1st Fuel Cell to Market: Not Toyota

does anyone make a home refueling station?

 

"During the first year, 36 of the fuel cell vehicles will be made available"


36 is considered mass production??? i think not

 

Honda had some prototype 5000 psi fueling stations before they were 5' by 5', so not very home friendly, and likely cost a great deal of money. They provided hydrogen, electricity, and hot water.
Honda FCX Clarity - Home Energy Station - Official Web Site

I doubt they will ever be commercially viable in the US, just a show your friends type thing if electricity prices go up up up but natural gas is cheap. Not likely to happen.

 

maybe whole foods will put in some fill up stations.

 

Leave off the hydrogen compressor the home fuel cell cogen unit, and just charge up a BEV at home for a fuel cell powered ride.
Honda also had a solar powered electrolysis unit, but just install PVs on a house, and...you can connect the dots.

 

I filled-out an application for the Hyundai fuel cell car. They asked if I was within living & working distance of the hydrogen station in south Irvine, and if I was willing to make the extra detour to said station. (I said "yes" to all three.) They also asked if I have a second car for backup. I said the Hyundai would be my secondary car, not my primary car.

 

First 2015 Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell Delivered In California

Hyundai's hydrogen fuel-cell car makes U.S. debut - Yahoo News

I got to say, its a big so what, to be the 3rd fcv to be leased in california. We are only going to get limited numbers of the 3 new fcv. It will take millions of zev's to make an impact on california's ghg emissions. I would expect this vehicle to sell in the hundreds a year not hundreds of thousands.

Just as a side note, californian's averaged 20 mpg in 2012, had 1.25 vehicles per licensed driver, and had 50% more vmt per person. With the aging vehicle population it takes a long time to make the states fleet more efficient.

 

I don't think California cares about CO2, because the CARB keeps pushing regulations that decrease NOx output, even at the expense of lower MPG (and higher CO2). The lean-burn version of the Civic hybrid scored 50mpg on the EPA highway test. The California version had the lean-burn turned-off (to comply with low NOx requirements) and only scored ~47.

 

We have an official EPA figure of 50 miles/kg for the tucson fuel cell, and 76 mpge for the toyota rav4 ev. These two compliance cute utes have a number of similarities.

EV lease is $410/mo nothing down (diane lease) and likely consumes $65/month electricity if rate is $0.12/hr.
fcv. Someone from southern california plese correct real electric rates.

FCV lease is $499/mo with $2999 down and no chance to purchase. This includes fuel and maintenance.

From a price point of view, as long as maintance over teh 3 year lease is less than $3K the Rav 4 EV is cheaper. Both companies are losing money on these vehicles as they are compliance, but we don't know who loses more per credit. One thing we do know is the fcv is not cheaper. FCV being cheaper is a key contention of the fuel cell lobby.

I think we have already gone over the idea of less ghg from the fcv. The Rav4 EV will produce less ghg than the fcv unless the Rav4 EV is driven many more miles.

Performance? The rav4 ev can go 0-60 in performance mode in 7 seconds, the Tucson fuel cell takes 12 seconds for the same acceleration. My guess is test drives would greatly favor the toyota suv. The rav4 ev can be charged at home, which is a benefit unless you don't have an outlet at home.

That leaves us with toyota's contention that the fuel cell is more efficient when running on natural gas. Let's start with some assumptions. Hydrogen can be produced from natural gas at 80% efficiency using steam reformation, and compression in a high volume station to fill 10,000 psi tanks with 1 kg of hydrogen is 3kwh Let's use 39 kwh/kg which is the higher heating value of hydrogen, 33.7 kwh/gge, and 93% grid efficiency (7% losses in the grid).

The power to put 1kg of hydrogen in the tank of a fcv is then.
39kwh/80% of natural gas + 3kwh of electricity or 48.75 kwh nat gas + 3kwh electricity at the plug to go 50 miles in the hyundai.

SAS Output
Converting the average efficiency of ccgt was 44.8% in 2012 (varies every year by how much they cycle for renewables and grid demands. A new ccgt fast cycling plant is 61% efficient about 75% load and 58% efficient between 40% and 75%, so new plants will raise efficiency.

(48.75 kwh nat gas) x (44.8% power plant efficiency) x(93% grid efficiency) + 3kwh= 23 kwh
The toyota will go
23kwh/33.7kwh/gal x 76 mpge = 51.9 miles

I'd say its a toss up on which is more efficient on natural gas using new in place steam reforming for natural gas at each station versus current grids ccgt. New fast cycling ccgt as well as renewables are much more efficient in the bev. Let's look at renewables at 70% efficiency on the efficiency. We must remember some of the fueling stations liquify the hydrogen then truck it, making them much less efficient than this ideal. This increases unhealthy pollution as fuel has pollution near the station not out at the power plant. 39% of plug-in drivers use solar.

