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Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

theguardian.com

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Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#41

Post by _hypx »

craig1f wrote: post #25
jqpabc123 wrote: post #3

Japanese firm believes it *could* make a solid-state battery... The key word here is obviously *could*. Add one more to the pile of claims and beliefs floating around that have yet to transform into viable products. I have been a Toyota fan from way back. I have owned a number of their vehicles. But in my mind, they lost a lot of technical credibility when they tried to apply political influence in a short sighted at…

Exactly this. Hydrogen is like crypto. It has just enough interesting tech to attract (using D&D terminology here) high INT, low WIS people. Hydrogen will probably never work unless someone comes up with a stable molecule that includes hydrogen, is large enough to not move through solid objects, and still retains enough chemical energy to be useful. Ammonium is one option, but it is highly toxic. Only really practica…

That's a completely ignorant statement. Hydrogen cars actually exist and work exactly as advertised. There are no fundamental challenges. This reads like one of those anti-BEV posts from a decade ago. In both cases, the author is totally oblivious to the current state of technology.

> It was never going to compete with electric. EVs have been slandered for so long that people just assumed we would come up with something better.

Hydrogen cars are EVs. This is a deep misunderstanding of the issue.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#42

Post by _hypx »

moolcool wrote: post #17
passwordoops wrote: post #6

Time for our regularly scheduled monthly battery "breakthrough" PR campaign! Does this one walk on water?

There's a cynical comment like this on every battery story, ignoring the fact that battery breakthroughs do exist, and that lithium ion energy density has ~tripled in the past decade.

> lithium ion energy density has ~tripled in the past decade.

That's actually false. It originated from a literally made-up story by Bloomberg. In reality, NCA cells have existed since the late-2000s. Effective energy density was 250 Wh/kg. We have not significantly improved on this value since then.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#43

Post by jqpabc123 »

_hypx wrote: post #37
jqpabc123 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but you're missing the point. The infrastructure needed to fully support hydrogen would take decades to develop. Starting with some way to efficiently manufacture hydrogen without using even more fossil fuels. It's the stall that they wanted --- to give them more time to milk ICE and adapt. There is no corresponding infrastructure delay for EVs which are already being adopted.

> There is no corresponding infrastructure delay for EVs which are already being adopted. That's an utter fantasy. We are nowhere near having enough infrastructure to do this.

There are currently over 150000 public charging points available all across the USA. And there are no technological issues to prevent more from being installed. At some point, more capacity will be needed but again --- no technological issues to prevent this.

Last time I looked there were less than 60 hydrogen refueling stations --- "pilot" projects in California put in place with government funding.

I rest my case. Like it or not, the decision has already been made by the marketplace --- the future is electric.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#44

Post by staticautomatic »

craig1f wrote: post #25
jqpabc123 wrote: post #3

Japanese firm believes it *could* make a solid-state battery... The key word here is obviously *could*. Add one more to the pile of claims and beliefs floating around that have yet to transform into viable products. I have been a Toyota fan from way back. I have owned a number of their vehicles. But in my mind, they lost a lot of technical credibility when they tried to apply political influence in a short sighted at…

Exactly this. Hydrogen is like crypto. It has just enough interesting tech to attract (using D&D terminology here) high INT, low WIS people. Hydrogen will probably never work unless someone comes up with a stable molecule that includes hydrogen, is large enough to not move through solid objects, and still retains enough chemical energy to be useful. Ammonium is one option, but it is highly toxic. Only really practica…

I would not underestimate the amount of weight behind the development and commercialization of hydrogen technology. Everyone in the oil and gas industry, including natural gas utilities, has a strong incentive to figure out how to make it work.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#45

Post by chris222 »

umeshunni wrote: post #14
whoknowswhat11 wrote: post #7

It’s funny seeing these battery breakthrough articles repeatedly. It’s been years of them now :) I’m always curious who the science writers are who can’t exercise critical thinking and ask a few tougher questions or review a battery breakthrough rubric.

Are you implying there haven't been any battery breakthroughs? What do you think the average capacity, density and cycle time of a battery in 2003 vs 2023 is.

I’d rather an article talk about how panasonic cells achieved 20% more density over 5 years at volume production. Much more impressive.

https://electrek.co/2020/07/30/tesla-batteries-energy-densit...

