Yeah, I'll grant that there are problems with ammonia, but I think this parallel quest to come up with synthetic fuels is a good one. A car is just one part of

Yeah, I'll grant that there are problems with ammonia, but I think this parallel quest to come up with synthetic fuels is a good one. A car is just one part of a car-fuel-road system, and if you can move complexity out of the car and into a chemical plant, that might be good -- particularly if that solves the range and recharging issues. Fuel cells are close cousins of batteries anyway. And there are even redox flow batteries that are even more intermediate. The energy density isn't high enough (these things are actually used for static energy storage, with vats the size of buildings), but imagine a "fuel station" that exchanged Vanadium in different oxidation states with a car, or that swapped some hydrocarbon that can store energy like ATP in biology. Heck, including the atmosphere in the system could be ok too (e.g., CO2 capture), so long as everything balances to zero and the thermodynamics work out (even just mixing and unmixing CO2 with oxygen and nitrogen is an expensive trip up and down in entropy though). I'm quite happy for this kind of work to continue. And like you say, people are putting big money towards running container ships on ammonia. It's sure better than bunker oil. And we're also definitely not going to use big batteries. So, good on Toyota. Somebody needs to keep exploring alternatives.