The head of the Air Resources Board on her beloved Mirai

For not being anti- ev you sure are full of FUD.
Singapore made a math error.

In California, the only place FCVs are sold in the U.S. EVs are much cleaner than FCV.
Once CA builds the renewables, FCVs will be closer.

 

...it would only apply to CA sold Teslas right? And seems like Telsa % Ca sales are about same as national average EV sales (47% in CA).

 

The ZEV program might be extended to some other CARB states, but yes the ZEV credits are only earned on cars Tesla sells in those ZEV areas. If the sale of the credits are the only way Tesla makes money, then they are losing money on the ones sold outside of the ZEV areas. I suspect that the article's author isn't properly accounting for Tesla's capitol investments, the Gigafactory.

Toyota needs to earn more ZEV credits than their minimum requirement before they can sell them. They do sell their excess AT PZEV ones. Zero Emission Vehicle Credits

California is a very large car market. The car companies need ZEV credits to sell cars there. Slapping together a BEV conversion that sells for a loss is likely cheaper than buying the credits outright. Toyota hasn't sold enough Mirai to meet their ZEV requirement, but they have factored in the value of those credits into the cost of the car, along with the loss of the California market would mean if they decided not to participate in the ZEV program.

As a company, Toyota may not need to sell ZEV credits for additional profit, but Mirai surely does need them in order to not have $90,000+ MSRP.

Toyota's goal is to sell cars. If most of the world's population, and thus their customers, weren't concerned about GHG, and governments passing laws that affect Toyota based upon GHG, then they wouldn't be making grand plans about reducing the GHG from their product.

Do you think a hydrogen car's upstream emissions look better or worse if we used the national grid average vs California's?

 

Reminds me of how happy al gore said he was with his fisker karma.

Mary Nichols, has been one of the chief lobbiests for hydrogen and fuel cell money. What do you expect her to say? A good reporter would have asked her what happened to all the hydrogen stations that were supposed to be built by now? I mean she is in charge of that program. Will her owning one get her to get to improve the program. Will there be fines to businesses that fail to build what carb has paid them to build? Why don't they ask her she still thinks there will be 50,000 fcv in california by the end of next year.

I'm much more interested in what oldnslow has to say than this shameless advocate.

Nice bait with the tatm articles. If tesla gets $20,000, that comes out to $10,000 in credits and $2500 /zev credit times 4. That makes the mirai subsidized by $13,000 + $2500*9 or $35,500 before even counting the roughly $10,000/fcv fueling subsidies. Do you think queen mary should favor the imported mirai by that much more than california produced tesla?

 

Hey, my Chevy Volt lets me do that too. I can plug it in in my garage, and do my 38 mile round trip work commute, which for me is 99% of my car use, entirely on electric. Or mostly electric in winter, as I have to burn like a quarter of a gallon. And since I drive it like I did w/ my Prius, I'm actually getting over 50 EV miles, so that weekly trip to the grocery store is covered as well.

And when I need to drive further, I can use any of the tens of thousands of gas stations already built in the US to refuel it. Sure, it's still using fossil fuels, but it's a great interim car until more charging stations and longer ranged, cheaper EV's show up.

My issue with renewable hydrogen is that it takes a lot of electricity use in order to get it via electrolysis. No matter how you get the electricity, it's still a wasteful method. And unless some huge breakthroughs are made to make it much more efficient and cheaper, in the US, I doubt it'll gain much traction outside of California.

Japan maybe, but it's geographically smaller than the continental US, and the Japanese are completely dependent on oil imports, so it makes sense for them to find ways to reduce their oil consumption.

Even if I was pro-hydrogen fuel cell, I have no way to buy or lease a Mirai out here in the "middle of nowhere", also known as the Midwest. If I somehow smuggled a Mirai home, after that first tank (which was hopefully filled up completely first), it's a 4,000 lb paperweight. What good is a car if I can't buy/lease it where I live?

The infrastructure to support it costs millions, much of which is funded with taxpayer money. How many charging stations could those tens of millions spent on the few dozen hydrogen stations have built around parking lots in shopping malls and apartment complexes?

If Toyota were funding and building a network of hydrogen stations nationwide like Tesla with the Supercharger network, then I wouldn't complain, because they're putting their own money where their mouth is. But they want taxpayers to do that.

Yes, I realize automakers don't build gas stations either. But if you want hydrogen, a completely new fuel source, to succeed, you're going to need to help get it off the ground, or it'll never go anywhere. People already complain about $3+ a gallon of gas. Good luck convincing them that they should pay millions to build one hydrogen station, especially when our roads are in terrible condition and could use that money instead.

I wonder if Toyota is bashing plug-ins because if they developed both viable plug-in electric cars at the same time as the Mirai, most people would heavily favor and buy the plug-in because it's more practical and likely affordable for them, thus negating the billions they're spending on hydrogen fuel cell research.

