A petition to Toyota to build electric vehicles

How do you figure that?

Shell set to open first cluster of hydrogen filling stations - Shell Global

Shell Opens Hydrogen Station - United States


Hydrogen fuel cell technology | ExxonMobil


Working Together for a Cleaner Future: Ford Division to Recommend BP on all 2006 Products | Press | BP Global

If their original business plan is threatened, it's going to be easier to sell compressed hydrogen than electrons. The average Joe is used to pulling up and filling up in just a few minutes. Oh, and they need a Gatorade and car wash too, thanks.

To try to stay a little on-topic, my money is on BEV over hydrogen. One big advantage is that I can plug in at night and charge. Convenient, cheap, even easier than refilling with hydrogen. Since Toyota isn't interested in BEV's, I'm not interested in Toyota when it's time to replace my PIP.

 

The title might be a little misleading:

Source: IBID

Bob Wilson

 

and you still can't breath in l.a.

 

• market too small - Prius and EV people are early adopters and we're skeptical
• too few customers - if the average bear won't buy gas-electric hybrids, fuel cells are 'warp engines'
• expensive manufacturing - makes ethanol seem like a bargain
• handling - all forms of hydrogen are wicked stuff requiring non-existent, skilled employees

Of course, I could be wrong. First time I see a fuel-cell powered, gasoline delivery truck, I'll apologize for being a cranky old man.

Bob Wilson

 

I can see a NJ gas jockey now, hooking the nozzle up to the car with cigarette in mouth and smartphone in hand.

 

i wouldn't mind if all the fedex/ups trucks around here switched from diesel to hydrogen.

 

That's exactly how natural gas distilled hydrogen is best used . . . large scale. Just like nuke to steam generated electricity. But we'll never see the day that it's practical to build car sized reactors. The question remains - how much more money will it take for taxpayers & Toyota to spend - before they figure that out. In case no one has noticed, the system is running a $17trillion debt. . . meah - what's a few hundred million more dollars.
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between friends.

 

Hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the universe, and enough sunlight energy falls on the United States in one day to meet all electricity consumption current at the current rate for 27 years. I'm sure we'll eventually find a way to bring those two things together.

 

yep ..... plenty hydrogen ..... plenty sunshine .... there's even more gold in sea water than all the fort Knox' in the world. Seawater gold is like hydrogen, we already have the technology to distille it. Just because you can do it though doesn't mean it'll ever be able to be affordable or practical ... nor are jet packs and flying cars. Sequestering sunshine however IS more affordable and therefore a more reasonable solution for individual auto transportation as well as home use. That doesn't mean that there aren't well-meaning / determined folks who will continue on and on with utter determination.
Here's where I incorporate my horse fly inside the car analogy. The trapped horse fly will similarly (to the hydrogen car lobby) continue to bang against the inside of the car's windshield - again and again and again in an effort to complete its task namely escape its boundary.
Some will realize the horse fly is not determined .... but rather just doesn't have the brains to understand its boundaries. IMO, the hydrogen lobby is manifesting the same thoughtless determination of the horse fly. The horse fly is using its determination based on its own energy. The hydrogen lobby however is doing it on the energy of your tax dollar.
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i hate horseflies, let's not even get into taxes.

 

Well, "eventually" is still the right word. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but there's only one way to stop it happening; to call it "impossible."

 

"Perfect" has always been the enemy of good enough and is the sweet lie of the fossil fuel businesses. If they can find some inflated perfection to distract the easily fooled . . . they won't many here to fool.

Bob Wilson

 

It isn't impossible, but liquid and high pressure hydrogen fuel cell cars are impractical simply because of the cost and inefficiencies in getting the hydrogen to the car. Even with a surplus, electricity still isn't free, and thus grid powered cars will be cheaper to run than using more energy to compress the hydrogen.

Low pressure hydrogen and metal hydrides have some merit in not requiring as much energy to get it onboard a car, and in not needing as extensive a traditional refueling infrastructure. Methanol fuel cells are even better in that the cost to convert gasoline lines and stations for it is a fraction of what hydrogen infrastructure would cost. If we do reach a point of surplus energy that hydrogen becomes practical, we likely could just make methanol from air and water with it.

 

Technology has an uncanny way of leaking around the barriers we erect in our minds against it. Scientists cried out about the impossibility of heavier-than-air-travel before it became a fact. Most computer experts in the early days thought all the computing could only be done by a massive central mainframe. In fact, technology predictions that were flat-out wrong greatly outnumber the ones that turned out to be correct.

Storing hydrogen requires a massive pressure vessel to store it under pressure, but why do that? Rockets use liquid hydrogen in non-pressurized vessels. The downside is that you have to use it right away, or it will eventually evaporate away. It seems like a great application for aircraft. Solid-storage mediums for hydrogen are also being developed.

What seems like an impossible barrier, can simply be a limitation created by our own minds. I wouldn't rule out a breakthrough that could suddenly provide us with an abundance of cheap hydrogen. There's no reason it "couldn't" happen.

 

Breakthroughs can always occur.
I look forward to the breakthroughs that make hydrogen easy, efficient and convenient to use.
Prior to those breakthroughs I would hope we don't plan on them definately happening.
Btw, I also don't support the idea of using tax money to build transporter units in the hopes that we will have a breakthrough allowing matter transmission through space.

 

But the hydrogen here on earth is hydrogen atoms, not hydrogen molecules. Oxygen atoms are very abundant as well. Ever try and breath the oxygen in H2O?

Mike

 

How is any of that relevant?

 

It takes energy to release H2 from water, natural gas, or whatever else you are producing it from.
In some cases, it takes a lot of energy.

Better than gasoline vehicles, but not better than simply taking the energy and storing it in batteries.

 

How does that change what I said?