which will compete with the battery in a plug in.

This article has some nice illustrations showing where all the components are in the gen1 Mirai and Clarity FCEV.
2017 Honda Clarity vs. 2016 Toyota Mirai

This is a cutaway of the gen2 Mirai.

All that stuff in the long engine bay is the fuel cell and its attending equipment. The motor with its controller is in the rear. The grey thing behind the rear seats is the battery. The two under floor tanks can be seen, but there is a third one in the trunk for over 400 miles of range. A hydrogen Prius Prime could use a smaller fuel cell. How small depends on how big the battery is.

The hydrogen Corolla race car had four tanks stacked to the ceiling in the rear. For some idea on efficiency and refueling, "But 20 minutes in, the differences were evident. The Corolla was already aside a hydrogen tanker truck for refueling. The vehicle needs to top off more often than the other cars. During the 24-hour race, Toyota's vehicle required 35 fill-ups, compared with around 20 pit stops for other participants.

At six to seven minutes, refueling the Corolla also took longer. The Japanese automaker's hydrogen vehicle ultimately traveled about half the distance and around half the average speed of the gas-powered rivals."
Toyota's 'hydrogen engine' car roars through 24-hour enduro - Nikkei Asia

Mazda is also working on an hydrogen Wankel. That engine design works well with hydrogen's combustion characteristics. Hydrogen engined farm tractors might come out soon too.
Mazda Is Working on a New Hydrogen Rotary Engine: Report | The Drive
JCB's hydrogen-fuelled combustion engine examined - Farmers Weekly

Perhaps Foothills reported $1.1 mil price for a FCEB is too low, or just an after incentives number. The only clue about them in the report is the 320 mile range. OCTA is getting this one, and a total of 25 went to California, New Flyer unveils the fuel cell bus in California- Sustainable Bus. New Flyer lists it as having a 300 mile range, and it did 350 miles in a range test. The OCTA article mentioned $12.5 mil in incetives made up part of the amount spent on the station and buses.

Bus hydrogen tanks are the lower 7000psi. That explains the cost difference from the 10k psi stations cars need. Sounds like they also don't need as much, or any, chilling. Less heat is going to be generated to begin with the lower end pressure. The large mass of hydrogen involved might also help with heat dissipation. SARTA was going with 20 minute slow fills to fully top off the 50kg tank. A car station dispenser could fill 4 to 6 cars in that time, but it is only 20 to 30kg.

Going from 20 or 30 buses to 50 serviced per day requires upgrades to the compressors and buffer(fill) tanks. Those are the higher cost items of the equipment. Chillers might become necessary with the higher bus volume. The per day figures for the stations assume the vehicles come in for refueling spread out over the day. The reality is that they tend to come in peaks of demand. A bus fleet canschedule things to minimize that, but oversizing the station might still be needed to avoid long fill times. SARTA got a twenty bus station for a fleet of eventually ten.

 

Agreed it's a challenge but being a new body designed, they may well have been planning for this for a while. For the Prius PHEV you would assume they need to extend the EV range to 40 miles so that means a larger battery. The challenge will be whether they can fit three hydrogen tanks in. We should get a better idea of this, when details of the new petrol PHEV is released in a few months.

 

New body doesn't mean new platform though, which is still going to be the one for ICE cars. I'm sure they'll do a better job of packaging the battery. Moving away from air cooling can help with the volume it needs. I don't see how tanks can be packaged without losing space or having a short hydrogen range.

Didn't one of the rumor pieces for the next Prius say it will be coupe like? That could be code for losing interior space.

 

At my job we are currently in construction on a project to install 19.2 kW chargers for BEBs and we're paying about $3,000 a piece for the chargers and pedestals.

 

That would be more for overnight charging, however if you want fast charging during the day between services, you would probably want a much higher rate of charge.

 

Yep. We haven't finished the bidding on the fast chargers. Those will be 50 kW chargers.

The funny thing is how the people who planned the BEB deployment listened to the sales hype from the bus company and signed the contract right away. The buses are coming and there won't be any chargers for years. They act like you can just increase your electrical demand by over 1 million kW just by installing the chargers. They didn't account for the cost or time the utility needs to beef up the infrastructure between the substation and the property required to support that.

 

Here are some recent figures.
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/76932.pdf

Depot Chargers range from $2000 - $64,000 for depot charging averaging $17K/charger in the US fleet. On Route charging is much more expensive at $380,000 - $1M / charger when installation is included. PiPLosAngeles's chargers are in that range but at the low end. Prices are coming down.

The foothill's example of $10.5 M for infrastructure for 34 bev busses is in range if there are multiple expensive on route chargers. If they go with the average depot charger though it is about $600K to for vehicle charging, a lot cheaper than the $4M they estimate for hydrogen. They have some routes that probably require On Route charging, throw in 6 - $500K on route chargers and it is still much cheaper than a hydrogen depot station for charging equipment and that is before considering the much higher cost of hydrogen fuel per mile.

Fuel cell's work great for fork lifts, but they consume a lot less fuel than busses. That is why the world wide fleet of busses is going Electric not hydrogen. I am sure hydrogen is appropriate for some busses, but it is a much smaller percentages, and they might be better served by PHEV busses with generators running on methanol produced by hydrogen, CO2 and electricity ;-) Benefit of the phev busses is that they can run on gasoline in a pinch, and fueling infrastructure is much cheaper ;-)
https://hydrogen-central.com/obrist-hyper-hybrid-tesla-engine-hydrogen-based-fuel/