4 ms·

M not sure you can even say they missed the electric wave - the Zoe and Leaf were some of the earliest mass market electric cars

jorvi 2y ago
The Leaf 2 was and is a very good EV for its price point. Its weird how Toyota had the first mass-market PHEV with the Prius but got hyperfixated on hydrogen cars, and Nissan had one of the most successful BEVs (Leaf 2, maybe even Leaf 1) and just sort-of gave up. I vaguely remember Honda having a decent EV. I wonder what makes EVs so antithetical to Japanese car companies..
- panick21_ 2y ago
  All of Japan got obsessed with they whole 'hydrogen economy' nonsense. This was just the generally agree on 'future' of the economy. In my opinion this is complete nonsense and after decades very little has happened. Even for planes I don't think its the future. Just going one step further and making SAF is just a better plan. With hopefully more trains, and electric planes for many shorter routes.
  - rightbyte 2y ago
    At the time hydrogen was not nonsense. Good lithium batteries happened. Hydrogen is very impractical. Leaks easely and the pressure involved is scary. It is no surprise that good alternatives more or less scrapped the whole thing.
    - pfdietz 2y ago
      And expensive, which is the real killer. (Noting that this is hydrogen for vehicles; hydrogen in other applications are separate matters that should not be painted with the same broad brush.)
    - ebiester 2y ago
      There's an alternative future where some genius figured out a technical innovation for hydrogen and batteries struggle to scale. There are definite disadvantages to hydrogen in retrospect, but some of that has to do with the relative success of the engineers.
    - adolph 2y ago
      Hydrogen is also not particularly "green" without further spending for generation capacity. Currently, most hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels, specifically natural gas. Electricity—from the grid or from renewable sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, or biomass—is also currently used to produce hydrogen. In the longer term, solar energy and biomass can be used more directly to generate hydrogen. https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-resources https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-resources
      - rightbyte 2y ago
        Sure but the same is true for charging batteries.
        panick21_ 2y ago
        Going directly to batteries is far more efficent. Going from power to hydrogen is incredibly inefficent. So at least not as much energy needs to be produced.

jorvi 2y ago

The Leaf 2 was and is a very good EV for its price point. Its weird how Toyota had the first mass-market PHEV with the Prius but got hyperfixated on hydrogen cars, and Nissan had one of the most successful BEVs (Leaf 2, maybe even Leaf 1) and just sort-of gave up. I vaguely remember Honda having a decent EV. I wonder what makes EVs so antithetical to Japanese car companies..

panick21_ 2y ago
All of Japan got obsessed with they whole 'hydrogen economy' nonsense. This was just the generally agree on 'future' of the economy. In my opinion this is complete nonsense and after decades very little has happened. Even for planes I don't think its the future. Just going one step further and making SAF is just a better plan. With hopefully more trains, and electric planes for many shorter routes.
- rightbyte 2y ago
  At the time hydrogen was not nonsense. Good lithium batteries happened. Hydrogen is very impractical. Leaks easely and the pressure involved is scary. It is no surprise that good alternatives more or less scrapped the whole thing.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    And expensive, which is the real killer. (Noting that this is hydrogen for vehicles; hydrogen in other applications are separate matters that should not be painted with the same broad brush.)
  - ebiester 2y ago
    There's an alternative future where some genius figured out a technical innovation for hydrogen and batteries struggle to scale. There are definite disadvantages to hydrogen in retrospect, but some of that has to do with the relative success of the engineers.
  - adolph 2y ago
    Hydrogen is also not particularly "green" without further spending for generation capacity. Currently, most hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels, specifically natural gas. Electricity—from the grid or from renewable sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, or biomass—is also currently used to produce hydrogen. In the longer term, solar energy and biomass can be used more directly to generate hydrogen. https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-resources https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-resources
    - rightbyte 2y ago
      Sure but the same is true for charging batteries.
      - panick21_ 2y ago
        Going directly to batteries is far more efficent. Going from power to hydrogen is incredibly inefficent. So at least not as much energy needs to be produced.