Toyota reduces price of new hydrogen car with $15,000 of free fuel

https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/toyota-reduces-price-of-new-hydrogen-car-in-california-to-just-over-15-000-with-15-000-of-free-fuel/2-1-1769729

by namanyayg • 1 year ago

33 105 1 year ago

hydrogeninsight.com

markus_zhang• 1 year ago

I'm not sure how safe a hydrogen car is...any insight?

pfdietz2• 1 year ago

It's certainly not safe from buyer's remorse. One sees videos of customers who rate a Mirai purchase as the worst purchase they have ever made. Also, Toyota is being sued.

Basically, physical safety is a nonissue if the purchase makes no sense anyway.

anenefan• 1 year ago

I don't know if the original article was complete or just the little text I saw was because of the lousy render due to my older browser. Anyhow [1] reads a lot better as well as probably being an earlier article about the same - presently has 74 comments including at least one from a person who brought two for company vehicles.

As for safe, I would say just as safe if not safer than the vehicles fitted to run on LPG or natural gas due to what I would presume would be an overkill of engineering and materials used, ensuing the lines don't leak even if the vehicle was involved in a minor fencer bender.

I have worked with hydrogen on and off over a few years (mostly as gas to run a welding torch) and despite tales how it might just explode or catch fire if one looked at it the wrong way, it's actually pretty uneventful most of the time - it's just hard to see the flame ... and yes, being curious I've done things like igniting a big plastic bag filled with it to see what it does - meh.

[1] https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1145539_this-new-toyota...

basementcat2• 1 year ago

I drove one for several years and had no safety issues. Access to fuel is the critical issue and all my driving during that period was limited to areas between or within range of H2 fuel stations. The vehicle handled similar to an electric vehicle except with about a 5 minute "recharging" time.

danans4• 1 year ago

The vehicle handled similar to an electric vehicle except with about 5 minute "recharging".

This is because from the perspective of just the drivetrain, it is an electric vehicle, battery and all (albeit a smaller one).

Hamuko• 1 year ago

It's definitely not safe if you suffer from range anxiety. Good luck finding that H2 station.

JumpCrisscross11• 1 year ago

not safe if you suffer from range anxiety

I'm increasingly convinced this is a generational thing. I typically run my car until close to empty unless I'm planning on leaving town. I've had houseguests, on the other hand, who start literally flipping out if the tank goes below a quarter full. (There is no practically conceivable case where running out of gas in town would constitute an emergency.)

cjbenedikt• 1 year ago

https://www.nrdc.org/bio/christian-tae/hydrogen-safety-lets-....

kotaKat• 1 year ago

For those of you really thinking about this, here's the current status of hydrogen fueling stations in California:

https://h2-ca.com/

Out of 65 stations in the state, only 33 currently have fuel and are known "online".

Good luck!

JumpCrisscross11• 1 year ago

Out of 65 stations in the state, only 33 currently have fuel and are known "online"

Hydrogen cars are the worst of all worlds. You still have to overhaul your production and distribution infrastructure. But you keep the complicated power train and time suck of tank-filling from ICE vehicles.

sambull• 1 year ago

but you get to keep a distribution infrastructure. I think that's the goal. They still want the 'fuel' company in the middle.

stephenr4• 1 year ago

But you keep the complicated power train

The "drive train" is electric motors from a lithium ion battery... you know, like a "regular" EV.

time suck of tank-filling from ICE vehicles.

The Toyota spec page says it can fill the tank in 5 minutes. How many EVs can go from nothing or practically nothing to a full charge in 5 minutes?

idlephysicist• 1 year ago

Firstly, I love that website. It's simple and informative.

I don't the average mileage or a hydrogen vehicle nor tank size, so I'll take your word on that. Using your numbers and the map I plotted a route that does get you from San Diego to the Oregon border. But you will need a tow truck to meet you at the end, because there would not be enough fuel to get you back to Sacramento.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/p5tgvAkErktL7LTF6

jmclnx• 1 year ago

First I think this is a promising product and I would consider this except for 2 issues:

1. Fueling Stations.

2. A more complex concern.

From what I understand its "exhaust" is water, which is great. But where I live, winters could be a big issue. These vehicles could coat the roads with thin black ice.

