Featured Toyota's New Bet on Hydrogen

Hydrogen makes a lot more sense with semi trucks than with cars.
I don't know that Toyota ever said they were moving away from hydrogen. They are just, finally, moving towards electrics.

 

Makes more sense than passenger cars. Heavy trucks have much less stop times, as a service requirement fits best in H2, a quick refill and longer range is maybe easier than electric.

 

Hydrogen makes much more sense, to start and to test with for any kind of fleet vehicle.
You can build a small number of refueling stations that get lots of daily use.
And all the vehicles, cars or trucks, mostly start and end their day at the station

Mike

 

makes more sense.

 

????

Sometimes I wonder,

I guess if the semi is next to the station moving trailers around a lot but OTR from Cali to IL? I think not

 

Not all trucks are long distance haulers.
ex. Milk trucks stay local going between farms and the dairy.

 

i would love if ups and fedex used them around here, and got rid of their stinking noisy diesels.

 

Port of LA is a no diesel zone. lng makes a lot more sense there than 10,000 psi hydrogen, so why this proof of concept? State of california is probably highly subsidizing the hydrogen, and they already have the fuel cells from the mirai. Why not use this as a test vehicle? It makes sense as a proof of concept even though it makes no sense as a vehicle that will sell in the next decade.

What about 2030? That is what this is targeting.

 

usually they say "in just 10 more years"
i guess 2027 is just too much of a stretch to be believed anymore. Wonder how their 200+ mile non-micro sized ev is coming along ....
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Toyota also has had FCEV buses running in spots for years now. A truck isn't much of a leap in difference.

 

Yea . . . . busses . . . maybe Toyota can learn from our northern neighbors;

Electric buses best, hydrogen worst

Our moderator of the north originally posed that ... so don't shoot the messenger ....

Vancouver's Hydrogen Bus Program Is KAPUT! High Costs Kill Hydrogen Commitment | CleanTechnica

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Japan doesn't have all that cheap hydro power.

I see Tesla is working on a semi truck. A BEV bus has more space for batteries though, and it isn't expected to haul up to 54k pounds of mass around.Propane and natural gas are the easy and cheap way of reducing truck and bus emissions. Make them hybrid, and they'll do better.

 

Here on Prius Chat someone (apparently erroneously) said due to the Mirai recalls Toyota was giving up on Mirai in CA. That's why there is some confusion among us. As Mark Twain once said. rumors....

 

EV terminal trucks in use now.
Pure Electric Terminal Trucks | Orange EV

 

Actually a truck is a leap ;-) Busses normally have fixed routes, with single spot refueling. you just need to make the hydrogen tank to worst case weather on the route, and supply enough maintenance to a depot. Trucks move in flexible routes depending on load, thus will require much more complicated refueling and maintenance. So far fuel cell busses are a fail as far as costs. When you include maintenance and fuel, cng or lng busses are much less expensive, and mainly solve the city pollution problem.

Still its an easy retrofit from the bus system to a truck, and it gets toyota pr. I don't think its good pr though as its a square peg in a round hole.

IMHO they would get more milelage (pun intended) out of really coming out with a super great phev clean diesel truck based on part of the prime. If they could do it for the tacoma or tundra with a gasoline or diesel engine it could pay dividends.

This fuel cell push just makes them seem like they don't understand the infrastructure and cost problems. I don't expect that tesla model 3 will make it out this year in anything but token quantities, but it should be able to outsell all the mirai world wide, just in a limited california release before they really get the factory going on it next year. Can you imagine toyota's mirai pitch then? Well sure it costs more, is slower, harder to fuel, doesn't handle as well, has less pasanger and cargo space, but it can go 312 miles on a tank, while the base tesla can "only" go 215 miles before needing a super charging. Sure the tesla has nationwide infrastucture for charging (in us and china) but the mirai is better because it might get to 100 stations sometime in the future, if only you tax payers would help out a lot more. I mean there already are 34 hydrogen stations in the US, sure some are private, and many won't fill a 10,000 psi tank, but you know gives us more money to do this. Trust us its better.
Alternative Fuels Data Center: Hydrogen Fueling Station Locations

 

Canada being several times larger than japan - of course they'd have more cheep hydro power. But they DO have cheep hydro power as The Fuji river is quite fast flowing and fills several stations;

Fuji River - Wikipedia
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I imagine the electric demand with in Japan drives the price beyond cheap. Of course other energy sources there aren't cheap either.

 

Well from all articles, in Japan - the Mirai fool cell car is supposed to run on hydrogen reformed via Australian coal. It'll look clean over there in Japan, at least. Maybe the Ausie's don't mind being Japan's enviro-toilet .... for a price, of course.

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