Luxury brands place fuel cell bets

Agree with your outlook.
It would have been nice to see industry partners on a larger scale. FedEx, maybe even a taxi company.
So why is Toyota moving into stage three if stage one failed and stage two is incomplete?
Please note, that is largely rhetorical.

 

Think profitable cold fusion - mankind finds the notion of the impossible to be challenging ... especially on someone else's 'Neverending' dime.
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And there have been FCEV buses being tested elsewhere. Some programs ended when the FCEV bus ended up needing more maintenance than a diesel one.

It would be far cheaper to run the initial hydrogen stations if they were installed for fleet use. First, there would be fewer stations needed than for a network to service private cars spread out over a wide area. There are savings from that, and then more from the fact that there will be numerous FCEV fleet vehicles using the station. It will be one station per 20 vehicles or so, as opposed to one per every 5 or less.

This will also mean the stations need to be robust, and the test will show what needs improving for the stations to be able to handle the traffic of a current gasoline station. It will be far better data than that from a station that sees only one car per day.

These stations should be placed, and designed, so that they can be switched over to public use when private cars become available.

Two-mode didn't make it for large SUVs mainly because of cost. It seems to be the most common system for hybrid buses

Yet Toyota also have a FCEV bus.

I wouldn't call going from the Escape to the Fusion a downsize. They were about the same size, using the same sized hybrid system.

The F-cell looks more minivan to crossover to me.

Didn't Toyota start with a SUV FCEV?

What they planned to do 5 years ago doesn't mean they have accomplished it. One to two years ago, Toyota was saying $100k for the price. If they actually were selling the Mirai at cost, Toyota would be stating so in the press releases, because that would be a really big leap in FCEV advancement.

Perhaps Toyota isn't losing money on each car sold when the incentives and subsidies are accounted for. The CARB ZEV credits may be why they can sell it for less in California than in Germany. If that were true, not losing money isn't the same as at cost.

Yet increased customer choice wasn't a good enough reason to expand Prius PHV availability. Its upstream carbon emissions are lower than the Camry hybrid even in coal heavy states.

While a SUV, the Highlander FCEV probably wasn't used by Fed Ex for deliveries.

What, CARB couldn't use Japanese station technology? The US wasn't the only country conducting research.

Now, this is just an ignorant statement. A station built to fill 10k psi tanks will need more powerful compressors and chillers to fill 12k psi ones. Sure, you can take a 12k psi car to a 10k psi station, but you won't be able to fill the tanks all the way. How many will do that? Didn't Toyota delay the Mirai release so that customers wouldn't be using outdated stations? California is already spending millions to update those older stations.

What if the Dutch water pre-fill becomes the standard? That will require a new nozzle as part of the equipment upgrade.

Research is still on going for on board reformers. What can we use these hydrogen stations for when they are no longer required for FCEVs.

Not according to some comments about range and charge times for BEVs.

With the maximum time of 15 minutes, how long do you think it will take to fill a long haul truck under current standards? Toyota's vision for hydrogen FCEVs isn't limited to cars.

Apparently, that isn't so of current Model S owners. Perhaps it will be when there are more affordable models, making them more available to the majority. By then, there will be more charging stations for long trips. For daily ones, it still won't be an issue.

Again, just because Toyota sells the Mirai for less than the Model S that doesn't reflect to cost to built.

What private company is paying to build them now?

The fleet first plan is about reducing the costs paid by tax payers by reducing the number of initial stations. If the technology is proven to work in the high demands of package delivery and taxis, it will be an easier sell to get government to build more stations, and also of the private cars themselves.

Since no company making a hydrogen car wanted to 'man up' like Tesla did in regards to public infrastructure, this would have been the path of least resistance.

Except there are other paths to this goal, that don't require as large as an investment. Solar and wind electric, with biodiesel, ethanol, or other renewable liquid fuel for a PHV can get there for more people, in a faster time frame, and less cost.

Some are quite fine slow charging at night on wind energy while they sleep, and then having their solar displace any fossil fuel they, or their neighbors, use during the day. Others will get hybrids or PHVs. Hydrogen cars won't be a solution for most of the US in this goal.

 

Confirmation of if, When is up in the air, and we know the source of some of the japanaese hydrogen is according to toyota is "clean and green" coal, because they plan to use sequestration.


Lexus confirms hydrogen cars - motoring.com.au

Australian coal to power FCV boom - motoring.com.au

 

thats quite a dose of typical FC dishonest misinformation - as saying it's one thing - is not what it actually is -
Take the popular Tesla/chademo adapter as the 1st example of countering dishonesty about what luxury car owners wouldn't want to carry.


They sell in quantity just fine.
Next on the desperate FC dishonesty list of ridiculousness - hours to recharge ?
Wow
And with hundreds of public charging - ever growing - leaps & bounds - to suggest that one has to ask permission to park?
Again wow - This is a great example of how desperate the FC lobby is wanting to shed it's shortcomings - that it has to make up its own smear reality in hopes to keep its successful competition at bay. Good luck with that
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FC Lobby, what about the EV Lobby? They all are the same. Lets get over this debate, and allow there to be freedom of choice. You can drive your EV and others can drive their Gas, Diesel, EV, FC or horse.....