So, if true, would that mean this product would only be useful in warm climates ?

jryb• 1 year ago

They emit water vapor, not liquid water. Gasoline-fueled cars emit roughly the same amount of water as a hydrogen-powered vehicle, so we already know this isn't an issue.

garciasn• 1 year ago

It’s an issue here in Minnesota; intersections and highways where there’s standing traffic are slick from the freezing exhaust condensate, but, to clarify your statement: it potentially wouldn’t be a bigger issue than it already is.

diggan2• 1 year ago

They emit water vapor, not liquid water

If cold enough, doesn't that just freeze and fall to the ground anyways? Considering some places have between like -30/-20C in the winters.

Ekaros• 1 year ago

Have you ever looked at tail pipe of car in freezing weather? Most of that is water vapor. Some fraction is particulate emissions, but most of it is vapor. Mostly don't see this in summer. But cars have been for century produced water as exhaust with no issues. Water from hydrogen is really not that different.

FractalParadigm• 1 year ago

But where I live, winters could be a big issue. These vehicles could coat the roads with thin black ice.

I never even considered this as a problem. Is the exhaust liquid water though? Because my understanding of the process is such that is still creates an appreciable amount of heat, causing the exhaust to leave as a vapour (much in the same way water vapour is already expelled from catalyzed ICE exhaust, or people breathing).

p_j_w• 1 year ago

I've seen a Mirai release a small amount of liquid water before. It could indeed be an issue.

cma• 1 year ago

Gas already has lots of hydrogen atoms attached to the carbon chains that in part burn to water. Diesel a slightly lower ratio since it is longer chain but still puts out a lot of water vapor. Why would this make a difference?

dagmx7• 1 year ago

This has to be Toyota’s biggest and weirdest hang up.

The insistence that hydrogen cars are a viable future, and the lobbying against full BEV just feels like they’re constantly digging their heels in on something that they can’t actually prove in the market in any meaningful way.

The state of hydrogen refueling alone is awful. Transporting it, storing it and maintaining the stations is awful. Convenience versus electric for home charging is awful.

Toyota really haven’t provided a meaningful argument for why this is the best route beyond just the cost of making the BEVs

nicce3• 1 year ago

Toyota really haven’t provided a meaningful argument for why this is the best route beyond just the cost of making the BEVs

Does it really need one? It is not possible in theory to replace all traditional cars with electric cars with the current battery technology. There isn't enough materials on the planet. Currently it is just luxury for the wealthiest, if we look the global level.

JumpCrisscross11• 1 year ago

it is not possible in theory to replace all traditional cars with electric cars with the current battery technology. There isn't enough materials on the planet

This is not true [1]. And that estimate assumes battery chemistries don't change (or vary), which is also obviously nonsense.

[1] https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/lithium-electric-v...

danans4• 1 year ago

Currently it is just luxury for the wealthiest, if we look the global level.

Today, in the developing world, traditional and highly polluting 2-stroke engine powered tuk tuks, driven by quite poor people, are being replaced by electric versions. I asked one such driver recently why he went electric. He said it was cheaper to operate.

dagmx7• 1 year ago

Can you back up your assertion?

I can go out and buy a BEV at most common price points compared to ICE vehicles, so it’s definitely not a luxury for the wealthiest. Even in very low income countries, there are now EV autorikshaws / tuktuks etc and EV mopeds.

Ignoring the used market of course since that’s a factor of time.

Also what makes you believe that we can’t actually manufacture enough? Would you have credible links to that effect?

Finally, even if BEV was unsustainable, why would hydrogen be the answer? Do you know how difficult it is to produce, transport and store Hydrogen sufficiently to be a worthwhile alternative?

