Test drive report from upcoming FCV (Fuel Cell Vehicle) - pictures of prototype!

Car in the article looks like a cross between the Toyota Vios or Belta lines. Just another version of the Yaris line.

 

You make some very interesting points and the final one I can personally relate to.

Filling up at home was something I didn't realize my wife would come to love about EV's besides the lower running cost. The notion of no longer going to a filling station, handling filthy objects, standing in weather, dealing with a-holes in line, faulty card readers, looking for the lowest price, forgetting to fill before getting home, etc., were now a thing of the past. Instead, a couple of seconds a day to grab the cord on the wall and plug in while inside the security and comfort of our garage while hearing the reassuring "chirp" of the charger as the garage door closed. Priceless.

 

Where will the H2 come from?

How about Toyota itself? Well actually its dealer network all across Japan and this continent. I can see TM requiring that dealers that want to sell the new FCV must also invest in an H2 fueling depot, a la the Scion showroom, which would operate 24/7. Initially it would probably be used only locally but eventually there would be a Toyota Highway throughout Japan and N America. There's precedent, initially only a few Toyota stores were certified to work on the Prius back in 2001/02. Now....

This serves several purposes, TM can provide the technology it develops and keep control of it; there may be Federal assistance from Tokyo, DC, Ottawa and Mexico City for example; the drivers continually come back to the store ( increased traffic ); a variety of H2 sources but primarily based on breaking down NG.

 

I like the idea, but it does not appear that Toyota has any intention of doing so. So this FCV seems to be mostly about continuing the corporate well fare that is FCEV research. At least in the US, where this car will only be available in southern California.

 

i'm biased here since i own a Toyota 100% Electric CUV.
in a nutshell, i don't think FCV is ready for primetime, even in 2015.

 

I agree that here it's something that will only be offered as an option sometime well in the future.

IMO though I think that this H2 / FC program is primarily being driven by the Japanese government. It was announced last decade, Honda brought out the Clarity and Toyota announced its parallel commitment to the FCV, it simply has not died. It appears to me that at some time in the past decade when it appeared that liquid petro-fuel would begin to disappear by the '20s the Japanese decision makers in government foresaw that to keep their vehicles on the road that they'd have to pay exorbitant prices for petro-fuel since they have no oil resources to call upon. Vehicles not using liquid petro-fuel were needed.

Hybrids are good but they still use lots of gasoline. I see this FCV primarily as a JDM program which could be 'exported' to N America and Europe if there were to be sufficient interest. That's what occurred with the Prius in the beginning. It was only when the Gen 2 arrived here that N America became the driving force in the successful acceptance worldwide.

 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk: Fuel cells are 'so bullsh*t'

 

Is it just me that wanders? If hydrogen is so good as a fuel, why does it always get coupled with a fuel cell? Shouldn't it work with an ICE hybrid just as well? ... and it would be a whole lot cheaper than putting it in a half million dollar vehicle that hopes to sell in volume in order to get it down to only $50K-$70K.

 

Because its volumetric energy density is lousy. A kilogram of hydrogen has the energy of a gallon of gasoline. Cramming the few kilograms in these cars carry require bulky, heavy tanks. Fuel cells just make the most use of that available hydrogen. Going with an ICE, even hybrid, will have a serious drop in vehicle range.

 

Very lousy.
1 kg of hydrogen energy = 1 gallon of gasoline, but takes 4x the space.

So, a gasoline midsize sedan with a 20 gallon fuel tank that gets 30 mpg with its ICE has a range of 600 miles.

But the same 20 gallon fuel tank would only hold 5 kg of hydrogen...... so your range would only be 150 miles with a H2/ICE combo.

Fuel cells are twice as efficient, so you'd get 300 miles (60 mpg x 5 kg). Not as much as the gasoline car, but still decent.

BMW did try hydrogen with an ICE in a 7-series a few years back:
BMW officially announces the BMW Hydrogen 7
BMW's Hydrogen 7: Not as Green as it Seems - SPIEGEL ONLINE

The fuel tank took up a huge amount of space (it also was dual-fuel, with a gasoline 'saddle' tank). Another problem is NOx......burning H2 in a fuel cell has negligible NOx, but an ICE would create some (though not as much as gasoline).......BMW figured out how to avoid the RPM's where NOx is created.

