Toyota negative on batteries because it has more experience than other others on them

Are U sure it's LitiumIon? I thought that technology doesn't meet the safety criteira on cars because of it's inherent risk for taking fire in traffic accidents?

 

jeez - i gave a link - read it

why are you finding Toyota's half truths so incredible
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I have no idea 100 years from now but if we are talking only 10 years out, any kind of roll out is going to be constrained by costs.
Hydrogen Production: Natural Gas Reforming | Department of Energy

Now a lot of the other 5% is made from hydrocarbons and only a tiny amount from bull shit (if you watch the toyota mini film). You may ask how they are going to find all that bs exactly where they want a hydrogen refueling station? the answer is they could truck it burning oil... or most likely its coming from grid electricity or fossil fuels and fossil hydrogen is much cheaper.

Who is going to pay for all this renewable hydrogen? If you can't find an easy answer the you need to conclude that either their won't be many fuel cell vehicles running on the hydrogen, or sone is going to make it more cheaply ;-)

Sure but if you use renewable electricity its likely to cost 10x more than charging a plug-in. Who do you think will pay for that?

 

Ok, I understand that financing is the main issue of the thread but I'm an engineer, sorry ;-)

Second, I haven't been digging iinto the internals of FC-technology much, I just notice that both Europe, USA and Asia seem to believe in the technology and I react to that.
Contrary to many Americans i believe most government decisions are rational unless they are mainpulated by special interests...

So the main question for me is: Are the main FC problems solved or do we have reason to believe they soon will be?
That means for me the system in the car, not the supply systems for H2 who I believe is a minor problem contrary to many in this thread!
Yes, infrastructure is expensive and should be carefully evaluated before putting money in it but -if- FCVs will be the cars of the future, do it!

 

I'm not sure U have to "pay 10 times the cost of charging a PlugIn" even if I just metioned that my knowledge in FC technology is shaky at best...
But... we can find out this together!
In my world we are talking about energy losses, how much energy is needed to transform one form of energy carrier to another? That is the key question here I think, it's a combination of heat losses in the transformation process and the cost of the system who does the transformation.

In the case of converting water to H2 using electricity there must be a really simple equation who I don't know but somebody must have done that many years ago!
Anyway, I don't think the energy losses are particularly significant in that process , neither are the equipment U need, in fact it can be done in anybodys garage, I played with electrolysis many years ago myself, all U need is water and a conductive salt, some electrodes and an electric outlet. Maybe U have 50% energy losses and then U have your own H2 !!

That's far from 10 times Austingreen!
But it's just a guess...

/Roger

 

This may be a language issue, however, trollbait didn't say "that Volt doesn't have any cell degradation". He said it hasn't proven to be a problem.
I am sure the Volt has some, however, it has not been a noticeable amount.
GM coddles the batteries, and I doubt you will see much loss of range during the life of the vehicle.
Tesla is more agresive and uses much more of the battery.
So far, reports are a 2-3% range loss in the first year, and about 1%/year after that. Tesla's estimates are 12-15 years until the battery capacity is 70%.

 

Take the next step in the process. As an engineer, how would you then compress the hydrogen to 10,000 psi?
After that, how do you transport it to the fueling station, and then pump it into autos?

As someone who is a fan of conservation, why use electricity to break H2 free from water, spend energy to transport it, then more energy to compress it so that you can fill a car with it and convert it back into electricity to power an electric motor?

Yes, there are some uses for it, however in most cases electric cars are more efficient, higher performance, and safer.

 

There should be a distinction between researching FC-technology and forcing FC-technology to be used in certain locations. I'm a proponent of Electric Vehicles, but if the government decided that battery technology must be forced upon the aviation industry to replace jet fuel as a national goal, that would be destructive. I think most engineers see the obvious problems with forcing a particular technology into a particular application independent of economic and practical considerations serves neither the government or it's citizens.

Two points. 1) The State of California is the excessive supporter of funding fuel cell vehicles into the California market while taking active measures to remove funding for any other technology. There is clear corruption of fuel cell advocates being installed into California political positions here. This is an unmistakeable special interest manipulation in just one state. Neither the US national government or any other state thinks a Fuel Cells are the best desirable answer to reducing fossil fuel dependence using taxpayer money on a massive scale. 2) The California political agency driving this fuel cell agenda was originally tasked with coming up with vehicle technology to reduce pollution. Now they have shifted to a technology dependent on Natural Gas, a fossil fuel. It makes no sense for the California to require solar and wind power for clean electricity and then require a vehicle that primarily avoids using this clean power. Some irrationality is in play here.

Exactly what problem are fuel cell vehicles solving? Very much would like you view on this question.

 

agreed! . . . . and if they're not ?
There you go ..... FCV's HAVE been evaluated now for somewhere between 4 & 5 decades. Yet here we are ... same ol' song & dance ... "we're really getting close, now ... just 10 more years" . Why do you think certain expressions were created;
sink or swim
$h1t or get of the pot
fish or cut bait
The disingenuous fuel cell lobby has been on the pot too long.
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From your own quotes below, it's easy to see what your quandary is now. You admit you haven't looked into the dishonesty of the hydrogen lobby, and virtually in the same breath you say you can't believe it, even when you have been given, and continue to be given source/links. Quit with the doubt & blind faith that technology gods will eventually find a way. You know, it's okay to be a scientist and skeptical of promised /future breakthroughs ..... expecially if it defies the blending if economics & physics.

If you need to read & get a more high brow explanation of hydrogen inefficiencies - you may want to start here;

The Hydrogen Hoax - The New Atlantis

Pretty much the only thing that changed since Dr. Zubrin wrote it, is that fracking has temporarily brought down the cost of natural gas - and, tank pressures have gone up to 10k'Lbs. Read it, then hopefully you'll come back with more than, 'oh, I just can't believe that'
.

