Toyota Shows Distain: Even for their Own RAV4-EV

I think this is good skepticism. The most sucessful fuel cells are fixed cells using natural gas. We do have sucessful hydrogen fuel cell hydrogen transport demonstrations for fork lifts and busses. Note neigher fork lifts or busses are dependant on fueling infrastructure. Fork lifts don't even need fuel to be cheaper, the utilization rate is greater for the fork lift versus electric and that can pay for more fuel. Gasoline can't be burned indoors. For busses the extra distances (average 35,0000 miles a year less than 4 mpg) can make up for the higher cost.

International Developments on Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Energy | Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Energy Association

Note the doe has spent approximately $2B all by itself so far on this. Last year DOE spent $129M, it should spend about the same amount this year. If you cut out the mcro-CHP systems, that the US does not need, japan will probably spend about $25B less than the US. Part of the reason METI is funding this is they want Toyota to export fuel cell cars to the US using Japanese labor and factories, like they did hybrid cars in the past. I say METI in Japan, and similar groups in Korea and Germany are spending enough to test these cars for export to the US. There is no reason for the US to be funding this as there are not any promises in the next decade of significantly reduced oil use or lower pollution from fcv running in the US. If they actually get the cars to a staage then it may be time to help fund commercialization.

 

I guess you know more than the engineers from Toyota. And since I'm logically challenged, I'll start with selling my prius and go out and start driving a hummer now...it's amazing how condescending one can be behind the keyboard when their belief system is challenged.

Take a Tesla model S out to the track on the weekend and let's see what happens...yes you're right i'm exaggerating, cause I'm logically challenged...I think you forget that Elon Musk marketed the car as a high end performance vehicle going up against Porsche et al, hence the $100k price tag.

Lithium is only common and easily recovered from 2 places in the world, everywhere else it is very difficult and expensive to recover making it economically not viable.

 

I never said you were logically challenged, I said your post was.

Do you stand by your claim that after a couple/few hard accelerations the Tesla is done and needs to be towed?
By "couple/few" do you mean 2 or 3?

There is no belief system here, I look at known facts. If you have some, please do share.
The lithium operations in the southwest are gearing up now. We have the operations in South America which basically pick it up off the ground.

So we currently have operations in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia.
In the US we have identified Lithium in Nevada and Wyoming.

As demand picks up I would be surprised if we don't see more operations identified.

 

If my post was logically challenged, wouldn't that by extension make me "logically challenged" too?

Look, I WANT BEV to succeed! I really really do but Toyota and Porsche is not going in that direction. Why?

 

I had been intrigued by the Leaf but upon further investigation, the battery endurance in my climate does not look good enough. Granted I can use charge/discharge limits to extend the battery life but at a reduced range.

So my interest in BEV is reduced until we get better battery techniques.

Bob Wilson

 

...or, Global Warming (and Cooling) stabilize?

 

I don't understand where this is coming from. The toyota engineers also are the ones that came up with the EQ. We all know that was a mistake (38 mile city car, that likely cost as much to make as a leaf). Its the managers, Sago and Uchiyamada that are putting out this dribble, and lexus is putting out obviously distorted advertisements. Its as if you don't know that Arnold had a hydrogen hummer, and thought california would have millions of hydrogen cars by now. Zythryn was only pointing out some facts as he understood them. Steven Chu, and the bulk of the sciencific community would agree with those facts.

Its a sports sedan, not a track car. Its for everyday driving. Think the niche that bmw currently surves, but much more efficient with a much better engine/transmission. That is why porsche, bmw, mercedes, audi are all looking toward electric motors for their cars. Affordable batteries are game changers, and if blue star makes it Lexus needs to worry in the north american market. This is as opposed to fcv which are at least a decade away from any kind of volume sales. BEVs need only batteries to improve. FCV need hydrogen costs to drop, infrastructure costs to drop, fuel cell costs to drop and fuel cells to get more reliable (switching to methane or methanol fc would solve 1 and 2 but make any 10,000 psi hydrogen spending worthless), and hydrogen storage needs to get cheaper (also solved with methanol or methane). FCV just are at least a decade behind bev technology. No matter how many pr statements and false advertisements TMC puts out there, they know they have not solved these problems.