 

Bi-fuel hydrogen and gasoline cars give a poor picture of H2 use in an ICE. The Mazda RX-8 had a drop in power when on H2. The BMW maintained the power levels, perhaps due to the liquid hydrogen, which vented fuel daily. It had a drop in fuel economy. IIRC to 4mpg from 11. These engines were designed for gasoline. Hydrogen has a much higher effective octane rating. Using it in a gasoline engine is worse in efficiency and power than putting premium into a regular one.

 

and I look forward to millions of affordable flying cars taking off from our roads .... let's see who gets there first.

 

Hydrogen is a great fuel for space craft, for cars not so good. Its difficult to transport and store at fueling stations, requires more expensive tanks, and these things lead to high costs.

Since the largest costs are to the fueling infrastructure and to the tanks on cars, I don't think that would help.

 

Well, I have good news and bad news for you.
The good news is the flying car is arriving in 2015, same year as Toyota's FCV.
The bad news is that it costs $279,000.
Flying car 'for the rest of us' can be flown by anyone, company says | CTV News
Still, I think it's more practical than a FCV...you can avoid traffic and fill up at any of 150,000 gas stations

 

How about an economy version Meanwhile At The Russian Gas Station - YouTube

 

DOE EIA predicts an increase in natural gas prices of 10.5% for 2014. So maybe not. The trouble with any fuel being cheap (compared to others) is that any users which can easily switch will do so, and the market will equalize the prices.

 

Worst of all - sources who claim the amounts of future volume extractable through fracking, are the very same ones who have the most to gain by making such claims. It's an extremely rare occurrence when a 'claimed' huge bonanza of fuel reserve is discovered that actually turns out to be anywhere near its actual reserves. Hey - if you don't lie to the investors - what makes you think they're going to cough up millions to drill empty holes. I'm not saying there isn't gas to be extracted - only these fracked holes are drying up a lot quicker than originally anticipated. It ain't no Persian Gulf, where we get a substantial part of our energy. And after pumping there for seven or eight decades do you really think that supply will continue on much longer? I'm just hoping the fracked gas can act as a stopgap until we can come up with a better plan. Burn the natural gas directly in the car rather than wasting it on, "ready in just 10 more years" FCV endless research.
.

 

We need to keep this in perspective. Natural gas in the U.S. is currently trading below $4/MMBtu (Henry Hub wholesale prices)
So, even a 10.5% increase next year will take us to...........$4.42/MMBtu

Right now, pretty much the entire world (besides OPEC and Russia) is paying close to $15/MMBtu.

In my earlier post, I showed that even at $15/MMBtu -which I don't think the U.S. will see till 2040- it is cheaper to make hydrogen from natural gas then foolishly using expensive renewables to crack it out of H20.

Not so true. Market equilibrium takes time, due to something known as 'barriers to entry'.
The number of users who can switch will, but that number is too small to affect the price much in the short term.
Right now, pretty much every motorist in the U.S. (aside from a few Honda Civic owners) is a sucker for filling up with expensive gasoline when natural gas is so cheap. How cheap?

Well, 1 gallon gasoline @ 115,00 BTUs is about $3.50/gal
Wholesale price of 1 million BTU's of natural gas is $4.....let's make the retail price $6 after delivery and taxes.

So, natural gas is about $1 for the same amount of energy as is 1 gallon of gasoline.

$1/gallon! Today in 2013. And did I mention it has 25% fewer emissions than gasoline?

But of course, your car has to have a CNG tank, which is expensive, and your engine ECU has to be tuned to use the fuel. Ditto for LNG....you'd need an insulated tank able to carry cryogenic liquid.

Methanol is the simplest route to a natural gas economy......any car can run on it with about $300 worth of modifications. Problem is, methanol doesn't run to your house like natural gas, it has to be made at a central facility and delivered to a gas station. And there seems to be a lot of opposition to building much infrastructure these days.

So, I would agree with you in the long run that NG prices will equilibrate with gasoline prices, but that day will only come when drivers have flex-fuel cars and can readily fill up with whatever's cheaper -gasoline, methanol or ethanol- at that time. That's at least 2 decades out.

In the meantime, we have plenty of cheap natural gas, so let's use it instead of pursuing this fuel-cell fantasy.

 

H2 currently costs much more than gasoline,
Hydrogen lobbies answer is to subsidize the hydrogen (and gasoline is subsidized, just not nearly as much per gallon.)

The answer is pretty clear why you would make hydrogen from renewables instead of methane (which can be made renewably) or methanol (which also can be made renewably), and that is if the hydrogen is subsidized more if its made from electricity. Compared to the cost of the fueling infrastructure the subsidies for solar production seem small