11 ms·

Seeing Future in Fuel Cells, Toyota Ends Tesla Deal

24 points by jbae29 12y ago

hnnewguy 12y ago
First we got to hear the ICE proponents spreading FUD about Electric Vehicles, now we'll get to hear Electric Vehicle proponents spreading FUD about fuel cells.
- dublinben 12y ago
  Fuel cell vehicles have never made any sense. It's still being turned into electricity anyway, so it's still an electric vehicle. There happens to already be a distribution infrastructure for electricity almost everywhere. The same can't be said for hydrogen. According to the US Department of Energy, there are eleven public hydrogen stations in the US, almost all in Los Angeles. There are more compressed natural gas stations in my state alone.
  - jimmyjazz14 12y ago
    I think the real question to me is about how much energy can be stored in a fuel cell vs the current available batteries.
    - dublinben 12y ago
      The upcoming models will have the same ~200-250 mile range as the Tesla Model S.
  - protomyth 12y ago
    "Fuel cell vehicles have never made any sense." They have in the sense that I go to a station and fill up then leave in a reasonable amount of time. I don't have to alter my driving habits from the last 50+ years.
    - dublinben 12y ago
      You go to what station? The one a thousand miles away in California? With an EV, you can "fill up" in your own garage every night, or even while parked at work.
      - protomyth 12y ago
        Actually, I live in an apartment so no plug there[1] and certainly none at work. If Toyota goes hydrogen, there will be stations. They can push the tech just as well as Tesla is pushing recharge stations. 1) which actually sucks quite badly in winter since I have nowhere to plug in a head bolt heater.
      - threeseed 12y ago
        > With an EV, you can "fill up" in your own garage every night, or even while parked at work. Which requires changes around the world to parking lots, apartments, homes etc. Most places don't have a power socket for each car space.
    - outworlder 12y ago
      Have you used a vehicle powered by natural gas? I have. For safety reasons, in many places you have to get out of the vehicle while it is being refuelled (the cylinder gets really hot!). And that is a change from your 50+ years driving habit. It also takes longer than a comparable gas pump (even if it is measured in single digit minutes). The gas gauge also reads differently (my guess is due to pressure decreases as gas is consumed). You can't really expect to radically change tech and have the entire experience be the same. Not to mention that the only thing preventing one from filling up a tank the way they do with gasoline is battery technology. If they are improved (graphene capacitors?), almost nothing needs to change in the grid. [EDIT: I am comparing the hydrogen gas stations (which are so rare that might not even exist) to the experience of refilling a compressed natural gas vehicle. It is the closest real world parallel I can think of.]
      - eshvk 12y ago
        > Have you used a vehicle powered by natural gas? I have. For safety reasons, in many places you have to get out of the vehicle while it is being refuelled (the cylinder gets really hot!). And that is a change from your 50+ years driving habit. It also takes longer than a comparable gas pump (even if it is measured in single digit minutes). The gas gauge also reads differently (my guess is due to pressure decreases as gas is consumed). In India, people convert their gasoline based cars to use gas cylinders. The replacement is infrequent and doesn't need to happen as often as much as filling up gasoline.
  - eshvk 12y ago
    > Fuel cell vehicles have never made any sense. The only reason for me to get an Electric Vehicle is the green factor. If instead of my car polluting the environment, there is an increase in say coal factories, not sure how that helps the environment. So there is a need for fuel cells.
    - toomuchtodo 12y ago
      Electric vehicles are more efficient well to wheel than gas engines, even if powered by coal plants. Do you want to manage the emissions from one generation source? Or 100K? Also, as the electrical grid becomes more clean, EVs become cleaner. Not so with ICE vehicles.
      - stonemetal 12y ago