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#46

Post by _hypx »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #43
_hypx wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no corresponding infrastructure delay for EVs which are already being adopted. That's an utter fantasy. We are nowhere near having enough infrastructure to do this.

There are currently over 150000 public charging points available all across the USA. And there are no technological issues to prevent more from being installed. At some point, more capacity will be needed but again --- no technological issues to prevent this. Last time I looked there were less than 60 hydrogen refueling stations --- "pilot" projects in California put in place with government funding. I rest my case.…

You will need many millions of them, and enough generating capacity to power then all. That is many years away. Likely decades.

There's also no technological issue preventing the expansion of hydrogen stations. It's also worth noting that this directly replaces the gas station, both in number and location. This is not nearly as big of a challenge as you might think. Unlike charging stations, which must exist in much greater numbers and new locations.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#47

Post by _hypx »

staticautomatic wrote: post #44
craig1f wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. Hydrogen is like crypto. It has just enough interesting tech to attract (using D&D terminology here) high INT, low WIS people. Hydrogen will probably never work unless someone comes up with a stable molecule that includes hydrogen, is large enough to not move through solid objects, and still retains enough chemical energy to be useful. Ammonium is one option, but it is highly toxic. Only really practica…

I would not underestimate the amount of weight behind the development and commercialization of hydrogen technology. Everyone in the oil and gas industry, including natural gas utilities, has a strong incentive to figure out how to make it work.

Literally everyone has a massive incentive to make green hydrogen work. It is pretty fundamental to industry, manufacturing, agriculture, transportation, etc. There is no path to zero emissions without it. In reality, just a handful of vocal BEV fans oppose this technology on purely personal grounds.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#48

Post by alphager »

_hypx wrote: post #41
craig1f wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. Hydrogen is like crypto. It has just enough interesting tech to attract (using D&D terminology here) high INT, low WIS people. Hydrogen will probably never work unless someone comes up with a stable molecule that includes hydrogen, is large enough to not move through solid objects, and still retains enough chemical energy to be useful. Ammonium is one option, but it is highly toxic. Only really practica…

That's a completely ignorant statement. Hydrogen cars actually exist and work exactly as advertised. There are no fundamental challenges. This reads like one of those anti-BEV posts from a decade ago. In both cases, the author is totally oblivious to the current state of technology. > It was never going to compete with electric. EVs have been slandered for so long that people just assumed we would come up with someth…

The production and storage of hydrogen is expensive, had the downside of requiring a large tank in the car and is less efficient than just using a battery.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#49

Post by _hypx »

alphager wrote: post #48
_hypx wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a completely ignorant statement. Hydrogen cars actually exist and work exactly as advertised. There are no fundamental challenges. This reads like one of those anti-BEV posts from a decade ago. In both cases, the author is totally oblivious to the current state of technology. > It was never going to compete with electric. EVs have been slandered for so long that people just assumed we would come up with someth…

The production and storage of hydrogen is expensive, had the downside of requiring a large tank in the car and is less efficient than just using a battery.

The cost will drop to nearly zero, just like the rest of renewable energy production. Tanks are cheaper, smaller and lighter than li-ion batteries. Fuel cell cars are also EVs, just like BEVs. The "efficiency problem" is greatly exaggerated.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#50

Post by WirelessGigabit »

_hypx wrote: post #41
craig1f wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. Hydrogen is like crypto. It has just enough interesting tech to attract (using D&D terminology here) high INT, low WIS people. Hydrogen will probably never work unless someone comes up with a stable molecule that includes hydrogen, is large enough to not move through solid objects, and still retains enough chemical energy to be useful. Ammonium is one option, but it is highly toxic. Only really practica…

That's a completely ignorant statement. Hydrogen cars actually exist and work exactly as advertised. There are no fundamental challenges. This reads like one of those anti-BEV posts from a decade ago. In both cases, the author is totally oblivious to the current state of technology. > It was never going to compete with electric. EVs have been slandered for so long that people just assumed we would come up with someth…

> Hydrogen cars are EVs.

The Toyota Mirai is a hydrogen Fuel Cell car.

BMW tried to create a hydrogen ICE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_Hydrogen_7

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