Toyota opens up hydrogen fuel cell patents

Which makes perfect sense for you.
I just caution you not to take your situation and think that fits the majority of the marketplace.

 

I think fuel-cell technology is very promising, as many companies have believed and do believe, but the problem is still economics. The technological barriers will all be solved I'm sure, but the economics are currently insolvable.

There's no free-lunch, and until someone invents one, hydrogen is out of the picture. Solar power promises to be cheaper than power plants, but it's the journey to the endpoint that kills you. Wind power has higher maintenance costs, and nuclear power has everyone scared silly. Fossil-fuels are currently the nearest thing we have to a free-lunch, but it's the dirtiest option.

 

it's like saying my combination flying car and submarine will be everyday transportation in 100 years. I'll be dead and long gone and who can then point the finger at me and tell me how stupid I was to think otherwise. Then again - the hydrogen proponents have previously told us that we will be driving practical hydrogen cars "in just 10 years" - ever since the 1970's. Why change now? They get very little slack from being called out on this faux pas - as it is .
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The Mirai was always a Lexus. Just one without the performance or amenities of a ICE or hybrid Lexus in that price range.

I wonder how they are handling the accounting of that. The only way outside of the lab to renewably make hydrogen is electrolysis with renewable electricity. So that means the hydrogen production is using electric that is sequestered from the grid. Why not just supply that renewable electric directly to the grid and increase its percentage of renewable? Do they count hydrogen reformed from landfill gas as renewable? Why not build a landfill gas and biomass electric plant instead?

Is this possible simply because of the fact to so little hydrogen will made? This isn't a like to like comparison after all. It is comparing hydrogen production for transportation to electrical production for everything in the state. There are now thousands of plug in cars in the state of California now. How about we compare the renewable electric percentage for those cars' households to percent renewable hydrogen instead. Since about 40% of those households opted to install PV, plus the possibility of some buying additional green energy, their percent renewable electric will likely be greater than the states average.

There are some disclaimers that aren't directly apparent to that page.
The first, actually is apparent, is that the wind electricity is being subsidized by a federal grant. On a quick glance without it, the costs increase by 50 cents to a dollar per kilogram, depending on location.
Next is that the numbers are in 2007 dollars. Inflation adds 80 to 90 cents. So the $6/kg is closer to $7/kg today.
The biggee is that the $3.10/kg central and $3.70/kg distributed are Department of Energy 2015 cost targets. There is no guarranty that these will be reached.

 

Kudo's to you for pluging in greg. I am not sure how a volt would give you charge station anxiety. Certainly although the average american's driving day is less than 40 miles, most can commute electrically in a volt, i3, leaf, tesla S, etc representing the (1, 2, 3, and 7) best selling plug-ins in the US. Most Americans have days they drive further than their average, so the leaf and i3 bev may very well cause range anxiety. According the union of concerned scientists (UCS) about 42% of americans could be well served by a plug. In 4 years with next generations of the top 6 selling plug-in cars and additons of the tesla 3 and X, outlander phev and longer range (at least 125 mile epa) bevs promised by gm and nissan more will be served.

That makes taxpayer funding for hydrogen infrastructure outside of small areas very difficult. Congress even failed to renew the hydrogen car credit ($8000), but California is giving out about $33,000 per car ($5000 + HOV + 9zev stickers (probably worth $18,000/fcv) + $220M for hydrogen stations (worth $10,000/fcv if we get 22,000 on the road and toyota is only estimating to 3000 from them in the next 3 years). No a $499/mo fcv is not going to satisfy more people than plug-ins, at least in america, even with all the subsidies. A MIT professor even suggested that finding the most polluting cars on california roads, and giving the drivers a check to spend at their toyota dealer would help the environment more. Toyota needs to drive costs much lower before these cars are ready for commercialization.

Here is there partner BMW's take.
BMW Continues Down Hydrogen Fuel Cell Development Path - Production Timetable Uncertain

 

We have a struggle in toyota between the old guard, represented by Chairman of the Board Uchiyamada, and the founding family represented by President Akio Toyoda. Toyoda needs the support of the chairman for a lot of the changes he wants to make. The chairman is a true hydrogen believer, and toyoda wants to support him, but not waste too much money or look foolish. I think this is an effort by him to slow the spending and expectations. Toyoda was the one that dmoed the car, but pushed back on it selling anytime soon, as he said he believed in it. Toyota America, Carter and Lenz seemed to be pushing this fuel cell as instead of plug-ins. When you start saying 100 years its hard for Bob Carter to keep up the song and dance that fuel cells are going to take over soon

This is the oposite of Rick Wagoner, who packed GM's board so he could throw money at fuel cells ($2.5B), here the toyota board is probably pushing the president toward fuel cell, and he is trying to cut budgets and expectations without board members losing face. We should see in 3 or 4 years if this is what is going on. Remember its Toyoda that struck up the friendship and partnership with Musk. He knew he would not get good experience with plug-ins internally.

 

There are terms - undisclosed in the 'free fuel cel patents' advertisement - I imagined quite a few likely contingencies that are not disclosed in Toyota's ad. Perhaps it's just my imagination, but contingencies undisclosed that I'd forsee would put Toyota in bad positions .... and if that's the case - It'd defeat the purpose of bragging about 'giving away' patents. The devil is in the details.
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