        Actually a study from 2012 shows battery backed EVs getting 34 mpg "on the nation’s dirtiest grid". A good diesel can do much better than that. It isn't so cut and dried as you make it sound.
        toomuchtodo 12y ago
        The share of wind and solar increases every year: http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_5.pdf http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_5.pdf A diesel vehicle has a service life of at least 200K miles; assuming 12K/miles a year, you're looking at ~16 years of burning petrol. How much cleaner is the electric grid going to be over the next 16 years as coal plants are shut down due to being unable to meet new emissions guidelines? Electric vehicles future proof the energy required for mobility.
    - stonemetal 12y ago
      >According to the 2010 California Low Carbon Fuel Standard Final Regulation Order, fuel-cell cars have an average lifetime greenhouse gas emissions rate of 61.83 grams of carbon dioxide per megajoule. This is for hydrogen produced through the popular natural gas reforming process. Electricity, on the other hand, was determined to have average lifetime greenhouse gas emissions of 41.37g/mj. http://ecomento.com/guide/hydrogen-fuel-cell-vs-battery-electric-cars-greener/ http://ecomento.com/guide/hydrogen-fuel-cell-vs-battery-elec... Currently fuel cell backed EVs produce ~50% more greenhouse gas emissions than battery backed EVs. If you are going for green factor take the batteries.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    You can even put a small natural gas compressor in your garage (of course it only makes sense if gas is available). http://www.cngnow.com/vehicles/refueling/Pages/refueling-at-home.aspx http://www.cngnow.com/vehicles/refueling/Pages/refueling-at-...
    - dublinben 12y ago
      Doing some quick math, it would cost ~$14 in natural gas (plus some electricity) to fill up a CNG Honda Civic at home. The same car would cost ~$16 to fill up at a CNG station. Tesla claims that it costs less than $10 for a similar 250 miles of range in the Model S. By comparison, it would cost at least $27 to fill up a Civic with gasoline to go the same distance.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    You can have on-site production at the gas station though, which you can't currently do with natural gas or petrol, so rolling out pipes may be unnecessary.
  - threeseed 12y ago
    > There happens to already be a distribution infrastructure for electricity almost everywhere. Of course "everywhere" means just the US. Some people really need to wake up and realise that there are nearly 200 countries in the world. Most of which Toyota sells in and Tesla doesn't. It really isn't appropriate to judge the success of a technology based on the available infrastructure for quite a while yet.
protomyth 12y ago
I would love to hear what the tipping point was for fuel cells. I suspect Toyota doesn't believe that battery technology will get the point that recharging gets close to normal gas station stops where hydrogen might. Last I heard Hydrogen was still problematic in winter cold just like batteries.
revelation 12y ago
The RAV4 ev is a pure compliance car. It's only sold in California, it's a 3rd party drivetrain and battery bolted onto the frame for a gas guzzler SUV. So of course it's a terrible product. The only thing it excels at is getting Toyota enough ZEV credits. They recently changed the credit scheme, so now Toyota is switching to that: http://insideevs.com/carb-zev-program-changes-tesla-takes-largest-hit/ http://insideevs.com/carb-zev-program-changes-tesla-takes-la...
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  the frame for a gas guzzler SUV 31mpg highway is what counts for gas guzzler these days?
- makomk 12y ago
  Interesting - if I'm reading that correctly, Tesla's battery-swap technology substantially boosted the amount of ZEV credits they obtained and could resell by allowing them to claim "fast recharging", despite the facilities to actually swap batteries never actually being available to customers.
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    Correct. The vehicle only needs to be able to swap, without the need to deploy the expensive ($~500K/each) battery swap stations.
  - revelation 12y ago
