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Akio Toyoda needs to be fired. Some of his greatest hits include canning the Tesla partnership and he was at the helm when Toyota sold their old NUMMI factory to Tesla for peanuts. He talks about EVs putting too much of a strain on the power grid, then touts hydrogen production using solar farms.
Akio has no choice with this hydrogen push, that's entirely the doing of the Japanese government. Toyota would have no choice but to comply regardless of who is in charge.
I had the chance to drive a friend's first generation Toyota Mirai a couple of years back. It was an intriguing car. It looked like a Prius sedan... only much bigger. And it only seated four which must have had to do with the arrangement of the three hydrogen tanks between the trunk and rear seats. I recall that his was a version with lower pressure tanks than are used now which means lower range than the last revision Mirai and the new second generation.
It was not fast and I don't remember how much horsepower the electric motor made (150hp...?) but it was more than enough for normal driving duties. The thing I liked the most was the noise from the fuel cell stack cooling fans (unless I was listening to electronically generated noise but he said this was not the case) which were progressive and got louder depending on the level of accelerator (potentiometer) input you applied. Pretty cool, that.
It was like driving a big Prius but with a much more luxurious interior that made you feel as if the car represented what high end Toyotas tended to be like before the Lexus brand's existence disallowed there to ever again be such a thing as a "luxuirous" Toyota. It wasn't up to the level of what modern Lexus does mind you but the materials and design seemed to be much more upscale that what you'd expect in a regular Toyota.
Anyway this new Mirai using the LS's TNGA rear wheel drive architecture is a step up. Though I am perplexed as to why the electric motor is rated at a mere 182 horsepower when the car is now some 4200lbs or more. Reportedly it takes over 9 seconds to get to 60mph as well. That's a very 90's Mercedes turbodiesel style horsepower proposition for interested parties.
Toyota is more than capable of delivering an electric motor with much more horsepower than that. A luxury style vehicle this heavy with an electric motor should have at minimum 250-280hp.
This makes me wonder if the reason the electric motor is not of a higher horsepower specification has to do with current limitations of the hydrogen fuel cell stack system in regards to how much juice it can output through the small lithium ion battery acting as a buffer between the fuel cell and electric motor inverter. Maybe it's just not capable of very high voltage the way it is currently designed. If so then we'll have to watch and see how Toyota further evolves their technology to achieve higher outputs.
The range on a full tank is pretty good in this generation though and that's another very good trait that further echoes the main advantages of classic turbodiesel sedans: lots of torue and lots of maximum range. The original range used to be 404 miles and now it's 528 miles. Very impressive.
On long road trips I have only ever been able to stand traveling between 550-600 miles on average per day with around 700 being my absolute maximum so long as I do far less mileage the following day. To see an electric vehicle just barely reach and begin to fill out those thresholds is very promising.
And I'd also like to see them take advantage of the RWD platform and offer an Torsen LSD option, haha. That is assuming that the motor is in the front using a driveshaft to connect with a conventional differential at the rear. Because of the arrangement and size of the fuel cell tanks in that location I am assuming the electric motor, inverter and fuel cell stack are up front.
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With my friend's 1st generation Mirai with the early style tanks the main concern was how to plan out trips between he and his wife to make sure they always had a hydrogen station within range to fill up again. But he said they even worked out how to do a few road trips and camping trips with it. The range of the new hydrogen cars combined with more refueling stations in the future will help the argument. Big long haul semi trucks will be a big part of that refueling infrastructure buildout over time.
The current methods by which the majority of hydrogen is produced is the Achilles heel. But give it time. Better and more ubiquitous carbon neutral hydrogen production processes will eventually take over from current methods.
Costs... I have no idea at current time... but it is very cool and interesting technology to follow!
Also, I think it looks better in white
Interesting write-up. The electric motor is the same motor from the Lexus RX400h...my guess is that it dates back to 2005 (but I am not sure). Other parts such as the battery are from some other hybrid somewhere (not sure exactly). Platform is shrunken LS500
I highly doubt it will get a Torsen rear diff.
Were you aware that it was a negative emissions vehicle?
I do really wish people would understand that it is not BEV vs FCEV.....it’s BEV + FCEV
Last edited by Toys4RJill; Dec 19, 2020 at 05:49 PM.
