VW says, fuel cells stupid for the next decade.

Green Car Congress: Volkswagen Group shows 3 hydrogen fuel cell concepts at LA Show: Audi A7 Sportback h-tron; Golf Sportwagen HyMotion; Passat HyMotion

Which is consistant with the OP. VW in 2009 thought it would take at least 11 years. This is in line with steven chu's analysis back then. In 2013 thought it would take at least a decade before there were breakthroughs for commercialization (2023). I think any betting man would say it will again take anouther decade, which means 2025.

Hyundai and mercedes experience shows that they are not ready. Neither were able to lease their goal amount, and drivers are haing trouble with fueling, often sitting their cars. Toyota is only doing a token launch, hand building 700 this year ramping up to 3000/year. Why not really mass produce and sell like tesla, chevy, and nissan do on their plug-ins? The tech is too expensive. CARB first said it would cost $1M/station in subsidies and they would have 100 stations in 2010, with hundreds of thousands of cars by 2020.

Now reality has set in. The stations and fuel are much more expensive than thought, and all the old stations need to be retrofited and improved for these new cars. The Japanese government is planning $60,000/fcv fueling and direct subsidies through 2020 to get things started. Then maybe in the 2020s there is a breakthrough that makes these ready for commercialization. CARB now has set asside $220M and the goal is now 100 stations by 2025 (15 year slip).

Until then its really all R&D, in case plug-ins and hybrids aren't good enough.

I hope there are some breakthroughs, but each year fcv look less and less likely to compete even with larger government subsidies than plug-ins.

VW has talked down fuel cells, saying they should not be subsidied more than plug-ins or favored over plug-ins. BMW has the same position. Neither company talks down fuel cells as a future technology, but both say it is not ready for commercialization without break throughs. Toyota actively lobbies against plug-ins in efforts to get higher subsidies for fcv. In 2013 they were sucessful with carb getting more fueling money and more zev credits(9 versus 4) and twice the california state subsidy of bevs. They are actively lobbying congress for more fueling subsidies and vehicle tax credits.

 

+1

To be fair that landfill to hydrogen was a DOE proof of concept. Like many POC, it proved that this type of thing is expensive, and needs back up, and its unlikely that many stations are ideally sited by landfills. They will probably get it to work, and build a bigger hydrogen storage tank, and have provisions for trucks to bring in liquid hydrogen if demand is higher than production. I'm sure if they spend enough they will get it to work. The problem is this concept needs to be compared to the other "green" hydrogen and SMR natural gas choices. Those landfills can be fitted with gas capture, and use it to produce electricity much cheaper. The least expensive "green" alternative according to NREL is then to Use off-peak wind at a central facility, then produce liquid hydrogen and truck it to stations chosen for their location, not because they are at land fills.

The Tesla proof of concept supercharger seems to work well. Tesla announced 5x as many summer trips this year than last year. The network should complete its first build out at the end of 2017, as it grows, it will be come more and more convient.

Yep until someone builds out a hydrogen network, fuel cells have no advantage versus long range bevs. The only question is do you like the mirai, clarity, or tucson a lot better than the tesla X or S, volt, outlander phev for the price. In a few years there will be a lot more choices for plug-ins.

 

Troy is leasing a mercedes f-cell and has complained about refueling speed. You know he is one of those guys that found out that promises don't come true.

This is an example of the new state of the art retrofits.

Hydrogen Station Opening

Sounds pretty good right. I mean one of the first hydrogen highway stations now can fill a fuel cell car in 3 minutes! Say we had 30 cars, could we fill them in 5 hours, you know 1 every 10 minutes? That would still be pretty good right?

No you can't fill 30 cars at 3 minutes a piece at this brand new state of the art facility, you can't even fill at 10 minutes a piece. Once the first one fills it has to recover, I'm not sure how long but reports are that 3rd car is going to take 10 minutes the 4th probably longer if they all arrive in a line. Once that 25th car fills up, or how ever many to get to 100 kg, the next vehicle is SOL until enough hydrogen is produced. Its not an instant all thse new stations can fill a lot of cars that will take time or ... a lot more money.

Carb estimates that in 2021 they will have 86 stations that will have this fast 10,000 psi technology, but many will only be able to dispense 100 kg/day, others will be able to dispense 300kg/day, none seem planned that can fill 300 cars per day in the 6 year planning period. That either means there won't be many cars, or there will be stations with long waits, which .... will cause range anxiety, Or someone needs to raise more money to build all these staions in the US.

 

I think they did, but the hyundai cars, although very limited strained the system. Probably when toyota leases the 200 cars this year, the fueling stations will be able to handle them.

2016 and 2017 may be more of a problem as toyota attempts 2800 cars and honda tries to lease some too. The tech and money are there for those cafs and more, but california doesn't have a good track record on delivering stations, and there is a brand new company with no experience that won the bid for most of the stations. I think the numbers will be there, but I would expect 10 minute refueling, and some stations out of fuel on holiday weekends and other fill up periods until the kinks are worked out.