 

good luck with that!

 

You will get very little disagreement on that from EV proponents.
What EV fans don't like, is the carb rulings that give three times the credits to FCVs than BEVs.
Add to that the California state incentives now not being available to wealthy households (which I agree with) yet state incentives are available to wealthy households for FCVs.

 

These incentives have been given to Hybrids, EV's and now to FCVs. Its used by our governments to attract buyers to new technology. Without these incentives of dollars or HOV lanes passes do you really think the public would have purchased as many Hybrids, or EVs?

 

Oh, no doubt. Please note, I didn't say that FCVs shouldn't get incentives.
I said they should not get three times the incentives. Especially since they are dirtier (where they are sold).

 

Agree completely. Level the playing field, but give some help to this fuel cell demo.

IMHO the californiacation of HOV lanes is just terrible. No I don't think that was responsible for hybrid sucess.

I am all for continuing the demonstration phase of fcv. Unfortunately people are pretending we are in commercialization phase. In this demonstration phase, throwing more money at the fcv will not lease a great deal of additional vehicles, all it would do would be to shift some vehicles from the japanese demo to the US, and IMHO the Japanese demo is more important from a R&D point of view. No reason to pass the new pro hydrogen bill in congress to give fcv a additional $8000 in federal money through 2021. This simply is money flushed down the toilet. If FCV get to the point of commercialization then perhaps anouther federal subsidy is appropriate. The federal government is spending a lot more per likely fcv than they are for plug-ins. The time the credit perhaps should start is 2021, but this bill pushes it for the demo, which will not produce any more fcv or make the demonstration any more of a success.

We have the retardation of zev credits, as moved into the new laws. In 2013 instead of realizing the battery swap demo showed that initial adopters did not value quick refueling, CARB under pressure from CFCP which it seems to lead decided that swap was not refueling. It then went and decided quick refueling gets more credit 2 more were added, meaning that Toyota and HOnda would not produce more, but less cars for compliance. Yep, the rule change didn't just reduce the value of zevs allocated to tesla, they increased them for honda, toyota, and hyundai in effect telling them to produce fewer fcv. How did that make any sense? PHEVs even if they would qualify for zev credits without the engine, the quick refueling disqualifies them from credit. That doesn't make any sense if you want a level playing field. The CARB rewrite of the rules were against plug-ins, and for fcv.

I hope the demo goes well. The time for commercialization is not yet. maybe in 5 years. maybe in 10 years. maybe they won't work. I don't think we should keep moving incentives as if fcv will win for sure, especially since no domestic manufacturer sees a future as bright as there are for plug-ins.

 

can't tell from that statement whether there's a miscommunication - or a deliberate attempt to ignore the issue ....
"disparity"
Example; I have $1,000 & i have to give it away to 10 people in the room. I could give $100 to each of the 10. Instead - I give everybody in the room $55 of the $1,000 -
And you give me over $500 of the $1,000 because i'm rich anywy, and i secretly gave you some other benefits so you treat me way better, to the detriment of the others in the room.
That's an example of disparity. Hopefully that helps.
It's not about everyone getting help. It's all about a huge leg up for the one in particular.
No - it's actually worse than that - because if I'm a big drain on others being more productive, and yet i'm being treated more favorable than those being more productive, then there's really no incentive for me to EVER be better because I can just keep paying for benefits that would be best given to others. Too bad, suckers
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once again - this is a fiction because most plugin's are in CA and much of that majority charge on their own solar - just like you & I. So in essence you've made a argument for the other side.
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How do you know most plug-ins are charged on solar?

 

I still have yet to have heard the explanation of how a plug-in in LA or Houston causes an 50+ year old coal plant to be built in Indiana (note grids are separate with very little flow between than power on the grid.

Let's do this test. Still I don't like the test they are trying. Instead of building 20 - 1100 kg h2/day stations that could fuel 20x 275/day peak (22,000 fcv network), they are building mainly 57 - 25 kg - 200 kg stations that can fuel less than 10,000 fcv. Its going to be a much more expensive test than they originally outlined, with those excuses that the stations need to be upgraded for a real demo. I expect in 2018 instead of the 10,000 fcv there will be less than 6000 fcv with excuses (in 2009 it was promised 50,000 in 2017, for a lot less money)

Do the demo. Stop raising the subsidies for fcv. Level the playing field for phev, they have the fast refueling that CFCP claims is needed. Lets see if the bird can fly like toyota says it will, or looks like the edsel program.

 

HAHA

 

Wow and you think this only happens in the Automotive industry?! The reality is that this is the way the world works. But to fault a technology like FCVs over this makes no sense. Let the dice roll and lets see where they land.