Toyota to announce hydrogen fuel cell breakthrough

I think GCC read the report wrong and put up the wrong chart, I followed the link which had that as a goal for small fuel cells. Honda Clarity is 1.75 kw/L and that is fine for small size for a 100 kw fuel cell. Hyundai gets 1.5kw/L and eliminates the air compessor (lower cost and lower noise for larger size).

What that original source pointed to was the need for lower priced fuel cells and higher reliability (ability to last for 150,000 miles). DOE pegs current cost at $47/kw which sounds great until you realize that is in quantities of 500,000 and there is quite a large set up cost. There is also the cost and bulk of hydrogen tanks. Toyota claims to have had a breakthrough with this. Together that likely means small runs with much higher costs than phev vehicles. If gas and electricity are at current prices and renewable hydrogen is at $7/kg (approximate cost if reduced by higher production), its going to be a tough sell economically or environmentally.

There are two hopeful areas of research on that tank size and cost. The first is tank only, metal hydride, which could store hydrogen in less bulky tanks and remove the expense and energy of compressing the hydrogen. The other is methanol fuel cells which could use a traditional fuel tank system for alcohol but would require further fuel cell research. The odds are long against fuel cells being successful in the short run, and if they are successful in the long run they may be plug-ins with bigger batteries and use a different fueling infrastructure than 10,000 psi hydrogen.

 

I was looking at these last night and found they are rate limited. The pressures are fine, up to 10 bar, but if you spring a leak, it can take hours for the hydrogen to out-gas. Also, charging with hydrogen is exothermic . . . which is how they tell when it is full. Then try to make a metal hydride 'meter' to guess how much remains. . . . Back to the old primary and reserve tank.

Bob Wilson

 

Springing a leak even with a bullet hole, and still only leaking slowly is an advantage.

When you preflight a plane you visually inspect the fuel level just in case the fuel gauge is faulty. If we are talking metal hydrides you measure the hydrogen going in, and measure it going out. I would think there would also be a sensor to detect leaks. If the sensors are faulty though, you run out of hydrogen Its another reason to have some electricity in reserve in the battery. Put in a 4kwh, 50 kw battery and you can keep 2kwh in reserve, while at the same time reducing the size of the fuel cell as the battery can provide extra acceleration. At $300/kwh in 2020 that seems like a great engineering trade off, with a plug giving you 12 miles to limp fill if you run out of hydrogen.

I really don't know how hard the technical hurdles are, but if solved, metal hydride tanks appear superior to 10,000 psi carbon fiber hydrogen tanks. They allow for smaller tanks, that can take different space reducing packaging issues. Even if they don't go in the vehicles, metal hydrides might make storing the hydrogen in transport trucks and at the stations more efficient and less costly. Methanol, IMHO is a superior energy carrier, but here the technical challenges are even tougher with the fuel cell stack.

 

They announced that they were going to announce something new at this frankfurt motor show. That they were making this somehow hsd unlike the fchv-adv. The show is going on and all the major press is out, but haven't heard any details of the fcv-r. Anyone see anything?

 

Okay - now that made me smile ... an announcement that there will be an announcement

 

How is it going to built upon the HSD in the Prius? In the Prius, the ICE and MG1 are connected through the PSD, and the MG2 hooks in to the outer ring of the PSD. The FCV takes out the ICE, and puts in a fuel cell, which only supplies electricity. So the PSD is now missing a kinetic input. Does a third motor go there now? Or is removing the ICE, PSD, and MG1 counted as building upon?

Came across this quote,

So, is the hydrogen source gasoline?

 

You know it will be in 50 states in only "10 years".

We do have this on toyota's website. Its likely as true today as it was in 2011
Fuel Cell Vehicle | TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION GLOBAL WEBSITE
There was no synergy drive (no psd)back then but they were pressing the hybrid -

This is exactly the same way the clarity and the hyundai ix35 do their fuel cell vehicles, but they use a more powerful lithium battery than the 21kw nimh one in the toyota fchv-adv. I had hoped with a production system at frankfurt they would say what the improved battery is. Perhaps they are tight lipped, perhaps they have stuck with the fchv-adv battery. We got the last real news from toyota that the stack was now 3l/kw in 2012. This was called a breakthough, but I don't think size of the stack is a problem in the clarities 1.75kw/l fuel cell.
The problem is really price to consumers, which includes depreciation. The problem on the environmental side, is you probably can buy a sonic ev, a prius, and solar panels for the price of this fuel cell car. You can't really claim it produces less ghg, when you are charging an ev for the bulk of your miles with solar. You can't claim range anxiety, you have a prius for the longer trips. All you can say is you have to pay insurance/registration on 2 cars. Fine, how about a volt instead. You can buy that the solar panels and gas for the life of the car for that fuel cell price. These fuel cell vehicles need to be more fun to drive, or have some advantage if they are going to cost more.

