Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation • Hacker News Board

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

#441

Post by TheSpiceIsLife » Sun, Feb 22, 2026, 6:20 PM UTC

vardump wrote: post #245

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An A320 can store 24k liters of fuel. Jet fuel stores 35 MJ/L. So, the plane carries 8.4E11 J of energy. If that was stored in a battery that had to be charged in an hour 0.23GW of electric power would be required. So indeed, an airport serving dozens or hundreds of electric aircrafts a day will need obscene amounts of electric energy.

Jet engines are not 100% efficient. Electric motors can be pretty close, 98% is realistic. Of course other parts of the system will lose energy, like conversion losses. Of course that doesn't mean batteries are currently a viable replacement. One should still take efficiency into account in quick back of the envelope calculations.

Halve it to 0.11G then.

It makes no difference, we’d still need gigawatt scale electricity production, with some multiple of that at peak, just for a fairly unremarkable airport.

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

#442

Post by BadBadJellyBean » Sun, Feb 22, 2026, 6:23 PM UTC

ACCount37 wrote: post #336

BadBadJellyBean wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't the point that it is as simple and convenient as normal gasoline and also that you can use your gasoline car? If you are using gases it is a hassle for everyone and you need a new car or a full retrofit. At some point we have to ask ourself why we would even do that. Is it really worth it compared to just using a battery?

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

#443

Post by mapontosevenths » Sun, Feb 22, 2026, 6:24 PM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #329

Ray20 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) Solar is (far) cheaper than fossil fuel's now No, that's simply not true. It's cheaper for MOST of the year, but overall, it's more expensive. Because you can't just tell people, "Well, now, during this cold January, please don't waste electricity because our panels are producing almost nothing." You either need batteries that store energy for weeks of consumption, or backup with fossil fuels, and in any case, t…

> You either need batteries that store energy for weeks of consumption, or backup with fossil fuels, and in any case, that makes solar panels more expensive than fossil fuels. I love the wild mental gymnastics and cherry picking data these people put themselves through in order to delude themselves in to believing solar is cheaper than gas. How can it be, when you need to build both. Or freeze in the dark. As you sai…

You are literally wrong about almost everything you've just said and have been for many years.[0]

There's a great video on Youtube from Technology Connections on youtube if that's more your speed. He talks a bit about how you're being lied to about it regularly and explains the technology a bit.[1] You really should watch it as he explicitly addresses each of your issues here including "what about the batteries."

Solar is literally, and provabley, cheaper than gas. Including the cost of batteries, which are recyclable. That's why something like 96% of investment in new energy is in solar or wind now. It's not activists, it's literally the cheapest way to do it now.

> over ten years ago.

There's your problem. The cost has been coming down by over 90% per year for the last decade. It WAS more expensive, a decade ago. The fundamentals HAVE changed. The panels ARE almost free, and the amount of steel and concrete are negligible.

[0] https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/un-energy-transiti...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM

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

#444

Post by mapontosevenths » Sun, Feb 22, 2026, 6:25 PM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #436

antonvs wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was addressing the claim that Democrats had added merely $1.2 trillion since 1913. I apologise if that wasn’t clear enough.

You misunderstood. That number is per 4 year term, and is an average. I probably could have phrased it more carefully to make that clear.

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

#445

Post by adrian_b » Sun, Feb 22, 2026, 6:33 PM UTC

mapontosevenths wrote: post #438

dredmorbius wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to synthesise hydrocarbon analogues of petroluem-based fuels. The problem to date has been that this isn't cost-competitive with petroleum, though the difference is narrower than you might expect. Most famously, a Google X Project attempted this and succeeded technically, but the economics were unfavourable: Project Foghorn: https://x.company/projects/foghorn/ >. Both Germany and South Africa have perfo…

I hadn't heard of Fischer-Tropsch. Looks like it usually works based on gassification of biomass or existing fossil fuels, so it seems at first glance that it has the same negative externalities as just burning the source material doesn't it? The Sabatier process looks like it might have much less of that! Very cool stuff. I would love to see a future in which we use uninhabitable, non-arable, desert land to generate…

Fischer-Tropsch is based on the reaction of carbon monoxide with dihydrogen (free hydrogen). This mixture is known as syngas.

