Toyota still bullish on fuel cells

Ford and GM have both done R&D into plug-in fcv. In it they have talked about them possibly being practicle in 10 years. These companies used to be big proponents for fcv, until they realized prices were not coming down as fast as they thought they would 10 years ago. Still if fc prices fall a great deal, then perhaps using a fc in a phev might be less expensive than an ice. They are fairly bearish on near term fcv given the price and problems with efficiency (likely use more fossil fuel than a phev that uses solar or wind at the plug) and fueling infrastructure. GM is now working with Honda, ford with nissan and mercedes. Honda and Hyundai will both have fcv with toyota in the next 2 yeras. The rest of the consurtiums may very well wait until its a plug-in fuel cell around 2018. Honda and GM lead in fcv patents, and GM and honda are working hard on phevs. With Nissan leading in bevs, and mercedes working with tesla, ford having 2 phevs and a bev, its likely this group will have the most battery intensive fcv.

We have plug-in fcv busses running in Austin now as part of University of Texas research, and education about fuel cells. The plug allows dramatic downsizing of the fuel cell stack to 20 KW, making it much less expensive than if it ran the bus, instead of simply charging the batteries. These stock a lot, and refueling infrastructure is not a problem, as they return to the same place every day, and that hydrogen station was payed for with a reseach grant Cars don't really stop as much as busses, so the downsizing can't be as drastic, but you could perhaps put in half the fuel cell stack in a PHEV20. If people are charging at home then you need less infrastructure.

Yep it could definitely help on very hot or cold days when range is lowered from the hydrogen, but the bigger thing would be many fewer fill ups needed per year on a normal commute.

 

Well, I'd rule out diesel unless it's based on DME (i.e., domestically sourced) or even better, biodiesel (which doesn't appear scalable at the moment).
I am totally with you on the pickens plans as a short-to-mid term solution. I think the infrastructure that handles that could easily be modified for H2.....correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't a cryogenic fuel tank designed to store LNG also be able to hold liquid H2? I realize many FCV makers are using compressed H2 (with expensive CF tanks), so I'm really hoping they come up with some sort of break-through that can cheaply strip H2 from Nat Gas so the station can produce hydrogen on-site.
The H2 infrastructure for interstate busses and trucks is nowhere near as large as that required for private passenger cars. These vehicles routinely go 500 miles between fill ups (on fixed and known routes) and the H2 stations could be located near existing H2 production facilities or interstate natural gas pipelines. And because the FC would be constantly in use, payback would be relatively quick.
I am less convinced about commercial vehicles and transit busses that travel mainly within a metro area. Sure, they return to a central fueling depot every night, but why not CNG? What about PHEV or even EV? The stop & go nature of these vehicles -as well as shorter distance travelled per day- makes them unsuited for FC, IMHO.

This is some great info.

Here is how I see it:
As others have mentioned, hybrids are inevitable, and we're going to to see a LOT of electrification as we head towards 2025 CAFE.

That leaves open the question of the future of the ICE. There are some trade-offs in FC's vs. ICE, and it comes down to how low they can get FC costs in terms of $/kw. I think the target is $30/kw, and I will admit a lot of progress has been made in the past decade (as I mentioned, whether this money could have achieved more with other tech is a valid question).
Well, $30/kw for a 100kw fuel fell (134 horsepower) is more than sufficient for a mid-size sedan or small SUV, once you factor in the added power provided by the battery.
So, we are looking at $3000, which is within the ballpark of what a v6 engine costs. But the problem as I see it is WARM-UP time, and it is here that FC's need to improve, or be forgotten once and for all as a contender.

Two reasons:
(1) With a warm-up time of 15-20 minutes, you need a battery big and powerful (and expensive) enough to provide 20 miles of range. On a Cadillac Escalade, that would mean 10kwh available (and up to twice that in nominal capacity, assuming 50% DoD like the Volt pack); on a Mitsubishi iMiev, it could be 4kwh (up to 8 kwh nominal)
So, between 4kwh and 20kwh, we are looking at between $1200 and $8000 added to the cost of the fuel cell. If they could reduce warm-up time down to 7-10 minutes (requiring 10 miles max EV range), then you can cut that down to between $600 to $4000.....which might be 'reasonable'......at any rate, it appears to me that FC developers would be better off reducing warmup time (and thus battery requirements) as a cost-reduction measure as opposed to cutting costs of the FC stack itself (through better catalysts, etc.)

