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Mirai production begins @ 3/day

Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by fotomoto, Feb 25, 2015.

  1. fotomoto

    fotomoto Senior Member

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  2. Ashlem

    Ashlem Senior Member

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    Interesting link. I doubt I'll ever own one of those, due partly to cost, but mostly because I can't fill it up in the Midwest.
     
  3. JimN

    JimN Let the games begin!

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    I have visions of Assan Motors dancing in my head from the end of Gung Ho.
     
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  4. Zythryn

    Zythryn Senior Member

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    Not unusual for the first few to be hand built.
    I'm looking forward to hearing owner reviews.
     
  5. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    I don't think it's just the first few. I think it's the entire production run.
     
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  6. Former Member 68813

    Former Member 68813 Senior Member

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    shrug, when the first EV cars or hybrid cars were introduced, most people had doubts, yet they become mainstream. I understand the Mirai is a viable concept in Japan and they again lead the whole world. as you may remember the electric power production issues in Japan, so hydrogen actually makes sense in Japan.
     
  7. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    Makes sense in Japan? Really? Because they heavily subsidize it? One of only 2 ways to distill hydrogen is via electricity ... at a huge loss. So good luck w/ that. The other way is to waste perfectly good natural gas ... modernly fracked ... which requires thousands & thousands of new wells to regularly come on line, just to keep up with today's production - due to the short life of fracked wells, we can't keep that up for much longer ... maybe another decade ... maybe half a decade. Good luck w/ that. And yea when hybrids were 1st introduced people had doubts. They had doubts about flying cars a generation earlier too. Guess what ... one was practical, one wasn't.
    Yea - EVERYthing makes sense ... when the government pays for it. If the governments paid as much for EV's as Japan pays towards hydrogen cars, you'd get your Leaf for about 1/2 price. But your tesla model S would STILL cost more than the average person can pay. That makes sense?
    look at the difference from "THEN" and now - according to the OP's article
    .
     
    #7 hill, Feb 26, 2015
    Last edited: Feb 26, 2015
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  8. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    I don't understand this Japan leads the world stuff. They do in sushi, robots, and high tech toilets, but not much else. For world leadership in different areas you need to look at China, the US, and Germany depending on what we are talking about. I do think Hydrogen makes more sense in Japan than in most of the world, as the government often does what is good for toyota, and toyota wants hydrogen fuel cell cars.

    I still want a jet pack. Hybrids have much smaller market share outside the US and Japan. Certainly if Hydrogen cars are only as popular as hybrids, there is no way the government pays to build the infrastructure. We get what VW calls an island product, where it may catch on in Japan, but won't sell in the rest of the world. It's the infrastructure costs dummy. If car buyers had to pay for it, no one would want this thing.

    If you divide Japanese subsidies, 3M yen in toyota's home prefecture + the hydrogen station subdies divided by the likely 10,000psi hydrogen cars by 2025 it is far higher than the unsubsidized price of a leaf with all the options checked.

    Still lets run the experiment and see if Japan wants to carry it forward. Who knows maybe some tech breakthroughs will take place, and Japan can import coal to make the hydrogen, instead of oil to make gasoline. They only expect 10,000 fcv in Japan by 2020, so even with a huge subsidy per car, the government is not spending much of its budget.
     
    #8 austingreen, Feb 26, 2015
    Last edited: Feb 26, 2015
  9. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    They can work in Japan because the government is willing to heavily subsidize them. To do so in the US would require and even government investment simply due to the country's size.

    There is a more efficient way of making hydrogen from water. In the lab. Add some bacteria to the process, and you get isopropanol, rubbing alcohol, a perfectly combustible liquid.
     
  10. cyclopathic

    cyclopathic Senior Member

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    there are other ways.. Hydrogen production - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
     
  11. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    +1
    Not just government investment, its likely that hydrogen would stay higher than gasoline or electricity prices, so the US government would need to promise to subsidize the hydrogen every year to get people into the cars. In Japan they tax gasoline at much higher levels, they simply can decide not to tax the hydrogen and its competitive, after the government pays to build the stations.

    But if you are making alcohol and using it in the cars, why not simply add a reformer and bigger battery, and build much cheaper alcohol refueling. Its the price of the 10,000 psi hydrogen (promised from renewable sources) that makes these conined high subidies necessary. Then again with an open fuel standard you can probably burn that alcohol in a hybrid as converting it to hydrogen pressurizing it and using it in a fcv.
     
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  12. Former Member 68813

    Former Member 68813 Senior Member

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    looks like you forgot about a few things like cars (especially hybrids, duh), electronics, and quality manufacturing of anything. I admit they lag at creativity though.
     
