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I would imagine somebody has floated this idea before, but I wonder if the distraction of hydrogen rather than electric cars was a ploy by Japanese automakers t
by xt00 4y ago
I would imagine somebody has floated this idea before, but I wonder if the distraction of hydrogen rather than electric cars was a ploy by Japanese automakers to give them time to build up the cars / supply chain etc to switch to electric. Typically cars (at least in the US) take around 4-5 years of development to get to market, so rather than assuming the Japanese policy makers just made a dumb decision, it could be that they wanted to wait until domestic electric cars were widely available before pushing heavily on the transition.
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoI’m not sure I understand this. If you want to build up electric cars you invest in building electric cars. Investing in some other third technology does not get you to electric cars faster.
- exac 4y agoI think he means that they are intentionally trying to get the government to push hydrogen for the next few years while they are secretly working on electric cars. If the government focuses on electric and spends money building electrical infrastructure, the domestic automakers stand to lose a lot of ground to foreign companies that have already developed electric technology. They don't want a repeat of Tesla installing a supercharger network and controlling the infrastructure.
- SantalBlush 4y agoThere's no need for that, the government can just give its domestic car industry special treatment; that's pretty common in a lot of countries and industries.
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoPerhaps they are saying this but it still does not make sense to me. Nissan is a Japanese company and has been selling popular EVs since 2011. Japan built out a network of chademo chargers. I just don’t see how focusing on a bad technology could actually be a secret way to invest in EVs. Openly investing in EVs seems like the best way to do that. It just sounds like Occam’s Razor applies here: the people in charge are out of touch and made a bad call.
- kube-system 4y agoToyota started dumping money into hydrogen vehicle R&D more than 25 years ago. They just picked the wrong technology, and they’ve been advocating for their horse in the race ever since.
- ryao 4y agoIt was not just Toyota. GM made headlines with their Hy-Wire concept car. At some point after that, I learned to stop listening to whatever these companies said about the future of automobiles.
- acdha 4y agoThe difference is that GM wasn’t all-in on one technology. The Hy-Wire was over a decade after GM’s first EV concept and half a decade after their first production EV. Those were held back by battery technology but they got plenty of experience to prepare for their successful current generation. Toyota seems to be missing that second step: where’s the follow up to the Prius which forgoes the cost of the gas engine for people who don’t need extreme range?
- ClumsyPilot 4y agohydrogen has no use for personal cars, mayhe heavy industry or similar makes sence
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]