spwolf

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...ell-model.html

Before this we knew they were going to mass produce +$50k hydrogen car in 2015 which solves all the major problems that exist today, but new thing is that we know it is going to be an... LEXUS.

Sens4Miles

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.

RXSF

We are already having trouble popping up electric charging stations, but slowly and surely, they are popping up. Hydrogen stations, on the other hand, is pretty much non existent. I cant see lexus producing a mass production hydrogen vehicle before a plug in hybrid/electric car

UberNoob

yeah the infrastructure is at least still 5 years away for early adopters roll out
unless toyota is working on something with the big oils that we dont know about

shell has been very active in researching hydrogen fueling stations and Germany is on the fore-front of building that infrastructure. to get mass adoption in US will still be 8~10 years away though

spwolf

you can not charge your own EV with your own Solar panel, it would take 5-6 days to charge for 300 miles. That makes no sense at all.

Hydrogen is created from electricity, not oil.... read up before posting.

spwolf

thing with hydrogen, is that you can get 500 mile range in 3 minute fill up.

So you need far less stations than EVs that, at best possible case, take 40 minutes for half of that range.

So basically you can fill up 20 hydrogen cars while you fill up single tesla. And thats via SuperChargers which is not meant to be used every day... normal lvl2 chargers that you see installed everywhere, are far slower so it goes up to 50-100x faster for hydrogen.

Problems with fuel cell cars using hydrogen were mostly about fuel cell storage tanks... which Toyota thinks that they have solved and have on market by 2015... They will also all be hybrids at the same time.

Japan and California have announced building of fuel cell gas stations to be completed by 2015... it is not going to be million of them, but enough for cars going to be sold there.

Sens4Miles

Where are you getting this information from? Regardless, even if it did take 5-6 days to charge (it doesn't), my point is still valid. You can charge your EV by using your own solar panels. Just like you can run your home's electricity from your own solar panels. It's called energy independence.

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

Sens4Miles

You apparently missed the demo posted last week on Tesla's new battery swap option that swaps out the battery pack in 90 seconds, less time than it takes to fill up a tank.

LexFather

Kudos to Toyota /Lexus. They were ahead of their time with hybrids and maybe can change the game with hydrogen. It's great to see them try hybrid, electric , hydrogen and still do cars like the LFA and frs.

Thanks for posting up spwolf

RXSF

Ill have to agree with sens4miles here about solar panels. Even if they dont produce enough energy to fully charge a car while operating your home, it goes a long way of reducing energy produced from coal. If every house in the US had decent sized solar panels, it would go a long way of reducing the country's carbon footprint. I hope I can see it in my lifetime. So much wasted space on everyone's roof when it can be put to good use.

We need to get it into people's mind that you have plug in your car every time you enter your garage or park. Maybe one day we will have chargers built into the ground so that when you drive into your garage, your car will automatically start charging

trexlexus

Yes, if Lexus does pulls this off, hats off to you guys!

Looks like there is a glimmer of hope that the L is not playing catch up forever.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

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.

natnut

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.

Hoovey689

iTrader: (16)

Yeah but we better hope Lexus doesn't neuter this car's potential. I have a bad feeling it's just a FWD hydrogen powered HS, with little excitement. I hope I'm wrong

UberNoob

+1
lol

currently, there are more Tesla stations in US than public hydrogen fueling stations

Lexus doing a hydrogen car by 2015 seems too early
but someone has to do it
otherwise, no chicken, no egg