It's official Toyota is full speed fuel cells for compliance after 2014

Maybe someday they'll take this off their website.
Electric Vehicle | TOYOTA GLOBAL SITE

 

Who does besides Nissan & Tesla, neither of which plan to offer anything but bev?

All the other automakers have token bev models, but intend to upgrade & expand their plug-in hybrids instead.

And with respect to "plans", how far of a scope does that reach anyway? After all, we expect major shake-ups with traditional production in the next few years.

 

Interesting typo in the thread title...

 

Double entendre?

 

Rome wasn't built in a day

 

EV manufacturers should punch back with their own ads against Toyota and Lexus.
And, unlike TMC, they won't have to LIE in order to land some effective blows:

- Hybrids still use foreign oil and put out GHG's
- Fuel Cell longevity an issue
- More efficient to just use natural gas in ICE/hybrid rather than central reforming to H2 and delivering to station

But the biggest one by far, IMHO, is to find out what the taxpayer has paid (or will pay, if Toyota gets its way) to build this H2 boondoggle.

I think pointing this out will win over conservative-leaning car shoppers who may not be naturally inclined towards plug-in cars.

Why on earth would a conservative/republican choose a car from Japanese company that relies on taxpayer-funded infrastructure when they could get a car from a California company that built its own infrastructure, with its own money? When both cars are powered by natural gas, but the Tesla gets it through electricity and existing power plants efficiently and with comparable emissions to the Toyota FCV which relies on NG being converted to H2 at facilities that don't yet exist?
There is nothing more 'libertarian' than fueling an EV using rooftop solar or a backyard wind turbine, as opposed to the "command-and-control" fuel distribution network and all the associated refineries, pipelines, tanks, tankers, stations, pumps etc. that Toyota seems to want to replicate for its FCV.

 

Japan make cars for their home market - full stop. The Prius sells massively there.

Japan now has electricity issues since the earthquake. They don't want extra issues caused by electric vehicles (or at least I believe that's their thinking).

Hydrogen can be processed or imported I guess, making it good for Japan.

The problems arise elsewhere. The map shown above indicates the low number of hydrogen filling stations. The number here in the UK is about 3. People mock BEVs for being limited by range, but 3 filling stations (all within the London area) are going to restrict sales a fair bit. At least with a BEV you can plug it in pretty much anywhere (subject to the property owners agreement).

 

Why do people always assume, "If that guy doesn't agree with me, he must be stupid." Just because the Toyota CEO and his management don't see electrics as the future (instead preferring hydrogen) doesn't mean he is technologically backwards.

People are allowed to hold differing opinions from your own, and yet still be equally intelligent as yourself.

 

^^^one thing about working for any major company, each has its own corporate culture and belief systems on
technical matters. So it's good to have more than one company (eg; autos) because there are lots of Bob Lutz'es running around management with strong (but wildly different) visions. One company may avoid a certain path like the plague, another company goes down it. I am not criticizing Lutz, actually I like him... long run he may be right about hybrids. 2004 gasoline was what $1.50/gal?

Working for a company, I found a person does not have to be a world class genius to contribute as an employee, you just have to be able to contribute within the belief system of the specific company. Sometimes that's not too hard.

Re: Not sure how H2 makes sense for Japan. It is normally made from natural gas but Japan makes some H2 from gasoline (naphtha), whereas nat gas has historically been in shorter supply there. H2 can be made from coal (example of clean coal) or biomass but that's not cheap. One would not import H2, one would import nat gas or other fossil fuel, or a whole lot of solar panels. Maybe Toyota looks at USA and says, wow easy to make cheap H2 there.

 

It could work for Japan. Maybe even the few Northern European nations giving FCEVs a try. Some of them are have the natural resources to support hydrogen, and a FCEV won't be as negatively impacted by a cold climate as a BEV.

It will still be expensive to build the infrastructure though. Being physically small countries does mean the initial hydrogen refueling network can serve a larger percentage of the population than in the US. Their populations are also more centrally located in cities, which further helps there.

 

grammar: you're (you are) rather than the possessive noun

Somebody else made a point about buying American (tesla) rather than importing from Japan. Question: Are Japanese workers any less worthy of having jobs? I should stop buying their products & put them out of work?

Okay yes I prefer US-engineered products, but if the Japanese can work their usual magic & produce a 25,000 dollar fuel cell, then I will bypass the 70k Tesla and 35k Volt EVs.

BTW in 1990 when Toyota started developing the hybrid car (released in 97) I wonder how many people insisted adding EV motors and batteries would double the price.

The web didn't exist back then but I bet a lot of analysts predicted a $40,000 car that "nobody will buy" and instead Toyota released one for ~20,000.

 

I agree, but also see the double-standard.

 

Japanese workers deserve jobs. It is just that my money going to American workers helps me more than it going overseas.

Toyota themselves have said this FCEV will cost around the price of a Tesla S, at first. Latest announcements have the price going up.

The first Prius received a subsidy from the Japanese government through MITI that covered half the price difference between the hybrid and a traditional ICE car. Now that Toyota can get more ZEV credits per car for a FCEV than for a BEV, they are abandoning the RAV4 EV.

 

Yes, I'll own to saying this, and I'd say it again:
When one decides to "vote with their dollars", they need to take a wide range of factors into consideration....the nation where the car was manufactured or where its corporate headquarters is located are just a few of them.

In the context of Tesla vs. Toyota FCV, it is not about "Japanese workers being unworthy of jobs". It is about rejecting an inferior product (which happens to be made in Japan) for a superior one (which happens to be made in California).