 

You don't need PSD, ICE nor MG1 to create synergy with battery. They were for specific implementation necessary to create synergy with gas engine and battery.

Since fuel cell generates electricity (from hydrogen), it has MG1 function builted in. PSD is not needed because all the blending is done all electrically (with inverter). PSD was for mechanical power splitting/blending.

I think the synergy they ought to look in FCHV is to downsize of the fuel cell size as much as possible, enabled by on-board battery pack to handle peak power demand. That will reduce cost, weight and maximize interior space.

In return, hydrogen fuel cell stack will allow range and refueling speed and reduced weight not possible with battery EV.

Both will complement each other and operate as one synergy drive. That is the fundamental idea behind HSD.

Compressed hydrogen tank may have 1/3 energy density as gasoline but fuel cell stack is almost 2x more efficient than gas engine.

Efficiency and emission does not start in the engine nor tailpipe. Manufacturing of the vehicle and fuel production has to be considered to achieve the ultimate Eco-car.

 

Is it l/kw or kw/l?
You switched units when going from the Honda to Toyota

I think Toyota believes the price of FCV's will drop rapidly within a few years.
The same was true for EV's.
Once the automakers determined that the energy density of Li-Ion had reached a pre-specified level (and was heading in the right direction), then it became a good strategy to release an EV to help grab customer "mindshare".

Notice how the PiP, LEAF, Fusion/Cmax Energis, Volt and Tesla all entered the plug-in market, but each grabbed a unique slice of market pie.......they all differ in their AER.

That didn't hold much longer as the technology spread and other carmakers decided that the Li-ion cost is so low (and the tax incentives still in place) that it makes more sense than not to enter the PHEV market and get CAFE credits. Enter the Accord plug-in, which is in direct competition to the Fusion Energi.

Sure, Nissan's CEO was off re: LEAF sales, but eventually I'm sure they'll hit the 500,000 mark he mentioned, so he would only be off in terms of his timing, i.e. the slope of the curve rather than its direction. Big uncertainty was gas prices, which are out of any automakers' control. I recall your chart plotting market share on a $/kwh vs. $/gal axis.

Ditto for Toyota. I'm sure they've seen some of the positive results coming out of the latest research breakthroughs in graphene catalysts, etc., etc. and determined that the costs will come down sooner rather than later. They want to be known as the FCV company.

When people hear "hybrid" they think "Prius".
That's what Toyota would like to achieve here, IMHO.................it's about a 'halo effect', or more specifically getting it back after the Prius lost its cachet to newer entrants LEAF, Volt, Tesla, etc.

 

kw/l (higher number means smaller fuel cells)

Both Nissan and GM credited the tesla roadster as being what they saw as a reason. Many thought in 2000 batteries were good enough for phevs, and it took a long time after batteries were good enough to get bevs.

On fuel cells prices have come down much slower than expected. Toyota has been working on these things since 1996. To get prices down they need to figure out how to make these fuel cells cheaper with less expensive material, how to package the car with the large hydrogen tanks, and sell these things in volume. There are fork lifts and busses to practice on for the fuel cell tchnology, that don't need a hydrogen highway. If they get the price down great, but until then they should stop this hype that batteries are not ready, but the great fuel cell car comes out in 2015.

Except what they have shown so far is not as good as the honda clarity, honda previously focused on fuel cells instead of hybrids. They also haven't put out anything as polished as the mercedes f-cell. The honda/gm fuel cell partnership leads in patents. Mercedes/Ford/Nissan partnership seems to want to build a plug-in fuel cell vehicle. Toyota seems to lead in these press releases.

Yes but this hybrid synergy drive in a fuel cell car just seems stupid branding.

 

First, all FCVs must achieve synergy between the fuel cell and battery in order to be commercially viable. Toyota wants to brand theirs as HSD. Fine, it is a good marketing move. That is all it is though, marketing.

Barring an announce like there is an ICE in there for 50 state sales, the blending of FC and battery Toyota is doing is no different than what Honda, Hyundai, and the others are doing. It is no different than with a super capacitor and battery, or any with combining any two electric sources of differing voltage and/or amperage. The distinctness here is in the FCs themselves. Not the hybrid drive train like there was between HSD and IMA.

So, don't go beyond the HSD label and try to link the FCV to the Prius. From Sergiospl's and my post links: "The FCV-R concept’s powertrain builds on the same Hybrid Synergy Drive as the Prius," and " The show car will be powered by a close-to-production hydrogen-electric hybrid drivetrain consisting of a fuel cell, high-pressure hydrogen tanks and the same Hybrid Synergy Drive technology that is found in gasoline-electric Toyota hybrids such as the Prius." Two different auto blogs with the same message. Probably more. So if this didn't come from a Toyota press release, it came from one of their mouth pieces.