    Yes, but to get the extra credits they only had to demonstrate battery swap with a bunch of technicians. The large automated demo they did later on wasn't for the ZEV credits.
_Adam 12y ago
This is really surprising. What are they thinking? Hydrogen fuel cells STILL have not been proven to be a viable power source for cars. Electricity has been validated time and time again - even before Tesla, there was the EV1. And now the technology is really starting to scale in production volume and performance, along with the infrastructure. Even if they can make a hydrogen vehicle with equal, or even slightly greater performance than an electric of the same cost, then they still need to solve the problem of the hydrogen infrastructure. That's really hard. You can generate it on site, but the equipment to do so is expensive and complex. I think Toyota just doesn't want to compete with Tesla.
- threeseed 12y ago
  > I think Toyota just doesn't want to compete with Tesla. Yes. I am sure Toyota is just terrified by a company that is haemorrhaging money and only sells in a few countries.
  - outworlder 12y ago
    Is it? Source?
    - greglindahl 12y ago
      Just like politics, you can read anything you want into Tesla's financials. They make a 25% margin building cars, which is excellent. They are a small car company expanding their factory and designing a new model, which means they lose money.
- cgh 12y ago
  Forgive me if I misread your post, but hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles as discussed in the article run on electricity. So when you say "electricity has been validated", you really mean batteries as used in Teslas have been validated, correct? Or are you referring to hydrogen internal combustion engines? I don't think those are in development at Toyota but maybe I'm wrong.
NorthGuy1 12y ago
Honda has been saying the same thing for years and has yet to produce a product. It's cool tech but right now it's just vapourware.
wil421 12y ago
Electric cars IMHO are missing the point, which is to get off fossil fuels. When you switch to an electric vehicle you are just shifting from Gas to Coal. The US still relies heavily on fossil fuels to power the grid. My question has always been: Does shifting from gas to depending on the electrical grid actually help? Or are we just smoking cigars (or e-cigs) instead of cigarettes? Also, what is the downside to collecting Hydrogen?
- hueyp 12y ago
  Hydrogen is no different then what you spell out as downsides for electric vehicles. The best source of hydrogen is natural gas. In order to get hydrogen from non-fossil fuel sources you need cheap non-fossil fuel electricity. If you have that ... whats the problem with electric cars again?
- outworlder 12y ago
  > Electric cars IMHO are missing the point, which is to get off fossil fuels. When you switch to an electric vehicle you are just shifting from Gas to Coal. The US still relies heavily on fossil fuels to power the grid. Yes, because the whole world has the same reliance on fossil fuels as the US. Homework: what's quicker to replace? A few power stations, or the whole vehicle fleet? Also notice that electric engines are way more efficient than gas engines. > My question has always been: Does shifting from gas to depending on the electrical grid actually help? Or are we just smoking cigars (or e-cigs) instead of cigarettes? Long or short term? Electrical vehicles do not care where the power comes from. If you are that worried, power your EV yourself at home with solar/wind/whatever power. > Also, what is the downside to collecting Hydrogen? If it is from fossil fuels, it is kinda obvious. It is apparently possible to sequester CO2 from the process of extracting hydrogen from natural gas, but I have no idea if it is even required by regulations, or economically viable. If it is from water electrolysis, then you'll be using the same fossil fuel power plants to split water. Do not forget that electric cars have WAY less parts (the simplest conceptual car is a battery and engine) and require much less environmentally unfriendly stuff, such as lubricants, additives, etc.
  - wil421 12y ago
outworlder 12y ago