 

Perhaps they'll make it an additional prize to the lottery. Given how many are expected to be produced, there may be more lottery winners. But to quote an old joke:

• First prize - a brand new Mirata
• Second prize - two brand new Mirata
• Third prize - a Holy, white elephant

One technical tidbit, ordinary water forms a polymer, typically eight molecules. Electrolysis studies are looking at electrodes that break the polymer to reduce the amount of energy needed to make H{2}. Even so, there are electrolysis losses that are not found with current battery technologies which have their own losses.

Bob Wilson

 

Cost and interior size reasons. Toyota was able to shrink FCV components to fit in a car (though taking the rear middle seat). The competition is using SUV, well until Honda release Clarity FCX.

Next Gen Hyundai FCV is going to be a car. Their goal is to shrink the stack down to the size of 2.0L gas engine and share the parts with other HEV/PHEVs. This is what Toyota has already done with Mirai. More on the progress.


In 2 years, Hyundai plan to reduce cost by 50%. Three more years and they'll have mass-produced version for general public.

Except, they never said it.

Laptops don't need to recharge in 5 minutes nor do they last more than 3,000 recharges. They also don't need to work under 100+ deg temp or start in sub-zero temp. A self-discharged laptop can be used while plugged in but it is not acceptable for a PHEV.

Toyota is working on lithium-air and solid state battery suitable for EVs. They just don't think (from experience) that the current lithium-ion is suitable for long range EVs.

Toyota is putting H2 stations in their dealerships. They are also working with other car manufacturers and government to roll out as any FCV can be filled at any H2 stations (unlike the Superchargers).

 

Haha!
Ok, Hill, maybe I haven't digged too much into the internals of fuel cells but that doesn't mean I have less control over other techstuff.
It's easy to add fuel to a cotroversy, harder to add facts based on solid science, that's what I'm trying to do but remember, the title of this thread doesn't encourage that, neither do your last link who is fuming with emotions but let's see if I can find any facts... ;-)

Sorry Hill but I stopped reading when the Hübrin, the writer, on the second page(?) suggested we should mine for Hydrogen on the Sun!
The article is thus misleading because noone will ever "mine" for any Hydrogen, we will convert it from water, release the byproduct oxygen and then melt them together again in a vast number of Fuel cells again releasing water, that's the final state of the energy loop in the fuelcell Utopia I can see in the near future ;-)

 

Well "FL Prius driver", what I meant with "solving the fuel cell design problem", was just to make them costeffective and environmentally sustainable compared to other technologies. Toytoa believes so and some other involved parties and I hope it is based on facts, not on special interests. U say California have taken measures to support it, if there are special interests involved, I have no clue. About natural gas I believe this is a transitional technology, creating H2 from wind,.solar power and other energy sources will probably follow but now I'm guessing again.

Ultimately, what is important is to turn away from fossil fuel dependence, if that happens by help of Natural Gas, so let it be!
/Roger

 

Err... ...

 

right.

 

Ok, over a limited time period of course, I thought U got that Sage ;-)

And I can tell U, your Government is working on it:
NREL: Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Research - Hydrogen Production Cost Analysis

here is another link to wind powered Hydrogen production systems from the same site, some overheads from an analysis session, a nice system overview on page 4 but it's hard to decode the facts:
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f11/webinarslides_wind_to_hydrogen_011713.pdf

It's good to know when U read the above paper that Hydrogen contains more than 3 times the energy per mass unit compared to gasoline according to this page: Energy density - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Yes, Hydrogen is lighter by weight in energy density than gasoline but who cares?

The energy density problem with Hydrogen in passenger car propulsion is energy density by volume. According to your Wikipedia link, compressed Hydrogen is about 6 times less energy dense by volume than gasoline (not clear If they are assuming 350 bar or 700 bar compression).

 

Many on this thread believe that government decissions in the US and california were corrupted by special interests the fuel cell lobby (California Fuel Cell Partnership (CFCP). Hyundai has complained the korean government is not on board of fcv, and neither is the biggest car market China. The leading government pro fuel cells in Europe is germany, and BMW and VW both now think that fuel cells are hype but are finding demand for plug-ins, so I don't think german government support will even continue at these levels. That leaves Japan, which IMHO is the best spot for the test.

The main FC vehicle problems are costs and a refueling infrastructure. Demand seems totally made up by the lobbies, car companies and currupted government. For example the fuel cell lobby is predicting more vehicles on the US east coast with 1 pulic station today will have over 6000 vehicles in 2017, but Japan which is subsidizing vehicles by over $26,000 + free fuel only expects 6000 by 2020.

There are technical challenges to bringing down the costs, and these are very unlikely to be solved in the next decade. Toyota and Honda say they can do it, but they have been over promising for over a decade.

On the cost of renewable hydrogen costing 10 times more than renewable electricity to go the same miles in a plug-in, its a guestimate. How many times more do you think it will be and how much more per kg would you pay than natural gas based hydrogen and still buy the vehicle. Technical improvements and volume of fcv can bring it down. It takes about 240 kwh of electricity to electrolyze, compress, and chill 4 kg of hydrogen which looks like a typical fill up. Say you want to fill 6 cars in an hour, then you need to use 1.44 MW and some serious equipment. Sometimes stations aren't located where this won't require grid upgrades, so the upgrades need to be paid for. In california and british columbia the electrolyzers are located off site, where the renewables or the grid can handle it. The hydrogen is then liquified and then trucked to the stations. Some hydrogen leaks in the process so to make the electrolyzers less expensive it adds some more costs. Stations also may require a profit heaven forbid so that's how you get the high estimate.