A petition to Toyota to build electric vehicles

It doesn't change it, just makes hydrogen obsolete for the light vehicle fleet.

You mentioned hydrogen being the most common element in the universe.
This is true.

You also mentioned how much energy falls to earth, also true.

But why take the extra measure of:
harnessing the solar energy by producing electricity,
using that electricity to break H2 free of a more complicated molecule,
then shipping and storing the hydrogen,
so you can later turn in back into electricity to run an electric motor in a car?

When you could instead simply store the electricity and use it to run the motor?

 

Toyota tested the EV waters with the RV-4 and for a time, it was a monopoly while the EV1s went to the crusher. The RV-4 EV program is closing down and I'm assuming it is in part because the market is not beating a path to their door. But we're seeing the Leaf and other small battery powered cars are selling well enough, ~2,000 per month. In another 5 years, we'll see.

Battery powered cars have been practical once the lead-acid cells were replaced. Tesla has shown what can be done and the only question remaining is the rate of battery powered car improvements. We are seeing practical numbers of BVs sold each month but fuel cell vehicles are today, interesting prototypes.

Today I can buy a 2-3 year old, used Leaf, ~$15,000, and for $5,000, and replace the battery when the first one gets too weak. In contrast, the FCV and hydrogen fuel stations are a future technology, two years, and likely will always be for the rest of us . . . in the future. "If wishes were horses . . . " But there is merit in 'reality training.'

Provide the FC cars and an initial set of hydrogen stations . . . and wait two to three years. Reality-training when more support money is needed and that will be a great time to offer the battery powered version. Perhaps with an aluminum-air battery. <grins>

Bob Wilson

 

Clean air aside, what is the benefit of a hydrogen car to Joe Public? None.

Most people don't give a damn about clean air or wasting resources (unfortunately). I imagine the options are as follows;

Buy a petrol car for £15k and pay for fuel on top.
Buy an Electric car for £25k and pay significantly less for your fuel (electricity)
Buy a FCV for £60K and pay for fuel at a heavily restricted number of places.

A FCV just seems fairy land thinking. Even if there are a handful of hydrogen filling stations, it will still restrict people more than a BEV. People want convenience at a cost they can afford. Why buy a FCV for £60k when you could get a top end Merc for that?

 

I agreed that hydrogen is impractical in the present, but I expressed optimism based on past history.

 

Directly for Joe is the ability to rapidly refuel.

Indirectly for Joe is the ability to store electricity. Remember that the grid doesn't actually have any batteries. That means renewable energy generated during the day from solar & wind needs to be held by some means. Think about how important that is over in Japan, where nuclear (their primary source of electricity) has become a very real concern. It's too bad here we aren't taking renewables as serious.

 

Fuel cells could find their way into the fleet. Most likely, it will be as range extenders for plug ins. Even then the Al-air battery will likely beat them to market for that purpose.

 

Storing RE that would otherwise simply be turned off is a great use for hydrogen.
It is already being done in many areas of the world and hopefully will continue to expand.
This stored hydrogen can then easily be used onsite, eliminating the waste and cost of transporting it.

Hydrogen, like batteries are energy storage devices. Batteries are heavier, however they are much easier to transport around in mobile devices.

As for average Joe, the "average" Joe won't ever need to recharge an electric car away from home.
Now, some people have driving patterns that take them on longer trips. In those cases a BEV may not work well. Hybrids, or plugin hybrids would be their best bet.
If there were such a thing as a plugin-fuel cell hybrid, that would be wonderful.

Oddly enough, Toyota seems very resistant to putting a plug in their fuel cell vehicles.

 

The aluminum-air battery isn't such a miracle of technology in my opinion. It's basically a large block of aluminum, which is allowed to corrode away like a sacrificial anode in water. It may not be quite that simple, but I'm sure there are better ways to produce electricity.

 

The problem hydrogen faces as an energy carrier, is it is a poor choice compared to methanol. Methanol can be made from electricity hyrogen and carbon dioxide, effectively sequestering the carbon dioxide. This does take more electricity than simply making the hyrodgen, but it is less than liquifying and trucking hydrogen for distribution. Methanol infrastructure is much cheaper to build, and has no chicken and egg problem. A simple modification to pass the open fuel standard would get oil companies to add methanol pumps, and would allow methanol and gasoline to be burned in the same ice.

Getting there is much more straightforward as methanol probably costs about the same as gasoline right now (untaxed) which is about 1/5 the cost of hydrogen. A prius running on M85 would only be a little less efficient than a mirai running on the same hydrogen, but that m85 prius would be more efficient if the source of both were natural gas and we account for the ghg constructing the vehicles and the hydrogen stations along with districtuion of the methanol and hydrogen.

