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It's strange to me that Toyota has a hydrogen fuel car in production and for sale today, but it gets almost no attention in discussions like this one. Why is th

by nihonde 10y ago

It's strange to me that Toyota has a hydrogen fuel car in production and for sale today, but it gets almost no attention in discussions like this one. Why is that? Are the CO2 effects of liquid hydrogen extraction a barrier? Or maybe the need to establish a network of hydrogen fuel delivery?

RangerScience 10y ago
Knowing nothing, my bets would be: 1) There is nothing sexy about the car. Tesla cars aren't just electric cars - they're also fantastic cars. Tesla makes a great (amazing?) car that is electric, rather than a an electric that may be a great car. 2) Yep, fueling infrastructure. You can charge your electric cars at home, at the office; the supercharger and battery swap stations; that Tesla (AFAIK?) charges your car for free... Where do you need to go to get hydrogen fuel? There's also an analysis - maybe in the Wait, But Why? on Tesla - as to how you can't sell alternative vehicle stock from normal dealerships; it just doesn't make enough sense to the dealer, but ATM I don't remember the reasoning. Also AFAIK, Mr Musk has a good write-up on why hydrogen fuel isn't The Thing. But mostly #1, IMO.
- ajdlinux 10y ago
  My local government is doing deals to build a hydrogen electrolyser facility and car fuelling stations in my city, which is... interesting. http://www.environment.act.gov.au/energy/growth-in-the-clean-economy/hydrogen-power-coming-to-canberra http://www.environment.act.gov.au/energy/growth-in-the-clean...
greglindahl 10y ago
The fuel cell in Toyota's car is expensive enough that it's an expensive, not very nice, and not very performant car. Combine that with the inconvenience of few hydrogen filling stations, and you've got lack of interest from consumers and the press.
nl 10y ago
Hydrogen fueled cars got a lot of attention a few years ago (five? Before Tesla started shipping big numbers anyway). It was always a stupid idea. The economics don't make any sense at all.
Spooky23 10y ago
The cost like $400k. It's a neat technology demonstrator, but little more.
henrikschroder 10y ago
The economics just doesn't work out, and will never work out. If you extract hydrogen from hydrocarbon, you're still bound to fossil fuel, and you have to build a hydrogen infrastructure. If you do centralized electrolysis, you still need renewable energy to not be bound to fossil fuel, and you have to build a hydrogen infrastructure. If you do decentralized electrolysis, i.e. you plug in your hydrogen car to charge it, you essentially have a battery that is slower, more expensive, and shittier than existing Li-ion batteries. We have the infrastructure for electric cars already, they're more efficient than hydrogen cars, and they're cheaper to produce so why bother? It's extremely unlikely that the underlying economics and energy fundamentals will change, but if Toyota wants to dump billions into research - fine, I'm not going to stop them.
- nihonde 10y ago
  I'm still not convinced. At the end of the day, liquid hydrogen is a better energy store than any existing battery tech. All the issues you listed are the same for electric cars--reliance on fossil fuels, need to build infrastructure, etc. You also ignored the fact that filling a tank is more convenient and faster than charging a battery. Or that batteries have a limited lifespan. If the economics don't work, why would the leading automaker that originates from an island without domestic fossil fuels bet on it?
  - henrikschroder 10y ago
    You have to do the full systems analysis, you can't just look at the numbers of liquid hydrogen in isolation. You get less mileage/kWh from a system that consumes electricity and fills up fuel cell tanks, than a system that consumes electricity and charges on-board Li-ion batteries. Filling a tank is absolutely convenient, but gasoline is safe at room temperature and normal atmospheric pressure. Liquid hydrogen isn't. And there's almost no hydrogen infrastructure in place. We have a lot of infrastructure for charging electric cars already, and charging stations are being built at a rapid pace to satisfy actual demand. Toyota is spending a ton of Other People's Money on an interesting research project. The government of Japan is perfectly free to subsidize that if they feel like it, and I'm sure we'll get something useful and interesting out of it at the end, but fuel-cell cars are just not going to beat electric ones.

by nihonde 10y ago

RangerScience 10y ago

Knowing nothing, my bets would be: 1) There is nothing sexy about the car. Tesla cars aren't just electric cars - they're also fantastic cars. Tesla makes a great (amazing?) car that is electric, rather than a an electric that may be a great car. 2) Yep, fueling infrastructure. You can charge your electric cars at home, at the office; the supercharger and battery swap stations; that Tesla (AFAIK?) charges your car for free... Where do you need to go to get hydrogen fuel? There's also an analysis - maybe in the Wait, But Why? on Tesla - as to how you can't sell alternative vehicle stock from normal dealerships; it just doesn't make enough sense to the dealer, but ATM I don't remember the reasoning. Also AFAIK, Mr Musk has a good write-up on why hydrogen fuel isn't The Thing. But mostly #1, IMO.

ajdlinux 10y ago
My local government is doing deals to build a hydrogen electrolyser facility and car fuelling stations in my city, which is... interesting. http://www.environment.act.gov.au/energy/growth-in-the-clean-economy/hydrogen-power-coming-to-canberra http://www.environment.act.gov.au/energy/growth-in-the-clean...

greglindahl 10y ago

The fuel cell in Toyota's car is expensive enough that it's an expensive, not very nice, and not very performant car. Combine that with the inconvenience of few hydrogen filling stations, and you've got lack of interest from consumers and the press.

nl 10y ago

Hydrogen fueled cars got a lot of attention a few years ago (five? Before Tesla started shipping big numbers anyway). It was always a stupid idea. The economics don't make any sense at all.

Spooky23 10y ago

The cost like $400k. It's a neat technology demonstrator, but little more.

henrikschroder 10y ago

The economics just doesn't work out, and will never work out. If you extract hydrogen from hydrocarbon, you're still bound to fossil fuel, and you have to build a hydrogen infrastructure. If you do centralized electrolysis, you still need renewable energy to not be bound to fossil fuel, and you have to build a hydrogen infrastructure. If you do decentralized electrolysis, i.e. you plug in your hydrogen car to charge it, you essentially have a battery that is slower, more expensive, and shittier than existing Li-ion batteries. We have the infrastructure for electric cars already, they're more efficient than hydrogen cars, and they're cheaper to produce so why bother? It's extremely unlikely that the underlying economics and energy fundamentals will change, but if Toyota wants to dump billions into research - fine, I'm not going to stop them.

nihonde 10y ago
I'm still not convinced. At the end of the day, liquid hydrogen is a better energy store than any existing battery tech. All the issues you listed are the same for electric cars--reliance on fossil fuels, need to build infrastructure, etc. You also ignored the fact that filling a tank is more convenient and faster than charging a battery. Or that batteries have a limited lifespan. If the economics don't work, why would the leading automaker that originates from an island without domestic fossil fuels bet on it?
- henrikschroder 10y ago
  You have to do the full systems analysis, you can't just look at the numbers of liquid hydrogen in isolation. You get less mileage/kWh from a system that consumes electricity and fills up fuel cell tanks, than a system that consumes electricity and charges on-board Li-ion batteries. Filling a tank is absolutely convenient, but gasoline is safe at room temperature and normal atmospheric pressure. Liquid hydrogen isn't. And there's almost no hydrogen infrastructure in place. We have a lot of infrastructure for charging electric cars already, and charging stations are being built at a rapid pace to satisfy actual demand. Toyota is spending a ton of Other People's Money on an interesting research project. The government of Japan is perfectly free to subsidize that if they feel like it, and I'm sure we'll get something useful and interesting out of it at the end, but fuel-cell cars are just not going to beat electric ones.