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This article makes it seem as if the Toyota president came out to Elon Musks California home, and after a ride in the Roadster, suddenly saw the light and decid

This article makes it seem as if the Toyota president came out to Elon Musks California home, and after a ride in the Roadster, suddenly saw the light and decided to start producing electric cars. And just how did he decide to execute his grand electrified vision? By backporting electric propulsion onto an existing SUV platform. Yeah, this is exactly the moment where this particular piece of journalistic spin comes crashing down. The RAV4 EV was sold only in California precisely because it was a compliance car. Toyota simply decided it was cheaper to leverage their existing investment into Tesla to produce an EV on the cheap that could get them the required environmental credits so they could continue to sell their actual vehicles without having to buy the credits at a (at the time) large cost from other manufacturers. It was a simple localized business decision, not some grand strategy. Of course Musk doesn't just ridicule fuel cells, he affectionately calls them "fool cells". As someone who builds his businesses by reasoning from first principles, he justifiably doesn't understand the idea of swapping a 20% efficient (if you're very lucky) combustion engine with a 10% efficient, experimental fuel cell when you could instead use a dead simple, clean and 80%+ efficient electric motor.

dublinben 12y ago
It's not the motor that Musk is so invested in, but the mature technology of the 80%+ efficiency lithium-ion battery. A fuel cell powered car will use the same motors as any other electric car. From a non-technical perspective, the battery capacity is what sets Tesla apart from every other EV available today. Musk seems to understand that quite well.
- revelation 12y ago
  I think you're missing the point about the motor. The BMW i3 uses an electric motor for propulsion, but that doesn't mean it's suddenly 80% efficient if the electricity is coming from the internal backup combustion engine. If anything, you are now only 0.2 * 0.8 = 16% efficient [1]. What I'm interested in is the efficiency of the whole process in the car that turns the fuel into motion. In the Tesla, the electricity is stored in batteries which have few losses and goes directly into a highly efficient electric motor, so it gets that 80% overall. 1: In practice, the setup electric engine for propulsion + combustion engine for electricity tends to be somewhat more efficient than just the combustion engine for propulsion, as you can run the combustion engine at a constant, efficient range of RPM.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    I think you're focused on the motor, when that's the least important part of the equation. As you point out with the BMW i3, the source of the electricity is important. In battery mode, it is actually more efficient (27 kW-hrs/100 mi) than the Model S (35 kW-hrs/100 mi), but that's obviously not true when the range extender kicks in.
    - seanflyon 12y ago
      > I think you're focused on the motor Did you read your parent post? "What I'm interested in is the efficiency of the whole process"
Barraketh 12y ago
Sure, the motor is more efficient, but energy density of gasoline is around 50-100 times that of lithium-ion battery packs[1]. Sure, you can get around that in electric cars because of the more efficient motor and simplified car design. You can remove a bunch of conventional car parts and replace the weight with batteries. Still, I don't think you can dismiss outright research into fuel cells, which promise to be much more energy dense than batteries. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density
- revelation 12y ago
  There was a saying that recently featured on HN: “A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of y-intercept” So, sure, right now, the energy density of gasoline makes terribly inefficient combustion engines practical. But their energy density isn't going up (while lithium batteries are improving and coming down in price), certainly gasoline isn't going to get cheaper, and as for the combustion engine, well thats pretty played out after 100 years of trying to improve it.
  - stcredzero 12y ago
    But there is probably a hard ceiling to the efficiency of safe and cost effective Li-ion batteries. We can't be entirely sure because we don't fully understand how Li-ion batteries work, but my best layman's educated guess is that those are close to tapped out as well. The strength of the battery+motor electric drivetrain is that it's modular. Come up with another energy storage method, build it into a power pack, then plug it right into existing Tesla S cars, get the over the air software update, and you're back in business. There's also all of that frunk space.
    - seanflyon 12y ago
      Obviously batteries will not surpass 100% efficiency and are already reasonably close to that so yes, batteries are nearing a hard limit on efficiency. Energy density on the other hand is no where near its theoretical limits.
rayiner 12y ago
> As someone who builds his businesses by reasoning from first principles, he justifiably doesn't understand the idea of swapping a 20% efficient (if you're very lucky) combustion engine with a 10% efficient, experimental fuel cell when you could instead use a dead simple, clean and 80%+ efficient electric motor. You're comparing apples and oranges. That electricity isn't generated via a particularly efficient mechanism after all.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  Can you explain how power generated for electrolysis is more efficient than that used to directly charge electric vehicles? Unless you're talking about converting natural gas or coal directly to hydrogen, which is just as asinine.
- Aqueous 12y ago
  Combustion engines (and cells) are for the most part less efficient than our least efficient power generation plants combined with the grid.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    That may be so, but that doesn't mean that the string of numbers he rattled off should be compared to each other.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- revelation 12y ago
  Sure, I mean this is where it gets complicated and subjective. If we consider a solar cell with top of the line 15% efficiency and use that to charge our electric car, of course the overall efficiency takes a sharp drop. But I don't think it is useful to include the efficiency of the solar cell in the calculation here. After all, the 85% that the solar cell couldn't convert into electricity aren't useable by any other way known to man either; the loss is neither here nor there because we can't do better utilizing the sun than with current gen solar panels. If you consider, however, that oil refineries consume significant amounts of electricity (from the grid, no electricity equivalents here) to refine oil into something our cars can use, that is certainly a factor we need to include in the efficiency calculation for gasoline powered cars. That electricity could have been used to power an electric car, after all, so there was an actual loss here.
rayiner 12y ago
> Of course Musk doesn't just ridicule fuel cells, he affectionately calls them "fool cells". As someone who builds his businesses by reasoning from first principles... That's almost an ironic statement, given that his whole game-plan with Tesla and SpaceX has been aggressively commercializing extremely efficient implementations of proven, well-understood technologies. I love Elon Musk, but there's an additional wrinkle here. Fuel cells are much further from commercialization than lithium ion, and needs a lot more basic R&D, and Tesla doesn't have the time or resources to go down that road. Toyota does. This is not to say whose approach is right, but rather that there is a lot more in play than "first principles."
- vampirechicken 12y ago
  It's a time-honored tradion in business: ridicule and marginalize the things that you d not do or that compete directly with you - until you so them. Examples: Apple: Nobody wants native apps, theywant the mobile web. Oracle: You don't need row locks (row level locking appears in Oracle 7, as a premium add-on called the Transaction Processing Option).
- Hytosys 12y ago
  I would hope Musk's position is rooted in the knowledge that we need to get off of fossil fuels in a few decades or we're done. If hydrogen as a non-thrust fuel has any use, it has so much research ahead of it; there isn't enough time for that. This is mainly driven home by the idea that hydrogen is very much in abundance in the universe, but here on earth it really only exists as hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are a tricky thing to exploit without contributing to global warming.
  - hollerith 12y ago
    >hydrogen is very much in abundance in the universe, but here on earth it really only exists as hydrocarbons. Uh, water?
    - Hytosys 12y ago
      Sorry, I should have mentioned water. But that bond is very strong, and the methods of breaking it are thus very poor. Another compound worth mentioning is ammonia. A lot of the current hydrogen harvesting research revolves around ammonia. Unfortunately, ammonia is very scarce in nature and certainly soon exhaustible as a global fuel.
jasonmclaren 12y ago
Wikipedia says that in practice, fuel cells are 40-60% energy efficient, compared to 25% for a typical internal combustion engine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#Theoretical_maximum_efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#Theoretical_maximum_... Comparing tank-to-wheel efficiency of the whole vehicle, fuel-cell vehicles average 36%, compared to 22% for diesel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#In_practice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#In_practice Could you explain how you got the 10% / 20% efficiency numbers you mentioned? Your combustion numbers are in the same ballpark, but you got a much different result for fuel cells. Genuinely curious, thanks!
- akira2501 12y ago
  It's worth pointing out that those numbers are of _ideal_ RPM and ideal power draw, real world results will vary significantly.

