NPR: Japan Is Betting Big On The Future Of Hydrogen Cars

Probably not the same thing, but Japan already have successfully popularized ENE-FARM installed 120,000 residential fuel cell units › H2-international

 

hydro may work well in japan, but it will be interesting to see how manufacturing goes when they can't sell any outside their own country.

 

Rome was not built in one day! No different then the same struggle Tesla is having in USA. You got to start somewhere.

 

i would say it is very different. i can buy a tesla, i cannot buy a mirai, among the many other differences.

maybe bev's are ahead now because they started sooner, but they did not have the obstacles facing hydrogen either.

 

In addition to more apartment dwellers, around half of those in Japan that can charge have a low power grid supply. A Prime on L1 at such a home takes over 10 hours to charge from empty, and L2 can't be supported. That's why CHAdeMO is standard on the Prime, and the solar roof a viable option.

Teslas are available in Europe, China, and Japan too. Aside from the changes all cars need for a foreign market, the only change a Tesla needs is the plug adapter. That is a far easier hurdle than needing to build hydrogen refueling infrastructure.

 

There was a time when there were no gas stations too!

 

i remember that

 

Flying cars will need fuel!

 

No gas stations did not mean no gas though. The petroleum fractions that would become gasoline were being sold at the local store for paint thinning and general degreasing, and early engines weren't as finicky as modern ones over fuel quality. The first gas stations just got those solvents in bulk, and dispensed them from a pump, instead selling by the can.

Today, you might find hydrogen at a welding supply store, but the pressures it is available at may fill a Mirai's tank up to a fifth, or about 62 miles.

Not with floride ion batteries.

 

current numbers -
By The Numbers | California Fuel Cell Partnership

39 public fueling stations in california (the link should update, so this may be lower than link), over 100 in Japan. 6141 fcv in California (light vehicles and busses), 2931 in Japan, with less than 3000 outside of Japan and California.

Range
tesla model 3 long range rwd (130 mpge combined, 123 mpge hwy) 325 miles epa
mirai (67 mpge combined, 67 mpge hwy) 312 miles epa
hyundai nexo fuel cell (61 mpge combined, 58 mpge hwy) 380 miles epa

Maybe in a decade the fuel cells will catch up. The model 3 somehow weighs less and costs less and outsold all fuel cell vehicles combined world wide in all time just last month (and February is a short month).

 

And that's just one month -
You can't beat the power of the model 3, nor the refueling infrastructure, nor the price. But if Japan wants to run it's hydrogen cars, reformed from Brown coal back in Australia so that they can call it clean back home, more power to them.
.

 

There was an informative article about Toyota's choice not to produce BEVs in Car and Driver on March 6. I'm new to this website and haven't reached my quota for being allowed to post a link, but if you google car and driver and toyota-why-not-selling-electric-cars, you will find it. The essence of the article was that with limited battery production capacity, they can produce 28,000 BEVs or 1.5 million hybrids, and the latter reduces more carbon emissions.

 

that would make sense if hybrid sales weren't decreasing every year in the us. toyota conflates their home country policy with the rest of the world, unless forced otherwise by local governments.

unfortunately, california is complicit in their folly.

 

We must give you a demerit on BEV advocacy. However, I will give you 10-points for hybrid acceptance.

 

Seems the Germans are not so sure about all EV vehicles. VW/Audi is looking into Hydrogen again. They believe there is a way to sell both. Good for them!

 

everything in germany is politically motivated. unlike the usa

 

Tesla is the best!

 

besla