I understand Toyota's vision for wanting to get off gas. I just think they're designing the cart right as the horse is born, expecting it to pull it right away. But said cart takes several full grown horses to pull...

 

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

 

well look, i know nothing about cali policy. but they've been leading this country for some time, and if she hasn't been part of the solution, tell me who has. honestly, without cali policy, there would be no carb states.

 

Oh since david lloyd helped kill the ev-1 and rav4-bev, mary nichols has been in charge of CARB.

Who can we thank for CARB? Ronald Wilson Regean, then Richard Nixon for its power. Nichols was involved in the mid 70s then went away until 2007 when the govenator brought her to run it. She had to divest. She owned millions of dollars worth of oil and coal stocks. Her hubby is known as the lawyer that defended exxon in the valdez spill. Hey someone had to do it, but not exactly enviromental power couple. I think her biggest news worthy items was leading the fight against steven chu for more money for fuel cells which she won and got more money, and the tran diesel scandal.
CARB scandal also shames California media | CalWatchdog.com
Nichols kept trans fake credentials secret from other board mombers and then kept him on instead of firing him.
Challenging Chu on Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Most of this is neither here or there, but given Nichols led the fight for federal money and got it, but has not delivered the fcv or infrastructure, whoever writes an article about her and fuel cells needs to ask her what has changed and how many of the 5 million zevs she is requiring in 2030 will be fcv. Will there even be 100,000 by then?

CARB has increased plug-ins, but really not by nearly the amount they claim credit for. They have put in place rules that delayed phevs. The DOE under Bush and Obama has been responsible despite nichols favortism for fcv, and petty rules against plug-ins. The chinese and norwegian government also have helped a great deal.

Tesla, Ford, Chevy, BMW, nissan, etc owe nothing to carb. CARB is responsable for compliance things like the mirai, and fit ev that nichols drives.

 

CARB and ZEV credits aren’t the only reason Toyota has thrown their weight behind fuel cells. Don’t get me wrong, they help when they are being told they need to sell x amount of zero emission vehicles. But the real reason Toyota is heavily invested in fuel cells, is reliability. Fuel cells are 3 to 5 TIMES more reliable than the best battery ever built. This is why Toyota is obsessed with them. Fuel cells are basically flow batteries but without the physical limitations of recharging. What I find really fascinating about fuel cells is they produce a prodigious amount of heat as they are being used. It would be a great Electric car for the Northeast or Northern part of the US. So not only do you have an electric power plant but cogeneration of heat at the same time. Sadly many of us on Prius Chat who don’t live in California will probably never get to experience this except for the occasional demo.

The biggest minuses fuel cells have are the fuel and their costs. The fuel cells are still costly to produce in spite of recent advances. They still require lots of precious metals in spite of the breakthroughs they've had. Like batteries, the next big thing for fuel cells is right over the horizon. The business model associated with a hydrogen refueling station is lousy. If you decided to invest in a gasoline station that served 24 cars at a time, it would cost in the neighborhood of $300,000 to $350,000. And not only would you be able to depend on a lot of cars but fleet services (such as taxis, buses and trucks owned by small companies) as well as on SUVs, pickup trucks, vans, and heavy duty vehicles that drink 14 to 25 gallons at a time. Not to mention, the enumerable lawn mowers, boats, ATVs, chain saws, grass trimmers, snow mobiles, etc. that all run on gas. With hydrogen refueling stations, they want you spend $1,000,000 to $3,000,000 on a station that handles what, 20 cars a week. And they take in 3 to maybe 4 kilos of hydrogen, not the 6 to 15 kilos that trucks, buses, SUVs, and vans would use. Sorry but 20 cars a week probably won’t pay the interest on the loan for the station. Oh and one more negative thing, producing hydrogen requires lots of water. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t care if they get it from electrolysis or steam reformation of natural gas (or even methane from landfills). It requires a crap load of water, fresh water. This is something that will bite them in the butt in the long run. Particularly when parts of the US will gradually get more arid over time.

 

thank you tricky dick! and ronnie ray gun, as a certain pc member is want to say.

 

The energy climate was radically different in the 70s and 80s. I *will* blame the governator, though.

 

Are you talking about ZEV credits?

 

Well, the one thing AustinGreen said that I agree with is the Governator could have made a mistake. The Governator has made some eco-quotes lately, strike me as unbelievable for an (former) elected official.

I guess the Governator gets some of the "credit" for re-focus of CARB to CO2 reduction vs. smog reduction.

 

Last I checked the Honda Fit EV is still lease only, so she can't actually own it...

 

Japan (and thus Toyota) wants hydrogen because of their nuke scare. Anti-nuclear rally in Tokyo marks 187th since the 2011 disaster - AJW by The Asahi Shimbun
The hydrogen FCV isn't going away anytime soon.