(2) The conundrum the FC faces is that the battery is NOT there to provide power, it is there to provide RANGE during FC warm-up. In fact, the ideal situation for a FC (and probably what Toyota is hoping for) is that the price drops to what an ICE is, while simultaneously achieving a comparable warmup time. In that case, the FC would be sized only for continuous power, while a Prius-size battery would be more than sufficient to supplement it for peak power. (Of course this still leaves open the question of infrastructure). But if FC stack costs drop -and warm-up time doesn't- then you will need to make every FCV a PHEV-10 or PHEV-20. That means that the FC will rarely be called upon, and if it's selling at a premium to the ICE (which I guarantee it will when first introduced; they will definitely not wait for parity before commercialization), it will take that much longer to recover the up-front costs.
It is no different than how a hybrid driver will recover their premium much more slowly if the do exclusive highway driving and how a diesel driver will recover their premium much more slowly if they do exclusive city driving.

Anyhow it will be really interesting to see if the FCV's have a plug or not. As you said, it would help with hot and cold days, but it demonstrates the superiority of the plug, so I think a FCV maker would be loathe to include J1772.
One wonders if people will feel 'guilty' of idling the FCV, charging up their batt., since there are no emissions (but it will cost them more $)

 

Even if the fuel cell is 50% more efficient, it still would need a 70% larger tank for liquid hydrogen as lng is much more dense (2.6x). The hydrogen needs to be kept colder to stay liquid at the same time.

As for infrastructure, other than the larger tanks to hold the liquid hydrogen, you also need a reformer to convert the natural gas into hydrogen. That would likely add about $2 million per station if you were going to dispense liquid hydrogen versus lng. Given the extra energy and expense to produce and store the liquid hydogen it likely would be more expensive than lng.

Cummins/wesport have over 25,000 natural gas engines running in commercial operation. They forecast that by the end of the year they expect to have 800 heavy duty trucks running on lng. These trucks currently cost about twice as much as a standard diesels, but the lower cost of lng can return a reasonable payback. By 2020 these trucks should have proven their reliability. On the other hand, I don't know of any trucks running on liquid hydrogen in commercial operation. Its likely the truck would cost much more than a lng truck.

There are fuel cells that work with natural gas, and others that work with methanol. These appear to be much more expensive, or bigger than the hydrogen ones toyota is working on. If they do get methanol or cng fuel cells on cars, it would solve the infrastructure cost problem.

There simply is not any infrastructure right now for long distance mediaum and heavy liquid hydrogen vehicles. These are all R&D projects.

This is one of the cooler ones
Laine Welch: Fuel cell technology boosts long-distance fish shipping | Laine Welch | ADN.com

 

My basic research shows 9 each public hydrogen fueling stations in California and 2 on the east coast at present. CA presumably has 19 others in development, but several canceled projects in other states. "IF" and unless the powers that be are keeping some super magic technology to make the infrastructure affordable, safe and profitable, the future of these vehicles for general public use is doubtful at best. Even with our electrical network so vast, the mobile tech and infrastructure for said vehicles has yet to manifest to completely replace gasoline and diesel. I only hope that a true solution is relieved before my days are up.

Station map | California Fuel Cell Partnership
Hydrogen highway - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

California had a plan to build 100 stations, but many have closed down from lack of customers. They blew the roll out by having collusion on where the subsidies went, and rules that made the federal government pick up the tab, because it was too hard to comply and not lose your shirt.

Fast forward to 2013, and california has plans to increase the number to 68 public stations using $200 million in tax payer money. We will see if the cars materialize this time, or if the project stops short from coruption and lack of interest like last time.
How CA Could Make Hydrogen Cars Successful - Business Insider

My big question to Toyota is this. Why are plug-ins that sold almost 100,000 units in the US last year, impracticle vehicles that no one wants, while selling 1/10th of that number of fcv in the next 5 years or so will make them the future?

There are 53 hydrogen fueling stations in the US but many of these are not open to the public.
Alternative Fuels Data Center: Alternative Fueling Station Counts by State

You have to remember that just about all the reseach has been publicly funded, and available from the DOE. Muniz the current head of the DOE, and Chu the last head, said infrastructure is one of the problems. Chu was rolled by the fuel cell lobby (disclosure Toyota amoung other is part of the pac) and CARB, and most of his cuts to fuel cells were put back into funding.

