Featured 2023 Prius to launch plug-in hydrogen electric vehicle. Corolla to offer hydrogen combustion engine

Hydrogen infrastructure had a head start over today's public charging standards. They loss the momentum because the promised affordable cars never came, and just supporting the hydrogen infrastructure, even in a limited area, became too expensive.

Tesla or Elon played no part in hydrogen's demise. At most they showed the hydrogen supporting companies were just in it for the government hand out when they started building the Supercharger network. Tesla knew their cars needed chargers out there in order to be successful, and spent their own money to make it happen.

When asked to do the same, hydrogen car companies universally said, "not my job." They only started helping with the infrastructure when forced too, or after it was apparent hydrogen was going to lose. Hydrogen cars lost because the technology and infrastructure was expensive, and the companies with the car products didn't want to spend their own money to make them successful. Not because of plug ins.

 

That's because they weren't PHEVs.

Wrong.

 

This might be the best thread ever for me. I am fascinated.
I need to come up to speed with your vison Lee Jay. .

 

And why didn't the major car companies work on PFCEVs if they an obvious solution?

What an enlightening rebuttal.

Tesla and Musk have so much clout that CARB rewrote ZEV rules to exclude them from fast fueling credits, and you still can't directly buy their cars in some states.

The vision is that plug in hydrogen FCEVs with small fuel cells and big batteries would have succeeded as the cars would have been cheaper, and less hydrogen stations needed.

Potential issues as I seen them. tl;dr For this plan to work, it requires many of the advances that came about from plug in EV growth.

• Getting the fuel cell, batteries, and hydrogen tank with the least compromise in packaging, would liking require a new platform. This would be a big expense over using an existing platform for a small production run that was likely in the beginning.
• Individually, a smaller fuel cell is cheaper than a more powerful one in materials. When making them by hand, as was done, the production costs are still going to be high.
• Batteries for plug ins were not not cheap in the beginning. Remember that the first FCEV available for lease came out before the Leaf and Volt, and it took years for costs to drop to where they are now.
• Fewer and smaller carbon tanks means lower costs per car, and less space needed. It also means less range on a trip; maybe 200 miles. Would be lower with the lower pressure fills used in the beginning. People had the opinion that stopping to refuel a Clarity PHEV often on a trip would be annoying. Others wouldn't care, but the low range would result with more hydrogen stations needed than likely planned.
• Home charging makes the cars more viable for day to day use, but it isn't going to help grow the hydrogen network. The stations still have the same fixed costs no matter if the cars can charge or not. You need the stations to be used for those to not become a burden to investment and expansion. PFCEVs mean less stations to support them, but use less business to support the stations.
• You need to pay to expand the station network no matter what. If plug ins are limited to a small area, they'll just become BEVs in use. Excess stations need to be paid for in the beginning in order for the cars to actually use the stations.
• The worry that once people are use to plugging in, they may decide to just get a BEV or PHEV for the next car instead of dealing with hydrogen.

 

The demise of hydrogen all started with a big bang. The laws of thermodynamics were created and that was that.
We aren't changing the laws and hydrogen will not be economical for personal transportation while we have cheaper electrons to use.

Mike

 

Works for me . . . too.

Bob Wilson

 

i'm not understanding how tesla building out a supercharger network affected hydrogen fueling stations.

gas stations didn't inhibit thesupercharger network.

the other charging networks could have built hydrogen stations instead.

shell is building a charging network in europe. maybe they are missing the future...

 

Perhaps Lee thinks Tesla should have been forced to build hydrogen stations for Toyota?

 

It wasn't the Supercharger network. It was just that they were successful in just making a desirable BEV. After loses sales to them, the other manufacturers realized they needed to offer something to compete, and hydrogen FCEVs just weren't up to the task.

 

you'd think that if any major mfg thought hydrogen was viable, they would be following tesla's model but for hydrogen

 

I’m speculating they’re going to make a very modest number of the hydrogen version; they’ll show up at Toyota booster events, a few company-owned vehicles, and precious few in the individual ownership market. And those might be sold at reasonable price but with “strings”, ie you’re obligated to do testimonials, that sort of thing. Same old?