So, instead of using the ubiquitous power grid, we'll need: - Hydrogen "manufacturing". Guess where most of it come from? Fossil fuels. If you use water, you require a lot of energy input. Actually, in either case you need energy input, so hydrogen is more like a battery, not an energy source. - Hydrogen distribution/storage. At the refinery, between that and the 'gas' stations, etc. Not all containers are suitable for that (hydrogen is quite difficult to store) and no matter if liquid or gas, the tanks need to be much bigger than a comparable gasoline tank (by energy). - Actually using the hydrogen. You are using fuel cells to generate electricity, which will power electric engines. Why not skip the middle man? You are using a much more complicated battery, really. And that just to make the 'charging' faster? How long would it take to cover a country the size of the US with hydrogen stations? I'd put all that infrastructure money on battery research. This is just Toyota giving up on EVs completely. They just don't want to say it outright. Green companies and all that.
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  What about range? Hydrogen might be less energy dense than gasoline, but what about compared to batteries? Range is the #1 crippling factor for EVs to most people I talk to.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    Most hydrogen vehicles (of which there aren't really any you can buy) have the same 200-250 mile range of a Model S.
  - outworlder 12y ago
    Range is a valid concern, but hydrogen has poor energy density per volume (if compressed). If you want compact hydrogen, hydrocarbons are your best bet.
    - drited 12y ago
      Hydrogen is better than batteries in this respect though, so when comparing zero emission options it still appears to be a good bet for Toyota, if it can be implemented on a large scale.
cLeEOGPw 12y ago
Electric car with battery pros: * Can deliver full power instantly * Does not produce CO2 at time of energy release (clean cities) * Lesser moving parts Electric car with battery cons: * Range too small with current designs * No charging stations (infrastructure problem) * Battery needs to be replaced every several years * Requires lithium, which reserves are very limited on earth * Carbon tube based battery doesn't seem to be reality any time soon Hydrogen on the other hand doesn't require any rare elements and also doesn't pollute environment at the time of energy release. Only downsides are it is more difficult to store as of now? How is it different from liquid natural gas tanks that are already widely used? I've never heard of any car exploding because of gas. What is the problem with hydrogen then?
- neon_electro 12y ago
  > * No charging stations (infrastructure problem) Pardon me if I don't understand your point there, but you can't really say there aren't charging stations available, can you? I can agree that bringing electric car charging infrastructure to par with gas refueling infrastructure is still a challenge.
- xionon 12y ago
  Gasoline is not actually explosive - the fumes are flammable, but not the liquid itself. Hydrogen is much more flammable, and will ignite from a much smaller spark than gasoline will. Cars catch fire in accidents all the time, it's not that hart to imagine that the problem might get worse if we switched to an even more flammable fuel.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    Compressed hydrogen would diffuse so quickly that the chance of a dangerous explosion is quite low. Fuel cell vehicles would actually be much safer than gasoline vehicles in this regard. As soon as you were in a catastrophic accident, all your hydrogen would vanish.
    - tbrownaw 12y ago
mrfusion 12y ago
Just curious. Instead of having to build a hydrogen infrastructure couldn't we use electricity to run the fuel cells in reverse to turn water into h20? I saw it at a science fair once.
- mfwarren 12y ago
  Right, so you can use electricity to make h2 at less than 100% efficiency then lay pipes all around the city to move the h2 to the stations, or build giant trucks that can transport the h2 on the roads (and pay drivers). On the other hand you can transport the electricity directly into the car using copper wires that are already in place
  - mrfusion 12y ago
    No, I mean connect your fuel cell car to a hose, and an electrical outlet at the end of the day, and run the fuel cell in reverse to regenerate the H2. I saw it in a science fair, they could switch directions of the fuel cell to go either way.