Nichols the head of carb wrote a very troubling public memo that fuel cells and plug-ins should get equal funding even though funding per likely vehicle was and remains much higher for fuel cells than plug-ins. CARB under nichols leadership has special rules to give fuel cells special favors (more credits, more funding, etc). If there was some secret plan these well funded corporations like toyota and large government agencies like CARB would have found it and publicized it.

Now fuel cells are doing great in fork lifts at places like coke, walmart, and bmw. That should provide plenty of places for R&D on the cells and tanks. Who knows there may be breakthroughs on using biomas to produce the hydrogen? The biggest fork lift converter is even looking to partnership with a car company.
Could Hydrogen Breakthrough Revive The Fuel-Cell Car? - Forbes
Plug Power Sees Electric-Car Fuel Cells and First Profit - Bloomberg

 

The car designers have to consider the whole package, and not just range. Intruding too much into the passenger and cargo space is considered more of a negative. Look at the discussions on hybrid vs standard sedan trunk space, and 4 seats only being a con.

Then the weight of a larger battery has its own issues. Efficiency will go down for one. The weight also needs to be addressed in terms of driving dynamics. The suspension will need to be retuned and strengthened for the extra weight. Even then, the battery placement for some models will still result in some negative handling characteristics.

Heating and cooling of the pack needs to be addressed. Nissan skipped on the liquid thermal management system to keep costs down with the Leaf. Doing so might not be an option with a larger pack. Then that liquid system will add more cost and weight in addition to the battery.

The skateboard layout of the battery on the Tesla S and some EV concepts is the best for packaging, but it now has its own perception issues because of a few publicized, no injury accidents.

If you are thinking of using NG pipelines for hydrogen, that won't happen. Materials that can contain NG may not be able to do so with the smaller hydrogen molecule. Hydrogen also embrittles metals it has extended contact with. Parts for NG weren't designed with that in mind.

A tank for LNG might be able to hold liquid hydrogen if the liner can withstand hydrogen's properties.There are two other issues though. AG mentioned the energy density difference. The other is the temperature difference. The liquid hydrogen is nearly a hundred degrees Celsius colder. Without more insulation, and thus bulk, on the tank, the hydrogen is going to vent off quicker.

Most of the FCEV are compressed hydrogen fueled, and the latest models use gas compressed to higher pressures than what has become the standard for CNG. Again assuming the tank materials are compatible with hydrogen, using a CNG tank will end in reduced range because it won't hold as much hydrogen as the higher pressure tank.

On-site hydrogen reforming from NG is expensive. Smaller units are also less efficient as I understand it. CO2 capture will be less likely than with a larger plant.

Keep in mind that for the interstate a FC will have a shorter tank range than diesel and CNG due to energy density and vehicle space for tanks. Maybe it isn't enough to make a difference, but increased fueling stops could increase travel times and costs.

We should think of fuel cells on vehicles as batteries, but different. For local use, they may make an EV bus or delivery truck possible where a battery only one wouldn't be due to needed range and battery energy density limits. It will have the BEV emission advantage over any diesel/CNG truck hybrid, plug in, or not.

+1
A PFCEV likely won't happen until it provides a major packaging advantage over an ICE range extender, or fuel cell use by interstate trucking makes refueling preferable to Telsa's supercharger network.

I'm now wondering if a FCEV truly idles. The traction battery is there to buffer its less responsive output. If the battery is high on SOC, won't the FC slow down its output, perhaps even shut off. If low, the battery will just charge up for the next high demand moment, or to be charged on the next start up.