 

only as many as the governments will pay for

 

If only they were also energy companies.

 

Source: VW's $2 billion penalty for diesel scam builds EV charging network across US

Almost a year to the day after opening its first charging station, Electrify America says it is rolling out the country’s fastest-growing network of fast chargers.

Funded by $2 billion from Volkswagen’s 2016 diesel emissions settlement, it has a goal of building hundreds of stations and putting nearly 2,000 chargers in place by the end of this year.​

I'm not aware of a single hydrogen fuel station funded by the VW fine. Instead, a charging network incompatible with Tesla except for the soon to disappear CHAdeMO, 50 kW, plug, and expensive, rare adapter.

Bob Wilson

 

Toyota saw a need for a better H2 network, and whined to the governments.

Seems to me Toyota’s view is more narrow than Tesla’s.

Although, Tesla was not an energy company when they started building the network.

Tesla saw a need for a better charging network, and started building one.

 

even if hydrogen were the better alternative in the end, there are only two ways to get there:

demand (not going to happen) and government (also not going to happen)

so it seems to me, not knowing which is better, or even if there are better alterntives, what we do have beginning in bev's is far better than sitting on our hands, waiting for government funded fossil fuel companies to lead us down a better path.

so i'm thankful for musk, even with all his idiosyncrasies, that we are at least headed somewhere far better than we are now.
and tothink it is happening all over the world is simply amazing.

 

$5 million in VW funding available for hydrogen refueling stations in California - Green Car Congress
Light-Duty Zero-Emission Infrastructure, Hydrogen
As sole source funding, that's good for two, maybe three, hydrogen stations. Perhaps more if they go with low volume ones.

Which was my point. Tesla knew BEVs needed charging infrastructure if they were to succeed, and have a large impact.
Hydrogen infrastructure is required for hydrogen cars. When asked why they weren't building it, hydrogen car companies just put forward excuses. Not being in the energy business was a common one.

Going back to the OP. From the beginning of California's ZEV program, hydrogen ICE cars were classified as T-ZEV, the same as PHEVs. Toyota and others could have been getting ZEV credits, and growing the hydrogen network, for years with hydrogen ICE offerings if they were truly committed to hydrogen. The cost of the cars would only be that of the hydrogen tanks over a gasoline model, which is cheap compared to a fuel cell, and cheaper than the early BEVs that would come out in a few years. The company would have to put out more money to cover early adopter fuel costs, but they need more people actually using hydrogen for it to succeed.

Instead they went with just FCEVs for hydrogen. Where the high cost of the fuel cell, and its limited lifespan, meant the first available hydrogen car was lease only at a high price. That results in less hydrogen cars on the road, making the hydrogen infrastructure expensive per car. Then the hydrogen lobby also got more ZEV credits for a hydrogen FCEV, so the car company would need less cars on the road to might their ZEV target. For believing in hydrogen as the future, they didn't seem really inclined to make it happen.

Now that hydrogen for passenger cars has essentially lost, we get hydrogen ICE cars. Which may not show up in California. It's too early to tell. Outside of Japan, Norway will probably get them first.

 

there's an irony discussing how weak our national grid is - if it's for charging battery cars, yet refrigerating WAY below zero, for hydrogen - whether for stationary tanks or trucking it all over the place .... that never enters into the discussion - nor the $15-ish per unit of hydrogen.
.

 

In his defense, the post was about countries with poor electric infrastructure. Maybe hydrogen is a better option for such places. Such places aren't brimming with the wealth needed to get FCEVs now though. To get production levels high enough for fuel cells that cost about twice that of a ICE would require FCEVs to become much more successful than they already are.

Hydrogen ICE would be much more affordable, but their lower efficiency requires larger hydrogen production per location. If a BEV can go three times the distance on a kWh of renewable electricity compared to a FCEV, it would go 9 to 12 times compared to a hydrogen ICE.

Of course, if you are electrolyzing water for the hydrogen, the investment to make methanol from it might be a better solution. Existing cars can be converted to use it, and the cost for new cars running on it won't be much more than the gasoline model. The methanol plants might be less decentralized, but it is extremely cheap and easy to ship methanol. If certain technologies leave the lab, renewable ammonia might even be cheaper.