Toyota fires bullets into hydrogen fuel tanks, shoots down EV supporters
01-17-14, 11:17 AM
#1
Toyota fires bullets into hydrogen fuel tanks, shoots down EV supporters
Toyota fires bullets into hydrogen fuel tanks, shoots down EV supporters
Many gearheads will remember that the 1970s-era Dodge Dart's claim to fame was that its motor was so durable (though not necessarily powerful) that one could shoot bullets into the engine block. Decades later, Toyota has taken a page out of that testing process.
With some industry members and analysts questioning both the viability and durability of hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles, Toyota executive Bob Carter, speaking at the Automotive News World Congress this week, says the Japanese automaker went all Clint Eastwood on the fuel tanks of a fuel-cell prototype. Carter says that bullets from a small-caliber gun bounced off the carbon-fiber tanks, and that .50-caliber bullets barely made dents. The shoot-out motif kept going when Carter name-checked executives from Tesla, Nissan and Volkswagen in saying that he didn't care if other automakers question the future of fuel-cell vehicles. Carter said, "Personally, I don't care what Elon [Musk], Carlos [Ghosn] or Jonathan [Browning] say about fuel cells. If they want to 'plug in and tune out' other technologies, that's fine."
After debuting it in Tokyo late last year, Toyota showed off its FCV fuel-cell concept vehicle at the Detroit Auto Show this week as it get ready to start sales "around 2015." The car has a 300-mile range and should be priced somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000.
With some industry members and analysts questioning both the viability and durability of hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles, Toyota executive Bob Carter, speaking at the Automotive News World Congress this week, says the Japanese automaker went all Clint Eastwood on the fuel tanks of a fuel-cell prototype. Carter says that bullets from a small-caliber gun bounced off the carbon-fiber tanks, and that .50-caliber bullets barely made dents. The shoot-out motif kept going when Carter name-checked executives from Tesla, Nissan and Volkswagen in saying that he didn't care if other automakers question the future of fuel-cell vehicles. Carter said, "Personally, I don't care what Elon [Musk], Carlos [Ghosn] or Jonathan [Browning] say about fuel cells. If they want to 'plug in and tune out' other technologies, that's fine."
After debuting it in Tokyo late last year, Toyota showed off its FCV fuel-cell concept vehicle at the Detroit Auto Show this week as it get ready to start sales "around 2015." The car has a 300-mile range and should be priced somewhere between $50,000 and $100,000.
01-17-14, 11:31 AM
#2
Lexus Fanatic
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nothing like a pissing match between engineers and execs who 'care' about the environment. 
but i'm psyched that toyota is pushing hard on this and wants to launch next year. yeah they'll be expensive to start, but likely far more practical than ev's.
but i'm psyched that toyota is pushing hard on this and wants to launch next year. yeah they'll be expensive to start, but likely far more practical than ev's.
01-17-14, 12:18 PM
#3
Lexus Champion
How so? You can plug in an EV just about anywhere, how many places can you find a hydrogen filling station? And how much does a fill even cost? Currently hydrogen is about the most inefficient way to power a car, EV the best.
A Telsa Model S gets equivalent 100mpg cost wise. And that's a sub 5 second car.
A Telsa Model S gets equivalent 100mpg cost wise. And that's a sub 5 second car.
01-17-14, 12:22 PM
#4
How so? You can plug in an EV just about anywhere, how many places can you find a hydrogen filling station? And how much does a fill even cost? Currently hydrogen is about the most inefficient way to power a car, EV the best.
A Telsa Model S gets equivalent 100mpg cost wise. And that's a sub 5 second car.
A Telsa Model S gets equivalent 100mpg cost wise. And that's a sub 5 second car.
01-17-14, 12:41 PM
#5
Lexus Champion
Maybe you have a different idea of what practical is. But without any place to fuel up your hydrogen car, I would not call that practical.
As for a hydrogen car being green, sure it is great if hydrogen was readily available. But to produce it takes energy, and any time you are converting one form of energy to another, there is loss. If your source is natural gas or through electrolysis or whatever, you've wasted energy instead of using the NG or electricity outright.
An EV is about 80% efficient or something like that, from generation to power to road. Hydrogen won't come anywhere near that.
As for a hydrogen car being green, sure it is great if hydrogen was readily available. But to produce it takes energy, and any time you are converting one form of energy to another, there is loss. If your source is natural gas or through electrolysis or whatever, you've wasted energy instead of using the NG or electricity outright.
An EV is about 80% efficient or something like that, from generation to power to road. Hydrogen won't come anywhere near that.