We might even see hydrogen for cars come from our piss.
OHIO: Center for Electrochemical Engineering Research - Research - Urea Electrolysis

 

From what I've seen, there is plenty of room behind semi cabs for larger tanks. Even weight is not an issue, because it is on the truck side, so reduction to hauling capacity is limited.
The real issue is cost. CF tanks would be light, but expensive; cheaper, hi-strength steel with the proper insulation/liners should do the trick.
Yes, energy density is 1/4 or 1/5 of diesel, but FC is twice as efficient....so need 2-2.5x the tank space. Current big rigs cary 84 gallons (42 on each side) and @ 6-6.5mpg
this is good for 500 miles. I see no problem with an additional 84-120 gallons behind or below cab, and see no problem with maintaining the 500 miles-per-tank range that truckers and businesses are used to.
A fuel cell liquid carrier truck would look something like this:

I don't see a problem with designing a H2 tanker-truck that siphons off hydrogen that has 'boiled off', thus simultaneously supplementing the H2 fuel tanks while maintaining the cryogenic temperatures of the fuel, as it is delivered.
Such a setup would have essentially unlimited range:
6 mpg in a diesel ICE would be 12 mpg in a FC.
10,000-gallon cargo tank would be 2,000 gallon of diesel-equivalent.
So, allows long-distance transport of H2 from production facility to gas station EVEN WITH NO H2 STATIONS ALONG THE WAY!
Think about that......the truck above has a theoretical range of 24,500 miles between fillups (2000 gal diesel equiv. x 12 mpg) + 500 miles from tanks on semi cab.
Of course, every gallon of H2 used from the tanker is 1 less gallon that can be sold, but it just goes to show that one does not need a "Hydrogen Highway" in order to move H2 from produces to sellers, anywhere in the country....in fact, this type of FC truck would make delivery of H2 possible now
THIS is where the research should be, on the infrastructure side.......but instead, all the $$ are going towards the consumer/passenger car side

ok, EV might not work for these vehicles, yes the batteries would be very expensive to have enough power to move them since they weigh so much
But, I simply don't see fuel cells+tanks EVER being as cheap as a PHEV (with CNG tanks+a small ICE). And then, the business or bus depot has to sign up to get a truckload of H2 every so often, as opposed to just compressing NG out of their existing pipeline!

Well, by 'idling' I meant the FC charging up the battery (while car is parked or stopped at a light) to ensure SOC is maintained.
- During driving, the battery must always be maintained at a SOC which gives it sufficient power to help the FC accelerate the car from 0 to its top speed
- Once parked, the battery can't just be charged upon start-up....(the fuel cell would not be warm enough to provide sufficient power).....but, rather, the battery must be charged up while the car is parked, such that its SOC upon startup is sufficient to provide motive power for the furthest plausible range that could be traveled during FC warmup....worst case scenario is a cold start followed by immediately driving 80 mph; assuming 15-minute warmup, this would mean SOC on batt. would need to be sufficient for 20 miles at startup

 

While trucks appear to have plenty of space for tanks, you need to keep in mind that there also needs to be a battery that can move the truck and full trailer will the fuel cell warms up.

Due to its low volumetric energy density, it will never be economical to truck hydrogen for great distances. IIRC, 100 miles is the limit. Past that, the delivery charges make it umcompetitive with other fuels. Or I should say worse than it is now. A fuel cell delivery tanker would do better, but a pipeline network is needed to make it economically feasible, and that will be costly.

 

I'm not so sure.....truckers don't have driving patterns like normal passenger car commuters/drivers.
I don't see why they couldn't idle for 15 minutes, waiting for the FC to warm up....in fact, I believe many truckers do just that now.
There is simply no need for them to have a fully functioning FC like a car that makes a lot of short trips.
Just warm up for 15 minutes, then hit the road for 500 miles....rinse & repeat.
The truck would likely need some sort of battery or capacitor to get it up to highway speeds. It takes about 30 seconds for a fully loaded big rig to go from 0-60, so even a capacitor that only held double the energy of a Prius battery (2.5 kwh) -but could discharge itself in 30 seconds- would provide 300 kilowatts/402 horsepower during acceleration.

I have also heard of the study that truck trailers are less efficient over xx distance vs. pipelines, and I'm going to try to dig it up. Seems a bit dated to me.....whoever did it might have a vested interest in pipelines, or was just against H2 altogether. Also, I'd be curious if their cost estimates factor in the efficiency of the FC, or the fact that shale fracking has lowered NG prices.
Definitely the FC tube trailer I described is not practical at high volumes, but we're decades away from that. In the short term, it seems to be a much cheaper option than building dozens of expensive H2 filling stations, and then just having them sit idle.
Why not deliver H2 directly to where it is being demanded? Sounds more efficient (and more profitable!)

