Lexus Hydrogen car coming in 2015, $50k+ price
07-01-13, 07:43 AM
#16
Obviously you didn't get my point, so I'll elaborate for you.. Oil companies may or may not have an interest in supplying the hydrogen needed to run these vehicles. The infrastructure is already in place (aka gas stations), so adding a hydrogen pump or two to start would not be unheard of (they already have a few in California). I said nothing about hydrogen being created from oil 
07-01-13, 05:17 PM
#18
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actually it wouldn't. the irrational desire to destroy the u.s. coal industry shared by you and the current white house has only meant coal companies are now shipping their coal on transport ships to other parts of the world, which is thus even more polluting.
also, they say love it blind, as is the case with love of solar cells, which are expensive, wear out, are inefficient, and slow. plus, if environmental whackos have their way, we won't all have roofs, we'll be forced to live in urban compounds and forced to work/shop/'play' in some tiny walking radius, which means hoards of people will share a roof, thus meaning there's not enough roof per person to generate their own electricity. but i'm getting ahead of things here... the average person/family in the average home has NO chance of affording sufficient solar setup to produce much of any electricity, not to mention much of the country doesn't get a great deal of sun for a lot of the year.
but if you want to blow tons of money on solar, go for it.
also, they say love it blind, as is the case with love of solar cells, which are expensive, wear out, are inefficient, and slow. plus, if environmental whackos have their way, we won't all have roofs, we'll be forced to live in urban compounds and forced to work/shop/'play' in some tiny walking radius, which means hoards of people will share a roof, thus meaning there's not enough roof per person to generate their own electricity. but i'm getting ahead of things here... the average person/family in the average home has NO chance of affording sufficient solar setup to produce much of any electricity, not to mention much of the country doesn't get a great deal of sun for a lot of the year.
but if you want to blow tons of money on solar, go for it.
07-01-13, 06:58 PM
#20
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I get the point that spywolf is making. Both hydrogen and electricity are ultimately electric derived--it's just that hydrogen is a more convenient medium for storage and faster refueling compared to pure electricity.
Irrespective of how much advancements have been made to recharging speed of pure electric cars, the convenience of and speed of hydrogen refueling is still superior(basically a modified fuel pump) compared to slower supercharging or swapping out of batteries in a pure EV.
Irrespective of how much advancements have been made to recharging speed of pure electric cars, the convenience of and speed of hydrogen refueling is still superior(basically a modified fuel pump) compared to slower supercharging or swapping out of batteries in a pure EV.
as long as they produce long range $50k cars, hydrogen infrastructure can be built quite fast... there are already pipelines carrying hydrogen and once again, lets not forget - hydrogen is created by electricity.
07-01-13, 07:33 PM
#21
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what happened to hydrogen needing to be contained because it is under a lot of pressure. It is difficult to solve that issue and with increasingly difficult crash standards. Not to mention that liquid hydrogen needs to stay at -400F
07-01-13, 08:44 PM
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also BMW is gearing towards liquid hydrogen, other manufacturers may go for gas standards
overall, this may be done on a new platform that we dont know about yet
i think this thread is a bit of an unicorn (ill prob have to eat my words later)
to develop a platform for fuel cells (assuming they dont want to burn hydrogen but to utilize it in a fuel cell fashion), there are many advantages to be had by developing a completely new platform that is low center of gravity, no hump, no center stack, large cargo area (AKA Tesla S or GM concept)
if this is really coming out in 2015, we wouldve seen some concepts by now or long ago
and i dont think they will use any existing gasoline platform for the basis of this vehicle
07-01-13, 09:00 PM
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well we have to start somewhere, we just cant be using coal forever. Solar may not be the only answer, which is why we diversify into wind, methane gas capturing, and even ocean wave movement technology. Solar is actually not that expensive. For the average home, about 25 thousand but then half is paid for by federal tax credit. Your energy consumption should be reduced by half, or about 60 dollars a month. Over the course of your 30 year mortgage, you would have made it all back and more
infrastructure and engineering solutions into consumer applications are not a problem and something engineers can overcome in the next few years (as Ballard has been working on for the past 10 years)
there are currently 2 main industrial methods of extracting hydrogen
1. electrolysis: splitting the water molecule to get H from H2O
Pro: water is abundant, by-product of Oxygen is not polluting
Con: large amount of electricity is required for this application and water needs to be fairly clean
laws of physics: amount of energy used to split the molecules and that energy used will always exceed how much energy a fuel cell will produce since fuel cell is not 100% efficient. neither is the electrolysis step
solar may provide abundant energy for electrolysis so essentially, instead of using batteries, we are storing that energy into hydrogen
2. fossil fuel extraction: methane is one of the most common fossil fuel used for extracting H. this is easily accessible and easier to chew for the big oil companies as it keeps them revelant and in the energy game without drastic infrastructure reinvestment
Pro: abundant, cheap
Con: sometimes burning methane is required to extract the H. by-products often product pollution. continuously digging for fossil fuel can also create geological disasters and negative impacts on the environment
These are the two main methods
there are of course many other types such as algae or other biological methods of Hydrogen capture/extraction
for more info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production
Moon and Mars are said to have an abundance of H3
that may be one reason why US is so gungho on space exploration again, possibly preparing the next 50 years for space mining for rare minerals and such types of resources
there are so many ways the energy industry can go with hydrogen though and nothing is clear right now on the prevailing method
all i know is, we live in a very interesting time. as a geek, i am very excited
(i did a few projects on fuel cells back in engineering school)
07-01-13, 10:59 PM
#25
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Hydrogen cars take away the independence that EV drivers have by being able to generate their own energy by using solar panels. Hydrogen cars are just another way for them to charge you for a "fuel" and keep you as a slave to the hydrogen producing companies (oil companies?).