24 points by jbae29 12y ago

First we got to hear the ICE proponents spreading FUD about Electric Vehicles, now we'll get to hear Electric Vehicle proponents spreading FUD about fuel cells.

dublinben 12y ago
Fuel cell vehicles have never made any sense. It's still being turned into electricity anyway, so it's still an electric vehicle. There happens to already be a distribution infrastructure for electricity almost everywhere. The same can't be said for hydrogen. According to the US Department of Energy, there are eleven public hydrogen stations in the US, almost all in Los Angeles. There are more compressed natural gas stations in my state alone.
- jimmyjazz14 12y ago
  I think the real question to me is about how much energy can be stored in a fuel cell vs the current available batteries.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    The upcoming models will have the same ~200-250 mile range as the Tesla Model S.
- protomyth 12y ago
  "Fuel cell vehicles have never made any sense." They have in the sense that I go to a station and fill up then leave in a reasonable amount of time. I don't have to alter my driving habits from the last 50+ years.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    You go to what station? The one a thousand miles away in California? With an EV, you can "fill up" in your own garage every night, or even while parked at work.
    - protomyth 12y ago
      Actually, I live in an apartment so no plug there[1] and certainly none at work. If Toyota goes hydrogen, there will be stations. They can push the tech just as well as Tesla is pushing recharge stations. 1) which actually sucks quite badly in winter since I have nowhere to plug in a head bolt heater.
    - threeseed 12y ago
      > With an EV, you can "fill up" in your own garage every night, or even while parked at work. Which requires changes around the world to parking lots, apartments, homes etc. Most places don't have a power socket for each car space.
  - outworlder 12y ago
    Have you used a vehicle powered by natural gas? I have. For safety reasons, in many places you have to get out of the vehicle while it is being refuelled (the cylinder gets really hot!). And that is a change from your 50+ years driving habit. It also takes longer than a comparable gas pump (even if it is measured in single digit minutes). The gas gauge also reads differently (my guess is due to pressure decreases as gas is consumed). You can't really expect to radically change tech and have the entire experience be the same. Not to mention that the only thing preventing one from filling up a tank the way they do with gasoline is battery technology. If they are improved (graphene capacitors?), almost nothing needs to change in the grid. [EDIT: I am comparing the hydrogen gas stations (which are so rare that might not even exist) to the experience of refilling a compressed natural gas vehicle. It is the closest real world parallel I can think of.]
    - eshvk 12y ago
      > Have you used a vehicle powered by natural gas? I have. For safety reasons, in many places you have to get out of the vehicle while it is being refuelled (the cylinder gets really hot!). And that is a change from your 50+ years driving habit. It also takes longer than a comparable gas pump (even if it is measured in single digit minutes). The gas gauge also reads differently (my guess is due to pressure decreases as gas is consumed). In India, people convert their gasoline based cars to use gas cylinders. The replacement is infrequent and doesn't need to happen as often as much as filling up gasoline.
- eshvk 12y ago
  > Fuel cell vehicles have never made any sense. The only reason for me to get an Electric Vehicle is the green factor. If instead of my car polluting the environment, there is an increase in say coal factories, not sure how that helps the environment. So there is a need for fuel cells.
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    Electric vehicles are more efficient well to wheel than gas engines, even if powered by coal plants. Do you want to manage the emissions from one generation source? Or 100K? Also, as the electrical grid becomes more clean, EVs become cleaner. Not so with ICE vehicles.
    - stonemetal 12y ago
      Actually a study from 2012 shows battery backed EVs getting 34 mpg "on the nation’s dirtiest grid". A good diesel can do much better than that. It isn't so cut and dried as you make it sound.
      - toomuchtodo 12y ago
        The share of wind and solar increases every year: http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_5.pdf http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec7_5.pdf A diesel vehicle has a service life of at least 200K miles; assuming 12K/miles a year, you're looking at ~16 years of burning petrol. How much cleaner is the electric grid going to be over the next 16 years as coal plants are shut down due to being unable to meet new emissions guidelines? Electric vehicles future proof the energy required for mobility.
  - stonemetal 12y ago
    >According to the 2010 California Low Carbon Fuel Standard Final Regulation Order, fuel-cell cars have an average lifetime greenhouse gas emissions rate of 61.83 grams of carbon dioxide per megajoule. This is for hydrogen produced through the popular natural gas reforming process. Electricity, on the other hand, was determined to have average lifetime greenhouse gas emissions of 41.37g/mj. http://ecomento.com/guide/hydrogen-fuel-cell-vs-battery-electric-cars-greener/ http://ecomento.com/guide/hydrogen-fuel-cell-vs-battery-elec... Currently fuel cell backed EVs produce ~50% more greenhouse gas emissions than battery backed EVs. If you are going for green factor take the batteries.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  You can even put a small natural gas compressor in your garage (of course it only makes sense if gas is available). http://www.cngnow.com/vehicles/refueling/Pages/refueling-at-home.aspx http://www.cngnow.com/vehicles/refueling/Pages/refueling-at-...
  - dublinben 12y ago
    Doing some quick math, it would cost ~$14 in natural gas (plus some electricity) to fill up a CNG Honda Civic at home. The same car would cost ~$16 to fill up at a CNG station. Tesla claims that it costs less than $10 for a similar 250 miles of range in the Model S. By comparison, it would cost at least $27 to fill up a Civic with gasoline to go the same distance.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  You can have on-site production at the gas station though, which you can't currently do with natural gas or petrol, so rolling out pipes may be unnecessary.
- threeseed 12y ago
  > There happens to already be a distribution infrastructure for electricity almost everywhere. Of course "everywhere" means just the US. Some people really need to wake up and realise that there are nearly 200 countries in the world. Most of which Toyota sells in and Tesla doesn't. It really isn't appropriate to judge the success of a technology based on the available infrastructure for quite a while yet.

protomyth 12y ago

I would love to hear what the tipping point was for fuel cells. I suspect Toyota doesn't believe that battery technology will get the point that recharging gets close to normal gas station stops where hydrogen might. Last I heard Hydrogen was still problematic in winter cold just like batteries.