BEV, PHEV, plus methanol and ethanol look much more likely to take over in the US if we run out of oil or make it expensive. Even fuel cell vehicles running on methanol may be more likely than 10,000 psi hydrogen in this country.

The Methanol Economy | MIT Technology Review

Of course breathroughs can occur and make hydrogen more viable, especially in other countries like Japan without access to the US's energy resources. In Japan the government can simply tax all the alternatives (methanol, ethanol, gasoline) enough more than hydrogen for it to be a winner, and tax cars that don't run hydrogen to pay to subsidize the cars. That isn't really politically viable in the US.

In the US the hygrogen and ethanol lobbies helped destroy the methanol infrastructure in california. It is fairly cheap and easy to resurrect, and texas, california, and colorado are places where industry would happily pay for the infrastructure for a test.

 

There are better ways to produce electricity, but there may not be ways of doing so in a car for longer trips. An Al-air battery is impractical as the sole energy source of an EV. It can't be recharged, and will eat up aluminum to quickly. As a range extender to a plug in, it is almost ideal.

Plug in power can meet a large percentage of daily driving needs. That potential percentage is increasing battery chemistries and prices improve. BEVs still lack for long trips because of recharging times. With an Al-air battery to provide power after the rechargable one is depleted, the 20 to 30 minute fast charge stops are replaced with stops to refill with distilled water. Pumping out the waste material and replacing the anodes is a less daunting investment than high pressure hydrogen refueling for fuel cells. The waste can be reused, it has commercial applications on its own, or recycled back into aluminum.

The Al-air battery's short coming is that the first ones possible to market are only good for about 1000miles. Depending on the car's grid range, that may not be enough to meet people's needs without excessive visits for fresh anodes. A fuel cell RE should be better for those with many long trips in a year if the goal is zero emissions at the tailpipe. While not ground breaking technology, the Al-air battery will be easier and cheaper to implement.

 

I'm not a fan of zero-anything, just because getting there is a killer. I think we need to set our sights on sustainable targets instead, but this is turning into another environmental discussion and we don't want to go there in this forum.

 

There were huge technology advances during the eras of Rome & Egypt too. History repeats & eventually, you run out of resources (slaves, forests etc) to keep the advances moving forward. Whether on an entire continental region ... or on an Island;



so we continue running head long - letting the hydrogen lobby spend decades of resources, in hopes we don't peak faster than the new tech becomes a win ... maybe. Crossing fingers
.

 

We do have renewable options.

 

There are far more electrons in the universe than hydrogen. I'm optimistic about electricity.

Mike

 

A Two-Day Battle to Charge My Car Convinced Me We're ... - Wired

 

uh-oh. hornets nest.

 

i'm sure there will be a lot of advice from ev owners who have more experience with this sort of thing. it's probably not a good idea to give a writer a car for 2 days and have him try to figure everything out. tesla got the same bad press when they tried it. if i was the author, i would have told the guy from nissan, come on and get it, btw, there's no charge left.

 

I can't imagine a better way to set up to fail other than to have a writer that has no place to charge overnight and has done no research on the availability of chargers borrow a short range vehicle for a few days.

Rather than the statement indicating "we aren't ready for EVs" it should have been "I'm not ready for a short range EV because I rent".

No one is saying that EVs work for everyone. Just because they don't work for everyone doesn't mean they aren't ready for many.

Just because a Prius won't work for someone that needs to haul a ton of construction equipment, doesn't mean the Prius isn't ready for most.

 

Seems Toyota is backtracking slightly regarding their comment that "no one wants EV's":

Toyota Hears Us Knocking - Craig Scott Responds To His &quot;Barefaced Lie&quot;

Still, the proverbial bullet has been fired into their proverbial foot. They're going to start losing market share once BEV's have longer ranges, shorter charge times, and more charging stations available.

I can't buy an FCV in Wisconsin even if I wanted one. And assuming I did somehow get one, I'd have no way to fill it up. At least I can buy an electric vehicle here, and plug it in my garage. I'm not waiting until Toyota, or rather the government, builds hydrogen gas stations here to buy an FCV, when I can buy an EV and immediately put it to use.

 

Exactly. Even if you only live 20 miles from the nearest hydrogen filling station, it's still a 40 mile trip to refuel. Just seems ill thought out. Hydrogen will probably work for fleets but not much else.