I thought it was FCEV. FCEV is the general short hand. FCHV is Toyota's term as part of their marketing. They are both technically right. FCVs use an EV drive train for motive power. When the FC dies and/or the hydrogen tanks expire, you can just rip them out and stuff in more batteries.

HV applies because it is a serial hybrid. Just like a locomotive. Since the FC can't respond to power demands as quickly as a diesel, a battery buffer is a requirement, not an option.

Sustainability also has to be a consideration. Right now hydrogen is riding natural gas's coattails. Hydrogen is simply switching one limited resource for another in that situation. What happens when NG prices rise? Is there a hydrogen production path with potential sustainability and efficiency as electricity's?

Bingo.

 

That's the big question, right there. No matter what happens with fuel cell development and battery technology, if hydrogen is always an efficiency step removed from electricity, it will never be viable.

 

AG- I did not understand what you meant by 3x more electricity to run FCV? I was thinking it might be nice to have a PHEH2FCV which is an FCV I can plug-in to get 10 miles to next H2 refill station. Do I need 3x more battery than PiP to go 10-miles?

 

natural gas-> hydrogen->compressed hydrogen is more efficient than
natural gas -> electtricity -> electricity at the plug

But solar or wind -> elecricity at the plug is much more efficient than solar or wind to compressed hydrogen

We often don't choose the most efficient. The problem with hydrogen isn't that its less efficient, it is that it is more expensive without really giving a big advantage versus say a phev. If a volt + solar panels + 150,000 miles of gas costs less than a clarity or Toyota fcv-r yet can refill at home and all over the country, that fuel cell vehicle needs to give something more than the phev. Ghg favor the volt, oil favors the fuel cell but if you are buying only 100 gallons of gas a year, that convience of the volt is going to going to trump the use less oil kick.

No it should be around the same efficiency. But it takes about 3 times more electricity to convert to compressed hydrogen to go the same distance as a bev on the same electricity from the plug

 

I don't think Toyota is that dumb. Energy costs are continuing to spiral forever upward. Energy dictates whether 'stuff' will be cheap or expensive - weather its lithium, steel, plastics, transportation costs, hydrogen, etc. Those dynamics necessarily mean the middle class will continue to shrink. A smaller middle clas means even fewer buyers. Considering these factors - Toyota's pursuit of fuel cell transportation is completely inexplicable. (except for the fact that they get lots of research money )
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Agreed.
If the FCV folks were smart about it, they'd stop comparing themselves to BEV's, and stick to what FCV does best, which is long-distance transport -trucks, interstate busses, etc.- and stop trying to compete with the BEV in daily/urban commuting where there is no chance of winning, especially as NG prices rise and more renewable electricity is added to the grid.

FCV's comparing themselves to BEV's sounds like the worn-out diesel vs. hybrid argument, circa 2030.
Diesels could do very well marketing themselves as superior to gasoline without resorting to comparing themselves to hybrids, against which they are less favorable.

Hydrogen highway will be very expensive, and as you mentioned by then Tesla will have a nationwide supercharger network.

What is going on here reminds me a lot of the wireless industry. It's kind of like 3g vs 4g and "our network is bigger/faster than their network". The big population centers / transport corridors get served first, while the rural areas get theirs much later.

The nationwide Tesla supercharger network will take away the road trip argument against BEVs (as will L3 SAE combo, later). At that point, FCV's will only have an advantage in re-fill time, and you'd have to pretty much spend your entire day on the highway for that to make a difference (semi trucks would be great candidate, but they're going the LNG+ICE route at this point).

Tesla is a small company, but by the time a nationwide H2 network is built, they would be able to deploy battery swap stations at a cheaper cost per location. Tesla can succeed here where Better Place failed, because they actually make their own cars rather than having to plead for a carmaker to embrace the swap tech.

Hint to FCV advocates: start with municipal fleets that do a lot of daily miles. Taxis and police vehicles would be great. That way you:
- reduce your infrastructure requirements (re-fill H2 at central location every night)
- gain real-world experience in the reliability / durability of the FC
- drive down unit costs as more FCV's are produced

 

agreed.... and I'd even believe we will find viable fuel cell potential practicality for entire buildings / both for electricity as well as the units waste heat.
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I think fuel cells could do well in locomotives. What are a couple of fuel tenders to a mile long train?

That is actually what Hyundai is doing. The first few years of sales are going to municipalities in Sweden.

 

This may be rash and too soon to say, but I think Tesla's already won the battle against hydrogen.