  13. cycledrum

    cycledrum PSOCSOASP

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    Was just reading a Tesla model S thread from someone planning a road trip .... those cars, EVs in general seem so NOT fitting for road trips. All the talk of charging planning, 1.5 hrs to charge. I would think most people just want to get to their DESTINATION, not hang out and wait for the car to charge.
    But, I'm sure BEVs could be really good for local travel.

    Awful lot of pooh poohing on the Mirai and H2 FCVs. They're really just compliance cars?
     
  14. Tideland Prius

    Tideland Prius Moderator of the North
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    EVs are no good for road trips, limited range esp. in winter , FCVs are expensive, compliance cars and energy is hard to store and polluting to produce.

    Sounds like these people need a hybrid ;)
     
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  15. cyclopathic

    cyclopathic Senior Member

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    they are as long as there is no infrastructure. Same way as CNG are, or EV (but for different reason).

    I've said that before: I'll consider EV as a car, if you can charge it in 5min on every gas station and it gets at least 150-200mi from charge. Otherwise it is just a compliance vehicle which does not replace real car.

    Granted it could do fine if your daily commute/travel fits in EV usage and you can rent real car for seldom out of town trips.
     
    #15 cyclopathic, Feb 27, 2015
    Last edited: Feb 27, 2015
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  16. GrumpyCabbie

    GrumpyCabbie Senior Member

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    But you're basing Japanese needs on American and Canadian experience.

    In many parts of the World including Japan, people who want to travel far will go by high speed train or fly.

    Road Trips are mainly something you do in large, single nation and single language countries. I could drive from here to Greece, but I wouldn't. Insurance and customs issues don't make it impossible, but multiple borders, different languages and laws discount it to all other than those who want a one off adventure.

    So lower range vehicles are fine outside of America, Canada and Russia.
     
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  17. austingreen

    austingreen Senior Member

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    Japan doesn' lead the world on cars. A japanaese multi-national makes more, but does the US lead the world in beer because budweiser makes more? It doesn't make sense.

    CHina leads the world in vehicle production and consumption, and its lead is likely to grow. For eco-cars I would say the US leads with tesla and chevy when you combine them. For diesel engines and safety systems the europeans rule today, with european divisions of american companies also making excellent engines. For trucks, SUVs, and minivans, again the US.

    but yes in hybrids japan leads, that is a tiny segment of the car market outside of Japan. That is not leading in cars. Japan showed leadership i the 1980s, but since then they mainly have lost that leadership.
    In the tesla you need to wait to refuel. In the Mirai you need to hire a hydrogen truck to follow you. You need hundreds of billions of government money just to get hydrogen stations in the US to only have to drive 1 hour out of your way to refuel a mirai. Tesla will have their US base network complete in 2017 with no further government money. Why would congress vote to appropriate these hundreds of billions when the odds are long against people buying the cars in the US.

    Would you spend $30K on a volt, or $46K on a mirai. After 3 years the price of fuel of the volt will be much less expensive. The mirai will only have 68 stations in 2017, and after that if history repeats itself, some will close down from lack of customers. Toyota only plans to make 700 this year, 2000 next year and 3000 in 2017 for all the world. Why would we get excided to spend hundreds of illions of tax payer money to build hydrogen stations.

    Its the infrastructure and the price. both lose to plug-ins, and the cars are less environmental than plug-ins also.
     
    #17 austingreen, Feb 27, 2015
    Last edited: Feb 27, 2015
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  18. Zythryn

    Zythryn Senior Member

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    Depends on which EV you have and where you are going.
    Our trip out to California and back through Arizona was the best vacation I have ever taken.

    Fuel cost me $3.
    On the entire trip, we only were waiting for a charge twice. And if we repeated the same trip today we wouldn't even have to wait those times as the infrastructure has improved.
    We made a number of unplanned sightseeing stops (we simply had to take a short detour to Meteor Crater in Arizona when I realized we were passing nearby).
    Overall, it was a very relaxing, fun trip. Oh, we spent more time planning lodging than charging.

    Now, if we wanted to race out to California asap an EV wouldn't be our choice. Of course, neither would a hybrid, we would take a plane.
     
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  19. usbseawolf2000

    usbseawolf2000 HSD PhD

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    They are built by those hand-built the Lexus LFA.
     
  20. cycledrum

    cycledrum PSOCSOASP

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    That's how it is in the near term for H2 FCV, but in the very long term (20+ years) I wonder if they (FCV) have better potential to replace gasoline cars.