There's no money to be made off the EV owner, but there is off the hydrogen car owner.
There's no money to be made off the EV owner, but there is off the hydrogen car owner.
Good for Toyota/Lexus to be making a more upmarket hydrogen powered model, hydrogen should be a major source of energy for cars/trucks in the future, it is a shame more is not being done to push hydrogen and get more stations around the country.
07-02-13, 01:29 AM
#26
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Solar panels are very expensive, they break, wear out, require a lot of energy/materials to make, and unless you live in a area that gets a lot of direct sunlight all year around they don't have much use and can't provide the energy needs to power a house let alone charge a EV.
For example, driving 250 miles in a Tesla costs about $5 in electricity. How much money would you need to spend on gas to drive 250 miles? About $40 (given the average price of about $3.80/gallon for an ICE that gets about 25 miles/gallon. So if you were to drive your Tesla 100,000 miles completely using the grid, it would cost about $2000 total to drive those 100,000 miles. How much would it cost in gas? about $16,000. So that's a savings of $14,000 over the course of 100,000 miles.
Now consider that in 100,000 miles of driving an ICE vehicle, you will be burning about 4,000 gallons of gas. Now consider all the costs involved and energy used to produce those 4,000 gallons of gas - Also, remember, there is only about 19 gallons of usable motor gasoline per 42 gallons (one barrel) of crude oil. So it would take approximately 8,842 gallons of crude oil to drive 100,000 miles in your ICE vehicle. It would take about 1,428 gallons of crude oil to drive 100,000 miles in your EV (0.0423 gallons of crude oil produces approx. 1 kilowatt of energy x 85kw battery = 250 miles x 400 = 100,000 miles), if using petroleum to generate the electricity. Granted only about 3% of electricity is generated using petroleum power plants, but I'm trying to draw an apples to apples comparison here.
So....
Gallons of crude oil needed to drive 100,000 miles in an ICE: 8,842
Gallons of crude oil needed to drive 100,000 miles in an EV: 1,428
So by using simple math, we can determine that EVs are about 84% cleaner than ICE vehicles when using petroleum as the primary energy source. Not to mention yet again, that EVs allow you to be energy independent by not depending on having to purchase a fuel to power your vehicle. Gasoline or Hydrogen cars will never be able to offer such an option.
Last edited by Sens4Miles; 07-02-13 at 02:21 AM.
07-02-13, 08:13 AM
#27
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Not sure how an argument can be taken seriously when this huge mistake is posted. EV's are great too but again it is reliance on electricity so not sure why anyone can act like the EV is some savior. It is a great option and its great it is here but if everyone switched to EV we will then see ridiculous electricity prices instead of gas prices. It also depends on where you live, some areas have low electricity prices and some places are super high.
More options are great, more efficient ICE, hybrids, EV, hydrogen and hopefully consumers will figure out what is best for them and there are ample offerings of each.
If this is badged a Lexus, this is an amazing risk and shows Toyota's confidence in what they will eventually debut.
07-02-13, 08:30 AM
#28
hydrogen car is even worse than en electric car. Hydrogen fuel cell is nothing more than a glorified battery, it still drives an electric motor. Skip the BS and go with a battery. Generating electricity is a lot easier than generating hydrogen and storing that electricity is safer than storing hydrogen
07-02-13, 08:32 AM
#29
Lexus Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle in 2015?
Bloomberg is reporting that Lexus may be getting a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle as early as next year:
At the Tokyo Motor Show in November, [Toyota] plans to show a hydrogen-powered sedan that would be sold as a 2015 model. It could be available in U.S. dealerships as soon next year for a price comparable to a mid-size BMW or Tesla Model S.
Toyota had said the model would be a Lexus with a price about $50,000. It’s now non-committal on the brand, and the car will cost in the neighborhood of $50,000, “depending on how big your neighborhood is,” Chris Hostetter, U.S. group vice president for advanced product development, told reporters last month.
While there seems to be no doubt that a fuel cell vehicle is coming, it’s unclear if it will actually be a Lexus — still, it would explain the modified HS 250h spotted in the USA:
The Bloomberg article serves as a great starting point for anyone curious about fuel cell vehicles — it makes for some exciting possibilities, even if consumer adoption will be limited in the short term by a lack of hydrogen gas stations.
(The above photo is the Toyota FCV-R concept from the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show — which coincidentally looks just like the HS 250h.)
At the Tokyo Motor Show in November, [Toyota] plans to show a hydrogen-powered sedan that would be sold as a 2015 model. It could be available in U.S. dealerships as soon next year for a price comparable to a mid-size BMW or Tesla Model S.
Toyota had said the model would be a Lexus with a price about $50,000. It’s now non-committal on the brand, and the car will cost in the neighborhood of $50,000, “depending on how big your neighborhood is,” Chris Hostetter, U.S. group vice president for advanced product development, told reporters last month.
While there seems to be no doubt that a fuel cell vehicle is coming, it’s unclear if it will actually be a Lexus — still, it would explain the modified HS 250h spotted in the USA:
The Bloomberg article serves as a great starting point for anyone curious about fuel cell vehicles — it makes for some exciting possibilities, even if consumer adoption will be limited in the short term by a lack of hydrogen gas stations.
(The above photo is the Toyota FCV-R concept from the 2011 Tokyo Motor Show — which coincidentally looks just like the HS 250h.)
