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Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

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Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#331
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Round trip efficiency of hydrogen is at best 50% and at worse half that. You have the horrendous efficiency of electrolysis and then the equally bad efficiency in the fuel cell. Efficiency pumping your excess solar into the EV itself is more like 80-85%, most of which is loss in the electronics, not the battery - those typically have a coulombic efficiency of over 95%. Hydrogen a boondoggle. It's not nearly as stupid…

> Round trip efficiency of hydrogen is at best 50% In fact, even this level of efficiency may be sufficient. Solar panels are so cheap that if we had affordable, long-term energy storage options, even with such efficiency, we would have completely abandoned fossil fuels. But, unfortunately, storing hydrogen is difficult and dangerous. It is not like natural gas. > It's not nearly as stupid as making ethanol from corn…

> Ethanol is produced from corn not for energy purposes, but for food security

Source? First time I read this, might make sense. Although I don't see how this corn should be unaffected by crop failure if all other corn harvests failed.

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#332
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hydrogen is such a terrible idea it was never getting off the ground. It's coming from Toyota because Toyota can't wrap its head around not making engines. Ironically, the place hydrogen might work is airplanes where the energy density of batteries doesn't work.

Biofuel makes more sense for airplanes. No conversion even necessary. You could fuel up a 737 with properly formulated biofuel and fly it now, though a lot of validation would be needed to be generally allowed especially for passenger flights. If we want easier to produce biofuels then LNG aviation makes sense. We are flying LNG rockets already. You could go ahead and design LNG planes now and they’d emit less carbon…

LNG aviation does not make any more sense than H2 aviation. Even LPG does not make any sense since you neither can haul 16 bar fuel tanks, nor can you realistically maintain temperature for 1-2atm pressure. And any leak is not 'oh. look, a kerosene stain on tarmac', it's ready-made fuel-air explosion.

On the plus side we would be able to retire airport fire engines because they would never be able to get to a crash before it completely burns out.

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#333
post #203

Kinda glad this is the case. When people go out of their way to avoid common sense they should be punished. Hydrogen is such a terrible idea it was never getting off the ground. There seems to be some kind of psychosis around it being the next oil and therefore greedy people want to get in early on. But this blinds them to the basic chemistry and physics.

People looked at how the cost of wind and solar went down and made a assumption that green hydrogen would follow. The reasoning was that the cost of green hydrogen was energy, and thus at some point green hydrogen would be too cheap to meter. The whole energy plan of central/northen Europe, especially Germany, was built for the last several decades on the idea that they would combine wind, solar and cheap natural gas…

Agreed on "green steel".

In general, "green hydrogen" makes the most sense if used as a chemical feedstock that replace natural gas in industrial processes - not to replace fossil fuels or be burned for heat.

On paper, hydrogen has good energy density, but taking advantage of that in truth is notoriously hard. And for things that demand energy dense fuels, there are many less finicky alternatives.

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#335

Kinda glad this is the case. When people go out of their way to avoid common sense they should be punished. Hydrogen is such a terrible idea it was never getting off the ground. There seems to be some kind of psychosis around it being the next oil and therefore greedy people want to get in early on. But this blinds them to the basic chemistry and physics.

Yeah, it might make sense for some industrial processes as natural gas or coal replacement, but not really anywhere else just because all the tricky leaks and invisible fire hazards.

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And more to the point, if you want to use synthetic fuels, why on earth would you pick hydrogen? Yes, it burns to clean water, but if the carbon feedstock is renewable, synthetic hydrocarbons are renewable too. The efficiency loss from doing the additional steps to build hydrocarbons is not large compared to the efficiency losses of using hydrogen, and storage can be so much easier with something denser.

I'd assume because it is complicated. Capturing enough carbon, splitting it, generating enough H2, combining it with the carbon to make long enough chains. That all sounds complicated and expensive and probably needs even more surplus green power that we don't have. It also doesn't solve the problem of local pollution when burning carbon based fuels.

Why go for long synthetic chains?

Methane has good energy density, doesn't demand cryogenics or diffuse through steel, burns very cleanly, and can be used in modified gasoline ICEs - without even sacrificing the gasoline fuel capability.

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Know what I’m sayin’. I do, and if I were you I would stop to think about your priors. You have stacked an awful lot of ideas on top of each other to build a world view that has lies, misinformation, and unsound science at the base of it. Worse, a lot of it is selfish, but in a way that only works if the entire global economy is a zero sum game. Enlightened self-interest can be right, and even noble, but only if yo…

> Republican presidents have added about $1.4 trillion per four-year term, compared to $1.2 trillion added by Democrats since 1913. That doesn’t sound right, so I spend twenty three seconds looking it up: New Report Reveals Democrats Generated 90% of Federal Debt Held by the Public since WWII - https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/2011... As of April 5, 2024, the national debt has grown by about $6…

Your last source contradicts your first (partisan) source, and also mentions:

> The national debt grew by more than $8.1 trillion during Donald Trump’s presidency, the largest four-year increase in the nation’s history.

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#338

It’s not really fair to compare depreciation against MSRP when they were being sold new at massive discounts. You could’ve gotten one of these for $40,000 off. https://www.carscoops.com/2024/02/toyota-offers-crazy-40k-di...

This is a source of a lot of similar press around EV depreciation. They compare the MSRP of an EV 3 years ago with the current used market price, ignoring that the actual price paid is often significantly less due a combination of discounts, tax credits, and rebates.

EV depreciation is a very different beast. Basically, EVs are still being sold at a higher price point than their actual cost justifies in some markets. Part of that is manufacturers being a bit behind on their cost cutting and part of that is just because the market is incentivizing selling vehicles at inflated prices.

If you strip that away, you get to more reasonable price points already getting common all over Asia, Australia, and even the EU market right now. There you might find reasonably priced new vehicles at around 25K euros or even below 20K. A few years ago, those vehicles didn't exist and ASPs were closer to 40-50K for a cheap one. So, the second hand value of those older vehicles has indeed depreciated enormously. Because they simply are not worth as much relative to the much cheaper newer generation of cars. These vehicles got obsoleted by a better and cheaper generation of cars.

With hydrogen cars, companies sell them at a loss. They always have. That's why Toyota, the biggest proponent, sells more EVs than they ever built hydrogen cars. Pretty much every quarter now.

The better/cheaper generation of hydrogen cars never materialized. And it probably never will. The hydrogen distribution network never happened either. Because as it turns out, making hydrogen is really expensive. So aside from a few heavily subsidized filling stations, the economics for those is so terrible that they tend to shut down as soon as the subsidies run out. So, that's why they are relatively worthless as a second hand car. You are better off buying a second hand EV. And since those have depreciated a lot, hydrogen cars simply aren't worth more second hand.

And since there is no realistic prospect of ever producing hydrogen cars or hydrogen at price points that can match those of EVs and electricity, hydrogen based transport is at this point dead as a door nail.

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad news, there has been a fourth great bleaching event going on since January of 23. This time 80+% of all reefs have been impacted and the consensus seems to be that its unlikely there will be any reefs left at all before too long. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/13/coral-re...

[flagged]

I like the false equivalence between reducing air pollution and not doing hate crimes against Jewish people. I haven’t asked them all individually, but I’m pretty sure my Jewish friends all enjoy breathing clean air.

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its the time shift. Burning a plant releases CO2 and it is still considered to be carbon neutral.

Sorry, that's just verbal sleight of hand. There's no such thing as "green" CO2.

Have you always had difficulty with abstraction?
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