Toyota has been trying WITH massive government funding going back to when Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor of California and still couldn’t make it happen.

rUsHeYaFuBu2• 1 year ago

There isn't enough materials on the planet

There is more than enough lithium on the planet for it.

Additionally, there's growing recycling technology and significant advances in battery technology and engineering the vehicle itself to be more efficient with the battery it's tied to. Structural and management systems for example.

There's also growing research and use cases for second-life applications for batteries no longer useful for an automotive application such as additional grid storage. Some key applications for this include grid balancing and lesson length of outages.

austin-cheney• 1 year ago

I suspect the answer is maintenance. Maintenance is the primary reason I am not buying an electric. God forbid something trivial break and I have to spend half the remaining value of the car to make it run again.

My ridiculously cheap KIA won the top award for maintainability by JD Power the year it came out beating out the high dollar brands. I never have to replace anything on it except tires, the battery, and windshield wipers. If I did have to replace something critical, though, I know it would be cheap. The car is 8 years old too.

I know hydrogen has a far lower energy compression compared to gasoline, but the idea that its always clean, even cleaner than electric, is appealing. Its also appealing that it refuels quickly, like gasoline, which is another big turn off for electric.

philipwhiuk• 1 year ago

I'm curious why you think maintenance of a hydrogen car will be like a gasoline car instead of an electric car.

HDThoreaun• 1 year ago

EV maintenance is far easier and cheaper than ICE vehicle maintenance.

tuvang• 1 year ago

I get what you mean by EVs having high cost components but low maintenance is usually used as an argument for EVs. As long as nothing breaks they are very cheap to run in terms of both maintenance and fuel.

delecti• 1 year ago

I had always been under the impression that EVs are significantly lower maintenance than ICEs. Was that a misconception on my part, or am I missing why maintenance would be a point in favor of fuel cell cars?

Spivak• 1 year ago

I treat my 2012 Honda Fit like absolute garbage and it's pushing 150k miles without one single repair. I've literally only replaced the tires.

I think people in the comments are missing that maintenance is cheap, repairs are expensive. Saying EVs have less maintenance is like saying you get free drink refills at a fine dining restaurant.

danhor• 1 year ago

The data on EVs is that maintenance (at least on the drive train + battery) is not an issue, excluding air cooled designs like the Nissan Leaf which were doomed from the start.

But hydrogen fuel cells are also expensive to maintain and have been a huge maintenance burden, as they're quick to fail with contamination (and lots of other factors), leading to hydrogen trains being replaced by diesel trains.

Hydrogen can be clean, but it isn't and won't be for the forseeable future for the simple fact that it would be way to expensive. Almost all hydrogen today is made from natural gas and much less efficient than powering an electric car from a gas plant. But even if hydrogen was produced with electricity, due to the low efficiency it would be much dirtier than an electric car (And we're entirely discounting hydrogen leakage, which is much more potent at heating up the planet than CO2).

Hydrogen can also be fast to refuel, but it takes much longer than gas and often requires a long "time-out" after the last refueling. Hydrogen fuel stations are also very unreliable. With current EVs, 20%-80% charging in 20 minutes is state of the art, which should make charging times mostly a non-issue when this is also available in most "cheap" EVs.

bdangubic• 1 year ago

I suspect the answer is maintenance. Maintenance is the primary reason I am not buying an electric.

This is actually the MAIN reason to buy EVs. I have a 2014 Tesla S, total cost of “maintenance” since purchase - exactly $0.00 (got free supercharging too of course). the only “maintenace” I had was replacing modem for 5G switch and replacing internal battery - $400 total. The car has 90k miles and it is still on original brakes as with regenerative breaking I hardly ever use the brake.

PaulHoule2• 1 year ago

Part of the argument for electric is that you are not paying for oil changes and other routine maintenance that gas cars require.

The two options for a hydrogen car are: (1) ordinary internal combustion engine and (2) fuel cell.

