Toyota is listening

well heck, you guys are allowing amazon to deliver packages by drone. is anything verboten?
oh wait, i think that's the u/k.

 

i don't trust anyone named mischief.

i wonder if the camera could have a setting to make truck grilles look further back than they appear.

 

My back up camera already does that. I don't trust anything I see in it: objects are definitely closer than they appear; it's funhouse wideangle. I've relegated it to entertainment only.

 

Thanks - but what an ugly car (at least the front end which was in view). It makes Prius look stylish.

 

And how much unburnt fuel gets out of the exhaust?

 

My guess would be very very little. Aside from EPA regulations (this isn't VW we're talking about, GM seems to meet the standards) an automaker would prefer to burn all of the fuel in the combustion chamber. More fuel and air, bigger boom, more power, good for marketing. Also means more MPG, also good for marketing. If for some reason GM is pushing more fuel into the combustion chamber than the car can burn it will be burnt in the cat before it gets out of the exhaust system.

Typically the reviews have been saying the front looks good but the rear lets it down. To each their own I guess. It's very Cadillac. Fun thing to note, that car has a price range of $53k - $90k and is Cadillac's current flagship.

 

I was just making a joke - meaning the fuel consumption is so high, fuel goes out of the pipe directly without being used to move the car

 

Well I thought so at first, then I saw "Munich Germany" in your profile. That made me figure it was an engineering question.

 

IF Toyota is really looking in? Please offer a KIT to add the spare tire for those that really want it, but not go through the hassle of getting one part then another. If it is a kit that the user added it would not get in the way of the EPA rating... As a owner of a model of each of the GEN's please offer a KIT

 

I just got the whole tire for spare at tirerack.com for my Eco Two for 179.00. Problem solved. What we need are the Fog light. Plastic look ugly..

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

^^ THIS ^^

 

tire is the easy part (ebay) ... I want the correct foam inserts, the tire lock down nut. The KIT for my16 Prius level 4

 

it would be even better if an aftermarket company did it. if toyota does a kit, it will be 5k.

 

Because the economics and technical feasibility of H2FC don't add up. While proponents point out the great strides made in FCEVs, the problem isn't with the individual cars, but rather the entire surrounding support system that would be required for them to be more than toys. Hydrogen comes from two sources, electrolysis of water and/or refactoring of natural gas, both of which consume more fuel/energy than charging batteries. Worse, unlike the electrical grid, large scale, widely distributed hydrogen generation does not exist, so effective deployment of FCEVs would require the creation of massive new infrastructure for hydrogen generation, storage, and delivery (by comparison, building out a DCQC network would be child's play). At present, and until some major engineering breakthroughs change the numbers (if that can even happen), the only FCEVs that make sense are experimental concepts.

Toyota knows all of this perfectly well, but are caught up in the cognitive dissonance of knowing that a) most drivers want to be able to add 300 mi. range to any vehicle they own in a couple of minutes, regardless of how often they actually need that capability on how many of their household's cars, b) there is currently no practical version of public charging that can deliver that for BEVs, and c) climate change, environmental regulations, and carbon taxes are on the horizon that threaten the viability of ICEVs.

Toyota's current "strategy" appears to be 1) deny to themselves that (c) is true, 2) publicly pretend that (1) isn't true, and 3) work the system any way they can to play for time until (c) goes away. Right now, this includes exploiting the lobbying of "Old GM" that created the idiocy of CARB's heavy H2FC bias, over-awarding ZEV fleet credits for FCEVs, allowing Toyota to meet their ZEV quotas by subsidizing a small fleet of leased Mirais instead of developing honest BEVs like most other auto manufacturers. Other companies are interested in H2FC, of course, but as a longer-term proposition, one bet among many on how we can power the fleets of the future. By contrast, Toyota's hawking of the Mirai as a present-day solution is deeply dishonest and cynical. That's what makes the Mirai a fraud.

 

Well then Toyota, Honda, Mercedes Benz, GM, and Hyundai which are some of the largest auto manufactures must be all frauds... Hydrogen is a reality in California.

 

Oh, they're all selling/leasing FCEVs to the public right now to juice their ZEV credits? I thought only Honda was doing that, later this year (and I put them in the same boat as Toyota, though perhaps more firmly in the denial camp because of their IC engine guru-ness). It's that premature push to market that I was referring to, not the legitimate work I acknowledged was going on in this area:

Well, maybe parts of California. Like, LA, and a bit in SF. I suppose it depends on range, but can you really drive a Mirai from Mexico to Oregon? I've heard Toyota will only lease (sell?) you one in specified areas, since I don't think the H2 network covers the state yet (seems mighty thin between LA and SF - better hope Harris Ranch is up and running!). Doubtless that will expand, but that would be a future, not present, reality (i.e., replace "is" with "will be").

If you're an H2FC advocate, fine, I've met plenty, and I don't care to re-hash that debate in this forum. I made some passing comments about the Mirai in the context of Toyota's miserable non-showing in BEVs, and I was asked to explain those comments, so I did. We're just blowing hot air at this point, anyway. Let's see what the FCEV market share and H2 fueling network look like in three years, shall we?

 

Toyota was in the press recently - saying they've got 3 Mirai in Australia - but nowhere to refill with H2. There is one charging station in the country - but belongs to Hyundai in one of our small cities. Toyota said in the press release that they were going to have a mobile re-charging station, and that the cars are only for display/demonstration purposes with no intent to sell them.

Makes sense - not.

 

Sure it does, and I guarantee I've done more research in this area than you have.

BEVs have the same problem, which Elon is trying desperately to cure.

Ah, but you aren't considering the entire system.

I have.

I'll spare you the details, but the answer is this - a plug-in hybrid with a hydrogen fuel cell uses about the same amount of primary energy as does a BEV, despite the BEV's far better round-trip electrical efficiency.

Why is that? Simple. BEVs are stupidly heavy. Just the other day I parked my 2004 Prius next to a Model S. Basically the same sized cars but the Prius is much taller in the back. Yet, the Model S weighs something like 1500 pounds more due mostly to the very large and heavy battery. You have to haul that weight around all the time in a BEV, causing both rolling drag and acceleration losses and those losses are almost exactly equal to the round-trip energy losses caused by a hydrogen fuel cell system in a plug-in hybrid that weighs dramatically less due to the fuel cell systems far superior energy density. This is because the plug in portion of the hybrid ends up getting used for around 2/3rds to 3/4rs of all vehicle miles traveled so the H2 losses are only for a quarter to a third of those miles, whereas the rolling and acceleration losses on a BEV are for all miles traveled.

BEVs are not particularly practical all-around vehicles until batteries are 5-10 times better than they are now. I just went on a trip across the midwest, mostly on major highways. Afterwards, I did the math, and a Model S would have made the trip a day longer, and cost us time at our actual destinations several other times, despite its range, efficiency and charging speed. I'm planning a trip next year you couldn't actually make in a Model S without a tow or spending several days plugged into a 120V outlet. This is largely because of the lack of infrastructure you seem to believe already exists.