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At a recent shareholders' meeting in Japan, Toyota executives stated their continued commitment to bringing a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle to market in the near future. The previous forecast was for production to start in 2014, but they've revised their timeline, pushing production back a year to 2015.
That still seems awfully soon for a full-scale production of a hydrogen car, but maybe Toyota knows something we don't. Hydrogen fuel cells have a lot of potential, but the technology and infrastructure is still way behind electric vehicles.
We're more optimistic about the plug-in hybrid and all-electric models they're planning for release much sooner, but we'll be interested to hear more about the HFC model and to see if they stick to their timeline.
via AFP and Autoblog Green
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written by no one, June 25, 2009
Storing the equivalent amount of energy in a car with hydrogen will weigh less than if batteries are used.
Until battery storage technology improves, hydrogen cars are still possible alternatives.
Until battery storage technology improves, hydrogen cars are still possible alternatives.
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written by autostry, June 25, 2009
I still think that hydrogen cars will be possible in the future. The time adjustment is just a simple setback as long as they go on with the process of production.
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written by Fred, June 25, 2009
It sounds good but i really hope we dont get taxed for water now!
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written by Dave, June 25, 2009
I think hydrogen fuel cells are the future.
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written by Carl Hage, June 25, 2009
There is a lot of confusion about hydrogen vehicles compared to others. Realistically, the hydrogen anywhere in the near term will come from natural gas, so why not compare a fuel cell vehicle with CNG? I did some calculations, using information from the EPA for the Honda Civic CNG, gas, and gas-HEV, plus the Honda FCX with EPA stats from the Honda web site, and CNG & CO2 equivalence from a DOE paper. Note the FCX is a hybrid with Li Batteries, so is most comparable to the gas-hybrid.
Here are the results:
Gas-HEV: 42 MPG, 4.4 T-CO2/y, 465mi range
FCX-H2: 40 MPG-CNG, 4.5 T-CO2/y, 240mi range
CNG: 28 MPG-CNG, 5.4 T-CO2/y, 170mi range
Gas: 29 MPG, 6.3 T-CO2/y, 345mi range
The gas hybrid-electric Civic is better than the Hydrogen FCX
in all respects (except unknown fuel cost, estimated to be slightly less in the DOE paper). The FCX has more fossil fuel consumption, more CO2/year, and less range.
[If the civic hybrid could burn natural gas, then it would probably use less natural gas than the fuel cell, where the H2 comes from natural gas (as it does now).]
The FCX and HEV are pretty close though, so really it comes down to cost. Most current comparisons I see future fuel cell cost compared to current battery cost. Right now, fuel cells are fantastically expensive-- much more than the expensive Tesla or Volt batteries. The question is, will future battery prices and recharge times improve faster than fuel cell prices?
If you consider hydrogen from renewable electricity, keep in mind the cycle efficiency of a fuel cell (electricty-H2-electricity) is about 25% vs 86% for a battery/PHEV. It seems to me that the PHEVs will be the big winners in the near term as a cost effective way to reduce CO2, fossil fuel, as well as total cost of ownership.
Here are the results:
Gas-HEV: 42 MPG, 4.4 T-CO2/y, 465mi range
FCX-H2: 40 MPG-CNG, 4.5 T-CO2/y, 240mi range
CNG: 28 MPG-CNG, 5.4 T-CO2/y, 170mi range
Gas: 29 MPG, 6.3 T-CO2/y, 345mi range
The gas hybrid-electric Civic is better than the Hydrogen FCX
in all respects (except unknown fuel cost, estimated to be slightly less in the DOE paper). The FCX has more fossil fuel consumption, more CO2/year, and less range.
[If the civic hybrid could burn natural gas, then it would probably use less natural gas than the fuel cell, where the H2 comes from natural gas (as it does now).]
The FCX and HEV are pretty close though, so really it comes down to cost. Most current comparisons I see future fuel cell cost compared to current battery cost. Right now, fuel cells are fantastically expensive-- much more than the expensive Tesla or Volt batteries. The question is, will future battery prices and recharge times improve faster than fuel cell prices?
