Featured Does the Toyota Mirai tease a sportier direction for the next Prius?

So there is no ECO sense in producing Hydgn via electrolysis and than driving car on it?

SM-G973F ?

 

Demand the best; jack stands with urethane boots.

Nor economical sense as the market will choose to reform fossil fuels without a renewable mandate.

 

It need not remain inefficient. There is no physical limitation preventing it from being more efficient, which is guaranteed with further research. This post talks about a new method of electrolysis that is 80% efficient.

 

So 80% means you invest 1kw into electrolysis and get 0.8 kw out of it? Still does not make sense. If we accept there is no perpetum mobile, we can agree that it could never be 100% efficient. Right?

SM-G973F ?

 

Of course, it will be less than 100% efficient. Loss of energy is guaranteed no matter how that energy is used. Or did you mean to say something else?

 

From the link, "More generally, I suggest that hydrogen will become the dominant route to long-term energy storage, not principally as the gas itself but in the form of methane and liquid fuels.

To be clear, I think hydrogen fuel cell cars stand very little chance of competing against battery vehicles. However I do believe that using water electrolysis to make hydrogen, which is then merged with carbon-based molecules (such as CO2) to create synthetic natural gas and substitutes for petrol and aviation fuel is likely to be the central feature of the next phase of world decarbonisation."

The author isn't talking about switching to a hydrogen economy, but basically doing the reverse of steam reformation of natural gas to make renewable versions of fossil fuels. Audi had pilot plants doing just that; one made methane, and another a light, sweet, synthetic petroleum that was easily refined into diesel or burned as is in power plants or ships. There is a higher cost to making the hydrocarbons than hydrogen, but we wouldn't have to replace our current infrastructure and fleet of vehicles for it.

 

My point is....if you allready have 1kw of electric power, why would you turn it into hydrogen, and then back eletric, and get 80% of the starting point?

SM-G973F ?

 

They ARE battery vehicles. Did you leave out the term plug-in?

 

That's the soul of the Prius to me. The best gasoline engine plus the best electric drivetrain. Their torque split device is still ingenious and its demands have not changed that much, so it's still the best way to solve that puzzle.

Now, can they make it weigh less without breaking sooner or costing more? Can they make it cost less to make more profit and lower the sticker price? Can they style it better so that more people buy it without noticing "hybrid?"

I'm not optimistic about the value of connectedness but ready to give them a fair shake.

 

some suggest the design doesn't scale very well if (for instance) one were to make a comparable semi trailer truck sized unit. yet - that notion escapes me, as to why that would be true.
.

 

How much scale is actually needed for the Prius? There's maybe a 1600lb difference between the lightest model empty and the largest one at max gross.

 

it works well in camry and rav4, sienna coming, hopefully pick up.

 

seems to me Japan is energy-poor so they feel they need any energy source they can get including sipping but significant reliance on gasoline hybrids, and then their focus is making Prius the max possible MPG that still uses gasoline. Like Gen4 that leaves us a Prius not too much bigger than today but maybe they find a way to hide the PHEV batt, for example could buy room with leaving out the extra chassis Gen4 space for solar and AWD. Please ditch the sedan look and make more like mini SUV like Gen2 and 3. Actually I'd be good with the PiP battery size, gimme a compact spare.

We could probably make H2 from methane and fairly cheaply sequestor the pure CO2 by product.. So in USA we are talking a lot about popular preference to define what we like to encourage.

 

Likely did.

Because BEVs aren't a 100% solution, even for local uses.
Now, I do think taking the hydrogen and making methane and other hydrocarbons is a better idea, and we can make fuel cells that use those for fuel.

The cost of the components that can support the forces a semi drivetrain is under is likely more than with a parallel or series hybrid for the much of the same benefit.

Most, nearly all, of the CO2 sequestered in the US is used to get more oil out of the ground. I wouldn't call that sequestering.

It is technically possible to reform a fossil fuel underground, and only take the hydrogen out. Could be cheaper than reforming above ground, give new life to 'dead' wells, and allow cleaner use of sources like tar sands. it was tried on a coal seam in Australia though, and the company overpressurized the formation. It cracked the bed rock, and the hydrogen and materials that were suppose to stay in the ground seeped into the ground water and upper soil layers.

 

Enhanced oil recovery is one CO2 economic use because you probably get paid for it, but does not have to be the only sequestration option.

 

I thought the primary focus was low pollution and that is why the ICE goes through its complete warm-up cycle when first started. That hurts economy on short trips.

 

Well CARB requirement was that clean burning even cold at start-up..
I don't know if smog is a problem in Tokyo, but Toyota and most of the Japan automakers have generally wanted to make the same car for all locations, versus the US auto makers have maybe started going that way, but originally historically you could get a CARB Ford hybrid or a non-CARB in the non CARB states, which may have had MPG advantage over Prius at start-up.

That's why Toyota had all the fancy rules about you had to buy the car in CARB state blah blah...with FORD you either had a CARB car, or you didn't. So they did not need all those rules about where you first registered etc.

 

It isn't, but without it, there would be less CO2 sequestered because of the economics. Options that actually take carbon out of the global cycle add to the cost.

The Japan MITI programs that helped get the Prius on the road were for low emission vehicles.

 

I honest-to-God wish they would take a break from cutting edge advancement for the next gen, leave the mpg quest where it is (it is great), concentrate on restoring lost cargo space, reinstate the spare on all levels, rein in the dashboard touch screens and improve the control ergonomics (so you can keep your eyes on the road), tone down the styling excesses (inside and out), consider the crash costs of these plastic sculptures fore and aft, ditto for the headlights, and just generally let function dictate form.

Oy, need my meds...

 

I can understand that. I'm happy the Prius exists to develop and express all that bleeding edge stuff, because (as my past posts and purchase history clearly show) I'm all about the Prius-adjacent cars. I don't want the Prius itself, never did! I want the cars it can inspire and enable. That's a frontier that is still being opened up with the Camry, Aqua, Yaris, Corolla, RAV, Highlander, those Lexuseses and a few others in the pipeline.

Do yourself a favor and check out some of the extended family.