Toyota Backs Fuel Cells over batteries...

[Shannow]

Quote:
Nobody makes more batteries than Toyota. We’ve been doing batteries longer than anyone in the automotive business. Which is why we’re so bullish on fuel cells. We don’t see those same hurdles.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/brookecrothe...m/#526796626ecc

Quote:
You can shoehorn all sorts of things but that doesn’t make it a practical or cost-effective solution. If you measure energy density, for example, a gasoline engine has huge volumetric energy density. It allows you to put 10 or 12 gallons and drive 300 or 400 miles. The same isn’t true for batteries. It’s at the opposite end of the spectrum. You approach a limit for every additional battery you’re putting in the car, you’re getting incremental distance. So, from that point of view, you have a physics problem. You have no material that will allow you to overcome that hurdle today. Then you have the challenge of charging because you can’t charge batteries too quickly. So, you have a physics problem you’re not going to solve unless somebody invents a new material.


Quote:
We don’t see any battery technology that would allow us to…give customers a comparable driving experience at a reasonable price. We don’t see anything for the next ten years because if there was something in the laboratory today it would probably take seven to ten years to get into a production vehicle. With batteries there is a fundamental science problem that we don’t know how to solve. It’s going to require a new material that doesn’t yet exist. How long that takes is anyone’s guess.



Quote:
Toyota will begin taking “requests” for its hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicle Mirai on Monday. The initial goal is 3,000 units by the end of 2017. With a range of EPA estimated 312 miles, the car will launch in California in October, 2015.


I still don't see any hydrogen mines opening in the near future...but they do have a point (or 4)

 

[Silk]

Originally Posted By: Shannow

Nobody makes more batteries than Toyota. We’ve been doing batteries longer than anyone in the automotive business.


Gosh, well we can't dispute a claim like that now can we? I'll just go out and count how many Toyota batteries are in my stash....

 

[DoubleWasp]

Originally Posted By: Shannow

I still don't see any hydrogen mines opening in the near future...but they do have a point (or 4)


Hydrogen can be made on-site using solar cells and water (as some stations in California do), but this has its own limitations.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: DoubleWasp
Originally Posted By: Shannow

I still don't see any hydrogen mines opening in the near future...but they do have a point (or 4)


Hydrogen can be made on-site using solar cells and water (as some stations in California do), but this has its own limitations.


See, that's exactly the problem...what looks like a lot of panels on a roof makes very very little in actual energy...and much less hydrogen.

http://ieahia.org/pdfs/Case-Studies/honda.aspx

 

[tcp71]

Create electricity with energy losses.
Transmit electricity to hydrogen generation station with losses
Crack H2O into hydrogen with losses
Use more energy to compress hydrogen into "cell"
"Burn" hydrogen in vehicle.

Taking the full life cycle of hydrogen into account, not just the actual use in the vehicle, it is no more efficient than any other hydrocarbon. Using solar to create hydrogen might help its efficiency, but that has its own challenges.

 

[Falken]

Create jobs with inefficient green energy and stop looking at the energy content of things.

Build an economy around it.

If we kept drooling over how much more energy something filthy has we would have nuclear plants everywhere.

As green energy gets better, we will reap the benefits.

There are a lot of economic benefits in moving away from oil as well.

In Saskatchewan we just had a big oil spill and people can't even wash their clothing or have a shower with the municipal water.

I say employ millions of people to get rid of fossil fuels. The oil industry hasn't exactly given us a free ride.

All I have to say is it is inevitable anyway, even if we only ran passenger vehicles on Propane/NG we'd be much further ahead, and we aren't even going after low hanging fruit like that it boggles the mind.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: Falken

I say employ millions of people to get rid of fossil fuels. The oil industry hasn't exactly given us a free ride.


How many people would YOU have pedaling generator bikes so that you could read BITOG ?

That's what us humans did before we found fossil fuels could replace slave labour

 

[Falken]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: Falken

I say employ millions of people to get rid of fossil fuels. The oil industry hasn't exactly given us a free ride.