revelation 12y ago

The RAV4 ev is a pure compliance car. It's only sold in California, it's a 3rd party drivetrain and battery bolted onto the frame for a gas guzzler SUV. So of course it's a terrible product. The only thing it excels at is getting Toyota enough ZEV credits. They recently changed the credit scheme, so now Toyota is switching to that: http://insideevs.com/carb-zev-program-changes-tesla-takes-largest-hit/ http://insideevs.com/carb-zev-program-changes-tesla-takes-la...

sliverstorm 12y ago
the frame for a gas guzzler SUV 31mpg highway is what counts for gas guzzler these days?
makomk 12y ago
Interesting - if I'm reading that correctly, Tesla's battery-swap technology substantially boosted the amount of ZEV credits they obtained and could resell by allowing them to claim "fast recharging", despite the facilities to actually swap batteries never actually being available to customers.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  Correct. The vehicle only needs to be able to swap, without the need to deploy the expensive ($~500K/each) battery swap stations.
- revelation 12y ago
  Yes, but to get the extra credits they only had to demonstrate battery swap with a bunch of technicians. The large automated demo they did later on wasn't for the ZEV credits.

_Adam 12y ago

This is really surprising. What are they thinking? Hydrogen fuel cells STILL have not been proven to be a viable power source for cars. Electricity has been validated time and time again - even before Tesla, there was the EV1. And now the technology is really starting to scale in production volume and performance, along with the infrastructure. Even if they can make a hydrogen vehicle with equal, or even slightly greater performance than an electric of the same cost, then they still need to solve the problem of the hydrogen infrastructure. That's really hard. You can generate it on site, but the equipment to do so is expensive and complex. I think Toyota just doesn't want to compete with Tesla.

threeseed 12y ago
> I think Toyota just doesn't want to compete with Tesla. Yes. I am sure Toyota is just terrified by a company that is haemorrhaging money and only sells in a few countries.
- outworlder 12y ago
  Is it? Source?
  - greglindahl 12y ago
    Just like politics, you can read anything you want into Tesla's financials. They make a 25% margin building cars, which is excellent. They are a small car company expanding their factory and designing a new model, which means they lose money.
cgh 12y ago
Forgive me if I misread your post, but hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles as discussed in the article run on electricity. So when you say "electricity has been validated", you really mean batteries as used in Teslas have been validated, correct? Or are you referring to hydrogen internal combustion engines? I don't think those are in development at Toyota but maybe I'm wrong.

NorthGuy1 12y ago

Honda has been saying the same thing for years and has yet to produce a product. It's cool tech but right now it's just vapourware.

wil421 12y ago

Electric cars IMHO are missing the point, which is to get off fossil fuels. When you switch to an electric vehicle you are just shifting from Gas to Coal. The US still relies heavily on fossil fuels to power the grid. My question has always been: Does shifting from gas to depending on the electrical grid actually help? Or are we just smoking cigars (or e-cigs) instead of cigarettes? Also, what is the downside to collecting Hydrogen?

hueyp 12y ago
Hydrogen is no different then what you spell out as downsides for electric vehicles. The best source of hydrogen is natural gas. In order to get hydrogen from non-fossil fuel sources you need cheap non-fossil fuel electricity. If you have that ... whats the problem with electric cars again?
outworlder 12y ago
> Electric cars IMHO are missing the point, which is to get off fossil fuels. When you switch to an electric vehicle you are just shifting from Gas to Coal. The US still relies heavily on fossil fuels to power the grid. Yes, because the whole world has the same reliance on fossil fuels as the US. Homework: what's quicker to replace? A few power stations, or the whole vehicle fleet? Also notice that electric engines are way more efficient than gas engines. > My question has always been: Does shifting from gas to depending on the electrical grid actually help? Or are we just smoking cigars (or e-cigs) instead of cigarettes? Long or short term? Electrical vehicles do not care where the power comes from. If you are that worried, power your EV yourself at home with solar/wind/whatever power. > Also, what is the downside to collecting Hydrogen? If it is from fossil fuels, it is kinda obvious. It is apparently possible to sequester CO2 from the process of extracting hydrogen from natural gas, but I have no idea if it is even required by regulations, or economically viable. If it is from water electrolysis, then you'll be using the same fossil fuel power plants to split water. Do not forget that electric cars have WAY less parts (the simplest conceptual car is a battery and engine) and require much less environmentally unfriendly stuff, such as lubricants, additives, etc.
- wil421 12y ago