While now the cheapest way is to make syngas from methane or from coal, it is possible to make syngas from carbon dioxide that reacts with electrolytic hydrogen.

It is also possible to make equivalent precursors of synthetic hydrocarbons by the electrolysis of carbon dioxide in water.

For these 2 methods, you do not need any fossil fuels, but only electrical energy for electrolysis.

Where the energetic efficiency is still very low is when you want to use clean air as the source of CO2, instead of using a concentrated source of CO2. With very cheap energy, i.e. solar energy that is used at the point of capture, it should still be possible to devise a method of capture for CO2 from the air. Many such methods are known, their only problem being a high energy consumption per the amount of captured CO2, so they are impractical with energy that must be bought from the grid, but I do not see why they could not work when coupled directly with solar panels.

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

#446

Post by BadBadJellyBean » Sun, Feb 22, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

b112 wrote: post #263

matthewdgreen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H2 from electrolysis is wildly expensive. H2 from natural gas is more affordable. Both are alternatives to BEVs, which are the better approach to electrifying transport. If Toyota had gone all in on BEVs when it began its H2 strategy, it would be selling more EVs than Tesla. Instead it entirely ceded the field to others, first Tesla and BYD.

H2 from electrolysis is wildly expensive. H2 from natural gas is more affordable. Irrelevant. It seems like everyone who argues against H2 is stuck on "now". Had that been the case with battery powered cars, they'd have never got off of the ground. Batteries were terrible, wildly expensive, extremely unreliable. It's only been the immense research poured into them, that has brought their costs down. Meanwhile, the co…

What I don't understand is why we would use H2. It's not like batteries are not getting better all the time. Not just the getting H2 for a good price but the whole system seems so much more complicated than just using a battery. What is it that H2 can do so much better that we would even spend the time and money to develop better solutions? Tell me what is the killer feature?

Because it must be a really killer feature to justify wasting about 50% of the electricity you put in and developing a distribution network and building cars that can handle H2 and even using the H2 for driving instead of steel mills or other places that might need green H2. Not to forget about the hassle of refueling with gasses that is totally different from a normal gas pump where you have to create a high pressure seal and the handle gets to cold to touch.

Also comparing a technology that will be only useful in many years with the battery technology from today is an odd choice, to say the least. Not only is the content of problematic materials constantly shrinking, the number of batteries that need recycling is currently so low that there is very little need for a big industry. But it is very likely that just like with the classic car battery recycling the more recent batteries will definitely be stripped for their precious materials.

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

#447

Post by BadBadJellyBean » Sun, Feb 22, 2026, 6:52 PM UTC

buckle8017 wrote: post #201

BadBadJellyBean wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still seems like a smaller investment to get a bigger cable than H2 infrastructure (Tanks, Pumps, maybe even electrolysis system).

Bigger cable is a laugh. Bigger cable, upgraded delivery infrastructure to support that cable (think more or stronger poles), transformer upgrades, and finally the charging stations which unlike the home ones aren't just a complicated switch because DC fast charging. H2 is a stupid fuel, but the idea that high power vehicle charging stations are a cheap or simple upgrade to a gas station is ridiculous.

You are correct that neither option is free BUT there are options. I don't know but to me it seem like the cheaper option than building the H2 infrastructure. Second of all there are options like on site battery/capacitor banks that can buffer the energy used for the faster charging. It might not be for everywhere but as a final option there is slower charging.

