Just when you thought it was safe to look at Toyota news without hydrogen headlines comes this: Toyota and Woven Planet Have Developed a New Portable Hydrogen Cartridge Prototype | Corporate | Global Newsroom | Toyota Motor Corporation Official Global Website They are making a portable 5 kg container for storing hydrogen, like a gas can. Fear not they still haven’t solved the CSD (compression/storage/dispensing at the point-of-sale) costs/complexity issues so hydrogen will still be a niche fuel. Cool idea though. Imagine throwing one of these in your Mirai for emergency fuel. Or for an emergency generator source as well as maybe even a heat source. I’m sure they are trying to make hydrogen a (more) popular fuel for everything. iPad ? Pro
To clarify, the target 5kg weight is for the entire container, minus valve and protector. If made to the same safety and pressure standards as tanks for cars, it will hold 250 grams of hydrogen, or enough fuel to move a Mirai 19 miles. Foot notes to the article says one can power a microwave for 3 to 4 hours. That's a lot of burritos, but your house likely has other power needs.
19 miles .... as opposed to how much energy was needed to create that hydrogen - and how much FARTHER a mid sized EV could have traveled, had that energy been used in a traction pack .... .
The size of the pack is way too small for a car. 8 of them are needed for just 2 kg of hydrogen. There is other tech that might make tanks for cars more practical. It is the proper size for a fork lift and possibly portable generators. It seems physically too large for a motorcycle but perhaps could be used on large drones.
I bet once I get a hydrogen fuel cell in my phone I won't have to worry about my phone breaking if I drop it!
This is likely to show that hydrogen could still compete batteries, as Honda is rolling out a a small battery swap system for things like scooters.
The physical size and shape though seems to prevent it from being used on something like an e-bike or scooter. You want to be able to do a better shape and smaller size, something that requires solid hydrogen storage, metal hydride storage, or a different fuel like methanol to run the fuel cell. Companies are working on all of these. It can be used in a portable generator that can recharge these things and laptops, tablets, and cell phones. Apple filed some pattents on this type of generator in 2020.
A more accurate title for this thread: "Toyota continues to fail to create a patent right monopoly for hydrogen based fuels"