(1) is an off the shelf technology but is not very fuel efficient and not perfectly clean. You don't get CO2 or CO or hydrocarbons but you still get oxides of nitrogen; hydrocarbons + nitrogen oxides + sunlight = photochemical smog, you can never get hydrocarbons to zero because there are natural sources (Reagan used to say "trees pollute") so lowering NO is important.

(2) gets better fuel efficiency which improves range by countering the low density of every form of hydrogen storage; it's not a mature technology, it combines some of the difficult aspects of the ICE (from an Ashby [1] perspective it has all the functions of an ICE including fuel supply, air supply, cooling [2], exhaust removal [3][4]) plus it has the electrochemical problems a battery has.

[1] https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27150

[2] actually harder because the fuel cell operates a lower temperature!

[3] it's probably not running hot enough to remove water as vapor, if you can't remove the liquid fast enough the fuel cell it will clog up

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-board_diagnostics was introduced to make it possible to maintain the complex emissions controls system; an ICE could be simpler if it didn't run under a strict pollution control regime, but a fuel cell needs a control system like that just to run reliably

dagmx7• 1 year ago

Your theory ignores that Toyota pushes Hybrids over both Hydrogen and BEV. Hybrids are more complex than either BEV or ICE.

Your point about ICE being lower maintenance also has some issues. BEV have way fewer moving parts and therefore require significantly less maintenance.

The parts that are likely to break on an EV are largely mechanically similar to an ICE (anything in the wheel well assemblies) or in terms of body construction, physically similar to the same generation of ICE.

A lot of people look at the cost of new EVs and their repair parts but compare against older ICE vehicles that haven’t moved to the same construction methods. Newer ICE vehicles are mostly the same cost to replace parts.

Beyond that, Hydrogen fuelled cars are mechanically more complex than BEV, while still being harder to repair than your age of ICE

JumpCrisscross11• 1 year ago

Maintenance is the primary reason I am not buying an electric

This is a real problem that will hopefully soften with scale. EVs should be fundamentally cheaper to maintain than ICE or hydrogen cars.

bryanlarsen4• 1 year ago

Which is an excellent reason to buy a Toyota EV. Hybrids are the most complicated cars and should be the worst for maintenance, but they consistently come out on top of rankings because a large portion of the non-plugin hybrids are Toyota's. Conversely PHEV's are on the bottom because a large portion of them are from Stellantis.

Imagine a Prius minus most of the bits that need maintenance and wear out. That car would last forever and should sell like hotcakes. But Toyota would rather sell you a hydrogen lemon than an EV.

AnotherGoodName5• 1 year ago

“Even cleaner than electric”

The catalysts for hydrogen->electricity are the same rare earths that people complain are harmful in EVs. Electricity->hydrogen->electricity is also far more lossy than the over 80% efficiency of the lithium cycle. Hydrogen has a round trip efficiency of 40%.

You may hear ‘it turns into water’ but that’s just obfuscating the origin of it (which may be electricity or more likely cracking fossil fuels).

All up I don’t see how you could claim it’s better than current electric cars from an environmental point of view.

rainsford• 1 year ago

I agree the concept doesn't seem to be proving out in the real world, but there's an obvious use case for car owners who can't charge an EV at home. If you don't have home charging for whatever reason, doing from a gasoline car to an EV is a nontrivial convenience downgrade when it comes to "refueling". Fast charging has helped somewhat, but it's still considerably slower than refueling a gas car and still not great for the battery to do it all the time. Hydrogen in theory solves that problem by replicating the gas car experience for those drivers. At this point though it does seem more likely that the home charging problem will be solved for more people before hydrogen cars become practical for the same user base.

What's interesting to me is thinking about why this is the case, and it I think it comes down to relatively low pressure for drivers to switch away from gas cars. For drivers who can charge an EV at home, that's actually a big convenience upgrade and so drives EV sales. But for drivers who can't charge an EV at home, there's very little practical reason to switch away from a gas car. I'm sure some of them care about the environmental benefits of doing so, but that's probably not a sufficient motivator to switch on its own given how big of a purchase a car is.

dagmx7• 1 year ago

Faster refueling is definitely a big one but the refueling state for hydrogen is abysmal.

