Featured Meet Toyota's first Mirai owner, and his half-filled FCV

Yes, only meant toyota world wide. Other vendors honda, hyundai, kia, mercedes may have a selling before 2020. None of these expect toyota's volume even cumulatively between now and end of 2020. That means less than double toyota, or less than 100,000 cumulative with buses between now and end of 2020. Fork lifts may get high volume though. US will be less than 45,000 in that time period according to CARB and north east states estimates.

Nissan, GM, Ford, BMW likely between 2020-2025. That means 2021-2025 is anyones guess, still the most wild estimates are bellow 1M cars world wide (amount of plug-ins currently on the road not counting NEVs)..

To get beyond plug-in penetration will be at least a decade away.

 

Assuming plugin market will not contract.

The incentives will be geared toward FCV while plugin's will fade. See what happened to regular hybrids when plugins arrived and created the uneven playing field.

 

It's not like the hybrid market died. It even expanded at times during the plug in incentive. Cheap gas is what really hurt them.

 

well I was talking about cumulative, that in 10 years FCV won't have as many cars on the road as plug-ins do today world wide.

But sure anything is possible. Plug-ins could contract and fcv could sell more in 2025. I don't think that is likely but it is possible.

I also agree that from here on out fcv will be supported more than plug-ins per vehicle in the US and Japan. This will get bigger when plug-in incentives end. I would expect plug-ins will still be favored in governments like china and Norway. I do think batteries will improve and so will designs, but if we stopped here, the plug-in market could shrink. Where I disagree is that plug-in incentives are what is hurting the hybrid market. Phev progress should help lower the cost of hybrids. Some sales have been cannibalized, but bigger issues have to do with the cost of gasoline and improvements in gasoline cars. I don't think fcv will compete much with plug-ins except for share of government money and regulations.

From the cars represented by those charts? I think the market would prefer the battery. The problem with tesla's batteries are not that they are too big, its the cost and that is coming down. What do we have a model S 85d that's epa rated at 270 miles, a X 90d that's rated at 257 miles. You could easily put enough batteries to match the mirai's 312 mile rated epa range, and still have a lot more room for people or cargo than the mirai. I expect batteries to be 36% smaller in 10 years, and tesla is talking about a 500 mile range bev. Size is a problem with old designs, but not in new designs like the Model S, X, 3, bolt. I expect when the model 3 and bolt come out cost will have dropped to be more volume friendly.

The left graph, really just means you need a more expensive suspension and more power for bev versus fcv. I don't understand the left chart at all, as it doesn't convey proper information. I rhink what they meant to do is a series of lines for kg of batteries based on a energy density, versus power required, or something. Anyway that is a fail. My guess is a fuel cell model S with similar accelearation would also be quite heavy. The mirai is already much heavier than a volt or i3-rex.

Note I've only seen pictures of the mirai cargo, if you have numbers let me know how big it is compared to the teslas. We know 5 seats and 7 seats versus 4.

Still as far behind as fcv seem to be I think its worth investing in R&D. They could get much better, but those charts don't seem to convey any real world advantages when we look at what is being built. Remember tesla is a new company, not around for nearly as long as toyota and gm have been making fuel cell vehicle prototypes.

 

it's a fail, but that won't stop its being reposted as proof of FC superiority - any more than regurgitation of Toyotas dishonest fuel cell chart that assumes coal electricity for EV's & cleaner /natural gas for hydrogen reformation.

 

I think this is the old chart that they really wanted to do.

The fuel cell is relatively flat. Nimh can never work for 300 miles (484 km placed properly on the chart, but mislabeled. The tesla S 85kwh battery pack weighs about 450 kg. Tesla is hoping battery weight drops as well as volume so they can fit a 500 mile (800 km) battery in the tesla S. You probably can't get down to a corola sized car with a 300 mile pack, but chevy and nissan are trying with 200 mile cars. The fuel cell stack and tanks are lighter, but does it matter. You can't make a 300 mile corola sized fcv either, the tanks are too large, just like the batteries are too heavy to make sense.

Smaller cars probably need to go the phev route, if they need 300 mile range. Volt and i3-rex are a lot lighter than the mirai.

I think Toyota is now on the defensive about clean. They were saying fuel cells were cleaner, but there numbers were all wrong. Now they are saying they both are much cleaner than traditional cars, which is true. Lexus seems to still be spouting dirty coal. Perhaps they need to still be corrected, with toyota pushing for lower ghg coal hydrogen imports from Australia. Cadilac used to sit as one of the best luxury cars, but today its a battle of the Germans, Lexus, and Tesla. Lexus is the only one without plug-ins but is promising a fuel cell. I think Lexus won't fall like cadilac, and will bring out a phev before it loses more market share.

 

I agree, the first 10 years may not have as many FCVs as plugin's due to the need to build H2 infrastructure. Once that's done, FCV will accelerate in order of magnitude.

I see it the other way around. Progress made in hybrids will lower the cost of plugins. Mass produced volume of hybrid will bring down the inverter, battery, motor, etc cost.

It would be up to the government, not for plugin advocates to decide where the money goes to.

Mirai and Clarity are the smallest it'll go down with the first production generation. These 312-350 miles FCVs are around $58k. Sub-300 miles BEVs don't exist but 270 miles one cost around $81k. There are performance difference but that's the only available BEV closest to compare now.

FC stack size shrank much faster than battery energy density in the last 10 years. The future outlook favors FCV in that regard. H2 storage also has many developments. We may not need carbon fiber cylinder tanks in the future.

