2015 Fuel Cell Toyota

i can't find anything on a fuel cell prius, do you have a link? thanks ken!

 

I would be more than happy to test it if given the opportunity. Sounds like it would be a fun experience.

 

it's probably gonna be cali for a good long time. where you gonna fill up man, the hindenberg?

 

could be, i'm totally clueless on fuel cells.

 

not enough government subsidies.

 

It's to be called the Mirai and cost $69,000 before subsidies, apparently:
Toyota prices new Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell car at $69,000 - Newsday

 

The incentive in Japan is $20k for FCV so it'll come out to under $50k after incentive.

I hope they price it here the same after incentives over here. $50k was their goal after all.

 

for a $50K price tag ( if it will ever happen) I rather stretch a bit more and buy a Tesla 3 or model S

 

Nitrogen is NOT a fuel.
It is a means to transport energy.
Just like electricity is.
The infrastructure is in place now for electrical power distribution.

 

No, but it makes for great fertilizers. Or explosives. Thank you, Fritz Haber.

 

Hydrogen is highly explosive and it's molecules are so small due to it's low molecular weight that is is very hard to contain. A tank for home use might be problematic. Possibly even against the law for residential locations.

 

$30,000 subsidy in Japan according to the article I saw this week.
I was going to post it but didn't.

 

...even natural gas storage in compressed tanks is not allowed in homes. If you want to fill a natural gas car at home (eg; Civic GTX) you can do so, but you have to purchase a compressor from Honda costs about $4000 and take some hours ~10+ to fill the tanks on the cars.

In the case of H2 FCV you will need to use public H2 filling station which are being planned for some areas...since NY is CARB that is possible for NY but you'll need to check the FCV support plans.

 

A tank of LPG runs 100psi to 200psi.
The gas tanks like you would find at a welding supply store are around 2000psi.
CNG tanks used for cars, trucks, etc. are 3000psi or 3600psi.
The latest hydrogen tanks for FCEVs are 10,000psi. Japan may release a standard for 12k+psi.

The FCEV industry and supports like to point out that hydrogen has a very high energy density. What they don't like having to admit is that hydrogen's volumetric energy density is extremely poor. A kilogram of hydrogen as about the same energy content of a gallon of gasoline. It just takes up more space than 3000gal at one atmosphere. For use in a car, it needs to be liquified or compressed to high pressures. Which requires strong, heavy tanks. IIRC, Toyota got the tanks on this new car up to 5.7% fuel to tank weight. It will likely carry around 5 kilograms of hydrogen; so the total weight of the tanks will be around 193 pounds.

Honda had developed a couple of home refueling systems for demostration. The first was a home reformer of natural gas, and the other was a PV electrolysis system. They likely only went to the lower 7000 or 8000psi standard for hydrogen, and like the home CNG station, took overnight to fill the car's tank.

The required gas purity for the fuel cell likely prevents the use of an odorant like in natural gas and propane. Another hurdle for home refueling. Commercial stations will have sensors for leaking gas(I hope).

 

There is a standard for H2 fueling. It is a good start so every FCV on the road can be refueled by every H2 stations, just like gasoline cars with gas stations.

Green Car Congress: SAE publishes technical paper on hydrogen fueling standard