Toyota mass produced hydrogen fuel cell car
Toyota mass produced hydrogen fuel cell car
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Terminator X

Original Poster:

19,369 posts

226 months

Tuesday 4th February 2020
quotequote all
https://www.toyota.co.uk/new-cars/new-mirai/meet-m...

It seems EV may not be the Holy Grail as alluded to by many in this section?

TX.

Daaaveee

915 posts

245 months

Tuesday 4th February 2020
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Tell that to the ex-Mirai owners in Norway...

kambites

70,502 posts

243 months

Tuesday 4th February 2020
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Can't see it ever selling in big enough volumes for the infrastructure to become viable, personally.

budgie smuggler

5,919 posts

181 months

Tuesday 4th February 2020
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Good to see someone doing something different, however aside from range hydrogen seems like the worst of all worlds.

Still need to go to a station to refuel it.
Need to carry batteries as well as the hydrogen tank if you want braking regen.
The process of making hydrogen is relatively inefficient.
There is barely any infrastructure for it.

I would think it would be a good option for commercial vehicles though that can't afford hours of down time to recharge.

jjwilde

1,904 posts

118 months

Tuesday 4th February 2020
quotequote all
Absolute dead end tech.

Just look at the state of the California owners group. These cars are awful and everything about them is worse than EVs.

Dave Hedgehog

15,703 posts

226 months

Tuesday 4th February 2020
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50% more expensive than a BEV

poor performance

fuelling costs as much if not more than fossil fuel, almost none existent fuelling infrastructure

higher running costs than a BEV

98% of hydrogen comes from steam reforming fossil gas and uses 3 times the amount of electrical energy that you get in hydrogen

far more dangerous than fossil fuel or battery storage


it is literally better to run a diesel


there will be a future for it but you need very large amounts of surplus green energy and huge scale water cracking to make the hydrogen green, maybe 10-15 years but by which time BEVs should have more than doubled the energy density of batteries and the cost will be under $50 a KWh

https://www.electrive.com/2019/06/11/norway-explos...



Edited by Dave Hedgehog on Tuesday 4th February 17:13

otolith

64,970 posts

226 months

Tuesday 4th February 2020
quotequote all
Terminator X said:
https://www.toyota.co.uk/new-cars/new-mirai/meet-m...

It seems EV may not be the Holy Grail as alluded to by many in this section?
A hydrogen fuel cell car is an EV.

Just not one you can charge at home. Or hardly anywhere else for that matter. And a really slow one. And a really energy inefficient one, which makes it a less green one.

The only thing going for it is that you stick a nozzle in it to recharge it.

Is it a Freudian thing? Or a love of standing in the cold?

tamore

9,389 posts

306 months

Tuesday 4th February 2020
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hydrogen will move big stuff around in the future. personal transport will be bev until something not yet considered turns up.

Murph7355

40,832 posts

278 months

Thursday 6th February 2020
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jjwilde said:
Absolute dead end tech.

Just look at the state of the California owners group. These cars are awful and everything about them is worse than EVs.
Wasn't similar grumbling done about battery powered cars at the start?

coetzeeh

2,872 posts

258 months

Thursday 6th February 2020
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Toyota are a bunch of muppets.

scottydoesntknow

860 posts

79 months

Thursday 6th February 2020
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Hydrogen is a dead duck touted by people who can’t accept that BEV is the future.

jjwilde

1,904 posts

118 months

Thursday 6th February 2020
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Murph7355 said:
Wasn't similar grumbling done about battery powered cars at the start?
No. Or rather not in the same way. It's basic physics.

Hydrogen is a crappy old tech which is still alive like a zombie because BP, Shell etc. like the idea of selling it and replacing petrol with it but it's far far worse than EV tech in every way.

The good news is that pretty much everyone now accepts that and it's going away quickly, Toyota sank billions in to it and have to show something for it, we've seen it, it's trash and it's time to move on.

EV tech on the other hand is a viable exciting area which can only get better and better.

There are numerous articles explaining this in far more depth, if you do some reading up on it you will see the vast advantages of EVs over Hydrogen.

Terminator X

Original Poster:

19,369 posts

226 months

Thursday 6th February 2020
quotequote all
scottydoesntknow said:
Hydrogen is a dead duck touted by people who can’t accept that BEV is the future.
Demand though surely as otherwise why are they mass producing them? Edit - just seen JJ's points above.

