First Hyundai now BMW. Ditching Fuel Cell Vehicles

So because Toyota has been talking so much about Hydrogen, does that mean it is "Game Over" for hydrogen?

 

yup. unless you can show me some evidence to the contrary.

 

No but it probably means fewer hydrogen vehicles will be in the US in 2020 than plug-ins sold just last year. Who knows maybe the next decade is the hydrogen decade If toyota thought hydrogen cars would sell at all well and be profitable in the '10s then they wouldn't be pumping up this much pr, giving away patents, hoping to get some other auto companies in the game.

It's probably just like the hydrogen talk a little over a decade ago, a distraction. We heard that there would be a million of fuel cell cars on the road by 2020 if only governments invested, and government money came pouring in, billions of dollars.
News Article - One million Fuel Cell vehicles expected on the road by 2020

Honda, GM, Toyota and the California Fuel Cell partnership were even more optimistic than Pike. Toyota is promising to ramp up production to 3000 vehicles in 2017 and is calling that above expectations. It is far short of its share of the 57,000 that were to be produced this year .... and promising tens of thousands in the 2020s. My guess is the hydrogen hype will settle down with the reality right now, and we will in 2020 or so hear that they will be ready in a decade and we car companies need money again for hydrogen.

 

Hydrogen is still born before it starts. How can it ever work? I grumble if my local petrol station is closed when they're filling their tanks and I have to drive 1 mile to another. Yet with hydrogen, even if there was humongous investment and one station was magiced into every town overnight, it would still be inconvenient to reach for many people. The best we could hope for in the next decade would be ONE filling station in every larger city (69 in the small UK) and that would still be a significant journey for most people to drive to their nearest station to fill up.

What's the point? If a filling station is more than 5 miles away out of your way you're losing money and importantly, time. It has taken 100 years to get the petrol/diesel infrastructure in place and hydrogen is much much more complicated to introduce. At least with electric cars you have a 'filling station' (a household electrical socket) nearly everywhere.

Nobody has really given me a good argument in favour of hydrogen to be the dominant fuel over electricity, petrol/diesel or even methanol powered fuel cells. All that negative publicity about electric car fires will pale into insignificance the day a 10,000 psi hydrogen tank goes pop. And on that note, I wonder if hydrogen cars will be killed off by the insurance industry who will recognise that paying for potential extensive damage (however rare), let alone £20k/$30k of platinum in the fuel cell, will just make car/auto insurance premiums prohibitive; 1, A BEV or petrol car gets hit hard between 2 trucks in an accident, catches fire killing 5 occupants and it's a large claim. 2, A FCV gets hit equally hard, kills 5 occupants and takes out half the neighbourhood and you could add a couple extra zeros to the settlement.

1, 2,

 

it's a 100 year plan, give it a chance.

 

Just in time for fusion generated power to manufacture the hydrogen.

Bob Wilson

 

Bad Predictions - Great Inventions Nobody Believed In

 

lol bob, unfortunately fusion takes hydrogen and makes helium or larger elements.

But you are right fusion and fuel cell cars have the promise that never seems to get here. Fuel cell cars now look to be technically production ready, and fusion is close - but the problem is cost.
Even If Lockheed Has Made a Breakthrough in Fusion Power, the Hard Part Will Be the Economics - Forbes

Now Mr. Lovins figures are lower than most people can get, but add in the less than 3 cents for ccgt in north america and the cost bar needs to be very low. I think eventually we will have fusion, but natural gas needs to be more expensive or fusion less before fusion has a chance in north america. I do expect some test reactors that are producing sustained power on the grid in less than a decade. There are places with poor solar and wind potential that are not close to a natural gas pipeline, so I expect some form of nuclear well into the future and fusion may be here at low enough price in only 25 years ;-)

Fuel cell cars have a similar problem. Gasoline and battery prices are too low in cost for them to be competitive. Tech breakthroughs can come but if they come too slowly plug-ins will make fcv irrelevant. IMHO fcv have about 20 years to drastically drop in price before it is too late.

 

Hey, there was a day when people in horse drawn carriages thought the first cars were a crazy idea. Hybrid cars and EV's were looked at as a joke, look at the sales now. I think Toyota is right on and it will be successful in the coming years. They have the money to invest and wait it out.

 

I prefer to do my fueling at home.
Didn't Honda try that with their fuel cell car?

 

They tried it with their cng civic. The phill station cost too much and failed. A Hydrogen one would cost much more, and would probably violate building codes in a lot of communities.

If you look at a way you can refill at home, merccedes brought a fuel cell phev to the detroit auto show. Its cheaper to add batteries than to have a home hydrogen station.

 

They had demos of a home natural gas reformer and a PV powered electrolysis unit. Which just brought up the question of why using the PV for home and EV or a home fuel cell for the same.

 

Did a search and found what I was thinking of.
Honda FCX Clarity - Home Energy Station - Official Web Site

 

Isn't obvious, if you make the hydrogen at home, you get to buy 4x more panels to power your car, and lots of expensive equipment to create and compress the hydrogen.

 

And this is why I'll stick with a plug-in.

 

You guys . . . . I had to read back several times to get it .... but the sick irony/laugh was well worth it.
.

 

who says we can't improv?

 

So Troy Heagy is one of the ones who runs your company?

Hydrogen fueling slower than Tesla EV supercharger (fuel cell electric) | Page 2 | PriusChat

 

I agree that hydrogen fuel cells are a losing bet in the next 10-20 years compared to EVs. But needing to drive 5 miles to get to a hydrogen fuel station isn't the reason -- they can just make the cars plug-in EV-FC hybrids with a 10 or 20 mile battery and solve that issue.
They are going to lose because:
1. There aren't any hydrogen stations, no one has seen any and only the most pro-fuel-cell early adopter would even consider trying to find one.
2. cost of fuel cells
3. cost of fuel (hydrogen cost per mile will be 2x to 3x of electricity) Probably 3x - 5x for low CO2.
4. With an EV I can charge at home and with my own PV solar
5. EVs can be charged from millions of places already
6. With an EV, everyday you can start with a full tank
7. Free EV charging at many places
8. EVs don't need to warm up and have full power right away
9. We don't need to replace 100% of gasoline...getting most people to some kind of plug-in (Volt, PIP) if they can't go all-electric still gets rid of enough oil to make a big difference in the next few decades

Mike

 

Just got an update to post #50 above - where I displayed one of our Disney Co. fearless leaders' MB hydrogen car. He drives in from the Burbank area to Anaheim ... maybe a 100 mile round trip. Drove by in one of the company EV golf carts todyay and saw this ... I was very impreseed! Looks like he's seen the light, and turned the hydrogen ride in - for a ride that he finds to be more practical;



Apparently he didn't buy into Toyota's anti plugin ad, "only for those who have 4 hours to waste" ... and instead went pure EV. That's not much to say for hydrogen.
Oh well