That’s after significant government and corporate funding.Toyota would need to be like Tesla and really bootstrap their refueling infrastructure for those people converting from gas but not going to EV, like you said.

I suspect most hydrogen drivers are more interested in the cost savings on gas/vehicle than the environmental impact. The verge did a special on hydrogen cars recently and every owner they talked to basically credited cost over any other factor.

atmavatar• 1 year ago

The EV refueling problem seems like an easy one to solve: create industry standard, modular, and replaceable battery cells.

Refueling is done by swapping-out low charge battery cells for fully-charged battery cells. If designed properly, the swapping could be done quickly and easily, making the overall refueling of an EV vehicle at least as fast as filling a gas tank.

The cost of refueling would include the price of the charge itself plus some moderate fee to amortize the cost of replacing cells that go bad, which likely would still be cheaper than the cost of gasoline.

The refueling station itself could either constantly charge the battery cells on hand or choose to keep a larger number of backup cells and charge exclusively during periods of cheaper electricity - whichever ends up being more cost effective.

blackeyeblitzar5• 1 year ago

I have observed the reverse - lobbying by the BEV industry (and pro BEV activists online) against hydrogen.

Personally, I think hybrids, PHEVs, and hydrogen are better because they can be refilled quickly. I also think battery electric cars are way too expensive to repair in accidents. And having had to deal with a battery replacement out of warranty, I wasn’t happy with the experience of battling the company to not pay enormous amounts.

Also hydrogen refueling might be better if it received the same investment, subsidies, etc. It doesn’t seem fair to critique the current state of things when it could be different.

ajb4• 1 year ago

The funny thing is that theoretically hydrogen would be easy to deploy in the UK. We already have a gas network for methane, it wouldn't be hard to mix in 20% hydrogen and then filter it back out at the other end (there's an energy cost, but it's not huge, and in any case most existing uses would not have a problem with 20% hydrogen). Which would give us the ability to deliver hydrogen relatively cheaply to any location. But it looks like EVs have too much momentum, and are likely to have a cheaper running cost anyway.

danans4• 1 year ago

We already have a gas network for methane, it wouldn't be hard to mix in 20% hydrogen and then filter it back out at the other end (there's an energy cost, but it's not huge, and in any case most existing uses would not have a problem with 20% hydrogen).

Even ignoring the dangers of embrittlement of metal pipes that carry the hydrogen enriched gas, what is the cost of this methane/hydrogen filter, and what is it's safety for home use given that it's dealing with 2 highly flammable gases mixed together. I can't find anything online about household methane/hydrogen separators.

Whereas an EVSE is basically just a big electrical switch.

ajb4• 1 year ago

The UK gas network was used for many decades to transport a 50-50 mix of hydrogen and CO, called "town gas". Nevertheless the risk to the modern network should be diligently evaluated . I believe the intention is to do that anyway to the extent it is found to be safe, as blending in hydrogen reduces the carbon consumption of the gas network

For papers on hydrogen/methane separation, see: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=blen...

bobm_kite9• 1 year ago

I think this is set to happen: https://www.agcc.co.uk/news-article/hydrogen-will-be-pumped-...

AnotherGoodName5• 1 year ago

Just ship methane. If you have hydrogen it’s not hard to convert it to methane (or vice versa). It actually tends to happen with a simple catalyst near atmospheric co2 and one of the biggest pains when dealing with it is avoiding it reacting.

Which should just add to how stupid hydrogen is. It’s a synthetic fuel that has huge storage and transport costs, is no more green or easier to produce than synthetic methane which we already have. We could just make synthetic methane today if that was the path we were likely to take but honestly it’s cheaper to pump methane out of the ground so that’s what we do (barring any incentives to mix in synthetic methane).