Mirai has 370 individual fuel cells in the stack. Model S has over 8,000 battery cells in the pack. It is easier to scale FCV and ensure quality of all cells.

 

Assuming it is ever built. That is the big hurdle of using hydrogen for personal transportation; building the infrastructure is a huge cost. Which could become a big loss if the next FCEV breakthrough allows the fuel cell to use methanol, gasoline, or diesel. All of which can be made renewably like hydrogen.

If you include plug in hybrids I agree. Scaling down the higher power motors, inverters, and batteries to hybrids is probably easier than scaling up. Specically to batteries, the first hybrids that used Li-ion did so because of supply of NiMH and Toyota's near monopoly. The mass quantities for plug ins is what drove down the cost though.

Then shouldn't hydrogen FCEV advocates shut up also.

Besides, it is government of the people by the people.

 

It will. Not because it is only for Mirai. H2 will be used for many other applications and markets. Hydrogen highway paves the road for renewable energy consumption at fossil ease.

How can they when they are launching/promoting/releasing their products? That phase for plugins is over so plugin advocates should shut up and watch the show. Or promote FCV (like I am doing) for the sake of national energy security and increase the consumption of renewable energy.

 

H2 may make it out of the overly expensive experiment stage, but it most likely will never be autos . . . . rather used only for forklifts, home use, and stuff like that.

it's impossible to just stand by - listening to & watching their lobby's dishonesty, as their industry shakes down taxpayers for infrastructure that even the oil industry refused to pay for. Who can shut up when the hydrogen lobby continues to twist the truth into pretzels - with their ½truth charts & graphs - claims of running clean - even as they seek to secure huge loads of natural gas contracts & coal from Australia.

Let me save the trouble of anyone having to regurgitate the same old ½truth 'comeback' - used to try to defend hydrogen's indefensible position.
" oh, but plugins use the grid too"
At which point again unfortunately it must be reminded that plugins can & do in large part, run off home solar. Such a prospect of electricity usage for distilling hydrogen becomes a huge waste of the energy, for which sources have already been posted, again and again
As for plugins fading away, I hope Toyota isn't going to play that kind of dirty game. If the gen II PIP comes up very short, it will look like it was deliberate. Especially after the Volt made such strides on their 2nd generation offering
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So does renewable diesel, and from many of the same sources as renewable hydrogen, and there is a fuel cell that runs on any diesel already. It just doesn't require the huge investment in infrastructure

Renewable electric storage and home power don't require the huge infrastructure either. So they can move forward without supporting hydrogen FCEVs.

The Clarity was available in 2008. So wouldn't this make it the plug ins time to shine.

I'm fine with people promoting their product. I honestly don't care if they are dishonest and misleading about it as long as it doesn't harm me. I pay taxes though, and this forced commercialization is harming me. The cars and stations aren't ready. Pushing them now won't apreciatably speed up their development. They won't move beyond California, and some token Eastern states for awhile, so their impact on national security won't be measurable. Their renewable energy use is as shifty as it is for plug ins. Plug ins just have an advantage in that the owner has more say in how much renewable they get for their car.

Since the cars are stuck to an expensive, slow growing infrastructure, that my tax dollars is paying for, i will not shut up.

Really, even if not said rudely, I take offense at being told to shut up. You are also stepping close to calling plug in advocates unpatriotic.

 

You are fine with paying more taxes to fund the federal plugin incentives and the infrastructure upgrade along with the public chargers. In the meantime, you don't even have the means to plug it in at your own home. Think about it.

I was replying to your "shut up" comment, thinking the same usage would not offend you. I apologize if I did. I took no offense in yours.

I wasn't calling you guys unpatriotic. I was saying we both are patriotic teammates and you guys are being jerks trying to ruin the FCV launch.

 

It's not jerky if you truthfully find the bare facts and data of something to be horrible & then state why that is - nor is it jerky to contradict dishonest statements. If it weren't for Toyota putting out that kind of dishonesty - folks wouldn't be compelled to tell it like it is. Ultimately that will be helpful to folks who don't realize the whole story. It's a matter of hearing both sides, and having people start figuring it out for their self. What a boring world it'd be, if we all just nod in compliance .
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So, now we're jerks, and we're supposed to shut up? All for trying to bring some honesty and sanity to the hydrogen hype? Wow.

Whatever credibility you thought you had, usbseawolf2000, has now dissipated into the atmosphere.

 

Trying to be concise, short and sweet. Time will prove if the "facts" that you guys think are facts are in fact, facts.

Anti-hybrids had used physics to explain why Prius didn't make sense. Inability to see the "system" benefit leads to that. When you look only at one component, you may be right but looking at the bigger picture reveals something else.

 

The bigger picture? The one that includes all emissions, not just those from the tailpipe? The one that considers all costs and benefits with equal fairness? The one that ignores subsidies and includes externalities, prices energy forms according to their true costs, and lets 'the market' decide?

Yeah, it's "the bigger picture" that caused me to reject hydrogen as a realistic, cost-effective and efficient fuel source.

And, while we're looking at the bigger picture, let's consider a time frame longer than ten years.

 

Seems you continue to make up facts to fit your needs.
People used fear to try to explain why the Prius didn't make sense. All their arguments had logical flaws though, just as many of yours about plugins do.

As for system benefits, you seem to fail to see that with plugin vehicles, instead you fixate on one aspect of them (GHG) ignoring all the systemic benefits.