Toyota Shows Distain: Even for their Own RAV4-EV

Hate to play devil's advocate but I'm envisioning highways of traffic filled with FCV. All that water vapor, really wouldn't cause any problems? Any vapor going to the atmosphere is bound for trouble. Especially in massive quantities. Build an artificial rainforest, it'd effect earth's climate. However, all those cars will produce more climate than a rainforest.

Sounds like a good movie, but obviously a far-stretch right now in even the next decade. Like yous aid, we're already shooting many nasty things in the environment.

Ultimately, if there''s a great battery tech...

 

This is what I envisioned and I thought it sounded like a great movie or a book. Kind of like WALL-E but with pollution not garbage.

I pictured California with the smog problem but instead of smog it's all water vapor.

 

I'm not a fan of hydrogen for personal vehicles, but water vapor is just not an issue.
First, the amount of water vapor is not much more than the water vapor produced by gas autos.
Second, water falls out of the atmosphere quite quickly, hours or days vs decades for CO2.

There are a bunch of reasons hydrogen is not workable, water vapor isn't one of them.

 

Like the constant drizzile in Los Angeles depicted in the move BLADE RUNNER?

 

7 pounds of H2O are produced from burning a gallon of gasoline.
Burning 1 Gallon of Gasoline Produces 20 Pounds of CO2 - by blinkin - Newsvine

Looks like hydrogen fuel cells will generate about 3 times as much water, about 20 pounds per kg of H2 (which is equivalent to a gallon of gas).

So if 33% of our vehicle fleet became FCEV, you would have an equivalent amount of water as today.

Or, if 67% of our light vehicle fleet were electric! and the other 33% FCEV, you would have the same water emissions.
If 20% of our LVF moves to FCEV and 80% to EV, it would be a net loss of water vapor emissions.

I just don't see it as an issue, especially since I don't ever see FCEVs getting more than 1% market share nationwide.

 

If only FC can fix CA's drought problem.

Even when the rainy seasons come back, CA will still be out of water. People are moving in and large condos/apartments (with new homes of course) are being build every where. H1b Visa are given out like Candies. And foreign investers are buying homes with cash since their money are worthless at home.

As a result, water is used up. Dams are being destroyed to satisfy fish and environmental groups.

I am all for FC if only they fix CA water issue as a by product.

OR

The water vapor destroys CA Mediterranean weather. Becomes Florida like.

 

You have to remember that hydrogen is very costly to transport, and that its production takes water. That means that most production will be local - Southern California, but will require water is pumped to southern california. If the reaction CH4 +2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O would solve southern California's water problems then they should build less efficient but inexpensive ocgt natural gas generaters (peaking plants) and stop importing power where they want the water vapor.

 

In the news today. Linde starts shipping H2 fueling stations.

Linde opens Vienna hydrogen station | News | gasworld

The ionic liquid compressor is a new idea. Interesting.

 

Uh Oh!

At those pressures, a catastrophic failure would resemble a grenade going off. Ask a submariner . . .

Bob Wilson

 

If you simply compress it
PV = nRT, P = nRT/V. Since we are attempting to fill to 10,000 psi (700 atmospheres) at room temperature 273 kalvin, I would assume that the temperatuere would be less than 383 kalvin to get enough quantity of gas into the car. Its likely that there is some cooling system to remove the heat of compression. Typical values for lower pressure fills take about 3kwh of electrity to compress 1kg of hydrogen enough to fill a tank to 10,000 psi.

I don't know, who the experts are but CARB has predicted 53,000 fcv by 2017 in california alone. Lentz from toyota recently said in the fortune interview 10,000 in that time period, and it sounded like he meant from all manufacturers.

In Japan, METI has aproved a 2 million yen subsidy, so a toyota fcv will cost 5 million yen or just under $50,000. In the us hyundai is leasing fcv for $2999 down and $499/mo including fuel and maintenance, hyundia now reciewves $8000 federal, $5000 state ($13,000), plus 26 zev credits for each vehicle leased this year in california. Who knows how high incentives in europe will go.

 

I think it's more just import duties and greed concerning EU incentives that lead to the end of the Ampera instead of disdain from GM. It is disappointing that the Spark EV remains a compliance car, but there isn't any visible disdain from GM towards the Volt in the US.

 

I guess due to extreme high fuel taxes, I would say in Europe you get a lot more alternate fuel ideas being tried.

Oh man, PV=nRT, you guys force me into the text books, don't forget H2 has a positive Joule-Thompson coeficient which is unusual means it heats upon decompressing...now I gotta check into this. In the small flow rates we are talking about, there will be lots of heat losses in the piping that will tend to keep things at room temp. But holy heck, Linde is not going to distribute fundamentally flawed H2 units globally if H2 FCV has any hope to succeed. We know Toyota sweats the robustness details on making sure auto technology is ready to be beta tested by consumers.

 

wjtracy, you quoted hills post. but then addressed my answer.

Hydrogen (H2) being a diatomic gas follows the idea gas law for compression of diatomic gases, which means PV =nRT and Pf = Pi power( (Vi/Vf), 1.4). If we know the change in volume we can tell the change in temperature. Now linde or whoever is compression the gas can cool it to come back to initial temperature. In that case Pf/Pi = Vi/Vf. In any case it take energy to compress the gas, and unless you can use the heat and pressure some energy is wasted. This is approximately 3kwh /kg of 10,000 psi hydrogen. The limiting factor on how many cars can be filled a day is dependant on how fast you can compress and cool the gas. Typically in california its only 25 cars a day. For faster fills they use liquid hydrogen, which takes more energy per kg.

 

Ah, but (so far) you've ALL missed one very important aspect....Vienna is in europe, not in USA, where WE ( well, me, specifically ) are located!

 

There will be a replacement.
General Motors Confirms Death Of Opel Ampera

 

...my translation of his (Karl-Thomas Neumann) words: '...after this turkey we'll try a cheaper pidgeon...'

 

The wording from the GM exec said to expect a replacement vehicle in the electric vehicle segment [my italics]

Spark, anyone ?

Anyway, the exec was IMO just admitting what is obvious: the Volt is a flop in Europe. I'm not at all surprised to read that they are not going to try and sell the Volt 2.0 (presuming that sees the light of day.)

 

First, there was GM Chevrolet in europe...which failed...strike ONE.

Second, there was GM Ampera (metric Volt) in europe...which failed...strike TWO.

GM needs to get it's ACT together in managing european products...or find "fall-guys/gals" for impending strike THREE.