01-17-14, 01:28 PM
#6
Lexus Champion
Fuel cell vehicles are also electric vehicles: the fuel cell produces electricity that powers electric motor(s) that drive the vehicle. From this perspective, it is a series hybrid vehicle just like an EV with a fossil fuel-powered range extender is. "Extra" electricity is stored in a battery.
But you have to produce hydrogen; it is not freely available to capture for use. One method talked about is electrolysis of water, using electricity to separate hydrogen from oxygen in water, but you need electricity.
So, use electricity to split water molecules to produce hydrogen. Transport and/or store the hydrogen before pumping into the fuel cell car. Use the hydrogen in the fuel cell to produce electricity, which is then stored in a battery.
You can also produce hydrogen from fossil fuels but then you run into the problem of using fossil fuels and producing CO2 byproduct even if you are not burning the fossil fuels.
Something is wrong here, no?
01-17-14, 01:40 PM
#7
Maybe you have a different idea of what practical is. But without any place to fuel up your hydrogen car, I would not call that practical.
As for a hydrogen car being green, sure it is great if hydrogen was readily available. But to produce it takes energy, and any time you are converting one form of energy to another, there is loss. If your source is natural gas or through electrolysis or whatever, you've wasted energy instead of using the NG or electricity outright.
An EV is about 80% efficient or something like that, from generation to power to road. Hydrogen won't come anywhere near that.
As for a hydrogen car being green, sure it is great if hydrogen was readily available. But to produce it takes energy, and any time you are converting one form of energy to another, there is loss. If your source is natural gas or through electrolysis or whatever, you've wasted energy instead of using the NG or electricity outright.
An EV is about 80% efficient or something like that, from generation to power to road. Hydrogen won't come anywhere near that.
you can not fuel up EV "anywhere" because fueling up Tesla "anywhere" would take you 2.5 days. Now fueling it at Supercharger stations takes 25mins, which is much better than 2.5 days but much more than 3mins... and there are only 32 Superchargers in the USA and 6 in Europe.
By the time they start selling these, they plan to have enough hydrogen stations to cover up areas where they are selling them...
As to the efficiency, next generation Prius will have world leading petrol engine efficiency at 42.5%... Fuel cell has efficiency of over 70%.
And cost of hydrogen when produced from natural gas will be about the same as cost of gas currently (roughly about $3.6).
So compared to Prius, this their FCV will go 80% further on same amount of money. Compared to Camry, it will be more than 2x less costly to fuel up.
Also, environmental impact, considering that over 36% of electricity in the usa is based on coal, is roughly the same as ev's.
of course, ev's are cool but right now, there is no battery advancement in sight, not for the next 5 years at least.
so what toyota is saying is that they are saying reduction in costs a lot faster in FCV than in batteries, and thats with Toyota having largest R&D of any manufacturer when it comes to new battery technologies, and it is biggest producer of car batteries in the world.
so to dismiss toyota as anti-ev is kind of crazy.
Even when battery tech improves, it will also be used in FCV's... but will it ever be used in trucks? probably not, heavier and longer distance the car drives, there is much less chance that it will ever be using suitable to use electric energy.
Last edited by spwolf; 01-17-14 at 01:54 PM. Reason: corrected coal %
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01-17-14, 01:53 PM
#8
Fuel cell vehicles are also electric vehicles: the fuel cell produces electricity that powers electric motor(s) that drive the vehicle. From this perspective, it is a series hybrid vehicle just like an EV with a fossil fuel-powered range extender is. "Extra" electricity is stored in a battery.
But you have to produce hydrogen; it is not freely available to capture for use. One method talked about is electrolysis of water, using electricity to separate hydrogen from oxygen in water, but you need electricity.
So, use electricity to split water molecules to produce hydrogen. Transport and/or store the hydrogen before pumping into the fuel cell car. Use the hydrogen in the fuel cell to produce electricity, which is then stored in a battery.
You can also produce hydrogen from fossil fuels but then you run into the problem of using fossil fuels and producing CO2 byproduct even if you are not burning the fossil fuels.
Something is wrong here, no?
But you have to produce hydrogen; it is not freely available to capture for use. One method talked about is electrolysis of water, using electricity to separate hydrogen from oxygen in water, but you need electricity.
So, use electricity to split water molecules to produce hydrogen. Transport and/or store the hydrogen before pumping into the fuel cell car. Use the hydrogen in the fuel cell to produce electricity, which is then stored in a battery.
You can also produce hydrogen from fossil fuels but then you run into the problem of using fossil fuels and producing CO2 byproduct even if you are not burning the fossil fuels.
