Toyota Fuel Cell To Compete With Tesla?

Phil, the home refueling unit marketed along side the Civic GX, is out of business IIRC. It cost more than a home EVSE. Anywhere from $2000 to $5000, and it needed annual servicing for a minimum of a $1000.

The Civic GX has a range of 120 to 150 miles. It took a Phil overnight to fill its tank. While NG stations are expanding for trucking, they are still rare enough in the residential areas that home refilling is the only option for C-GX owners.

Depending on the equipment at possibly available NG stations, it take up to 20 minutes to fill the Civic.

Liquids are much easier to handle than gases.

Besides, the dangerous of hydrogen is just an emotive hook to gain support against it. As you point out, NG and gasoline aren't safe. The real issue is with its relation to other materials. It makes them brittle. This means thicker pipes and valves are needed than NG on lines. Which increases its cost, and doesn't prevent leaks. They will eventually happen as the hydrogen premeates through the material. So the pipe line cost goes up further with the requirement of greater monitoring and replacement over NG.

NG uses an odorant as its primary leak detector. It's cheap and effective. Hydrogen doesn't. Perhaps it simply isn't possible do to its, or the fuel cell's, nature. So detection relies on electronic detectors that they themselves can fail or even be turned off.

Why charge in public when I can do so at home while watching TV and sleeping?

I'm happy that I was able to switch from heating oil to natural gas, but the environmental and health costs of fracking aren't being discussed on the major news outlets.

And we'll just be in the same boat down the road as we are today.

I think NG is great for home heating and energy production along side renewables. Itself can be made renewably if we had too. For trucks and buses, it is cleaner to use within cities and towns. I'm not completely sold on it for long haul trucking. There are propane injection kits for diesels though. Marketed mostly as power boost, I seen no reason why they couldn't be adapted for natural gas as a way of extending the range of a truck's diesel while helping emissions.

 

The boom in NG is more likely to fuel a boom in LP, which is much more transportable and a faster fill rate than NG.

Alkcon Corporation - Products Page

 

Which is a shame, because they are significant. I'm surprised there isn't more discussion here about the relative costs of various fuels. The 'convenience factor' seems fairly insignificant in comparison, yet that's what people seem to focus on.

 

Well, we are talking about the convenience of personal transportation for the most part.

 

Yes, but....there are deeper concepts like how we're going to pay for it all and how we're affecting the ability of our planet to sustain life.

 

How do you figure Telsla or LEAF stations are, 'vanishingly' ?
(see attached map picture of So Cal)
From Plugshare - here's todays' (ever growing) map of quick charge infrastructure (public orange private grey) ... showing San Diego, O.C. and L.A. counties ... and this map doesn't even show the slower 240v charge level stations. Any Q.C. station will provide an additional 50 miles of range - in as little as 10 minutes.

If you think that electric (QC charge time - OR infrastructure building) takes too long - I respectfully submit how long it'd take to build a trillion dollar hydrogen highway, which continues and continues and continues to get (re)promised in, "just 10 more years". At some point, Charlie Brown has to conclude that Lucy will pull the football out from under, yet again.

EV tech is here & now & affordable - even with our national debt crushing our economy. How is NG converted hydrogen going to do that. Even now, NG number crunchers are acknowledging that fracked NG wells are not going to be the never ending supply that the industry lied to us about. But heck ... you can't get investment capitol if you don't fudge the numbers ... so this is to be expected as it's always been done ... even before Alaska's over estimated multi-century longevity claims were bandied about.


Fracking: Is there really 100 years’ worth of natural gas beneath the United States? - Slate Magazine

So ... even if the newly realized truth - that new NG discoveries are vastly over promised, and .... if these reserves hopefully last 2x as long as this 11 year estimate suggests - we'll be on the short end of the stick pretty soon. IOW, why start and expensive NG to hydrogen project when it's all-too-likely dead end is just around the corner?
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Or even the drinkability of well water for people living next to frack wells. Firing shooting out of garden hoses and faucets make for dramatic TV, but is less worrisome than the levels of arsenic and other contaminates.

 

Natural gas can most easily be converted to methanol, which is a liquid fuel that was heavily tested in california. M85 requires little new infrastructure, and there is a bill in congress to make flex fuel cars and trucks that can burn it. I don't think the bill will pass, but it makes more sense than building LP or cng infrastructure. The pickens plan of LNG on highways may still make sense. Flex fuel could also work with bio-methanol and ethanol. If these are burned in a phev, that say gets 20 mile ev range then the fleet would require only 1/10th the oil.

The reason fracking pollution is not discussed as much is because most studies have it being much lower than coal mining pollution. Natural gas is mainly replacing coal. I agree all fuels should pay their costs, but many in government still favor coal, although that is slowly changing. There are still plans to convert coal to gasoline, being payed for by the DOE.

 

A year or so ago, I looked on Ebay to see what conversion kits might exist. My first discovery is they are pretty much offered only over seas. It turns out the EPA requires a natural gas modified car go through the same emissions testing as the original . . . $250-500,000 expense.

Natural gas conversion makes sense if the fuel expense can cover the conversion costs. So interstate truck fleets getting 7-9 MPG are going to justify the testing expense. The same is true for locomotives. But until we figure out some way to treat our cars as 'fleet' operation, the conversion costs do not make sense.

Bob Wilson

 

The average person doesn't even get to pick their poison - they're everywhere. Purposely destroying what little fresh water we have left - all in the name of extracting and distributing more poison - seems like a monumentally stupid thing to do. The maddening irony is that it's done to make money, but in the end the costs are greater than the benefits.