A real hilarity is that hydrogen fuel right now is often made the opposite way. Take methane, heat in absence of oxygen and the carbon and hydrogen seperate. All this talk of hydrogen as an alternative to fossil fuels is nonsense. It’s a synthetic fuel, one of many possible synthetic fuels that’s extremely inconvenient for storage (absolutely can’t be stored in liquid form without cryogenics or ‘bleed off’ to keep it cool), it corrodes fucking everything and best of all it’s no easier to produce synthetically than the fuels we already use day to day, eg methane.

Absolute stupidity and scientific illiteracy that hydrogen was even on the cards.

GregDavidson2• 1 year ago

I keep hoping that the amazing engineering feats going into this boondoggle will be applied to applications where hydrogen is visble, e.g. larger vehicles.

JumpCrisscross11• 1 year ago

where hydrogen is visble, e.g. larger vehicles

Could you outline which vehicles these are? I've never seen a case where hydrogen makes sense for any reason other than trying to make hydrogen make sense.

GregDavidson2• 1 year ago

Oops: s/visible/viable/

Hydrogen fuel cells make more sense for aircraft (weight) and larger vehicles like trucks because of scaling (larger tanks are more efficient, etc.) and fleet advantages (depot refueling). It is amazing to me that Toyota has gotten hydrogen to work in cars, but it can't compete with batteries.

instagib• 1 year ago

How much copper is needed to electrify the US car industry?

-The mining industry is slow and long-term oriented, and can't keep up with the increasing demand for copper.

-It would take more than twice as much copper to electrify the US as has been mined in all of human history up to 2018

-It would take decades to build new mines, and copper mining is expensive

tzs2• 1 year ago

I'm having trouble seeing how it would take more copper than has been mined throughout all history up to 2018.

First, there would be the copper needed in the actual cars. A BEV uses about 80 kg of copper (compared to around 20 for an ICE). At 15.5 million cars and light trucks sold per year in the US that's 1.2 million metric tons of copper per year. World copper production is 22 million metric tons per year, so 5% of world copper production.

Then there would be any copper needed for any upgrades to the electrical distribution system.

Working out from the home, level 2 EV charging draws about the same amount of power as an electric clothes dryer. Most home electrical systems are already designed to handle the load of a clothes dryer running during the day when households are also using their other electrical appliances. They should have no trouble with someone charging their EV overnight (which electric companies will encourage with lower overnight rates).

The key here is that in most cases EV charging at home won't increase the peak load. It will just raise the average load. So no need for new wiring.

The same should be true of most of the electrical distribution infrastructure in cities.

Maybe we'll need to build more transmission lines between cities and regions. But those are usually made of aluminum, not copper.

Copper is more conductive than aluminum so to make an aluminum wire with the same capacity it was to have a cross section about 56% bigger, so your wire has 56% more aluminum by volume. But copper is way denser than aluminum (8.96 g/cm^3 vs 2.7 g/cm^3) so the aluminum wire is only 47% as heavy as the copper wire. For lines that are not buried that means your supports only have to be half as strong, lowering their costs.

Aluminum is also a lot cheaper ($2.57/kg vs $9.50/kg) so the aluminum wire is only about 13% of the cost of the copper wire. That's a huge win even with buried lines.

What else would be needed that would use copper?

pfdietz2• 1 year ago

Probably the motors. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will also have motors, of course.

johnea• 1 year ago

Wow, the Japanese auto makers are pretty frikin desperate to avoid electrification 8-(

It's clear they don't want to give up the dominance in mechanical engineering that is manifest in their internal combustion engines.

I just wonder why they haven't more significantly emphasized plug-in hybrids. Just multiplying the battery capacity of a Prius, and letting it plug in would be a huge entry into low cost electrification that would still leverage their mechanical dominance in the industry (read as: greatest longevity by far).

What up Mr. Toyoda?

Toyota reduces price of new hydrogen car with $15,000 of free fuel

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