Featured Toyota and Kenworth Team up to Create a Fuel Cell Regional Semi

So .... doing a little back o' the napkin math here;

Even a couple years ago hydrogen might easily cost you $15 per kg.

How Much Does a Gallon of Hydrogen Fuel Cost? Petro Online.

Let's never mind that most hydrogen is made from fossil fuels because that's the cheapest way to go.

Then factor for vehicle range;

1kg of hydrogen gets a Toyota Mirai sized car about 60 miles.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/hydrogens-role-transportation#:~:text=One%20kg%20of%20hydrogen%20contains,on%20a%20gallon%20of%20gasoline.

A loaded tractor trailer rig might travel 1/30th the distance that the Mirai travels on 1kg of hydrogen. (2 miles)

A diesel rig may travel 2 miles on just 4 or $5 of fuel (½ to ⅓ that of hydrogen)

Great idea Toyota
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Hill, your maths are good, but "the media" will never report that side of the hydrogen equation, be it for trucks, trains, planes or automobiles. Sadly.

 

Toyota has kept their mouth shut and continues to make great progress in an area that is being ignored in the USA.

The work they are doing with no fanfare in the trucking industry to help out decreasing emissions and solving trucking issues with alternative technology is admirable.

No wonder they are currently experiencing such business and financial success in their ventures.

 

Toyota's fetish with hydrogen is because they have a full-on NIMBY complex going on. With Australian Brown coal as their stock fuel source for hydrogen - toyo doesn't have to be concerned w/ scrubbing the coal ash filth from their own backyard. Then they get to pretend hydrogen is clean. The Apex of hypocrisy.
But who gives a crap as long as Toyota makes money .... right?
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Australia unveils new green hydrogen subsidy for every kilo of H2 produced over a ten-year period | Hydrogen Insight

Long Beach ‘Tri-Gen’ Ops Start for Toyota Vehicle Facility | Transport Topics (ttnews.com)

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle Technology (toyota.ca)

 

The beauty of Toyota's scheme is that when there is a Mercury Laden coal ash disaster, like when containment dams break - Toyota's hands are washed of it. Not so much the environment, though. Tough luck (suckers) Aussies . . . .


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Hydrogen is interesting but I still don't know if it will be sustainable long term as a real option.

I think the logic is that traditional fuel stations are probably easier to convert, and traditional fuel companies might be more willing to adjust to an alternative fuel vs going all in on electricity transition?

Maybe fuel cell tech for trucking could be a good last leg solution, but diesel trucks still have way more range and are still significantly cheaper to operate for longer distances. Then again, trains are even more fuel efficient on a per mile basis than a bunch of semi's too.

In the end, I see all of these EV trucks, fuel cell trucks, and even diesel generator for on board batteries trucks as early efforts to find a solution and we'll have to get through these early efforts to find something that really will work later.

 

I look forward to the hydrogen fuel cell advocates paying for the hydrogen:

• Steam generation from methane CH{4} + 2H{2}O - gives one mole of CO{2} and four moles of H{2} and a lot of waste heat.
• Electrolysis of H{2}0 + 237 kW - give one mole of H{2}, one half mole of O{2}, and ~47 kW of waste heat.
• The H{2} has to be compressed and transported to point of sale.
• The vehicle has to drive to the point of sale.

In contrast, I prefer to charge my car parked while I'm at home, free at some merchants and motels, or even at fast DC chargers like SuperChargers.

Bob Wilson

 

Almo$t forgot. The 10,000 P$I compre$$or maintenance

$$

 

Let me correct that, toyota has a strong pac and their hydrogen efforts are heavily subsidized by governments of Japan, US, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and California. So far their vehicles have come far short of promises. This article is about the follow on from a project of 10 short haul hydrogen trucks for Ports in California. The modified design with a much larger battery is an improvement as battery prices have dropped and the larger buffer was needed. The strange part from the article is that they are not allowing users to charge the battery from the grid. Toyota explained that the mirai was not a phev fcv because they wanted to create demand for hydrogen. If the venture is going to be sucessful they will need to add sockets for charging. 200 kwh of battery takes about 230 kwh of energy from the grid, or about 450 kwh of energy of hydrogen plus the power to compress and dispense it.

There was a lot of bragging and promises when the pilot program was launched but the numbers can't be great otherwise they would be bragging about them, and wouldn't be talking about this improved design.

Only time will tell if this will pay off for toyota or the governments subsidizing hydrogen. It could happen, but if its going to be clean hydrogen then it simply makes sense to be able to charge the big battery with grid electricity.