 

The infrastructure for distribution of LP is already in place. Just about every RV park and Walmart sells LP in bulk or in 5 gallon bottles. A 20 mile AER PHEV, with a 5 gallon exchangeable LP bottle from a WalMart is relatively convenient.

 

The infrastructure for distribution of electricity is far more developed than that for LP.

And did you say 20 mile range? May as well ride your bicycle.

 

I don't know all the ins and outs, but I assume that the EPA would require a much more stable tank in a car, but I don't know. The big problem with LPG versus say a methanol blend, is that LPG seems to change price with oil, while methanol is natural gas. If you can add LPG to a flex fuel mandate without greatly increasing cost to automakers, I would b all for it. If say methanol gets much more expensive than gasoline or ethanol with some future rising natural gas prices above oil, then these flex fuel drivers will be able to switch back.

That figure came from me, not John. Its rumored the next prius phv will be around that. The ford energis are at 21, volt at 38. 20 mile range means that about 45% of driving is on electricity, and the batteries should be small enough to leave you with a 5 passenger car In california the average daily drive is about 30 miles, so except for long trips, you would only need to fill up 1/3 as often. Its the long trips that drop the EV percentage down. By diluting the gasoline with ethanol, methanol, butanol, etc, the amount of oil drops much further.

 

The price of LP rides with oil because the bulk of it is refined from oil today, but a conversion of NG to LP would most likely chain the price of LP to NG. It seems that a lot of RVs utilize the 5 and 10 gallon bottles of LP so I am assuming that mobile application of bottles is already approved. Duel-fuel (propane and gasoline) is readily available (IMPCO Certified Kit Product Offerings) as aftermarket and factory installed (fleets). I'm not sure I would advocate the duel-fuel option for a PHEV though. Dumping the gasoline tank altogether for a 5 or 10 gallon bottle of LP is appealing.

 

Again I do not know, but the CARB regulation for HOV stickers requires Zero evaporative emissions (which really means low emissions) from the tank, and I believe this has to be a fixed tank in a car. I can't see a manufacturer not wanting to be able to sell a phev with a carpool lane sticker. IMHO it is this regulation that is keeping flex fuel out of PHEVs also, as they test it on the fuel with the highest evaporative emissions. I'm not sure how LP compares to E85 though, it may be able to hit that evaporative emissions regulation.

 

I don't think a PHEV with 20AER would cut it as most people would be replacing tanks way too often to be viewed s convient. 20 AER only covers 40% of driving.. Maybe if it was built into the car with a convient filling stations, but then its more infrastructure.

But I could easily easily see a 40mile AER+LP extender.

LP is generally used in containers with zero evap emissions as its a pressurized/sealed system. LP evaporates way faster than gas and needs to be pressurized or it will all dissipate -- but it also produces its own pressurization potential and for small quantities it does not need pumps. CNG is likewise preassurized system (excluded by CARB for testing), but dual fuel vehicles, which is what is generally considered require testing. http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/macs/mac9901.pdf
Reducing evaporative emissions of E85 is also very doable, just more expensive as there must be external pumps and filters and the current carbon filter systems used for gas systems tent to be not work well with the ethanol vapors.
But he bigger problem for E85 is CARB requires PZEV to be also meet the SULEV exhaust standard, with is hard for E85 at cold temperatures because it produces too much non-methane organic gas (NMOG) on cold starts -- something that is not a problem for LPG.

 

In six years of driving electric cars as my daily drivers (with the Prius used only for long trips) I have never once used public charging, and I have never once run out of charge. My annual hiking trip is done on gas because EVs are not yet a mature enough solution for long trips. But the perfect is the enemy of the good: The fact that EVs cannot yet replace ALL our gas transportation does not change the fact that most American families have more than one car, and for them an EV is an ideal replacement for one of their cars.

While nat gas may be an improvement over gasoline, it is still a fossil fuel and contributes to global climate change, and if obtained by fracking is an environmental disaster. An argument may be made that coal is worse than nat gas obtained by fracking, but this just means that both are bad sources of energy.

My EV is powered by hydro, and in most of the country today, people can choose wind power if they're not already using hydro, and in many places they can install PVs or in some places a wind charger. Thus pretty much anyone who wants to can have carbon-free transportation for one of their cars if it's an EV. This is not true of any car powered today by an ICE or fuel cells.

 

Fuel cell has the speed advantage in refueling as well.

If Toyota's calculations are right, there is no way a combustion NGV (even a hybrid) can reach the well-to-wheel efficiency (low carbon) of FCHV.

 

Fuel cells have an speed disadvantage verus phevs in refueling from the pump.
They beat plug-ins in speed on refueling from the pump versus plug, but you need to drive to the hydrogen pump, so availability is a prime concern. If it takes you 20 minutes to drive to the pump, and 20 minutes back, a quick charger is likely faster. Infrastructure is one of those needed miracles .....

If there are battery swap stations, all bets are off. If someone builds swap stations that are economical, they are faster than fuel cells from the pump.

What if they are not right? What if as the latest california survey says 39% of plug-in fuel comes from solar? How would you count phev efficiency then? I am in agreement that its unlikely that a cng phev will be built for sheer bulk tank reasons, but what about M85 phev with most of the fossil fuel coming from natural gas?

 

Then, I'll wonder about the solar percentage for other electricity usage (home, transportation, manufacturing, business, etc).

If the plugins don't eat renewable percentage of other sectors, I wish plugins thrive in California. I hope the price of the electricity doesn't increase. I also hope the government can continue to subsidize solar panels.

I am not anti-solar or pro-H2, just neutral. Maybe not, I have stocks in SolarCity.