39kwh /70% + 3kwh = 58.7 kwh to go 50 miles
58.7/33.7 x76 = 132 miles on the same electricity

Which leaves us with only range the Rav4 EV 103 miles, tucson fuel cell 265 miles

Benefits of tucson Fuel Cell
_________________________
265 mile versus 103 miles Rav4 EV
Refuels in 10 minutes, Rav$ doesn't have quick charging

Benefits of Rav4 EV
_________________________
Can charge at home and thousands of public charging stations versus less than 70 hydrogen stations
0-60 7s versus 12 seconds
Much more efficient on electricity, a little more efficient on natural gas
Lower ghg
Lower costs
More choices of vehicles (Tesla X, bmw i3, mercedes b-cell ed all are released or will be released in less than a year)
Can move and your car still works

 

Yes, I am using the DOE's number for efficient compression of hydrogen. It actually takes 1.32 kwh of energy to compress the hydrogen to 10,000 psi, but that would be 100% efficient compressors, and a 5 kg tank would hold much less than 5kg of hydrogen if filled in 5 minutes as it would be quite hot. You would only get a partial fill. The 3 kwh takes into account the compressor efficiency at a high volume hydrogen station, to compress to a higher pressure and let cool. At low volume stations it takes more energy as the compressor must be run to recompress the gas. California has one station that can only fill 3 to 5 cars a day, I would guess this would take much more electricity. Some stations will use liquified hydrogen, brought by truck, and again this takes much more energy.

Wow SCE really sticks it to rate payers. My utility can buy wind for about 6 cents/kwh and sells it for 12.5 cents after you add in grid/maintenance/etc charges, you have to wonder how the utility comission in california is supporting 31 cents. Natural gas electricity is less than 3 cents a kwh in texas between utilities. That simply sounds like SCE are stealling money from utility customers. 31 cents/kwh makes that rav4 bev cost more than the tuscon fcv when you include fuel. You would think if california wants plug-in cars they would stop overcharging electric customers. unless.....

You pay for a second meter, and pay 11 cents/kwh to charge from 9pm till noon, or you install solar. How much do they charge per month + install for the BEV plan.
Electric Vehicle Rates | Rates | Your Home | Home - SCE

 

It is a 'gift' to CARB, a 'kindness' so they can continue to sell in the California market. Please do not confuse it with a practical solution. In effect, knights of the CARB, descendants of "Ni" are saying:

Only the 'shrubbery' is a fuel cell vehicle.

It is 'green'.

Understand I have no problem with the goals and wish Toyota and other fuel-cell makers GOOD LUCK!

Bob Wilson

 

If we use 15% charging loss, it takes close to 7 kWh to charge RAV4 EV and it will only go 103 miles.

5kg of hydrogen at 50 mpkg would go 250 miles.

Model S 265 miles would need 15kWh to charge.

 

Charging losses are included in the EPA's mpge, as is the weight of the batteries, etc. The epa measures from the wall or from the hose. There are definitely problems with the EPA test, but it is the same for both vehicles.

Nothing wrong with what you wrote, but it doesn't change the calculations. That 3kwh cost to fill up at 10,000 psi and the storage tanks is one of the technical challenges to hydrogen. If you get metal hydryde tansk working that cost does not need to happen at every fill up. Alternatively if the cars can run on methanol or cng, costs decrease a great deal. Methanol can use standard fuel tanks, cng only needs to be pressurized to 3600 psi meaning less expensive tanks and much cheaper refueling hardware.

 

:-o I only pay 9 cents/kWh in the northeast.

'twould be nice if someone explained how to compare miles/kg versus miles/gallon. I have no idea?

 

Short answer, miles per kg of hydrogen are roughly equivalent to miles per gallon of E10. currently it costs more to produce a kg of hydrogen at a station than a gallon of gasoline, but in the future hydrogen may be cheaper than gasoline depending on the price of oil, electricity, and natural gas. Different blends of gas have different amounts of energy, so there is probably a blend of gas that is roughly the same as a kg of hydrogen.
Gasoline gallon equivalent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Longer answer is there are lower and higher heating values of fuels. The higher heating value includes the heat of vaporization of the water produced in the chemical reaction. There are disagreements on whether higher or lower heating values should be used. IMHO higher heating values should be used, but lower heating values make the fuel cells and engines look more efficient, and manufacturers like that. Since we haven't figured out how to build either with cold exhaust, that is fine, but IIRC the difference between the heating values for gasoline is only about 6%, natural gas 10%, and hydrogen 15%. It all works out in the end, but simply using the lower heating value makes it look as if the conversion of natural gas to hydrogen is less efficient, and the fuel cells are more efficient. It all works out in the end for the total well to wheels efficiency as long as you are consistant.

 

lol hill.

I think it is good that people can see the reality of these fuel cell vehicles. I think we would have simply done the test in Europe, but its good to get m/kg of these 3 cars in official EPA. That helps debunk the efficiency claim of the fuel cell lobby. If all the vehicles get tested on the epa test, we no longer will get the fud of comparing JCO8 or NEDC versus EPA.

In 2016 we will have over 20 plug-in choices (high volume ones made in america), along with 3 fuel cell vehicles for sale in California (2 made in japan, 1 in korea) . According to the Caleforia energy commission there will be 37 plublic fueling stations then. First lets notice that these stations will be very expensive per car, but also it will not be convient for trips. You would likely have to plan much more carefully than if you had a 60kwh tesla S. So the test is not really good. The cars are not living up to the hype, but they can get better. If say a decade from now they get the costs down, and the power levels up, perhaps it will be time for a test. Some think you will also want to add more batteries and a plug, but that is the oposite of what CARB, CEC, and the fuel cell lobby are pushing now