If you consider hydrogen from renewable electricity, keep in mind the cycle efficiency of a fuel cell (electricty-H2-electricity) is about 25% vs 86% for a battery/PHEV. It seems to me that the PHEVs will be the big winners in the near term as a cost effective way to reduce CO2, fossil fuel, as well as total cost of ownership.
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written by Mike99, June 26, 2009
Hydrogen is an inefficient use of energy. Nothing beats battery's and battery hybrids. Hydrogen is an attempt by the oil industry to keep control of the auto fuel supply distribution system.
A plugin Electric frees us from the oil, and oil industry funded hydrogen monopoly.
A plugin Electric frees us from the oil, and oil industry funded hydrogen monopoly.
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written by Sandy Dorson, June 26, 2009
Regarding the politics of the DOE ATVM Loan awards:
So it turns out to be all the best loans money can buy.
Ford paid over $14M to elected officials and consultants in order to get the loan. Ford paid the third largest amount and Ford got the third largest loan. This is disclosed in public records searches and lobby filings just revealed. 21 elected officials had direct benefit from the deal.
Nissan paid over $10M to elected officials and consultants in order to get the loan. Nissan paid the third largest amount and Nissan got the third largest loan. This is disclosed in public records searches and lobby filings just revealed. The law and public statements by elected officials state that the money was to increase American competitiveness for America car companies yet the money was given to a Japanese company who will send all of the profits back to Japan. 7 elected officials had direct benefit from the deal.
Tesla paid over $100,000.00 to elected officials and consultants in order to get the loan. Tesla paid the third largest amount and Tesla got the third largest loan. This is disclosed in public records searches and lobby filings just revealed. Tesla’s filings show that their business model is unsustainable compared to competitors, that they were 200% off on the BOM of their car, that all of their first funding was wasted so they have to pay back twice as much to investors as competing companies and that their technology is so old, it all needs to be redone yet they still got money. 18 elected officials had direct benefit from the deal. Tesla did not even read the rules for the loan and planned to build a building when the NEPA rules make that option impossible so they had to restart the process, which is supposed to put one into a new cycle yet they were kept in the previous cycle and put ahead of Fisker, Bright and others who had applied earlier than Tesla. Tesla provided massively creative accounting records to show that they were financially sustainable and have issued numerous press releases to try to make people think that but, in fact, the truth is that they are not because of bad management issues that they cannot get past.
The ATVM program was created by Ford, GM & Chrysler lobbyists to pad their company’s pockets and those three had pre-hardwired the entire $25B for their own pockets but something happened in the process when Senator Bingaman added a few key lines that opened the door for OTHERS to apply to build green technology and required that those who get the money were “financially sustainable” businesses. Back when the ATVM was authored to save Detroit, it was fully known that Detroit was going to go bankrupt. Ford had the same problems as GM and Chrysler but they went around the world getting bailout money instead of going first to US funds. As law required public exposure of the bankruptcy, Bingaman’s brilliant plan to finally create a green transportation industry was revealed. The very people that had stopped green cars for over 100 years suddenly became the first people to, accidently, cause them to happen but now others could do it too.
Bingaman should get the Congressional Medal of Honor for pulling off this impossible trick and finally giving America the Electric Cars it should have had for the last hundred years.
Once Detroit realized this, they tried to hijack the whole ATVM program with a takeback at the end of 2008 but that effort was defeated by a close late night vote. Now that it was out there, Detroit lobbyists and influencers fought to get the review of applicants delayed for as long as possible because they realized that, in a recession, most of the smaller competing interests could be forced to go out of business if they could just be kept away from the money for long enough. Major American TARP banks have said that the standard commercial loan process that each of these 26 applicants (not hundreds of applicants- There were 26 applicants in the round) should take 4 weeks at the longest and 3 weeks nominally. It seems clear that the loans were delayed due to political agendas and not process issues. It is not that there were no resources for the review as the Section 136 law provided over $10M in staff fees to review 26 people (Banks spend $10,000.00 to review 26 applications)
Bright Automotive had applied on time, ahead of the others, turned in low overhead numbers and a great path too profit but they were virtually ignored while intensive meetings were conducted with Nissan, Ford and Tesla because those parties paid for it. The law says that this, and the purchasing of favors, gave those parties an unfair business advantage using taxpayer dollars, over Bright. A case Bright would easily win if they choose to run with it.
