Live data from Hacker News

Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

carbuzz.com

51–60 of 520 posts

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

#51
post #25
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is the case while they're in the hype building phase, when people are paying attention if hydrogen even gained widespread adoption, it would be mass produced via steam reforming of natural gas (which is why the oil majors are the ones desperately pushing it)

That makes no sense. If the oil companies were pushing H2, every car would be H2 by now. H2 can be generated anywhere there is power. Any power that can be used to charge a car's battery, can be used to make H2. Yes, I'm sure you have 1000 reasons, but I don't really care, it's just not reasonable to discredit h2 because of made up paranoia. We should embrace any way to get a clean running car on the road.

>We should embrace any way to get a clean running car on the road.

No. We should embrace the technically most feasible, which opens up new technology to the most people.

EVs are the clear winners. Every cent spent on hydrogen infrastructure is a cent wasted, because it could go to making the one feasible technology better. Arbitrary openness to technology long after it has been clearly established that the technology is inferior is not a good thing, it is a path to stay on ICEs forever.

Hydrogen is a bad idea. The only way to defend it is by pretending modern EVs do not exist, since they solved all the existing problems and offer numerous benefits over hydrogen.

Additionally the customer has already chosen and he has chosen the right technology, because the value proposition of an EV is far greater than that of a hydrogen car.

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

#52
post #5

This is one of those cars that's interesting to me, but I don't know that we'll ever go this route in a significant amount. Problem is how complex it is to create hydrogen, although 'green hydrogen' is a thing, it would take quite a bit regardless. Interesting to note that if we could extract only 2% of the hydrogen burried under the earth, we could power the entire world for over 200 years. Which is crazy to think a…

It's very easy to create hydrogen from fossil natural gas. Which is the real motivation behind 99% of H2 projects; continue to emit CO2, just hidden from the end user. Battery electric is now pretty much inevitable.

How do you solve aeronautical and maritime applications?

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

#53

I still feel hydrogen fuel cells are the better choice. The convenience of refilling quickly is great. Maybe that’ll matter less if PHEVs are allowed to exist but with some places banning gas cars entirely, I don’t have hope.

The convenience of filling is only there if you have the fuel stations. Considering how expensive it is I’d argue that it’s far better to spend that money on EV charging infrastructure, you get a lot more bang for gour buck. And EVs are arguable significantly more convenient when you have the infrastructure. Would you buy a phone that lasted a week or two, but you had to go to a phone filling station to refill it?

And yes, EVs can be more convenient also for street parking. It’s just an infrastructure problem and by now there are dozens of different solutions for every parking situation imaginable.

It’s frankly absurd reading debates about this online from Norway. It’s over. Yeah Norway has money and cheap electricity, that’s what makes it possible to “speed run” the technology transition. But other than that it’s a worst case scenario for EVs. Lots of people with only street parking in Oslo. Winter that’s brutal on range. People who love to drive hours and hours to their cabin every weekend. With skis on the roof. Part of schengen so people drive all the way down to croatia in summer. We gave EVs and Hydrogen cars the same chance. Same benefits. EVs won. End of story. Though a hydrogen station near me blew up in a spectacularly loud explosion so maybe that makes me a bit biased.

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

#54
post #6

This is one of those cars that's interesting to me, but I don't know that we'll ever go this route in a significant amount. Problem is how complex it is to create hydrogen, although 'green hydrogen' is a thing, it would take quite a bit regardless. Interesting to note that if we could extract only 2% of the hydrogen burried under the earth, we could power the entire world for over 200 years. Which is crazy to think a…

It's possible to create hydrogen from coal and carbon capture is supposed to be feasible. Though I don't know how commercially viable this is.

Carbon doesn't really contain all that much hydrogen.

Feasibility is key.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GSV2kVkO1w

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

#55
post #15

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…

My understanding is most hydrogen fueling stations produce the hydrogen onsite via electrolysis of water. EDIT: My understanding was wrong - it's produced locally onsite but via steam-methane reforming: https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-production-na...

Isn’t this bad? This means H2O molecules are being destroyed and the water is not returning to the water cycle to be reused. We will literally run out of water if everyone did this.

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

#56

Why was it made? I ask because GM’s EV-1 was discussed earlier and it basically existed due to California’s zero-emission requirement in the 90’s. Is this just Toyota doing some random R&D while fulfilling a state minimum requirement?

To trick people into thinking hydrogen cars are the future so they don’t buy an EV now. I’ve driven my own vehicles through 65 countries on 5 continents, and even the most remote villages in Africa and South America had electricity of some form. I’ve never seen a hydrogen filling station in my life. The idea we can build out that infrastructure faster than bolster the electric grid is laughably stupid. Downright dece…

I think there's some truth to this. Toyota desperately needs the future to play to their strengths, something more complicated than EVs, which I think is behind their obsession with hybrids.

Not sure that a fuel cell vehicle isn't just an EV with extra steps, however.

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

#57
post #15

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…

My understanding is most hydrogen fueling stations produce the hydrogen onsite via electrolysis of water. EDIT: My understanding was wrong - it's produced locally onsite but via steam-methane reforming: https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-production-na...

That’s not a thing. Anyone who’s seen hydrogen being split from electrolysis knows it takes a lot lot lot of electricity and is very slow. If two people needed to fill up in the same day it would run the well dry.

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

#58
post #16

I've seen exactly one of these in person while in San Diego for a month or so. I never did see a fueling station for it though.

There's only... well, 51 of them. If you're lucky, you're near one of the 42 that are actually online and available for fueling (as of this comment). Stations running out of fuel and stations going offline for hardware failures runs rampant. Oh, and some stations might not be able to provide the highest pressure H2, so you might be stuck taking an 85% tank fill... and at nearly $30/kg and a 5.6kg (full) tank, that's…

And they are not even supposed to explode anymore!

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

#59
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't get rid of natural gas any time soon. Ng pipelines are not in any way similar to H2 pipelines except the word 'pipe'. You can't just put hydrogen in them. You can't even retrofit them. You're looking at laying an entirely new pipeline either way. Furthermore, most H2 is produced by fossil fuel extraction. We aren't cracking water to get H2, we're pulling it out of the ground. Cracking water is hideously expe…

h2 can be co-mingled with Ng and extracted with a molar filter at the other end. Ng pipelines are everywhere, so it makes perfect sense.

None of the pipes or valves are designed for hydrogen. It will steal leak. And leaking a very flammable gas isn’t great.

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

#60
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.

Post reply on HN