Sure, we only have enough known researves to build 2 Billion Tesla Model S. Ofcourse every year we learn how to make batteries with less lithium, and the metal is recylable. Very little of the price of a tesla S is the price of lithium.

Now platinum is much more scare and expensive. We probably have enough for fcv if they figure out how to use much less, but you make a car to compete with a tesla S the platinum content is much more expensive in a fcv than the lithium. That is one reason you only see 100 kw, fcv today. They need to figure that out before the costs go down.

I don't understand. You are only logically challened if you ignore the facts, and continue putting out a logically challened argument. You could instead look at the facts and drop the argument.

OK, fact 1, toyota is probably only against BEVs because they are behind, and don't want a not invented here technology. They do have teams of engineers working on it, but its an old line auto company and they have more working on fcv. When GM was teh biggest they were pushing fuel cell vehicles and poo pooing hybrids exactly for the same reason. When toyota puts out a fcv, and sells thousands of them, lets talk, for now its all hype and PR.
Lutz speaks out on GM's fuel cell plans - Autoblog
Notice how Bob Carter sounds the same. 1000 or 2000 cars sold in 2015 by toyota doesn't sound like a huge deal compared to 150,000+ plug-ins sold in just the US during that same time period. And I hope tens of thousands of those will be toyota's but there public relations and advertising says they don't believe.

Now Porsche, they are not following toyota down the rat hole. They have phevs, and love plug-ins right now. They are working on bevs also.
Hydrogen or electric? Showdown over the fuel of the future set for 2014 - Chicago Tribune

So Porsche's parent made it very clear, that they consider plugging in much better than fuel cells, and I posted Porsche's bev R&D in the other thread. Even Mercedes which looked to be in the fuel cell camp when that was written, is supporting both, and the bev is getting sold before the fuel cell, even though they spent much more on the fcv.

 

I think Toyota is stuck and is having trouble increasing the mpg on the next gen of Prius cars. If you wanted wide market adaptation to reduce world wide gasoline usage from one line of cars, I think the PiP is very close to the optimum model. Perhaps juicing up the battery 50% would do it. Any bigger battery and you lose a ton of customers due to the extra cost. Not everyone can plug in every night, so there goes another big basket of potential owners. The current PiP boosts the mpg from 50 to 100 mpg (on average - OK, maybe the 93 to 95 mpge that is claimed). Boosting it higher would probably decrease sales more than the offset in gasoline consumed. BTW - I'm not suggesting that Toyota bases their designs on how much gasoline it can save the world from using, but it is probably a metric that is known by Toyota as potential PR.

It would be interesting to listen in on the strategy discussions at Toyota.

Having said that, I'm not sure how much more battery I'd buy if I had the option to upgrade at $500/KWHr. Maybe I'd spring for one more kwh, but two more would be hard for me to justify from an ROI viewpoint.

 

Seeing how far they plan in advance, it's more likely the next generation to follow.

There is the reality of diminishing returns...

 

Which? MPG, MPGe, sales ...or... profits?

 

The graph clearly states MPG.

 

An allegory: "...or profits?" as in diminishing returns of "profits."

 

You're my hero!

 

Toyota's Lexus brand is still showing anti-EV advertising in their youtube breaks. I guess the apology didn't mean a thing. (Note: A Tesla supercharger can hit 80% in only half an hour, and a ChaDemo charger can fill a Leaf to 80% in an hour.)

 

Oh I guess ChaDemo is only slower for the Tesla (because of the bigger battery).

 

No, the rate is slower. The common ones out there now are 50kW.

You can think of it as filling two glasses of water from the same faucet. One glass is three times the size of the other.
The faucet isn't slower when filling the large glass even though it takes longer to fill.

 

that should fill my pip in 15 seconds!