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

#448

Post by travisb » Sun, Feb 22, 2026, 6:52 PM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #329

Ray20 wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) Solar is (far) cheaper than fossil fuel's now No, that's simply not true. It's cheaper for MOST of the year, but overall, it's more expensive. Because you can't just tell people, "Well, now, during this cold January, please don't waste electricity because our panels are producing almost nothing." You either need batteries that store energy for weeks of consumption, or backup with fossil fuels, and in any case, t…

> You either need batteries that store energy for weeks of consumption, or backup with fossil fuels, and in any case, that makes solar panels more expensive than fossil fuels. I love the wild mental gymnastics and cherry picking data these people put themselves through in order to delude themselves in to believing solar is cheaper than gas. How can it be, when you need to build both. Or freeze in the dark. As you sai…

A big part of it is the industry standard for using the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCoE) as the benchmark metric. By that metric, solar IS the lowest cost power source.

But that definition doesn't take into account availability. This wasn't a problem when all electricity sources were highly available by default. You can burn coal or run the hydro turbines any minute of the year. With the rise of often-unavailable renewable sources like solar and wind that definition is now insufficient and under counts the true like-for-like cost of solar.

By any metric which takes into account minor availability requirements (eg. supplies electricity at night) solar badly loses its cost advantage. It gets even worse if the metric is the still important "deepest winter night" scenario.

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

#449

Post by BadBadJellyBean » Sun, Feb 22, 2026, 6:57 PM UTC

cbmuser wrote: post #104

BadBadJellyBean wrote: post #10

I don't think hydrogen will ever be a thing for personal cars. Apart from the abysmal "well to wheel" efficiency it's also just such a hassle to create a fuel network for it. Gasoline is bad enough but a gas that will just leak away whatever you do seems like a stretch. It is just so much simpler with electricity. Pretty much every gas station already has it. No driving it around with trucks. Just maybe once install…

> It is just so much simpler with electricity. Yet the market still thinks differently. Lots of countries still keep subsidizing EV despite them already being mature technology for such a long time. We didn't have to subsidize the smart phone to make it successful, we shouldn't have to subsidize electric cars either.

I am not comparing BEV with ICE. That would be stupid. ICE is not and will never be a solution to the fact that we are burning oil and destroying the environment. But EV has to compete with ICE and many people don't like the fact that they might be a small inconvenience. The environment is just not part of the calculation so to make BEVs even slightly competitive the price has to be lowered.

H2 doesn't compete with ICE. It competes with BEV. That and in that comparison I do think it is much simpler. I'd be open to be enlightened why the killer feature of H2 is that makes it even worth considering with all these downsides.

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

#450

Post by rsynnott » Sun, Feb 22, 2026, 7:02 PM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #421

breve wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China is the biggest EV market, Europe is the second biggest, and North America is third. For EVs the US will remain lower priority than China and Europe for a while yet. Toyota understands how to sell cars. It's funny how this thread has gone from "Toyota can't wrap its head around not making engines" to "Toyota is not prioritizing small EV markets first".

You are correct that China is the number one market in terms of BEV sales, but the US is number two, selling more than 3-5 combined. That's an odd way to define a small EV market. Funny thing is, in terms of rankings, the US is actually a "small market" when it comes to gas-only cars. Prior to moving to only BEVs, our family bought several Toyotas (and before that, only Hondas), and I was disappointed to find that I…

> You are correct that China is the number one market in terms of BEV sales, but the US is number two, selling more than 3-5 combined.

This is incorrect, unless you're viewing the US as a single market but the EU as multiple (which, I mean, ah, you do you, but that doesn't make any sense from an industry perspective). Last year about 1.3 million BEVs were sold in the US (a minor decline from 2024), 1.9 million BEVs were sold in the EU (up 33% YoY). In Europe more broadly defined, 2.5 million BEVs were sold (in practice, the industry largely treats EU+EFTA+UK as one market). In China, 8 million were sold, up about 25% YoY.

You can, ah, perhaps see why the US is not a top-priority market for the industry. In practice, the US _will_ get many of these Toyota models, or some variant thereof, but later. You mention VW, but they, too, treat the US as a second priority BEV market; their electric cars generally come out about a year late there if at all. Hyundai does release in the US at the same time as elsewhere (when they release at all; the Ioniq 3 will not be available in the US, for instance, because the US does not buy small cars in significant numbers).