Featured New Autonomous Vehicle Book (regarding section on Toyota)

Sounds like some people have no idea what "driverless" actually requires. Many of the safety features provide the base technology.

It's like the tech sharing between electric and fuel-cell, where many assume they are mutually exclusive. They are not.

 

My guess...

Toyota took the chance, and initial loss, to bring "their hybrid" to market giving the public an "unrestricted" reliable option to ICE. I suggest they might be letting Tesla and others take the loss this time around to bring EVs to the same market with an "acceptable" level of restriction and cost point. As for autonomous vehicles, these are and will be restricted use vehicles with a need for external support systems that will take longer and a lot more money to make mainstream. Autopilot is not autonomous.

 

Toyota has always been known as a fast follower.

The Prius happened because the Japanese government was pushing, and subsidizing, for low emission cars. The program included BEVs that were limited to NiMH and lead acid batteries. Then the US car companies were developing hybrids under a government program here. Toyota was worried about not having something to compete with those, but GM and Chrysler of the time never intended to bring the car to market. Ford took what they learned, and made the Escape hybrid.

Never assumed that. Just saying hydrogen is a very poor fuel choice because of the design constraints the tanks put on personal cars, and the cost of infrastructure. I'm waiting to see how Nissan's ethanol powered FCEV turns out.

 

Using personal cars for the development platform of fuel-cells is much easier and less costly than starting with commercial.

 

Ford licensed parts of their hybrid system from Toyota.

http://wardsauto.com/news-analysis/toyota-technology-kick-started-ford-s-hybrid-escape

 

toyota likely doing more r&d on all fronts than they care to publicize. but after paying 18 billion in fines for u/a, they probably don't want to be first in line for more trouble.

we are a long way from bev dominance, and further from autonomous cars, there's nothing to gain by leading the charge.

 

agreed. they'll just stamp them all out in a factory somewhere. no one will own a vehicle, just whistle and one will pick you up in seconds.
still, i suspect 22nd century for complete shift. hey, maybe we'll have flying cars by then.

 

It is for the company planning to not spend its own money on refueling infrastructure, but these cars are completely unsellable without that infrastructure in place.

That is where the BEV and hydrogen FCEV conflict arises. The only one able and willing to pay for hydrogen infrastructure is the government. That will take a lot of cash, which could be used to greatly expand fast DC charging networks. On top of that, the FCEV cars themselves are still expensive, and require larger subsidies.

The head line is misleading. From the article.
“There were some similarities in the system and rather than get wrapped up in legal issues, you buy the technology,”

Toyota was first to file their patents. Ford saw that 20, which is about a sixth of all of Toyota's patents on that first hybrid system, of those patents could be seen as being infringed upon by their own design. In order to avoid time and fees in the courtroom, both companies came to an agreement for patent trading. Ford got access to those patents, and Toyota got access to some of Ford's diesel and emission control ones.

They both ended up paying money to Paice.

 

That is the point of fuel-cells... a transition from petroleum to hydrogen, but as a supplement to electricity.

 

Then the point of fuel cell cars is to fail while fleecing the public.

 

I thought that was the government's job...

 

This time they are the ones being fleeced.

 

Looking at infrastructure for electricity storage, renewable on the grand scale, your claim falls flat.

 

Today chips are ready (nvidia and mobileye(Intel)) and radars and cameras are ready (many manufacturers). Lidar if it is needed is not ready as it is too expensive. The thing that is not ready is software.

Toyota is not really good at software. I don't think this is a huge problem as self driving will take a long time to become legal in many countries. Toyota may need to license the software or buy a company that is good at developing it. Elephants move slowly, and the large auto companies act like elephants. IMHO and probably against the book, tesla and intel are probably furthest along in software that can work with today's sensors, and intel got there through aquisition. waymo (google) is furthest along in software that requires lidar. Toyota may be best off licensing software from whoever does best.

How in the world did we go from driverless, a difficult technology, to 10,000 psi fuel cell vehicles, a likely dead end technology when talking automotive.

http://wardsauto.com/engines/mirai-reflects-toyota-s-faith-fuel-cell-future

My guess is toyota will not come close to the 30,000 fuel cell vehicles they have promised in 2020, and there will be recalibration. Most fuel cell vehicles have been sold in the US, but stations are proving more expensive to build than the lobbiest claimed, and they are over budget and behind schedule. I expect a good show for the 2020 tokyo olympics, but by then phevs and bevs will have such a strong lead no one will mention fuel cells for another decade.

 

Who is using hydrogen and fuel cells to store excess renewable electric for later use? There are already several installations of batteries across the world doing that now.

If the plan is to use that hydrogen in cars and trucks, who is building the infrastructure to get that hydrogen to those vehicles? The ones that stand to profit from selling hydrogen cars have been quite hesitant to do so. Why even bother with making hydrogen from that excess renewable electric, when we can make methane, methanol, or even diesel from it. Those don't require a further billion dollar or so investment to get to people's cars.

I actually think hydrogen and fuel cells has a chance for storing renewable electric. The issues facing the use of hydrogen in car are greatly reduced, or simply not an issue in such an implementation. The hydrogen doesn't need to be squeezed into the tiny space of a car. It can also be made onsite with the fuel cell, which eliminates the need for building distribution infrastructure from scratch.

 

Fortunately there are car review companies that test hydrogen fueled cars:

• Toyota Mirai Review (2018) | Autocar
  
• 2016 Toyota Mirai Long-Term Road Test - Introduction

Both the UK and USA reviews report current hydrogen costs of $15-16/kg or £10/kg. It may not be readily available but the cost per kg seems similar on both sides of the Atlantic.

So then I tried to find credible, current comparison reports of BEV and FCV. It turns out there were a bunch in 2000-2012 but they are sadly out of date. They often used assumptions about the cost of hydrogen, $2/kg, that were dodgy back then. Sill, here is a more current, February 2016 report:

• http://umich.edu/~umtriswt/PDF/UMTRI-2016-5.pdf

At least this version uses a claim slightly less fictitious, "For FCVs, the GGE conversion factor is approximately 1 kg, with a national median fuel price of $5.00/kg" But even this price is off by a factor of ~3 from what actual Mirai owners face when not getting a 'free', 3 year, $15,000 hydrogen fuel card. This would be ~1,000 kg or ~70,000 miles. Edmunds discusses this here:

• Hydrogen is Ridiculously Expensive, or Free - 2016 Toyota Mirai Long-Term Road Test

Yet the Department of Energy still makes these claims:

• https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2017/06/f34/fcto-h2-fc-overview-dla-worldwide-energy-conf-2017-satyapal.pdf

In 2017, they claim "<$4/gge and <$7/gge" by 2020. At least on pp. 25, "$13-15/gge" shows current prices which matches what Edmunds and Autocar report. So the cost of hydrogen remains the problem.

FCV advocates claim some 'future' cost of hydrogen will be low enough to compete with current ICE cars. At least now they acknowledge that BEV miles are cheaper by at least 2x even using mythical hydrogen costs at the pump.

Bob Wilson

 

apparently, hydrogen is more interesting than autonomous vehicles.