Featured Meet Toyota's first Mirai owner, and his half-filled FCV

$0.23 per mile is 4-5 times more than a typical Prius.

 

This is really a satiric bombshell

 

uh oh - better say no more - or usb will complain you're going all political ...

Not that i can speak for anyone, but the fans will simply shrug it off & claim things will get better . . .
more tax money - more years, you'll see
What a shame this new owner can only drive it half the distance, or 150 miles to empty.
"range anxiety" ?
Hopefully he doesn't live too many miles from the one and only station that's near him. He can't reach the next ½ chargeable station on a 150 mile straight shot.
Forget tesla - Even the new Nissan Leaf (mules running all over to landscape) are getting over 200 miles range. And yet Ironically Toyota's bich-fest was that 100 mile ev's? just isn't good enough. That's what one calls Toyota karma
.

 

Between a FCV with a range of 150 miles and a BEV with a range of 150 miles, the FCV can be refilled in <5 minutes. That range is solid too in very cold temps, year after year.

Hybrids own all, though. My sister's Hyundai Sonata hybrid has a 700 mile range and can also be refilled in under 5 minutes and it cost only $26k.

 

His half-what FCV?

 

"Refilled in Hybrids own all, though" ?? ? sorry - can you maybe rephrase? Not quite sure what that means.

That said - if I could speak to Mr Toyoda-san as a California Taxpayer I'd say . . . . "would you like 10 more CARB credits - to go with your next $100,000,000 infrastructure build out? Never mind moving your corporate headquarters to Texas - we have plenty of tax payer money to burn - no matter how many people complain . . . Full speed ahead Captain Ahab.
.

 

Do you have a better source?

I read the article:

Rambach tells PCWorld that currently 95 percent of hydrogen fuel is made from natural gas, which is combined with steam to produce methane, and that efforts to produce it using methane captured from cows or waste management facilities are still in the exploratory phase.

According to Rambach, hydrogen stations of the future will be different than the trucked-in method of today:

“The big picture is for hydrogen stations to be self-contained—to make their own hydrogen onsite.” According to the magazine, a station Rambach is assisting in developing in Rohnert Park, California, is designed so “it’ll someday be able to use solar or geyser power to make hydrogen fuel.”​

I suspect this was a non-technical reporter scrambling his words: "to produce methane" "use solar or geyser power". If I were Rambach, I would be spitting mad!

Bob Wilson

 

Mad . . . . in which sense ...

Any true scientist worth their salt would realize what he / she we're getting into. IOW, just because Toyota promised their FC expetiment would be Shangrila, with 10,000Lbs pressure in 5 minutes doesn't mean they were telling the truth. It's likely Toyota is just just rushing headlong into this gamble with the Hail Mary hope that things will be worked out before the Olympics - so that they won't look like an nice person. For their benefit, here's to hoping.
.

 

More of a press release, at least this source doesn't have factual errors:
Hydrogen vehicle marks arrival of a long-promised automotive era | The Sacramento Bee

Bob Wilson

 

While the range loss won't be as great as in a BEV, a FCEV still has it in the cold. So those stations need be closer together. A BEV doesn't need any stations for daily runs with home charging.

 

The claims now days are that the auto fuel cell will now last as long as a diesel ICE (250k miles). But no data i can find supports what capacity loss is considered to be end of life. It'll be more believable if a 250kmile/80% warranty backed up such claims.

 

Well, Toyota reps have claimed that the tanks will last the cars life while there is a do not after date on the filler door.

 

Cost of (maybefuel lines too?) the fuel stack/traction pack/hydrogen tanks - @10yrs - if all need replacing simultaneously - is this meant to just be a disposable car?

 

It's a conclusion I put forward several times. Depreciation will be worse than a BEV with incentives in effect.

 

InsideEVs spin news for their readers. They are EV bias.

Bear the growing pain. To paraphrase a Toyota engineer, a child born is a fool at first but he has potential to become a fully grown man.

 

I think this is the quote you want
Toyota's First Fuel Cell Vehicle, the Mirai, Comes to California - Bloomberg Business

Tanaka seemed to indicate that production may increase faster than toyota previously said

That means perhaps more than 42,000 fcv running around by the end of 2020.

 

That's true, but if a human is born brain dead - they're never going to invent the next type of technology. Rather they'll need care and nurturing for the rest of their life, just to exist.

Yes, that's a taxpayer parallel.
Tanaka wants to increase his number of brain deads - and he wants everyone else to pay for them - in hopes some day in the distant future, he'll perfect brain transplants. NOT:
His child is not newborn. I've already posted 1960's era pics of GM's fuel cell van (before it blew up). Tanaka 's child is some ½century old. Here' s to hoping his child doesn't pass away from old age prior to the perfection
of brain surgery.

 

Yes, from Toyota (perhaps Lexus included).

Don't discount other manufacturers. Kia just announced FCV in 2020 as well.

 

Think of these as learning curve. Which child would you want to raise?