Something is wrong here, no?
36% of US energy production comes from COAL.
These days natural gas is used more and more, and efficiency of natural gas plants is between 35 and 45%.
So now, if you thought that energy that goes into EV somehow automagically gets created, it does not. Currently it gets produced by coal or natural gas (plus nuclear), at efficiency average of 40%, which means 60% is thrown away.
Also, cost to sell hydrogen, according to Gov study from 2012 is:
In comparison, current analyses using low-cost natural gas with a price of $2.00 per
MMBtu can decrease the hydrogen levelized cost to $3.68 per gge (untaxed) including
compression, storage and dispensing costs. The production cost portion of hydrogen
produced at distributed retail stations could decrease to $1.21 per gge.
MMBtu can decrease the hydrogen levelized cost to $3.68 per gge (untaxed) including
compression, storage and dispensing costs. The production cost portion of hydrogen
produced at distributed retail stations could decrease to $1.21 per gge.
01-17-14, 02:02 PM
#9
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Hydrogen is quite useless and is the big oil company's answer to an EV
Why is Toyota pushing hydrogen so much? I'd much rather they develop a competitive EV Instead.
The entire process of the Hydeogen Fuel Cell vehicle is flawed. You use hydrogen to produce electricity. Why not just an EV?
Absolutly no LOGIC
Why is Toyota pushing hydrogen so much? I'd much rather they develop a competitive EV Instead.
The entire process of the Hydeogen Fuel Cell vehicle is flawed. You use hydrogen to produce electricity. Why not just an EV?
Absolutly no LOGIC
01-17-14, 02:02 PM
#10
Lexus Fanatic
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^^^ winning posts of the day from spwolf. 
01-17-14, 02:03 PM
#11
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No. Converting energy from coal, NG, solar etc. to electricity is not the same as producing hydrogen and using it as fuel. You are adding the extra process to produce, store and transport. That extra step is hugely wasteful, the hydrogen becomes the energy carrier not the energy source.
01-17-14, 02:16 PM
#12
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no. Converting energy from coal, ng, solar etc. To electricity is not the same as producing hydrogen and using it as fuel. You are adding the extra process to produce, store and transport. That extra step is hugely wasteful, the hydrogen becomes the energy carrier not the energy source.
01-17-14, 02:16 PM
#13
Hydrogen is quite useless and is the big oil company's answer to an EV
Why is Toyota pushing hydrogen so much? I'd much rather they develop a competitive EV Instead.
The entire process of the Hydeogen Fuel Cell vehicle is flawed. You use hydrogen to produce electricity. Why not just an EV?
Absolutly no LOGIC
Why is Toyota pushing hydrogen so much? I'd much rather they develop a competitive EV Instead.
The entire process of the Hydeogen Fuel Cell vehicle is flawed. You use hydrogen to produce electricity. Why not just an EV?
Absolutly no LOGIC
TotalSA owns 66% of Sunpower. And Sunpower:
Largest U.S. residential and commercial installed base, with over 100,000 residential systems installed
http://us.sunpower.com/about/
So when you buy that solar system to your house, money goes to big oil.
01-17-14, 02:30 PM
#14
No. Converting energy from coal, NG, solar etc. to electricity is not the same as producing hydrogen and using it as fuel. You are adding the extra process to produce, store and transport. That extra step is hugely wasteful, the hydrogen becomes the energy carrier not the energy source.
Sure, taken at face value - EVs store electricity and then use 95% of it. However, that electiricty is not created free. It is created by coal and natural gas at 40% efficiency. So no, EVs are not 95% efficient.
On the other hand, efficiency of FCV's is "only" 70%! it sounds horrible compared to EVs and 95%... until you learn that efficient gasoline engines are at 38%..
And here is the shock:
Hydrogen can be generated from natural gas with approximately 80% efficiency
Oh what, 80% compared to 40% power plant efficiency? How is this possible? EV fanatics told me otherwise!
Proof is in the pudding:
If the hydrogen is produced at hydrogen gas station, it lowers overall cost of hydrogen to the customer to $1.2 per gallon, as study above says. Even if it is produced at far away plant, cost is $3.6... same as petrol.
So no, you are simply not correct.
While I am sure that i will drive EV sooner than hydrogen car, at the same time It gets annoying how much EV propaganda is out there. It is just a technology... whoever comes to market cheaper and with better product, is going to win it. We as customers should like all of them that reduce oil usage and dependence on foreign oil.
01-17-14, 02:38 PM
#15
Lexus Champion