How many people would YOU have pedaling generator bikes so that you could read BITOG ?

That's what us humans did before we found fossil fuels could replace slave labour


You make a blunt but accurate point... But I would have to say if I had to pedal a bike setup to power my computer to read the internet, and many North Americans had to do the same, Obesity and billions in healthcare would be saved and many people would do other things with their time...

Not seeing much of a downside... It is surprising the amount of useless, wasteful things, as well as the lost jobs caused by computers.

My only point is it isn't all doom and gloom in cutting back on certain things today, we need to be more picky.

 

[Indydriver]

Toyota cannot be this stupid. This is all you need to know about our zero emission future:

There are (virtually) no hydrogen filling stations;

Everyone can "refill" electricity at home.

 

[OneEyeJack]

A free market is good at sorting out problems like this.

 

[bubbatime]

Originally Posted By: Indydriver
Toyota cannot be this stupid. This is all you need to know about our zero emission future:

There are (virtually) no hydrogen filling stations;

Everyone can "refill" electricity at home.


Great idea. There are no hydrogen filling stations, so lets just forget about it then. There was no electric grid in 1875. So we should have just forgot the whole electric thing. There was no nationwide phone network back then either, so of course, we should still be using the high speed horse messengers to transit messages from east coast to west coast. Of course, there was no gasoline stations in 1900 either. People bought gasoline at their local pharmacy, over the counter. Perhaps we should still be doing that too.

 

[kschachn]

Originally Posted By: bubbatime
Great idea. There are no hydrogen filling stations, so lets just forget about it then. There was no electric grid in 1875. So we should have just forgot the whole electric thing. There was no nationwide phone network back then either, so of course, we should still be using the high speed horse messengers to transit messages from east coast to west coast. Of course, there was no gasoline stations in 1900 either. People bought gasoline at their local pharmacy, over the counter. Perhaps we should still be doing that too.


Help me out, where are we getting the hydrogen again? I always forget that part.

Distribution is the least of the problems, IMO.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Falken


If we kept drooling over how much more energy something filthy has we would have nuclear plants everywhere.



And we'd be using Thorium, reprocessing nuclear waste in breeders to make yet more power and.... Oh, and we'd have basically no fossil fuel pollution. What makes nukes filthy? They aren't. They don't take up large tracts of valuable land for comparably poor output, they don't need to be replaced every 15-20 years and they provide reliable base-load power that the grid requires, 24x7x365. In fact they are the most reliable (longest uptime) means of generating power the world has ever known.

Comically, with your tongue-in-cheek you are actually hitting on something quite valuable: Darlington could power Nova Scotia. One plant. Entire European countries could be powered by a couple of reactors. Because they are so energy dense they don't need to be "everywhere". A A single reactor can make as much power as 24,000 acres of solar, four of them (the size of the Darlington site) would require a solar field larger than the area occupied by Montreal (390 square Km of solar) just to match nameplate, and at ~20% efficiency It would actually require 2,000 square km of solar to match the output of a 4-unit nuke.

Society uses far too much power to be dependant on something with such poor density and sporadic output. You factor in the push for electrification driving up demand and at times when the sun isn't shining, how does that look? Until there is cheap, viable, long lasting storage that can supplement things like wind and solar, there will continue to be a need for the traditional steam turbine, as not everywhere can implement hydro electric.

 

[PeterPolyol]

Is Toyota trying to troll others onto a dead-end path or are they, with their 30+billion USD net profits really this daft?
They've extolled the virtues of power density over batteries and literally glossed over every other detail of hydrogen production. Really though, what is going on here? Does Toyota have a secret patented method of catalytic electrolysis that no one else knows about?

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: PeterPolyol
Is Toyota trying to troll others onto a dead-end path


That's my guess, although perhaps they are after the money. Make goodwill with various governments who are the real drivers for this form of battery. Let's say the fuel cell aspect fails (as many of us suspect): it's still money through Toyota's hands, and there will be incidental lessons learned. Perhaps better electric motors, better power monitoring. They find new partners to do projects with. Heck, they just might find good talent to hire for new/future projects (why train people on your dime?).