dublinben 12y ago

It's not the motor that Musk is so invested in, but the mature technology of the 80%+ efficiency lithium-ion battery. A fuel cell powered car will use the same motors as any other electric car. From a non-technical perspective, the battery capacity is what sets Tesla apart from every other EV available today. Musk seems to understand that quite well.

revelation 12y ago
I think you're missing the point about the motor. The BMW i3 uses an electric motor for propulsion, but that doesn't mean it's suddenly 80% efficient if the electricity is coming from the internal backup combustion engine. If anything, you are now only 0.2 * 0.8 = 16% efficient [1]. What I'm interested in is the efficiency of the whole process in the car that turns the fuel into motion. In the Tesla, the electricity is stored in batteries which have few losses and goes directly into a highly efficient electric motor, so it gets that 80% overall. 1: In practice, the setup electric engine for propulsion + combustion engine for electricity tends to be somewhat more efficient than just the combustion engine for propulsion, as you can run the combustion engine at a constant, efficient range of RPM.
- dublinben 12y ago
  I think you're focused on the motor, when that's the least important part of the equation. As you point out with the BMW i3, the source of the electricity is important. In battery mode, it is actually more efficient (27 kW-hrs/100 mi) than the Model S (35 kW-hrs/100 mi), but that's obviously not true when the range extender kicks in.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    > I think you're focused on the motor Did you read your parent post? "What I'm interested in is the efficiency of the whole process"