outworlder 12y ago

So, instead of using the ubiquitous power grid, we'll need: - Hydrogen "manufacturing". Guess where most of it come from? Fossil fuels. If you use water, you require a lot of energy input. Actually, in either case you need energy input, so hydrogen is more like a battery, not an energy source. - Hydrogen distribution/storage. At the refinery, between that and the 'gas' stations, etc. Not all containers are suitable for that (hydrogen is quite difficult to store) and no matter if liquid or gas, the tanks need to be much bigger than a comparable gasoline tank (by energy). - Actually using the hydrogen. You are using fuel cells to generate electricity, which will power electric engines. Why not skip the middle man? You are using a much more complicated battery, really. And that just to make the 'charging' faster? How long would it take to cover a country the size of the US with hydrogen stations? I'd put all that infrastructure money on battery research. This is just Toyota giving up on EVs completely. They just don't want to say it outright. Green companies and all that.

sliverstorm 12y ago
What about range? Hydrogen might be less energy dense than gasoline, but what about compared to batteries? Range is the #1 crippling factor for EVs to most people I talk to.
- dublinben 12y ago
  Most hydrogen vehicles (of which there aren't really any you can buy) have the same 200-250 mile range of a Model S.
- outworlder 12y ago
  Range is a valid concern, but hydrogen has poor energy density per volume (if compressed). If you want compact hydrogen, hydrocarbons are your best bet.
  - drited 12y ago
    Hydrogen is better than batteries in this respect though, so when comparing zero emission options it still appears to be a good bet for Toyota, if it can be implemented on a large scale.

cLeEOGPw 12y ago

Electric car with battery pros: * Can deliver full power instantly * Does not produce CO2 at time of energy release (clean cities) * Lesser moving parts Electric car with battery cons: * Range too small with current designs * No charging stations (infrastructure problem) * Battery needs to be replaced every several years * Requires lithium, which reserves are very limited on earth * Carbon tube based battery doesn't seem to be reality any time soon Hydrogen on the other hand doesn't require any rare elements and also doesn't pollute environment at the time of energy release. Only downsides are it is more difficult to store as of now? How is it different from liquid natural gas tanks that are already widely used? I've never heard of any car exploding because of gas. What is the problem with hydrogen then?

neon_electro 12y ago
> * No charging stations (infrastructure problem) Pardon me if I don't understand your point there, but you can't really say there aren't charging stations available, can you? I can agree that bringing electric car charging infrastructure to par with gas refueling infrastructure is still a challenge.
xionon 12y ago
Gasoline is not actually explosive - the fumes are flammable, but not the liquid itself. Hydrogen is much more flammable, and will ignite from a much smaller spark than gasoline will. Cars catch fire in accidents all the time, it's not that hart to imagine that the problem might get worse if we switched to an even more flammable fuel.
- dublinben 12y ago
  Compressed hydrogen would diffuse so quickly that the chance of a dangerous explosion is quite low. Fuel cell vehicles would actually be much safer than gasoline vehicles in this regard. As soon as you were in a catastrophic accident, all your hydrogen would vanish.
  - tbrownaw 12y ago

mrfusion 12y ago

Just curious. Instead of having to build a hydrogen infrastructure couldn't we use electricity to run the fuel cells in reverse to turn water into h20? I saw it at a science fair once.

mfwarren 12y ago
Right, so you can use electricity to make h2 at less than 100% efficiency then lay pipes all around the city to move the h2 to the stations, or build giant trucks that can transport the h2 on the roads (and pay drivers). On the other hand you can transport the electricity directly into the car using copper wires that are already in place
- mrfusion 12y ago
  No, I mean connect your fuel cell car to a hose, and an electrical outlet at the end of the day, and run the fuel cell in reverse to regenerate the H2. I saw it in a science fair, they could switch directions of the fuel cell to go either way.