 

[Colt45ws]

Originally Posted By: OVERKILL
Originally Posted By: Falken


If we kept drooling over how much more energy something filthy has we would have nuclear plants everywhere.



And we'd be using Thorium, reprocessing nuclear waste in breeders to make yet more power and.... Oh, and we'd have basically no fossil fuel pollution. What makes nukes filthy? They aren't. They don't take up large tracts of valuable land for comparably poor output, they don't need to be replaced every 15-20 years and they provide reliable base-load power that the grid requires, 24x7x365. In fact they are the most reliable (longest uptime) means of generating power the world has ever known.

Comically, with your tongue-in-cheek you are actually hitting on something quite valuable: Darlington could power Nova Scotia. One plant. Entire European countries could be powered by a couple of reactors. Because they are so energy dense they don't need to be "everywhere". A A single reactor can make as much power as 24,000 acres of solar, four of them (the size of the Darlington site) would require a solar field larger than the area occupied by Montreal (390 square Km of solar) just to match nameplate, and at ~20% efficiency It would actually require 2,000 square km of solar to match the output of a 4-unit nuke.

Society uses far too much power to be dependant on something with such poor density and sporadic output. You factor in the push for electrification driving up demand and at times when the sun isn't shining, how does that look? Until there is cheap, viable, long lasting storage that can supplement things like wind and solar, there will continue to be a need for the traditional steam turbine, as not everywhere can implement hydro electric.


Agree, 100%

 

[Falken]

Overkill, we use green energy, with waterfalls, in Quebec.

I believe we can find greener methods that make regional sense.

And, where oil makes the most sense in the future, so be it, use oil.

But why can't we have widely adopted CNG or Propane for commuter cars at this point?

If you only attack the weakest point of any argument it throws out many valid points as well.

We have geniuses trying to figure all this stuff out still, and I am far from a genius over here, but we already have many technologies that are falling to the wayside "just because... Oil oil oil...".

 

[Falken]

Just wanted to sit here and imagine, if I didn't live in a Condo and I could easily plug in a used Leaf into my outlet, drive my 20km each way to work...

And NEVER set foot in a gas station again.

Just drive by, maybe smile a bit at the times in Montreal that gas hits $5.50 a gallon.

The technology isn't "quite there" for my lifestyle, but it must be nice for people who can use plug-ins and just not care about oil, gas, and the Middle East in general.

Must be really nice.

 

[kschachn]

Originally Posted By: PeterPolyol
Does Toyota have a secret patented method of catalytic electrolysis that no one else knows about?


No.

 

[Colt45ws]

Originally Posted By: Falken


But why can't we have widely adopted CNG or Propane for commuter cars at this point?



Because its a pain to fill the tanks (special training)
Poor range because you can't fill the tanks all the way
The tanks are huge and also heavy. CNG Crown Vics had 4 tanks, 2 under the car and 2 in the trunk to give you "40 gallons" but you can't actually get 40 gallons into them. They also had a special rear spring that was higher rate than even the Police spring to support them. You could get 100-150 miles out of that 40 gallons. There was an "extended range" option that added a 3rd tank in the trunk for "50 gallons". Vics have big trunks, but not after you put 3 10 gallon CNG tanks in it.
The tanks expire after 10 years, and no one will recertify tanks so you pretty much have to replace them. $$$$. By that point the car is worth less than the replacement tanks it will need. Nothing like giving your car a "Use by" date.
Poor performance. Though admittedly it would be easy to reegineer the engine to have the same or better power, but most gaseous fuel setups are just straight onto a gasoline engine, mostly because they are done cheaply because no one buys them due to the above reasons.

Ive looked into a CNG Vic for putting around town, but most of the ones for sale either have expired tanks or are just about expired so the owner is dumping it.