Japan's First hydrogen station integrated with gas station open (2013/4/19)

Japan is a small nation. This reduces the costs of transporting the hydrogen around. The costs of building the infrastructure and stations in someplace like the US will be much greater.

 

Hydrogen ... here we go again.
Fuel cells are cool (think Space shuttle), but for auto transportation, they require being linked in to a provider network the cost of which can't reasonably be offset. Never mind the fact that the cars someday promise to be "under 6 figures ... once they're in production". That means a ton of us will have to pony up $80k - 90k to see that happen. How's that supposed to happen. But who knows ... maybe there will be 4 or 5 miracles happen, and it'll finally become a reality ... maybe jet packs will too.

 

Toyota is promising a $50k FCV by 2015. That might be after incentives.

The refueling infrastructure for hydrogen is the main hurdle. Which, after considering the other options like using natural gas directly or making methanol with it, offers a low return on investment. Laser hydride fuel storage looks promising, but is a young technology.

Fuel cells might work out as range extenders for plug ins down the road, but let the other countries spend the tons of money on infrastructure that may become obsolete by the time FCVs are ready for mainstream family cars for now.

 

+1

The problem is its likely a $50K after incentive, volt like car, using hydrogen instead of electricity and gas.

Why not just buy a volt, or a gen IV prius phv? Both can refuel faster, and hit the whole country, not just the limited areas that have hydrogen stations. Want to be greener? Get wind or solar and a $65K after incentives tesla S. That is sure to be a better vehicle, given how many more places there are to fill up. Who cares if it takes an hour versus 3 minutes, if there aren't stations to fill up in 3 minutes where you want to go.

Some people will want these fuel cell cars, but it will take a huge chunk of government money to get the technology to any sane level that americans will want it. At a minimum its 10 years out, or maybe never. I'm fine with the japanese funding this experiment though. More power to them. If they can get it to work there, we will at least know how many billions it will cost to make it work in North America.

 

FCX Clarity(Hydrogen Fuel Cell) is an electric car, Fuel Cells on board makes electricity from hydrogen, has a fuel tank and a Li-ion battery; hydrogen from another fuel.

A big tank in an electric vehicle, well okay!

 

And that tank only holds enough hydrogen gas for 240 miles. On my commute, I'd be refilling twice a week as opposed to once.

The majority of hydrogen is made from natural gas. Toyota now says their FCV will be between $50k to $100k when they go on sale. A Civic GX can be bought for $27k, and then burn the NG directly in it. Which already has a huge distribution network, and it can be expanded for far cheaper than a hydrogen gas one.

Toyota Says its 2015 FCV-R Fuel-Cell Car will Cost Between $50,000 and $100,000 ~ Electronicinfo24.com

For the price of the Toyota FCV-R, I'd rather get a Tesla S. It is a larger, likely nicer car that can seat at least 5. It takes hours to charge at home, but so what. If it's at home, I'm likely am too, relaxing. And I will no longer have to spend 3+ minutes pumping gasoline into a car once a week. Starting with an 80% charge, I'll have plenty of range for daily use.

It doesn't have a 450mile range, but neither will the FCV-R when it gets here. That's a number from the JC08 test cycle. Regardless, Supercharger stations are cheaper than hydrogen gas ones, and there is likely more of them. The S can't charge up in 3 minutes. So, I'll charge at home and not have to visit a gas or hydrogen station ever again. Except possibly on vacations. Then it can be a novel experience to savor.

 

Now, have to worry about life expectancy of the Fuel Cells in addition to the battery. Not sure how long Fuel Cells will last.

 

More so than the fuel cell life, you need to worry about the hydrogen tank lifespan.

 

I read: hydrogen evaporation is about 1.7% per day.

 

Is that for the compressed hydrogen? In a liquidified hydrogen tank, some is lost to keep the rest cold.

The tanks might have a 15 year shelf life. That's the best for CNG tanks at the moment.

 

I've read that hydrogen tanks have a much shorter lifespan than CNG tanks due to Hydrogen's highly reactive properties.

 

Tank volume / pressure has been improved. Carbon fiber tanks (a quite un-environmentally friendly manufacturing process) can now be jacked up all the way to 10,000Lbs Whew! That's a LOT of pressure. Compare that to the old days, when hydrogen vehicles operated on ambient / no pressure:



No smoking zones will seriousely need to be enforced.
.

 

It's not the pressure the tanks can contain, it is how reactive the contents are.
The hydrogen rapidly (relatively) eats away the tank.
Rather than 15 years, I have heard hydrogen tanks are replaced on the order of every 5.

 

That's a goal, just like the one for $300/kWh for battery in 2013.

 

Hydrogen's reactivity with some materials is what drives up its pipeline cost. In particular, it makes metals brittle. So metal components need to be thicker than for an equivalent NG line.

The lifespan is also a hard expiration date(at least for CNG). Even if the tank is never put into service. You'll just lose money buying them in bulk for your car.

 

Cool, thanks TrollBait!

 

Here is more of the story
Japan may subsidize, deregulate 100 new hydrogen fuel stations
Groundwork being laid for rise of fuel cell cars | The Japan Times

Ouch, that's much higher than the price in the US. It sounds like for the 100 stations the Japanese government will subsidize about $300M. If they make 50K cars, the refulling infrastructure will cost at least $10K per car, not including subsidies for the fuel. It will be interesting to see if honda and toyota can sell 50K cars.

Translation, Toyota is stepping away from its more optimistic $50K price it had claimed as recently as a year ago, at least in Japan. They may cost twice as much as that.

[COLOR=#333333][SIZE=18px][FONT=utopia-std][COLOR=#333333]I'm glad Japan is running this experiment and not the US. It will be interesting to see if they actually build enough cars to keep those fuel stations running, or if they will mainly be closed by 2020 from lack of cars. It is an interesting experiment, and since Japan is running it we don't have to do it. [/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]