Here's a model 3 that promotes climate change awareness

This is an imaginary constraint.
To date, no company has had to restrict production due to a lack of raw materials.
So my answer would be, it is better to have 10 Model S rather than 10 Primes, rather than 10 normal Prii.

 

But how many have chosen not to expand production due to perceived difficulty in scaling up materials supply? That's very different from cutting back after trying it.

 

And yet you currently drive a Toyota and not a Tesla

Personally, I think such drastic changes *require* companies like Tesla to bring them about. It's too risky (speaking purely of business risk, not environmental risk) for a big company to make a big bet on new technology (example: Mirai). When a company like Tesla has some success, at some point it becomes a business risk not to be in the new technology.

 

The business risk to a giant like Toyota is miniscule.
The business risk to a young company like Tesla is huge.

Toyota has a huge amount of free cash flow they can invest in taking chances.

 

New products always involve building a supply network. A supply network for new tech may well be more difficult than a supply route for old tech. However I don’t see many manufacturers decide to not innovate.
The ones that do make that decision loose business.

 

Having had some time to read @el Crucero 's link, there's a key point down at the end:

It is sort of an awkward transition for Toyota and Lexus as they see their fuel cell programs failing with the Mirai and competitors being quite successful with battery-electric vehicles.
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It's not that Toyota hasn't tried to innovate or be environmentally friendly, it's that they put their effort into fuel cells which haven't had the success that BEVs have had. It was only 20 years ago that the EV1 was a state of the art BEV using lead acid batteries. Compared to that the Mirai is a big improvement. Unfortunately for Toyota (but fortunately for everybody else) Li-Ion turned out better than they expected.

 

they must be happy with the status quo, while raking in u.s. hydrogen dollars for r&d.

 

Japan has chosen hydrogen because of conclusions arrived at decades ago. When BEVs were expensive with short range because the battery options were lead-acid and NiMH. On top of that, residential electric for many there isn't suitable to charge long range BEVs. So the government and industry are investing in hydrogen transportation. Toyota pushes it elsewhere in order to have enough market to help bring down production costs.

 

Toyota, somewhat caught with their pants down, finally acknowledged that they're working to get a "real" EV (LONG range) out on to the market, in maybe a couple more years. They may fear that the model 3 will eat into Camry sized car sales (the deposit holde que is longer than yearly Camry sales) . In the meantime though, this new announcement that Toyota plans, "more hydrogen for you" article? Maybe they're having problems with their EV development? Seems incredible.
JEEZ! Hydrogen costs $15 a liter! And as expensive as that is, it's only that 'cheap' when fossil fuels are cheap. Once fossil fuels spiked back up words? (because hydrogen has to be reformed by fossil fuels - that's the only way to keep the uber high cost down to 'onlyway' too expensive to be practical) .... yeah, even today's market fuel cost is the kiss of death.
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I like your take on this, and I think it makes sense. They decided it would be easier to develop a hydrogen distribution infrastructure than to rebuild their electrical distribution infrastructure.

Japan doesn't have natural gas reserves, do they? I think that means they have to look towards more expensive means of hydrogen production like electrolysis. That may have looked okay back when they had a robust nuclear power industry, but probably a bit less so now.

 

No natural resources at all. In fact, Japan plans on using Australia's Brown coal reserves to reform their hydrogen in Aussi land, then ship it to Japan. That way they can claim their fuel is clean. Let the awesome Ausies deal with the coal ash mountains - just NIMBY
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how many hydrogen refueling stations completed in japan?

how many underway?

how many planned?

 

Nuclear power electrolysis was the original plan, but they will likely go with fossil fuel sources now. They are simply cheaper. California is mandating 33% of the hydrogen to be renewable, and a kilogram costs over $16 there.

They currently have 100 now with plans for 160 by 2021, and then 180 for 2022. California has over 30 in comparison.
Some of the stations in Japan will be able to fill tanks to a higher pressure than what Ca ones do. The Mirai can actually hold more hydrogen than its US specs list.

Japan to be 1st country to reach 100 hydrogen filling station milestone
Japan venture aims to build 80 hydrogen fuelling stations by 2022 | Reuters

 

sounds like they're onto something for japan, place your bets!

 

Someone not too many days ago started a thread about Prius safety. Segway to the Mirai, Toyota had to get safety waivers in order to get the Mirai on the street. As of yet there's no evidence they ever modified it's safety to meet minimum standards. Maybe they did w/ little publishing about it Oh well. Good luck with that.
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