Clearly, it isn’t over yet. Stay tuned for the Senate, Congressional, Ethics Committee and media reviews of this one. Watch for the charts connecting who-to-who. (It is OK to re-post this)
So it turns out to be all the best loans money can buy.
Ford paid over $14M to elected officials and consultants in order to get the loan. Ford paid the third largest amount and Ford got the third largest loan. This is disclosed in public records searches and lobby filings just revealed. 21 elected officials had direct benefit from the deal.
Nissan paid over $10M to elected officials and consultants in order to get the loan. Nissan paid the third largest amount and Nissan got the third largest loan. This is disclosed in public records searches and lobby filings just revealed. The law and public statements by elected officials state that the money was to increase American competitiveness for America car companies yet the money was given to a Japanese company who will send all of the profits back to Japan. 7 elected officials had direct benefit from the deal.
Tesla paid over $100,000.00 to elected officials and consultants in order to get the loan. Tesla paid the third largest amount and Tesla got the third largest loan. This is disclosed in public records searches and lobby filings just revealed. Tesla’s filings show that their business model is unsustainable compared to competitors, that they were 200% off on the BOM of their car, that all of their first funding was wasted so they have to pay back twice as much to investors as competing companies and that their technology is so old, it all needs to be redone yet they still got money. 18 elected officials had direct benefit from the deal. Tesla did not even read the rules for the loan and planned to build a building when the NEPA rules make that option impossible so they had to restart the process, which is supposed to put one into a new cycle yet they were kept in the previous cycle and put ahead of Fisker, Bright and others who had applied earlier than Tesla. Tesla provided massively creative accounting records to show that they were financially sustainable and have issued numerous press releases to try to make people think that but, in fact, the truth is that they are not because of bad management issues that they cannot get past.
The ATVM program was created by Ford, GM & Chrysler lobbyists to pad their company’s pockets and those three had pre-hardwired the entire $25B for their own pockets but something happened in the process when Senator Bingaman added a few key lines that opened the door for OTHERS to apply to build green technology and required that those who get the money were “financially sustainable” businesses. Back when the ATVM was authored to save Detroit, it was fully known that Detroit was going to go bankrupt. Ford had the same problems as GM and Chrysler but they went around the world getting bailout money instead of going first to US funds. As law required public exposure of the bankruptcy, Bingaman’s brilliant plan to finally create a green transportation industry was revealed. The very people that had stopped green cars for over 100 years suddenly became the first people to, accidently, cause them to happen but now others could do it too.
Bingaman should get the Congressional Medal of Honor for pulling off this impossible trick and finally giving America the Electric Cars it should have had for the last hundred years.
Once Detroit realized this, they tried to hijack the whole ATVM program with a takeback at the end of 2008 but that effort was defeated by a close late night vote. Now that it was out there, Detroit lobbyists and influencers fought to get the review of applicants delayed for as long as possible because they realized that, in a recession, most of the smaller competing interests could be forced to go out of business if they could just be kept away from the money for long enough. Major American TARP banks have said that the standard commercial loan process that each of these 26 applicants (not hundreds of applicants- There were 26 applicants in the round) should take 4 weeks at the longest and 3 weeks nominally. It seems clear that the loans were delayed due to political agendas and not process issues. It is not that there were no resources for the review as the Section 136 law provided over $10M in staff fees to review 26 people (Banks spend $10,000.00 to review 26 applications)
Bright Automotive had applied on time, ahead of the others, turned in low overhead numbers and a great path too profit but they were virtually ignored while intensive meetings were conducted with Nissan, Ford and Tesla because those parties paid for it. The law says that this, and the purchasing of favors, gave those parties an unfair business advantage using taxpayer dollars, over Bright. A case Bright would easily win if they choose to run with it.
Clearly, it isn’t over yet. Stay tuned for the Senate, Congressional, Ethics Committee and media reviews of this one. Watch for the charts connecting who-to-who. (It is OK to re-post this)
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But since electricity is for now easier to produce and distribute, it might be a good idea to focus on electric batteries... unless we discover a way (micro-organisms?) to convert energy directly from the sun to the hydrogen, without loosing efficiency with intermediate steps such as electricity.