 

I'm not quite understanding any advantage, but lots of disadvantage of liquid hydrogen versus liquid natural gas for long haul trucking. Lets first examine the more efficient assumption. The lobby came up with twice as efficient by either using the japanses test and comparing it to the american test, or by comparing ordinary gas vehicles to fuel cells that use regen braking and other hybrid tricks.

Compare Fuel Cell Vehicles Side-by-Side
Compare Side-by-Side

When we look at highway milage the best fuel cell gets 60 mpg. Efficient bmw diesel gets 45 mpg, even the normal gas mazda 3 gets 41 mpg highway, the hybrids 45 and 48 mpg highway. cummins says their lng truck is 5% more efficient to their diesel. I would be hard pressed for a fuel cell without major break throughs to use 30%% less fuel in long haul trucking versus lng, on a gge for energy basis.

They do have aerodynamic hybrid trucks that can get 9 or 10 mpg. They don't have any fuel cell trucks. Until they build one, I severly doubt the hype of 2x. These trucks have very expensive and efficient engines, and transmissions that allow them to operate in their most efficient range, around 45%. They are much more efficient on the highway pound for pound than a prius.

Ok so lets say you can build and store the right amount of liquid hydrogen on the truck. Lng is around $2/gallon equivellent, liquid hydrogen costs around $9/kg around a gallon equivellent to produce at a station, say some tech innovations happen and it drops to $4/kg. I serverely doubt that efficiency will make up for the fuel cost. The truck needs to be more expensive, and I doubt that it will be as reliable as a lng truck.

Which leaves liquid hydrogen only one advantage for long haul trucking, you can make it with renewable electricity for a lower carbon footprint. I doubt that is enough to overcome the huge disadvantages, especially when people are talking about using the same base fuel natural gas.

 

Under what conditions would it be more efficient to make hydrogen using renewable electricity, as opposed to charging batteries with it?

 

I'm not quite following you hyo. We are talking about long haul trucking, with 80,000 lb trucks, and 500 mile range between fill ups. IIRC these things consume about 10% of us oil demand in the form of diesel. When oil prices spike, these trucks pass the costs to the consumer. In the last 20 years more and more freight has moved to trucking.

No one has suggested putting enough batteries in a truck to make it go the full distance, but there are some hybrid trucks, and these often are plug-in to supply a little of the power. Think of it this way the truck is doing 20x the work of a tesla S, it would require more than a 1000kwh battery, and a fast charger at all these truck stops.

Pickens plan is to convert these trucks to lng. The fuel right now costs about half as much per mile as diesel, but a new truck costs about $50,000 more. With goverment help (lower fuel taxes, subsidies for new trucks and building stations) a great deal of oil could be saved. Once the change was made, the government could enforce it through mandates, and raise fuel taxes back up to pay for the roads.

The fuel cell lobby wants to convert them to liquid hydrogen. This has major disadvantages, but one they push is it can be made from renewables for a lower carbon footprint (or you can sequester, when you make the hydrogen). It is much more expensive though, and I see truckers being against the possible reliability problems. In the first pickens plan the natural gas was freed up by replacing natural gas in power generation with renwables. With the fracking glut, picken's has dropped this part of the plan, leaving room for the hydrogen lobby to claim cleaner. I don't personally buy this argument, as we can then replace electric generation with wind and solar as the original pickens plan proposed (natural gas dropped greatly in price making the picken's plan less expensive to implement).

 

Fair criticism - it's completely my fault for jumping into the middle of a discussion with a seemingly-unrelated comment.

I seem to be hung up on this efficiency concept, and I've yet to hear a completely convincing argument in favour of hydrogen. And, if efficiency were the main goal, we'd be moving goods long distances by rail, not by truck. My impression of the reasons for the switch to trucks - and not just in the last 20 years - has to do with unequal pricing of energy as much as anything else.

So, of course we're not going to figure out a way to fit trucks with 20 times the battery capacity of a Tesla. Part of my point is, that's the wrong question. Maybe I'm not seeing the whole picture, and maybe I'm too skeptical, but I'm still suspicious that the hydrogen lobby just wants to sell more oil.