The mirai was a failure. The fuel cell truck market is not going to significantly contribute to toyota's profitability. I hope toyota finds some use for the R&D.

Toyota's profitability right now has to do with there gasoline powered vehicles. I think Toyota and others will continue with fuel cell semi trucks as long as governments will subsidize the R&D and commercialization. I can see this working for some medium haul operations on heavily traveled routes. The BEV semi and PHEV diesel semi seem to handle the short haul and medium haul better today, but who knows if there will be some hydrogen miracles in the future? Hydrogen seems extremely bad for long haul, maybe worse than Bev.

 

That's how I see it. Its worth exploring with R&D and maybe there's a niche implementation or the research provides insights into something else that ends up being used in the future. Nothing wrong, IMO, with subsidized research to explore different options on reducing GHG emissions from the commercial transport space in the long term. If hydrogen doesn't work for this maybe there's a different application, or maybe its proved definitively to be a bad idea despite best efforts and R&D transitions more strongly to alternatives knowing that Hydrogen really truly isn't an option. Mirai and other attempts at consumer oriented hydrogen/fuel cell efforts probably means greater overall focus on EVs for example.

 

‘Green’ hydrogen energy production just got a lot easier (msn.com)

Honda's Hydrogen Big Rig Is A Look At A Commerical Hydrogen Future (msn.com)

FLIRT H2 Hydrogen Train Sets New Guinness World Record - H2 News (hydrogenfuelnews.com)

H2Accelerate to deploy 150 fuel cell trucks across EU - European Commission (europa.eu)

First Hydrogen And The Hydrogen Truck Revolution (cleantechnica.com)

"The global market for hydrogen commercial trucks is growing. And — no, that’s not quite right. The market is SURGING, growing by $3.84 billion in 2023 alone, with projections showing a staggering CAGR of 41% during the forecast period expected to push the market to $120 billion by 2033 … and First Hydrogen is poised to make the most of that growth."

5 Car Companies That Are Working On Hydrogen-Powered Vehicles (slashgear.com)

‘First of its kind’ | US firm unveils hydrogen-battery hybrid car with range of over 1,000km | Hydrogen Insight

Hydrogen Engines | Cummins Inc.

 

Ah .... yes .... LARGE hydrogen users. Using large amounts of hydrogen, in large vehicles. What is it they say about history? The only thing we learn from history is we learn nothing from history? Is it soo bad - that a municipality would scuttle hydrogen for diesel?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bc-transit-s-90m-hydrogen-bus-fleet-to-be-sold-off-converted-to-diesel-1.2861060

Nothing intrinsically wrong with being progressive, but it's awful easy to waste public money. After trying large format hydrogen Canada quickly learned what a money suck it truly is. Not just obscene fuel Reformation costs, but the maintenance requiring so much more. Time to learn lessons over again one supposes? On the other hand - there are several municipalities that have already found large format batteries in city transit works to work wonderfully.
But who knows .... maybe in 10 years? That's been the promise every 10 years - since the 1970's.

Let the flowery articles continue !

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Hydrogen Strategy for Canada: Progress Report
April 2024
"Across Canada, interest in low-carbon hydrogen is booming. Approximately 80 low-carbon hydrogen production projects have been announced, representing an expression of interest of over $100 billion in potential investment dedicated to building out this clean energy opportunity.

Pilot projects are underway, showcasing Canadian ingenuity and demonstrating how hydrogen can help fuel our trucks, buses, and trains, help decarbonize our industries, or help heat our homes and businesses.

Hydrogen hubs are forming, such as in Edmonton, Vancouver and Southern Ontario, to match low-carbon hydrogen supply with demand.

The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson
Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Canada"

 

Is California's 'Hydrogen Highway' a road to nowhere? - Los Angeles Times
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What about the fact now we drive our cars directly behind other’s tail pipe exhaust. They put the tail pipe exhaust in the back so the driver doesn’t get gassed. The car behind gets gassed. Does anyone think that’s healthy? I think that is the elephant in the room.

 

• If only we could take all the plastic waste and pile it up in the back yards of those who own or direct the plastic industry.
• If only we could take all the people priced out of homes and put them in the back yards of NIMBY's and corporative property investors, or take those workers and build an affordable state for them and get them out of the places that don't want to let them have an affordable place to live and see what people do when their community doesn't have hardly any workers left in it.
• If only we could take all the tail pipe emissions and pipe them into the back yards of those who develop the internal combustion automotive industry.

 

California Is Abandoning A Plan To Build A High-Speed Train From LA To SF (buzzfeednews.com)

California's projected budget shortfall balloons to $73 billion (desertsun.com)