I have nothing against the Japanese or their products. I drive the (heavily modified) Gen II Prius you see pictured as my avatar.
I gladly chose this car over any other American, European or South Korean cars in 2007. I gladly chose to "give the Japanese worker jobs" and "take away American/EU/Korean jobs" by doing so, for one very simple reason:

My Prius recently passed 100,001 miles. It replaced a 16 mpg SUV back in '07.
Do the math.
That's 4,000 gallons of fuel that wasn't turned into CO2, harming future humans, including Americans. That's 4,000 gallons worth of pollutants that isn't in the lungs of our kids or the air of our cities.

BUT, and most importantly: That's nearly $16,000 that I've kept in my pocket. That's means I spent nearly $16,000 on LOCAL businesses and goods and services from the LOCAL economy, as opposed to sending this money to sheiks, dictators, tyrants and greedy oil companies located in petro-states like OPEC, Russia, Texas, etc.

Think about how many jobs that created.

I would apply the same thinking to Tesla vs. FCV, because hydrogen infrastructure is a MASSIVE destruction of wealth. As has been discussed numerous times here and elsewhere, it is better to go directly to EVs since we already have a massive amount of those "wall outlet" things. For longer distance travel, PHEV/Volt solutions make sense since they take advantage of existing fuel stations. Not zero-emissions, but the range extenders in the future will be better, perhaps natural gas or biofuel .

Thus, we should choose the Tesla because it is better for the overall economy, not just "Tesla jobs" or "California jobs". Conversely, we should reject the Toyota FCV, because it would be worse for the overall economy, not just "Toyota jobs" or "Japanese jobs".

Another thing that often gets overlooked in these discussions of FCV vs EVs is scalability and opportunity cost. The fact that fuel cells are expensive and the infrastructure even more so means that even if FCV delivered the same pound-for-pound reductions in emissions/foreign oil as alternatives such as NG/EV/PHEV (and they don't), they would take much longer to be adopted into the fleet in large numbers. This is a huge wasted opportunity cost, because every dollar down the H2 rathole is one less Combo rapid charger, quick-swap battery station, CNG station, etc, that could have been put into action.

 

I wanted to address the argument made here that FCVs are somehow superior for nations like Germany or Japan where the electricity is very expensive.

While there may be some nations where FCV 'might' make more sense, Germany and Japan are certainly not one of them, for reasons I'll explain later.

In fact, I can't think of any off the top of my head. Iceland has massive amounts of cheap electricity thanks to Hydro and Geothermal, but if you're making your H2 via electrolysis, then an EV is cheaper to charge anyways. They don't really need the long range since it's a small country.

In fact, the countries where I think FCVs "might" make sense are USA, Canada, and Russia. We have a large landmass and massive amounts of cheap natural gas; Canada and Russia even more so. The Co2 from NG->H2 processing is a pure stream, so it's easy to capture and keep out of the atmosphere.

In the US though, I don't see FC's in passenger cars.....long distance trucks, maybe (but only with a large carbon tax), otherwise, no.

With regards to Japan, what is going on is truly confusing, if not downright disturbing.
Let's be clear about one thing: if you drive a car in Japan, the energy used to move you came from overseas. Japan imports almost ALL (>80%) of its coal, oil, and natural gas. So there is very little difference between hybrids, natural-gas cars, EVs, or FCVs.
If your goal is "economic patriotism" and keeping as much of your transport fuel dollars in the local/national economy, then there are really NO good options in Japan.
At least with an EV, part of the energy could come from "local" nukes (Japan imports uranium from Canada and Australia) and renewables (Japan needs to restart its nukes asap and start tapping its solar, wind, and especially, geothermal sources).
The H2 for a FCVs in Japan will be 100% from natural gas.....NO one will be cracking water with expensive Japanese electric rates......and this NG comes from faraway places like Qatar and Russia.
Japan - Analysis - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

As far as electricity prices, I'm not buying it. The general rule-of-thumb for EVs vs Hybrids is that you simply multiply the rate per kwh x 10 and compare this to the price of 1 gallon of gasoline. Thus, if gasoline is $3.50/gallon, then a hybrid will have the same cost-per-mile as an EV charging up at $.35/kwh, and so on.
read:
Average electricity prices around the world: $/kWh
The data may be pre-Fukushima, but I still bet on average an EV will be cheaper to run than a regular hybrid in Japan. Utilities probably have surplus energy at night -like many utilities around the world- when people are charging up, especially if Japan re-starts its nuke fleet.

Germany is an even more confusing situation.
I again, don't buy the "electricity is too expensive" argument for the reasons outlined above, and would like to point out that Germany has massive amounts of surplus on/offshore wind power that will likely result in cheaper overnight rates with Time-of-Use meters.
In Germany, nationalism/patriotism with regard to car-buying also exists:
Germany Likes German Electric Cars; Leaf, Volt, Not So Much

So, let's step back and think about this: while Germany imports massive amounts of Russian oil, Putin uses this as leverage to annex Crimea and threaten the rest of Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Volt assembly line (and most other PHEVs/EVs) here in the USA are operating at a fraction of capacity.
To recap: German car buyers are "apparently" willing to send their euros to Putins' Russia for his oil rather than to American workers to produce Teslas and Volts that would use made-in-Germany wind energy.

Does any of this make sense? Of course not. But -and I don't want this to become a political argument- it just goes to show that more often than not, the "free market" leads us awry, and gives us results that are the very opposite of what we actually want to do.

A "free market" energy policy controlled by special interests rather than a rational economic policy is how we end up with diesels being more popular than hybrids in Europe (even though hybrids would be superior on its crowded city streets) and we end up with diesel being more expensive than gasoline here in the US despite long, continental driving distances.
And now it appears the same perverse outcome is happening, where we have EVs like the Tesla taking off in the US, when they would give even more benefit to a country in Japan's situation......that is instead pursuing a "Fool Cell" policy

 

Uh, "Fool Cell" is that like "Fool Economy"?