Toyota plans to sell fuel cell car by 2015

Toyota plans to sell fuel cell car by 2015 | Automakers | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

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Toyota plans to sell a fuel cell vehicle in 2015, which would make it the clear leader in a technology most other automakers see as being about 10 years from market-ready."

It won't a profitable car, though. These cars have been available for a while, and not just from Toyota--the tehc, at least. Nobody is selling them because they are a future tech. Real, economically feasible fuel cell vehicles won't happen for many years yet.

I believe Hyundai has a similar time frame in mind as well. They've been working on fuel cell technology and vehicles for over 10 years now.

Isn't this a chicken/egg thing though? They have to start somewhere sometime, in order for there to be a reason for the infrastructure to slowly be built up. On the other hand, I'm not entirely convinced fuel cells are ever going to be viable.

You don't think they'll hit this latest production deadline? oh SURE they will - right about the time we're colonizing Mars - I'll use my jet pack to go pick up my flying car at the service garage.
I mean just because they promised production hydrogen car delivery "in just 10 years!" ever since the 1970's - doesn't mean it can't happen in the 20 teens.


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People complain about the lack of infrastructure for electric vehicles, when every single person in the country has it in their house. What will be the reaction to obtaining hydrogen?

Unless they plan to make an on-board hydrogen converter that you plug in overnight to charge your tank. Which will, of course, bring up the same issues with charge time.

At the simplest level, hydrogen fuel cells are just a battery. It is not at all clear to me that it will win the technology battle with other forms of battery technology.

It certainly seems to me plausible that by the time this tech is mature and ready for prime time battery capacity will have caught up, thereby invalidating it--as you said, we all have electric stations at home, but I've yet to meet anybody with a hydrogen station.

Probably the same to obtaining gasoline when cars first came out. Honda has a fleet of hydrogen powered cars, the FCX Clarity, running around LA right now and there is an infrastructure of hydrogen fueling stations built for them. Works great. A forward looking nation would investing in the move to hydrogen. Put the solar energy and rising seas of global warming to use generating the hydrogen fuel.

Fuel cells can and do run on gasoline though.

Normally these people are politicians or people that are politically against plug-in cars. The phev idea removes any real infrastructure limitation.

This is much less efficient than converting natural gas, unless you are on a smart grid and there is excess electricity. It is likely when fcev are viable, they will also be plug-ins to allow people to add some range at home.

They have already lost the battle when it comes to 70 mile range or less. Where fc may win is long distances if, and only if, liquid fuels or natural gas are not available to extend range. Batteries have volume and weight disadvantages when it comes to long range >> 200 miles.

CARB is forcing oil companies to pop up hydrogen stations. There are law suits. I can not imagine hydrogen stations in west texas or the great plains. We have a couple to test technology here in austin. The writing is on the wall that fc vehicles need good batteries to keep the size of the fuel cell down. The competition is if we run out of liquid fuels. 50 years from now I see hydrogen competeing with algea based bio diesel and switch grass alcohol. IMHO, the biofuels are the likely winners

I would rather have government invest here, and in basic fuel cell research, rather than in implementing a hydrogen highway that is unlikely to be used.

How would that work?

How would what work?

Not the same as when gas cars 1st came out. Refining gas nets a positive number of btu's. Refining hydrogen from electricity uses FOUR times more electricity than if you'd just use the electricity in an EV's traction pack. Refining hydrogen from natural gas is a looser too - comparred to simply running the fuel in a CNG fueled car. Honda has a SMAll fleet of hydrogen cars - but they refuse to tell how many MILLIONS (of research dollars) it'd cost to pay for them all. But . . . they DO say that IF in production, they MAY cost as little as $90K - $100K. Saying that "Honda has a fleet" is like saying, "NASA has a fleet of hydrogen powered Space vehicles". So what ... it doesn't mean anyone can afford 'em ... unless you personally have the Fed's ability to print an endless supply of paper money. As for the infrastructure (stations you can count on ONE hand)?
Hydrogen explosion causes evacuation - www.phillyburbs.com: Courier Times: explosion, falls, hydrogen,
Think Hindenburg.
If you want a great read on what a looser hydrogen is, Google "The Hydrogen Hoax". It's quite an eye opener.
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The FCX sure is pretty.

I see Honda is perpetrating this myth-conception: "Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe." Really? Who cares? I only care how abundant it is here, in a usable form. Which is not at all. The energy in usable hydrogen all came from somewhere else (to make it useful).

On converting natural gas to hydrogen, what happens to the Carbon? How would this be better than a natural gas version of a Chevy Volt?

actually you are wrong... while everyone has been working on hydrogen cars for 15+ years, Toyota is only one that plans to sell them in substantial quantity. BMW has agreed to use Toyota technology here because it was more advanced than its own (and BMW has had Hydrogen cars running around for years).

Big difference between the two is that you can build hydrogen gas station that will fuel your car for next 400-500 miles, while with electricity, you simply can not.

Whats up with so much negativity around hydrogen?

Actually don't. Recent evidence indicates that the Hindenburg may have been a problem with the skin coating rather than the Hydrogen contained within. Doesn't make Hydrogen safe, of course.

Generating hydrogen from rising seas.

This is one of the distortions the politicians tell you. It doesn't really matter that hydrogen is abundant.

In steam reformation of methane, the main reaction in natural gas to hydrogen.

2H2O + CH4 + energy -> CO2 + 4H2 + energy
The process can be done very efficiently. CO2 can be separated and sold, but this takes energy, so it often is released into the atmosphere. This can be done very cheaply at refineries that use the large amounts of hydrogen to remove sulfur from liquid fuels. Unfortunately it does not scale down well, resreach is being done to scale it down.

From the point of view of if this is better or worse than a natural gas chevy volt, from an energy point of view, it would likely take a little less natural gas in a fc volt versus natural gas ice volt or hydrogen ice volt. The ice volt would be much less expensive to manufacture with today's technology though, and infrastructure for cng is much less expensive and more extensive.

The least expensive would be methanol volt, this is done by catalytic oxidation

2CH4 + O2 -> 2CH3OH + energy
Methanol would take only small modifications of the volt and infrastructure. It still would have the same liquid fuel tanks and would not need more expensive compressed gas tanks. This energy of the reaction could be used to heat or produce electricity, but natural gas is so cheap right now that the heat is mostly thrown away.

Wave power is just another way to produce electricity. Then electricity could be used to generate hydrogen. This is a much less efficient process than storing the electricity in a battery.

Compare a Honda FCX with a Tesla Model S.
Seats: 4 vs 7.
Cargo room: Very little vs some.
Range: 240 Miles vs 300 Miles.
Charging Infrastructure (fast): a few stations in LA vs some, more spread out.
Charging Infrastructure (slow): None vs Everywhere.
Price: $1M (not available) vs. $100k (now)
Appearance: Sexy vs Dead Sexy.

How often do you NEED to drive more than 300 miles in a day? Aren't there better options for traveling that distance?

correction. Toyota is the one still saying they will sell them in substancial quantities. The others have realized that this simply won't happen. If toyota is the one claiming it, and it doesn't happen, does that make Toyota better in your eyes?

So how much does it cost to build all those hydrogen fuelling stations. With PHEVs, the infrasturcture already exists. Head east from LA, I guess you can get towed back when you run out of hydrogen, and their are no fueling stations.

Read Steven Chu's criticism of it. FCEV are extremely expensive and require huge subsidies to be viable. Alternatives seem much better.