Were you aware that it was a negative emissions vehicle?
I do really wish people would understand that it is not BEV vs FCEV.....it’s BEV + FCEV
Excellent point Jill.
HFCEV's aren't there to compete with BEV's.
HFCEV's are there to complement BEV's till new super high energy density supercharging batteries enter the market.
although it is debatable, in the real world, if the amount of electrical energy required for the electrolysis itself justifies the amount of hydrogen and oxygen you get from the process
Not a debate at all. Electrolysis takes more energy to separate the gasses than is produced when the hydrogen burns. Perpetual motion (constant output, no input) does not exist, and electrolysis is the next stage of completely wrong: getting more energy out than you put in.
When I said "debate", what I was referring to was the amount (and cost) of the electricity involved in actually producing the hydrogen through electrolysis. Electricity is generated by a number of different sources....coal, oil, solar, wind, nuclear, etc....
1. generate electricity>electrolysis>compress H into tanks>transport>pump into tanks again>pump into vehicle>power fuel cell>generate electricity>charge battery>drive motor
2. generate electricity>charge battery>drive motor
Using even the most rudimentary understanding of physics should make the choice obvious.
1. generate electricity>electrolysis>compress H into tanks>transport>pump into tanks again>pump into vehicle>power fuel cell>generate electricity>charge battery>drive motor
2. generate electricity>charge battery>drive motor
Using even the most rudimentary understanding of physics should make the choice obvious.
Of course BEV's are more energy efficient than HFCEV's.
However, there is no need to bag HFCEV's every time a new thread comes out, because like Jill pointed out, HFCEV's aren't here to compete with BEV's, but to complement BEV's by providing temporary long range with rapid refuelling for long distance commercial vehicles - something that current lithium ion powered BEV's cannot yet manage.
BEV's are being complemented by hybrids, not FCEV's. Hybrids are the transition point between ICE and BEV. FCEV's have zero future for passenger vehicles.
BEV's are being complemented by hybrids, not FCEV's. Hybrids are the transition point between ICE and BEV. FCEV's have zero future for passenger vehicles.
True.
Hybrids are the intermediate transition from ICEV's to BEV's, while HFCEV's genuinely complement BEV's from a zero emissions perspective - until super high energy density with superfast charging batteries are released onto the market, for long distance commercial vehicles like GA-L-based JDM Toyota Crown taxis and the like.
Hybrids are low emissions vehicles LEV's, though not zero emissions vehicles ZEV's.
Some geographical continents have high population densities with severe pollution, so they actually need ZEV's as opposed to just LEV's.
Both HFCEV's & BEV's are zero emissions vehicles - provided renewable energy sources like solar and wind are used.
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Last edited by peteharvey; Dec 19, 2020 at 09:45 PM.
You can't possibly consider a HFCEV as a viable long distance option it is literally impossible to drive across the United States or even to fuel it at all in most states. Right now in northern California there is a shortage of high pressure liquid hydrogen, you can't even fuel up your Mirai all the way. Now if you want to talk about the future, fair argument if we assume a trillion+ infrastructure will be built although I have no idea who is going to pay for that. And how long will it take? Given the progress of batteries it won't be long before range is a non issue. And the cost has dropped much faster than predicted, using current trends in 3-5 years a BEV will be cheaper to produce than the average petrol sedan.
You can't possibly consider a HFCEV as a viable long distance option it is literally impossible to drive across the United States or even to fuel it at all in most states. Right now in northern California there is a shortage of high pressure liquid hydrogen, you can't even fuel up your Mirai all the way. Now if you want to talk about the future, fair argument if we assume a trillion+ infrastructure will be built although I have no idea who is going to pay for that. And how long will it take? Given the progress of batteries it won't be long before range is a non issue. And the cost has dropped much faster than predicted, using current trends in 3-5 years a BEV will be cheaper to produce than the average petrol sedan.
This is what happened in 10 years.
Aren't there are already a number of countries which have set up infrastructure for hydrogen vehicles?
Hydrogen is the future in commercial transport. Even today there are hydrogen upgrades for semis which improve gas mileage. I think that's quite a big step out environment. Now if they could only fix cruise ships and airplanes not to burn fuel.