Frosty reception in here, thought you guys were open to change rofl

TX.

kambites

70,502 posts

243 months

Thursday 6th February 2020
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I don't think the demand is there though. It certainly isn't in the UK, where would you refuel it?

Of course the demand for EVs arguably isn't really there yet either, but it certainly seems closer than the demand for HFCEVs.

dapprman

2,698 posts

289 months

Thursday 6th February 2020
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Love the way the EV fanbois always jump on hydrogen.

Fact - hydrogen powered cars are the big push and considered the future in both Japan and South Korea. Hydrogen is produced at the local stations, not transported from refining/processing centres. A few years back when Samurai Wheels test drove the Mirai just after launch it was mooted there would be 200+ hydrogen filling stations round Japan by the time of the Olympics. Also the hydrogen quality does not have to be 100%

On performance - not sure why it's meant to be bad - perhaps compared to a high end EVs but Samurai Wheels found the performance to be decent - on par or better than a Toyota Prius (think the Mirai, Honda Clarity and Kia ?? all have a 0-60 in ~9.5-10 seconds).

Chozza

808 posts

174 months

Thursday 6th February 2020
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The problem with Hydrogen produced at local fuel stations is .. how much can you can produce and pressurise.

Of course you could always produce it from natural gas .. but that might be missing the point


Chris-S

282 posts

110 months

Thursday 6th February 2020
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I think the biggest ‘pro’ of hydrogen is the energy density compared to BEV. Haven’t seen any actual studies, but a wild uninformed guess leads me to think that a fuel cell is maybe less polluting to manufacture than a typical BEV battery pack? Trouble is, there are quite a lot of ‘cons’ as well. The basic chemistry of generating hydrogen, assuming you do it via electrolysis and not cracking gas, makes for a very inefficient use of the energy - way worse than say charging a battery. As for using the fossil fuel derived option, just plain daft. Scaling up the generation is going to be a challenge ( not saying it can’t be done). Storage and distribution is another issue, again, do-able, but not cheap.

Must say I was genuinely surprised to see Hydrogen listed as a permitted fuel for new car sales post 2035 in the UK though. Oil lobby at work?

98elise

31,208 posts

183 months

Thursday 6th February 2020
quotequote all
dapprman said:
Love the way the EV fanbois always jump on hydrogen.

Fact - hydrogen powered cars are the big push and considered the future in both Japan and South Korea. Hydrogen is produced at the local stations, not transported from refining/processing centres. A few years back when Samurai Wheels test drove the Mirai just after launch it was mooted there would be 200+ hydrogen filling stations round Japan by the time of the Olympics. Also the hydrogen quality does not have to be 100%

On performance - not sure why it's meant to be bad - perhaps compared to a high end EVs but Samurai Wheels found the performance to be decent - on par or better than a Toyota Prius (think the Mirai, Honda Clarity and Kia ?? all have a 0-60 in ~9.5-10 seconds).
Hydrogen cars are EV's, the difference it the energy store. Hydrogens problems are physics and economics rather than opinion.

Relatively speaking investment in hydrogen is tiny, even against BEV. It's a dead duck.



otolith

64,970 posts

226 months

Thursday 6th February 2020
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It’s not a matter of fanboyism, it’s just that hydrogen is a really awful solution.

It’s an EV, but people who hate EVs seem to love it because James May once said it was the future.

It’s an EV but you can’t charge it at home, only at a (rare) H2 filling station.

It’s an EV, but it’s not green or cheap to run because it’s really energy inefficient

It’s an EV but it’s not quick like a Tesla because it doesn’t have a big battery and can’t react hydrogen fast enough. It does have a hybrid sized battery though which brings me on to...

It has a battery containing toxic cadmium, or lithium which is apparently an environmental disaster when used in a battery EV and cobalt which is mined by child slaves for Teslas, and into the bargain the fuel cell stack contains platinum so it gets in on the human rights abuses of mining that for catalytic converters.

It’s the worst aspects of BEV and ICE rolled up, it’s bizarre that people think it’s the answer - unless they just see it as a way of kicking the can down the road until it becomes commercially viable.

jjwilde

1,904 posts

118 months

Thursday 6th February 2020
quotequote all
dapprman said:
Love the way the EV fanbois always jump on hydrogen.

Fact - hydrogen powered cars are the big push and considered the future in both Japan and South Korea.
No they aren't. Both countries car firms are investing far more in to EVs. No one seriously thinks hydrogen is the future any more. You may as well be saying LPG is the future.