California: Hydrogen And Zero-Emission Vehicles Push

California is pushing even more for green cars and some of the state’s agencies are collaborating on a range of initiatives to support the goal of 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2025.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) said last week that the California Energy Commission carried out one of these initiatives, voting to use nearly $50 million to put in place 28 new, public hydrogen refueling stations and one mobile refueler by the end of 2015. The agency said the move was one of several actions designed to help achieve a key goal of the state’s zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) plan: to accelerate construction of hydrogen refueling infrastructure across the state.

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Not only in California
A second initiative involves California joining two national programs organized by the U.S. Department of Energy to develop hydrogen infrastructure across the country, explained CARB.

East – West Collaboration
CARB added another initiative has California working with other states to harmonize regulations and building codes to ease the location and construction of refueling stations for hydrogen and electric vehicles. An eight-state ZEV Action Plan released last month lays the foundation to coordinate efforts among California, New York, Maryland, Connecticut, Oregon, Massachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island.

California: Hydrogen And Zero-Emission Vehicles Push - HybridCars.com

Toyota's calculation showing the efficiency (and emission) from the well to the wheels. Note: It may be out of date (est 2008).

 

Yup. I was in disbelieve when they were promoting BEVs and EREV and nobody questioned the total pollution.

We can finally get down to beyond tailpipe emission and start comparing.

 

“We hope pretty soon after building (our) first 40 (stations), we can demonstrate they’ll be profitable,” Shane Stephens, co-president-FEF, tells WardsAuto on the sidelines of the 2014 Management Briefing Seminars here.

However, First Element wants to show hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles can deliver “seamless” transportation similar to internal-combustion-engine vehicles, so locations far from high-population centers are necessary, Stephens says.

Toyota is set to begin retailing an FCV in California next summer. The state has more hydrogen infrastructure in place than any other, although few pumps are open to the public.

First Element will deliver hydrogen by truck to gas stations and store it in tanks. Stephens and Toyota’s Justin Ward, general manager-Powertrain Systems Control at the automaker’s Gardena, CA, technical center, see this as less risky than tapping into hydrogen pipelines, as that setup could introduce points of possible failure that would hamper or sour the customer experience.

Stephens strikes a blow for hydrogen by arguing FEF’s stations, per California law, will have a third of their hydrogen made from renewable sources. States with the most aggressive renewable-electricity rules, he says, require only 20% of electricity to be generated by renewable sources.

Ward says Toyota cares about the well-to-wheel nature of its FCVs and hopes to see more renewably sourced hydrogen, such as that from sewage sludge, “because we’re always going to have that.”

The production FCV will have hydrogen tanks made by Toyota. Ward says the automaker has found suppliers’ tanks to be too costly for production cars, with spotty quality. Production also was limited by a process similar to “hand-made work.”

First Element Sees Five-Year Path to Profitability | Suppliers content from WardsAuto

 

They made their own inverter and battery for Prius. That allowed them to improve quickly in Gen2. I hope the same for FCV.

I have been wondering of the curb weight whether if it will be the same/similar as a regular gas hybrid.

The power is rated the same as Prius 100kW so I am guessing the weight to be similar. 300+ miles range EV that weights about 3,000 lbs.

Edmund's has a nice informative article.

8 Things You Need To Know About Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Cars | Edmunds.com