Barraketh 12y ago

Sure, the motor is more efficient, but energy density of gasoline is around 50-100 times that of lithium-ion battery packs[1]. Sure, you can get around that in electric cars because of the more efficient motor and simplified car design. You can remove a bunch of conventional car parts and replace the weight with batteries. Still, I don't think you can dismiss outright research into fuel cells, which promise to be much more energy dense than batteries. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density

revelation 12y ago
There was a saying that recently featured on HN: “A little bit of slope makes up for a lot of y-intercept” So, sure, right now, the energy density of gasoline makes terribly inefficient combustion engines practical. But their energy density isn't going up (while lithium batteries are improving and coming down in price), certainly gasoline isn't going to get cheaper, and as for the combustion engine, well thats pretty played out after 100 years of trying to improve it.
- stcredzero 12y ago
  But there is probably a hard ceiling to the efficiency of safe and cost effective Li-ion batteries. We can't be entirely sure because we don't fully understand how Li-ion batteries work, but my best layman's educated guess is that those are close to tapped out as well. The strength of the battery+motor electric drivetrain is that it's modular. Come up with another energy storage method, build it into a power pack, then plug it right into existing Tesla S cars, get the over the air software update, and you're back in business. There's also all of that frunk space.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    Obviously batteries will not surpass 100% efficiency and are already reasonably close to that so yes, batteries are nearing a hard limit on efficiency. Energy density on the other hand is no where near its theoretical limits.

rayiner 12y ago

> As someone who builds his businesses by reasoning from first principles, he justifiably doesn't understand the idea of swapping a 20% efficient (if you're very lucky) combustion engine with a 10% efficient, experimental fuel cell when you could instead use a dead simple, clean and 80%+ efficient electric motor. You're comparing apples and oranges. That electricity isn't generated via a particularly efficient mechanism after all.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
Can you explain how power generated for electrolysis is more efficient than that used to directly charge electric vehicles? Unless you're talking about converting natural gas or coal directly to hydrogen, which is just as asinine.
Aqueous 12y ago
Combustion engines (and cells) are for the most part less efficient than our least efficient power generation plants combined with the grid.
- rayiner 12y ago
  That may be so, but that doesn't mean that the string of numbers he rattled off should be compared to each other.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
revelation 12y ago
Sure, I mean this is where it gets complicated and subjective. If we consider a solar cell with top of the line 15% efficiency and use that to charge our electric car, of course the overall efficiency takes a sharp drop. But I don't think it is useful to include the efficiency of the solar cell in the calculation here. After all, the 85% that the solar cell couldn't convert into electricity aren't useable by any other way known to man either; the loss is neither here nor there because we can't do better utilizing the sun than with current gen solar panels. If you consider, however, that oil refineries consume significant amounts of electricity (from the grid, no electricity equivalents here) to refine oil into something our cars can use, that is certainly a factor we need to include in the efficiency calculation for gasoline powered cars. That electricity could have been used to power an electric car, after all, so there was an actual loss here.

rayiner 12y ago

> Of course Musk doesn't just ridicule fuel cells, he affectionately calls them "fool cells". As someone who builds his businesses by reasoning from first principles... That's almost an ironic statement, given that his whole game-plan with Tesla and SpaceX has been aggressively commercializing extremely efficient implementations of proven, well-understood technologies. I love Elon Musk, but there's an additional wrinkle here. Fuel cells are much further from commercialization than lithium ion, and needs a lot more basic R&D, and Tesla doesn't have the time or resources to go down that road. Toyota does. This is not to say whose approach is right, but rather that there is a lot more in play than "first principles."

vampirechicken 12y ago
It's a time-honored tradion in business: ridicule and marginalize the things that you d not do or that compete directly with you - until you so them. Examples: Apple: Nobody wants native apps, theywant the mobile web. Oracle: You don't need row locks (row level locking appears in Oracle 7, as a premium add-on called the Transaction Processing Option).
Hytosys 12y ago
I would hope Musk's position is rooted in the knowledge that we need to get off of fossil fuels in a few decades or we're done. If hydrogen as a non-thrust fuel has any use, it has so much research ahead of it; there isn't enough time for that. This is mainly driven home by the idea that hydrogen is very much in abundance in the universe, but here on earth it really only exists as hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are a tricky thing to exploit without contributing to global warming.
- hollerith 12y ago
  >hydrogen is very much in abundance in the universe, but here on earth it really only exists as hydrocarbons. Uh, water?
  - Hytosys 12y ago
    Sorry, I should have mentioned water. But that bond is very strong, and the methods of breaking it are thus very poor. Another compound worth mentioning is ammonia. A lot of the current hydrogen harvesting research revolves around ammonia. Unfortunately, ammonia is very scarce in nature and certainly soon exhaustible as a global fuel.

jasonmclaren 12y ago

Wikipedia says that in practice, fuel cells are 40-60% energy efficient, compared to 25% for a typical internal combustion engine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#Theoretical_maximum_efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#Theoretical_maximum_... Comparing tank-to-wheel efficiency of the whole vehicle, fuel-cell vehicles average 36%, compared to 22% for diesel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#In_practice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#In_practice Could you explain how you got the 10% / 20% efficiency numbers you mentioned? Your combustion numbers are in the same ballpark, but you got a much different result for fuel cells. Genuinely curious, thanks!

akira2501 12y ago
It's worth pointing out that those numbers are of _ideal_ RPM and ideal power draw, real world results will vary significantly.