 

OK, hold on here. If you recall from several posts ago, I said am with you in total support of the Pickens Plan...I think it should be implemented yesterday. I want every existing truck out there converted to a LNG ICE ASAP.
That's not what my post was about....
I was talking about using a H2 carrier FC truck to deliver hydrogen; in the first few decades with H2 stations rare or non-existent, doesn't this make sense? I mean, as long as H2 is a 'boutique fuel', then why not have it delivered in this way, where the semi tractor can supplement its own tanks with boiled-off H2 siphoned from the tube trailer? This eliminates the need to waste the H2 by venting as its temp rises, and it gives the truck virtually UNLIMITED range....a single one of these trucks can leave a H2 production facility in New Jersey, deliver H2 to a station in Texas, and drive back without stopping once to fill up.
Is this expensive? Sure, but not as much as you might think. In the NJ->TX example, round trip is ~3000 miles. On-board tanks give the truck 500 miles, and so 2500 miles (or 200 kg of H2) must be siphoned from cargo. That means 1800 kg H2 of cargo is delivered as opposed to the 2000 kg that would have arrived in a diesel or LNG truck. So, the price per kg rises by 10%, for this extreme example. Am I missing something?

I am less skeptical than you.
You are forgetting few things.
- First, regen is of little to no use on most long-haul trucks as a means of improving efficiency, since they spend their life on the highway. There will, of course be exceptions based on terrain and traffic of certain routes
- Second, there is no need to "use" or "add" hybrid 'tricks'....the FC truck already has an electric motor; adding a battery or capacitor would be needed anyhow for burst power; but adding hybrid system to an ICE truck? Regardless of fuel- that is a VERY expensive proposition
- Third, the issue is not what is most efficient. That is a discussion only for scientists in the lab....what matters in the real world is cost. In today's world, with zero carbon tax, sure your #'s might make sense. But tomorrow?
All of the other fuels you mentioned produce tailpipe emissions and GHGs (except biodiesel, which hasn't been scaled). Doesn't it make sense to move towards zero emissions trucking, even if decades away? I calculated in another thread that the co2 tax would have to be something like $300/ton to justify a FC truck vs. a NG ICE truck, but still it would make sense now for trucks operating in urban environments to become cleaner (harbors, etc.)

yes they do

Those statements are bit contradictory. Yes, they don't have any fuel cell trucks, because, as I mentioned earlier, all of the H2 dollars are going towards the "egg" (consumer passenger vehicles and fueling depots) and not the "chicken" (infrastructure and production). Just because they haven't built one doesn't mean they can't or that the trucks won't compare to their ICE counterparts in a similar manner to the way FC cars compare to ICE...again, we have to broaden the discussion to not JUST efficiency, but also cost and environmental impact.
When you say they have 9-10 mpg trucks and that you "severely doubt the hype" of 2x, that doesn't make sense given that today's most efficient WalMart trucks are 6 mpg. OK, not 2x, but 1.5x or 1.7x is nothing to snooze at.
Walmart Introduces Supercube Tractor Trailers to increase fuel economy, get trucks off the road : TreeHugger
Peterbilt's New "Super Truck" Gets 10 MPG—Double the National Big Rig Average

Yes they are...but relevance?
It's Not Exactly a Prius, Folks - Popular Mechanics

I'm not following you here. Liquid H2 used in FC will provide twice the motive power of LNG in an ICE, period.
This has to be APPLES to APPLES. The FC is already a hybrid; we are comparing to today'd best LNG trucks:
- if you add hybrid/regen to the LNG ICE truck, that is not apples-to-apples
- if you add aerodynamics to the LNG ICE truck, but not the FC truck, that is not apples-to-apples
So, back to your example: $9/kg is equal to $4.50/gal LNG when factoring in FC efficiency. And innovations ARE happening on H2 production, while NG prices are set to rise due to increased use in electric power generation. A cross-over point seems inevitable.

I have to agree with Hyo on this one - H2 will never, ever be produced with renewables....way to0 inefficient/expensive.

