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

From your article -

Let's face it motorists or other citizens of the US were always going to be the ones paying. It wasn't going to be big auto or big oil. Mary Nichols plan was really to make the oil companies build them, then have them raise the price of gas to pay for it. Then get the federal government to throw in more money. I mean there is no way it pays for itself or it would be built already. At least admitting that the governor has to raise taxes even higher to build this thing is a step in the right direction. Perhaps people will stand up to the bully's in the fuel cell lobby.

Now why isn't it built yet, after all it was funded before?

Oh yeah, no one was going to buy a $100,000 hydrogen highlander then fill it up with $9/kg hydrogen in 2005. Will they do it in 2015? We will see, but that fcv better be much better than the fchv-adv or clarity for it to justify $200M in new stations.

 

Do you fail to you the recent breakthroughs and progress made in the last 5 years?

There is still a lot of room for improvement. It will be a great alternative as one of the ultimate eco-cars. There is no need to bash it, especially before the roll out and a chance to try.

 

The only breakthroughs that have been publicized versus the clarity have been claims of lower cost (which was included in my statement), and a smaller fuel cell. Since there did not seem to be much trouble with the clarity's fuel cell size, I don't really think it matters.

Again I am not bashing the car. How can I as we have only seen very litited information. From that limited information though it sound as if it is very similar to the volt and bmw i3, but uses hydrogen instead of electricity and gas. 4 seater, high quality materials, fairly good accelration and handling but no sports car or luxury sports sedan.

The difference will be at launch it will be more expensive and harder to fill up. Which brings up what I am bashing. What I am bashing is the idea that in california this will be more of an environmental car and easier to fill up than a plug-in. I am bashing the fuel cell lobbies idea that the problem with phev's is that they are not environmental enough. I doubt this thing will be as green as the next generation prius phv that will come out at around the same time. It takes construction to build low volume cars, and fueling infratructure and that does actually produce ghg. If you only have 200,000 in california by 2020, these things will be a lot less green than plug-ins.

The other idea I am bashing is it is a chicken and egg problem. It most certainly is not. The problem is not that the car makers are not trying to build these things. It is not that no one wants one because of the fueling infrastructure in California. The problem is few people will want one at the price they are likely to charge (hyundai and toyota = $50,000+). They are building the fueling infrastructure in japan and germany for these groups (Toyota/BMW, Honda/GM, Mercedes/Ford/Nissan) to test the cars and make something people want, but if the press releases are correct the only reason tens of thousands would want this over say a blue star tesla or next generation phev in california in 2017 is if they had a shortage of those other cars.

 

The problem isn't with car. They'll be expensive, but that could improve with time after release. The problem is with the infrastructure. What we have doesn't even completely cover California. Building it out is a huge investment. The natural gas companies don't appear to want to build it. The car companies don't want to build it. That leaves us, the tax payer footing the bill.

The countries building one that Austin mentioned are much smaller. So the total investment will be smaller. If they are already committed to building the infrastructure, why does the US have to build one this time also? It is more prudent to wait until the kinks all get fixed, and invest in greener electric production.

EVs can easily be charged at home for daily driving. Musk and Tesla see EVs as more than little secondary commuter cars. They want the EV to replace the primary liquid fuel car for people, and are building the quick charge infrastructure to help that happen. The fuel cell car companies not building hydrogen infrastructure has reminded me of E85. The manufacturers sell a flex fuel vehicle(FCEV) and they get CAFE(ZEV) credits. At no point did they have to ensure that the (choose your adjective) better fuel was used after the car left the lot.

 

Nissan just admitted that EV sales will not meet their forecast (maybe a third) because the public charging infrastructure barrier.

Even if we there are more public chargers, they won't refuel as fast as gas station or H2 station.

I think investment in H2 refueling station is better. Why should US build H2 highway? We started it and spent a lot of money already.

Why drag it out just because American auto companies are lagging behind? We should be kicking them to ramp it up and compete.

 

Oh, sure ... that's the same logic why we stayed in Vietnam for over a decade ... because we were already there wasting $$$ millions and killing people so hey why not just stick it out - maybe some good will come of it.
Meanwhile back in California guess what is catching on fire (hint ... H2):
Updated: Sig Alert Issued for 60 Freeway After Big Rig Erupts in Flames - Police & Fire - Diamond Bar-Walnut, CA Patch

Imagine that ... hydrogen and "boom" used in the same paragraph. The trick here will be figuring out a way to blame the fire on a Tesla Model S.

BTW the dishonesty level just went up. According to California legislation, should Toyota's Hydrogenmobile ever actually make it to market, it will be granted 300% more CARB credits than an EV. Think what a huge motivation that is for toyota to get as many H2 vehiles as possible on the road. H2 vehicles would enable Toyota to sell tons of high profit land barges without without facing CARB penalties. Follow the money. That pretty much spells out why toyota is dumping their ev programs like the RAV-4 - the Scion ... or even greater range for the PiP ... it's not lack of people who want them ... it's because they won't be as necessary for Toyota's future. That level of creepyness flys in the face of the hum hum marketing and reminds me eerily of the primarily anti-GM movie 'who-killed-the-electric-car'.
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Nissan admitted to their miss last december, after it was obvious to everyone. Very few believed Nissan would be able to pull off their forecast before they built their first car, definitely no one in any other established auto company. i call this latest revolation an excuse. At least in america the problem isn't the fuelling infrastructure but the range. Telsa also gave forecasts that few believed, they were about a year late in producing the car, but their sales forecasts have been dead on. Tesla is building its own recharging infrastructure, without much help from government. The longer range of the BEV requires fewer public chargers. The volt, prius phv, ford energis also don't need much in the way of public charging.

For those the routinely exceed the charge depletion range of a plug-in, adding an ice is a great solution, much better than removing most of the battery and adding a fuel cell. There is a huge refuelling infrastructure for phevs, and they can be charged at home, only needing to refuel on long trips or infrequently for daily use. H2 doesn't solve this problem it adds a new one, cost and infrastructure.

There are 9 working public charging stations in california. To get to 500, which is what you would need to do to provide the infrastructure as well as it is for plug-ins today in California would cost $2B. If we only get 200,000 fcv in california, that is $10,000/per car. To sell that many I'm sure we need a federal and state tax credit of at least the same or a total of $20,000/car. You need millions of cars in california going around to justify the investment. At 100 stations in the state, people will still say it lacks infrastructure, and what happens when you try to drive out of state?

Why pay all that money when the cars may never be ready. What is the matter with testing them in germany and japan, and seeing if they are viable before spending anouther $200M, that is just the down payment on the $2B the fuel cell lobby wants the tax payer to spend. We have spent Billions of dollars for the hundreds of cars today, why throw more good money after bad? In 2018 after some cars are actually running in germany and japan, then we can decide if its worth paying for the stations. Toyota and the fuel cell lobby are saying you need to spend the money now, because this time their promises are not lies. In 2004 we were supposed to have all these cars on the road today. They are empty promises

 

American auto manufacturers were late with electrification with hybrids (perhaps except for Ford).

Let's wait and see with FCHVs again? Just do both like other auto makers. Just because we put all (or most) of our eggs into the plugin basket, doesn't mean we cannot redistribute then now.

 

A great read, well researched and written.

Toyota Defends Its Plans For Fuel Cells - HybridCars.com