Toyota Seeks Prius-Like Success With 2015 Fuel-Cell Model

I like how Toyota keeps comparing this car to the Tesla Model S and BMW. Knowing Toyota, there is no way that the car will be as loaded with features & tech, and offer same performance as those 2 cars. That's ignoring the fact that this is just another (really expensive) compliance car.

Wish Toyota would wake up, and mass produce an EV already.

 

That is a dualing meme with this
Toyota's 2015 Fuel Cell Car Should Achieve 300-Mile Range

That would mean that the fuel cell vehicles will have to be less expensive than a long range bev. Can Toyota do that in the next 5 years? Absolutely not! In the next 20 years? Maybe.

Then there are these tidbits, a little sarcastic
Toyota Will Launch 2015 Fuel Cell Car, Volkswagen Won’t | The Truth About Cars

Did I hear that right, vw now is a hybrid fan.

 

Seems EU has a network of hydrogen stations already. http://www.netinform.net/h2/H2Stations/Default.aspx​

 

Updated California ZEV Rules Cut Credits To Tesla, FCVs Get More Than Double - HybridCars.com

 

So do I need to drive to Iceland every time I want a fill up?

 

Late response, but it appears they're a BEV fan.

They've released one EV some months back - the E-Up. A small hatchback popular over here. They're about the released the E-Golf soon too and also a GT-E sports version of the Golf. A line up of 3 BEV's. All very well priced considering.

Toyota? They're sticking with hybrids which suits many people. But they're expensive, almost as expensive as a BEV.

 

Electrification at VW came very late. Those 3 models are at a slow pace, only one of them is already lauched (e-Up!).
An e-Up! costs about 26,000EUR (34,000USD)...

Toyota hybrids are just as expensive as any other cars with similar nominal max power, or up to a 10% difference...which pays the autogearbox option, already included...

 

I'm certain that Toyota (and Honda for that matter) will be as successful as Ponce de León, lookin for the fountain of youth.

.

 

Honda is introducing a fuel cell too in 2015 to be sold in the US starting next spring at a current estimated MSRP of
ready drum roll.....$94,000!!!!!!

Want one, not me no way. Cost is way to high for this thing to sell many, manufacturing cost has to come way down before this technology will fly.

 

Where did they announce the price? Any other details?
For 94k I'd could get a P85.

 

That's disappointing. Cutting Tesla's, and likely all BEVs, because of refueling speed seems short sighted. Are BEV owners regularly late to or missing work because of undercharged batteries?

 

Lemmy think about this. I could have a Tesla for less, that'll get between 250-300 miles per charge (and Musk believes in it so much he's building the infrastructure) ... or I can (maybe) buy a hydrogen car that'll STILL runs of fossil fuel - ah la natural gas distillation ... yet hydrogen has no infrastucture to speak of (because it'd cost a trillion or more) ... and the auto industry WON'T build the costly infrastructure, nor will the fossil fuel industry - because it's a money looser. Or ... the hydrogen can be distilled from electricity/water which would be 4X less efficient than just putting the electricity into the Tesla.
OH YES ... sign me up I'm all over it. Only in america
.

 

You have to remember that CARB rules have nothing to do with reducing pollution. They had the refueling rules before to favor Fuel cells, because CARB wants to give money to the fuel cell lobby. What is new here, is CARB added 2 more credits to fuel cell vehicles. At the same meeting they decided that the old rules that kept BEVs from earning 7 credits had failed with tesla able to do the 300 mile range on the test (old test not current epa) and battery swap. So they made it tougher requiring that tesla's actually got their batteries swapped, not just that they could and their were swap stations. Note they did not say a fuel cell vehicle needs to be with in X miles of a station, if it takes 15 minutes to drive out of your way to get hydrogen, 10 minutes to refuel, and 15 minutes to get back on route, this is much slower than refueling in your garage and super chargers.

I don't think the old rules were proper, giving a tesla so many more credits than a leaf (7 versus 3), but this just shows how biased CARB is to the fuel cell lobby. I think dropping a tesla to 4 credits is proper. A fcv that likely will not reduce pollution any more than a leaf now gets 3x the credits, and more than twice as many as a tesla S. You can do a cross country trip in a tesla S, you need another car to do many trips in a fcv.

 

I'd give money to the FC lobby too - if the FC lobby gave me as much money as they do to CARB.
On a side note - I can't help but think how many PiP's could have/would have been put on the road (with BIGGER traction packs) in all 50 states - if Toyota would have used those same hydrogen funds on the PiP - instead of the hydrogen fubar.
.

 

The fuel cell lobby gets back more money than they bribe carb with. What is it? They spent about $4M nation wide for the first 3 quarters of 2013 according to open secrets that creates these stats. What did they get? $100M to tax non-fuel cell cars to build hydrogen stations. Bigger fuel cell budget in the DOE, and now upping the credits in california, while decreasing credits for batteries. That is not a whole lot of money for a whole lot of political favors. Mary Nichols loves fuel cells is the only explanation. I don't think any lobbying group paid her to higher a guy with a fake phd to write a fraudulent report on diesel pollution either, then cover up the facts during a meeting. Some things are just inexplicable.

 

Even if the performance were the same as a Tesla, and the cost were lowered.
I simply won't put up with the inconvenience of having to stop at a dedicated fueling station.
Much rather have the convenience of fueling up in my own garage.

I'm definitely an early adopter, but this is one product I see no advantage to for me or society as a whole.

 

I would say for the next decade, just about everybody but the fuel cell lobby agrees with you, and yes these fcv makers are part of the fuel cell lobby.

After that there are a few good points that people make. First is what happens if battery advances stop? Shouldn't we be proceeding on multiple technology tracks. Will that keep bevs priced outside of the mass market? The second is the hope that fuel cells become cheap, renewable energy producing hydrogen gets cheaper, and oil prices rise. That would make fcv viable. The third is that batteries get more and more expensive as range gets higher because they need to carry their own weight. In this regard its likely a phev - erev may be a better solution than bigger batteries and faster charging infrastructure. Get fuel cells cheap enough, and put them in a 150 mile phev with a fuel cell range extender, it may be better than a gasoline range extender.

To satisfy these things we need a place to test the cars. The EU and Japan are both building these places so IMHO CARB favoring FCV makes no sense. Get 10 prius phvs on california roads and they will do a lot more good to reduce reliance on oil and pollution than 1 fcv, but those 10 phevs get 0 credits and 1 fcv gets 9. Toyota and hyundai do have plenty of places to test without the extra US subsidies.

They may indeed help society in the future. They are of no use to someone not living in the tiny portion of the world not served by hydrogen stations, and in those places they likely are a worse choice than other cars. That may not be the case in the next decade. Or in the next decade we may find that we have even less expensive batteries and plenty of fuels for phevs.

 

Agree completely!
And don't get me wrong, I do believe fcvs will have their place, as will many other solutions.
However, for most individually owned cars, I just don't see it.

 

Compared to who? Nissan and Renault (the latter hardly being a sales success).

The E-up is minus a £5,000 grant for being an EV = less than a base Leaf. It's the cheapest BEV on the market, if you don't include the cars with the nonsense battery leases (which are a complete sales flop here). I'm not a VW fan but they're got a competitive product.