Yes, that is all true. But let's not forget cost of labor. They are moving towards driverless trucks.
Has The New Era of “Driverless, Automated Trucks” Arrived? | Go By Truck Global News
I am totally against corporations doing this (because of all the unemployment it would cause) but if they pay a small tax to help re-training of truckers for other jobs, then maybe it is OK. I wouldn't want it to happen because of the cost of fuel. Trucking companies should be devoting their dollars towards making their trucks cleaner, not padding their profits by laying off workers.
Ideally, congress would pass a law forbidding a truck from being driverless UNLESS it has already met the zero-emissions threshold. A FC truck with no driver would be about the same per mile (higher fuel cost & lower labor cost) vs. lower fuel cost & higher labor cost in a LNG ICE truck

Allow me to be the first person to discuss putting batteries on long-haul trucks.
Yes, I calculated that the battery requirements would be about a Megawatt-hour for a 500-mile range truck. Will we ever get to a density of 1 kwh/kg? Hopefully. Even half that would mean a battery of 2000 kg.....not insignificant but not bad for a 40,000 kg truck. Now, imagine a standardized battery. It would be much easier than for cars, and a network of swap stations along major routes would probably be cheaper than H2. Imagine the swap stations taking the battery off and replacing a new one in less time than a fill-up, and then charging them with surplus overnight wind from an adjacent wind farm. You have to start thinking outside the box!

I don't agree with you here. Fuel Cells were meant for the continuous operation....they would do much better in a truck than in the start/stop nature of passenger cars. An electric drive will far outlive any mechanical engine or transmission. I am sure FC longevity will ultimately approach that of diesel.....500k+ miles.
Truckers only need to look at their rail competitors to see the advantage of series hybrids and electric traction motors.
Also, truckers will like it that they are not having to use a fuel (NG) that competes with use in electric power generation. They already had that problem in diesel vs. heating oil.

 

Truckers idle to power the AC and their electronics. There is no need to idle a modern ICE for any length of time before moving off. Of course, trucks are idled overnight if used as a sleeper. Then a FC might never cool down.

The fuel cell truck still requires a battery to buffer the FC output. It isn't there just for start up. A fuel cell alone would unacceptable acceleration, passing, and hill climbing performance. Picture using a sterling engine in a traditional car.

Fuel cell stacks also have a limited lifetime. Last figure I heard was 100k miles for a stack in a car. That is dated, and I'm sure the lifespan has improved, but not much about is stated in the current releases. I imagine it last the life of a car now which could be pushing 200k miles in 12 years. Semi trucks put on over a 100k miles in a single year.

Of course it is more efficient to pipe a liquid or gas over a long distance. How much do you think your water bill will go up if it were truck delivered .

For hydrogen, the cut off at which trucking costs get too high with a diesel rig is around 100 miles. An FC truck could extend that, but not by much considering the added cost of the rig itself. Then there is only a few thousand miles of hydrogen pipeline in which to base the trucks around.

Treating hydrogen as a boutique fuel isn't going to help in expanding its acceptance. People don't mind buying racing fuel for their weekend toy. They consider using premium in their daily driver a major con.

 

No problem. Today's diesel 18 wheelers would probably be more efficient well to wheels than lng, but ... there is a great reason to switch. natural gas is much cheaper and plentiful than oil, and it looks like if we roll out the pickens plan it would reduce oil imports by about 20%, helping the countries economic and national security as well as ballance of trade, while providing a small number of domestic jobs. From a pollutant point of view it also is much better virtually eliminating NMOG, NOx, and particulates, and likely reducing CO2 by about 20%.

You have two different questions here. The first is truck versus rail. Both rail and truck have increased freight operations in the last 20 years. I didn't mean to imply that freight trains went down. More is moving, and that means more oil in these operations. Gettting cafe up won't reduce long range trucking oil use, but switching to natural gas will.

On your hydrogen efficiency argument here is toyota's, which I find quite dated and incorrectly handicaps plug in efficiency versus today's real cars, as well as looks at yesterdays grid. A newer version is used by hyundai
Hyundai Skips the BEV and Goes Straight to the Fuel Cell - CleanMPG Forums


But you will note quite clearly that this uses the average US grid. What happens if you live in california? Let's go to the source of that graph.
http://www.apep.uci.edu/3/Research/pdf/SustainableTransportation/WTW_vehicle_greenhouse_gases_Public.pdf
Here the BEV charged with the california grid produces less ghg if that is your measure of efficiency than hydrogen. That seems like a better test, since the fuel cell vehicles they are trying to sell in the US can only run in california.

What if you use solar or wind, as 39% of plug-in drivers in california polled use? That is an even lower ghg footprint. I don't know how to convert solar to vehicle efficiency, but a plug-in should run about 3x the distance on the same amount of solar electricity.