 

I am wondering what % of EV's sold are the 2nd vehicle to the same CA person after lease (2-yr in some cases).

 

I'm not getting your points on this thread. You seem to be posting anti-tesla thingies. Tesla has no special lobbying for credits, unlike Nichols and fuel cells.

If you take your credits valuation of $2500/credit from the first thing you posted, tesla gets $20,000 in california, but only 1/4 of their cars are sold there. Telsa also exports a little over half of their cars, creating jobs in california.

On the other hand Nichols and toyota raised credits for fuel cells and lobbied the federal government too. That makes it $35,500 with same credit valuation, in which the main car being leased is the mirai for those credits. That does not count the money spent in the past or the $220,000 Million carb is spending for hydrogen infrastructure on top of the DOE's spending. Note all fcv are imported, and METI is mainly promoting the mirai because they hope to export them and keep jobs in japan. I don't get the favoritism. When nichols raised mirai credits to 9 and dropped tesla credits to 4, she also gavelled down discussion. That is why she is iron mary, she cuts off community comments if she doesn't like them.

Of course she is going to say she likes the car that she has actively lobbied for.

I don't understand that. Why don't I have a fuel cell in my phone and lap top then. I thought batteries were ultra reliable. You may be thinking of durability not reliability. Some phone batteries don't last that long, but look at the volt, prius, and tesla batteries. They are lasting a long time. Durability has been a problem with fuel cells. That is one reason maintenance costs have been so high on the fleets. British Columbia dropped their fuel cell bus fleet because of high maintenance and fuel costs, and that included replacing a lot of fuel cells. Perhaps they will do better this generation, but batteries are improving too. I expect more durability with the batties in the tesla model 3 and chevy bolt, and genII volt, etc. Still its better in batteries today. That is one of the fuel cell technical challenges and part of the cost equation.

Remember Toyota's CEO owns a tesla, he does not own a fuel cell vehicle. Toyota's chairman of the board is obsessed with fuel cells, and has been working on then for 20 years. he seems to think the breaktrhoughs are just around the corner, but they seem to be coming slower than expected.

You need expensive hydrogen stations to Refill. That is a physical limitation. The question is how much people are willing to spend. If it was $20/kg then the government would not need to be involved. I think we need to get a test going, but its not been going well. Japan is going to spen a lot of money to have infrastructure for the 2020 olympics. Let's wait and see if its sucessful, or dies later like the british columbia fuel cells that looked great at the 2010 winter olympics but 6 years later didn't work out.

Hey we did get the hydrogen hummer and the hydrogen highway with 100 stations by 2010 ;-) Seriously Pete Wilson and Grey Davis caused the rolling blackouts and expensive electricity. I score Arnold better than those jokers. At least the hydrogen boondoggle cost a lot less money. Still lets look at it as what it is. The test period 2012-2014 failed, and I got to question why in failure they didn't just postpone, instead of hyping it like they have ever delivered. 44 stations where supposed to be done by the start of this year, now its 50 by the end of next year for anouter $20M. Let's see what happens. Declaring victory when poor infrastructure is caused by the CARB and Toyota they hand picked the vendors, is a mistake.

 

hey !
thanks for the link !!
speaking of the link - I quote;

Imagine that ... Tesla reports it's finances different -
well yea ... the 'Detroit' way ... that in part, lead to Detroit automakers going bankrupt, and Tesla doesn't follow the lemmings. and thank goodness they don't. Detroit mocked the Prius too. Maybe consider how many years Detroit fell behind too - because of it, and their love of automobile land barge mentality. Yea, best to find some other detractor. A Tesla hater site is awfully easy to punch holes through.
.... like the authors' continually moaning about subsidies. Really? While oil exec's and their corporations pay less tax than our house keeper? If that floats the boat of hypocracy - go for lovin' in then I suppose. How does one reconcile letting the carbon fuel powered hydrogen cars go for selling subsidized at roughly 1/2 price. Not to mention carbon fuel-to-hydrogen for an average of $14/$15 per 60 miles of range. It's gona take more subsidies than ever to create the trillion dollar hydrogen highway ... and you really want to praise an author who whines over tesla - whose gross mileage is now in the billions with out such huge costs? Good luck with that.

Nope -it's not going away. Neither is cancer - and several other elements that suck life out of life. Takes a lot of energy, stamina and commitment - but it's worth it. And thank you AG for reminding me of Scary Mary Nichols oily background. Heck, I'm sure their early oil/carbon investments are well secured via shell companies so that here interests are just as vested as they ever were.
.

 

And I don't think the Fit EV is available to new leasees. Guess Honda is letting some perma lease them.

The plan in Japan was to use nuclear power for electrolysis. That was before the tsunami. Now they'll hydrogen made from coal in Australia to Japan.