Toyota Embraces Fuel-Cell Cars for Post-Gasoline Future
businessweek.com
Toyota Embraces Fuel-Cell Cars for Post-Gasoline Future
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Re: Toyota Embraces Fuel-Cell Cars for Post-Gasoline Future
#2"the only byproduct is water, which exits through the tailpipe"
How much water are we talking about and what effect is this going to have on a highway in the north in winter?
Re: Toyota Embraces Fuel-Cell Cars for Post-Gasoline Future
#3Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but it's very rare on earth so it has to be manufactured. So the oil companies totally would love you to switch from the oil they will sooner or later not be able to fracking get anymore to hydrogen which they can raise prices on until the day when nuclear fusion becomes something they could sell again as long as it remains expensive enough to be sellable.
Hydrogen is dumb, at 300 miles / 450kms a fuel cell I notice there is no mention of the price which is laughably much more than gasoline is today. Then they say that mileage is further than "most" electric cars. True except for the Tesla which actually 85kwh edition has at least 450kms of range. And also Hydrogen cannot be regenerated from breaking which makes it less efficient than full electric. In the future it maybe possible to charge your car with solar or wind or fart energy, but not if your Petrol Company lobbied alternative fuel car runs on a Hydrogen Fuel Cell and has the acceleration of a brick on wheels at 0-100kms in 9.6 seconds. A hummer does that in around 10.5 seconds.
Re: Toyota Embraces Fuel-Cell Cars for Post-Gasoline Future
#4"the only byproduct is water, which exits through the tailpipe" How much water are we talking about and what effect is this going to have on a highway in the north in winter?
It's in the same ballpark as the amount of water vapor that comes out of the tailpipe of an internal combustion engine.
Re: Toyota Embraces Fuel-Cell Cars for Post-Gasoline Future
#5"the only byproduct is water, which exits through the tailpipe" How much water are we talking about and what effect is this going to have on a highway in the north in winter?
Comparable to the amount of water produced by gasoline vehicles.
Re: Toyota Embraces Fuel-Cell Cars for Post-Gasoline Future
#6Good that there's serious money being sunk into alternatives to electric cars, more is always good.
But I'm seriously tired of the fact that all articles about fuel-cells enthusiastically exclaims that "it's only byproduct is water!!!!", as if hydrogen was some sort of magic alternative to hydrocarbons. It's not, it's an energy transmission medium, not an energy source.
For fuel-cell cars to work, you would need to have energy some place that consumes water and splits it into hydrogen and oxygen, releasing the oxygen into the air, and the hydrogen into containers that can then go into some sort of infrastructure such that individual cars can be filled up with it as necessary.
And if you think about the amount of gasoline infrastructure that exists, we'd have to pretty much duplicate that, or convert that, into hydrogen shipping infrastructure, which is a pretty tall order.
But for electricity, we already have the infrastructure. If you have a house, you have a place for filling up your electric car, and you have a method for paying for the energy that your car consumes, and there is a way to move the energy from wherever it is produced to your house.
So the story for electric car adoption is "You don't have to take trips to the gas station anymore!", but the story for fuel cell car adoption is "You have to take trips to a new type of gas stations that don't exist yet!". That's quite a hurdle...
Re: Toyota Embraces Fuel-Cell Cars for Post-Gasoline Future
#7Good that there's serious money being sunk into alternatives to electric cars, more is always good. But I'm seriously tired of the fact that all articles about fuel-cells enthusiastically exclaims that "it's only byproduct is water!!!!", as if hydrogen was some sort of magic alternative to hydrocarbons. It's not, it's an energy transmission medium, not an energy source. For fuel-cell cars to work, you would need to h…
The only game-changer I could see there would be if we could make some sort of in-your-home hydrolyzer, so that you just connect water and electricity to it, and it connects to your car to fill it up. That's on-par with the convenience of an electric car, if we ignore the safety issues of hydrogen gas leaks in urban neighbourhoods...
Re: Toyota Embraces Fuel-Cell Cars for Post-Gasoline Future
#8Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but it's very rare on earth so it has to be manufactured. So the oil companies totally would love you to switch from the oil they will sooner or later not be able to fracking get anymore to hydrogen which they can raise prices on until the day when nuclear fusion becomes something they could sell again as long as it remains expensive enough to be sellable. Hydrog…
The article does mention price: "While EVs take hours to recharge, the fueling cost is a fraction of the roughly $45 a hydrogen fill-up will cost."
That's more expensive than gasoline, but as of a few months ago the price difference would have only been about 30% compared to my relatively fuel-efficient Honda Fit. The gap is larger now thanks to the recently plummeting gas prices in the US, of course.
> And also Hydrogen cannot be regenerated from breaking which makes it less efficient than full electric.
As the article doesn't mention but Wikipedia does, the Mirai also has a battery and supports regenerative braking. It's basically a hybrid car that uses a fuel cell instead of a gasoline engine.
Re: Toyota Embraces Fuel-Cell Cars for Post-Gasoline Future
#9There have been two major hurdles for the development of hydrogen fuel-cell cars:
1) storing the hydrogen - hydrogen is extremely corrosive, and not very energy dense compared to gasoline
2) variable energy output - fuel cells are good at producing a steady, constant amount of power, but the power requirements of a car can be quite variable (especially for city driving)
Anyone have details on how Toyota overcame these?
Re: Toyota Embraces Fuel-Cell Cars for Post-Gasoline Future
#10Good that there's serious money being sunk into alternatives to electric cars, more is always good. But I'm seriously tired of the fact that all articles about fuel-cells enthusiastically exclaims that "it's only byproduct is water!!!!", as if hydrogen was some sort of magic alternative to hydrocarbons. It's not, it's an energy transmission medium, not an energy source. For fuel-cell cars to work, you would need to h…
> And if you think about the amount of gasoline infrastructure that exists, we'd have to pretty much duplicate that, or convert that, into hydrogen shipping infrastructure, which is a pretty tall order.
On the other hand, electrolysis can be significantly more distributed than gasoline, you don't need a limited number of refineries anymore. Hydrogen can be generated city-wise, at the station, or even (with further efficiency hit) at-home.