IMHO the picken's plan is a great way to reduce oil use and reduce pollution. It has widesprad support. The biggest oponents are the ethanol lobby and the koch brothers. It probably would cost about $5B in tax payer money to really get going, and some of the money is being spent. This may substitute about 10% of the US oil consumption to natural gas.

On the other hand I am unsure if the california hydrogen highway will reduce any oil imports at all. There is a new tax of $200M for fueling about 10,000 potential fcv. This is on top of over $100M/year from the DOE for fuel cells and hyrogen. If those 10,000 arrive it will substitute less than 0.001% of US oil consumption to natural gas. That is why I am skeptical of this additional $200,000 really reducing oil imports or pollution.

SOrry I misunderstood your post. I'll just comment on what I disagree with on this one.

The problem with trucking hydrogen has more to do with efficiency and cost versus say a phev or bev. When you liquify hydrogen it takes about 30% of the energy of the hydrogen in terms of electricity. It also takes the energy of the diesel, hydrogen, or natural gas to move the truck. It may be less energy intesive to use electrolsys at the station. You definitely can truck the hydrogen, then subsidize it to be more cost competitive, but that is my problem with many of the schemes.

A lng truck is about $50,000 more than a diesel one at current prices.
Natural Gas Savings Calculator | Freightliner | CNG
The government for awhile is picking up most of that upcharge. We have no idea how much a fuel cell truck would cost, but the upcharge to turn lng to phev lng would not cost very much more. I am not talking long range, but a system that can run heat or airconditioning when the ice is off, can capture some brake energy, and help push the truck up hills and at heavier accelleration. Now yes it would add cost, but equalizes better, since I am assuming fuel cells and hydrogen cryo tanks would cost more. The lng truck also has the advantage of less expensive fuel, as long as subsidies aren't much higher for hydrogen.

If the figures coming out of fuel cell advocates are correct, I would still expect a 400 hp lng phev to cost less than a liquid hydrgogen heavy duty truck of similar power. I would further expect that the fuel, which is the bigger expense, would be lower as long as lng and hydrogen had similar government subsidies.

If the source of the hydrogen is natural gas, then the amount of ghg will be lowest with the more efficient vehicle. Natural gas has very low tailpipe emissions in the current cummins engine, almost all the natural gas is converted to water can carbon dioxide, with a three way cat removing most dangerous emissions. For the fuel cell the carbon dioxide which is not a local pollutant comes out where the hydrogen and electricity are produced.

 

Random thoughts:

A fuel cell car IS the same as a hybrid with the engine ripped-out and FC replacing it. The fuel cell car still has a battery on board + electric motor.

- Honda has been leasing an Insight-style (Kammback) fuel cell car since 2008. If tiny Honda can do it I'm sure Toyota can too.

- the Toyota people giving negative feedback to Tesla, Nissan and other EV makers are from the American branch (I think?). They're opinions don't represent the thoughts/plans in the home country which may very well support EVs.

 

They also ripped out the hsd and mg1 Toyota is using a lower powered battery (21kw). The fuel cell car can not be filled up at a gas station, the fuel cell is pure serial car, it can not drive the wheels directly like other psd hybrids. It can't plug in to charge the battery like a phev. It simply has a fuel cell stack and a small battery.

Yep and they have hundreds on the road. Oh boy! I'm sure with the new california money toyota and hyundai will each sell thousands. Honda will likely be there too selling thousands also.

Why will they sell thousands a year instead of tens of thousands a year as tesla, gm, and nissan sell plug-ins. According to musk its because of high cost and lack of infrastructure. We will have to wait until 2016 to see if this is true. Right now we don't even know the price only a range of $50,000-$100,000. We know the fc is at least 100 kw, but not much more, like mpge. It is supposed to go from 0-60 at about the rate of a prius but be more fun to drive according to people that have driven the prototype. I suppose toyota could start funding hydrogen stations like tesla is building quick chargers, but it is a much more expensive opereration per car.

That would be nice. I don't know if its true though. If toyota anounces a great update to the prius phv and starts selling it in all the states it would be a start.

 

Or it is the same as an EV with part of the traction battery replaced with a fuel cell and fuel tanks, and the plug replaced with a filler port. Since propulsion is only by electric motor on a FCEV, I'll go with this one.

 

From Toyota's USA website.
Toyota Fuel Cell Cars: Introducing Toyota's Fuel Cell Technology