Toyota Mirai Fuel Cell

[GRA]

I repeat: compared to what?

Here are the simple facts:
- BEVs are currently ushering in the beginning of the end of sitting around waiting for your car to refuel except for the rare long trip.
- This change is already available to homeowners and those who have access to charging at work.
- As BEVs and PVs proliferate, there is clearly a requirement to store the energy from the PV panels in the BEVs DURING THE DAYTIME. Doing that will be, by far, the cheapest solution to the storage issue, even factoring in the cost of installation of daytime charging infrastructure.

H2 FCVs like the Toyota Mirai do not provide a path to a future in which transportation is powered by PV.

Except that they can and in some case are being powered by H2 produced by PV (currently, wind is more common). And as noted above, the percentage of car owners who have the option of home or even workplace charging is very limited, and will be for a long time given that most people don't live like the majority of Americans. That workplace charging is important to soak up excess PV is something we have no disagreement over, as I mentioned in my reply to GetOffYourGas. That there will also be times when BEVs alone will be unable to soak up all the excess as the shift to intermittent renewables continues, and some of it will need to be stored or used for other purposes (like making H2), is also the case.

You have continually made this argument "And as noted above, the percentage of car owners who have the option of home or even workplace charging is very limited, and will be for a long time given that most people don't live like the majority of Americans."

According to Energy dot.gov "Because residential charging is convenient and inexpensive, most plug-in electric vehicle (also known as electric cars or EVs) drivers do more than 80% of their charging at home."

Someone is right here. I think you have been using the argument that most people do not charge at home to further the failed hydrogen experiment that you are always plugging. If I am wrong educate me.

There's no conflict here, you are talking about two different things. You are confusing the percentage of existing PEV owners who can charge at home, compared to the percentage of total car owners who can do so. The former are a self-selected minority, made up of people who can take advantage of home charging. It's like a poll that says that people who like this sort of thing, say that this is the sort of thing they like. Naturally, most people who have bought PEVs do most of their charging at home, because most of the people who opted to buy one know that they can do so, and that advantage weighs large in their decision to buy one.

A large majority of the remaining ~99% of the world's car owners who haven't bought a PEV and who might consider one, don't have that option currently, so a PEV is a poor fit for them (barring convenient workplace or other charging). Isn't education fun? As to whether hydrogen is a failed experiment, it's still far too early to say.

[GRA]

In these really long comment chains the original context often seems to get lost. I'm arguing a systematic point: if refueling speed is the major USP of high-density fuels, then this is poised to become moot as charging speed and availability of DCQC stations increases. Right now, charging speed is still a weak point of contemporary EVs compared to gas, diesel or hydrogen, but this is going to be moot in a very short timespan as range on a single charge as well as QC speeds improve.

That's my actual point, and that is completely congruent with what I've said so far.

We have no disagreement that charging speeds are increasing and must do so to be fully competitive with ICEs, the issue is at what point it will become moot, i.e. how close to ICE capability do charging speeds and range need to be to be considered generally acceptable to the public as a full ICE replacement. I don't believe 150kW is enough, 350-400 kW is closer and will satisfy many, but 900-1000kW (China's talking about 900kW for GB/T) would probably be necessary to render the discussion moot, as 6-7 minutes would give enough range to allow my 4 hour plus reserve freeway with HVAC replenishment, and that's probably close enough assuming every energy replenishment stop will at least include a bathroom break. The cost of the infrastructure necessary to provide anything approaching such rates is so far unknown. Such high-rate infrastructure can be limited to major road trip corridors, but will still be expensive.

I think you still fail to understand everyone else's point, but on the question you've asked, 150kw is indeed fast enough.

Much like how I learned through direct experience that the leaf's 84 mile range was all that was needed as a commuter car, the superchargers are indeed fast enough for vacation travels. Yes, we need to stop a little more frequently (every 2-3 hrs instead of 4-5), but that's actually safer, since you're less fatigued. The thought that 6-7 min full charge times are required for ICE replacement is a red-herring.

I understand their point, I just disagree with it. Car owners have been conditioned to think of ICE capability as normal, so any full replacement for them must approach ICE capabilities, or (I believe) a large % will reject it. The difference is between stopping when the car demands it, and stopping when the driver wants/needs to. If 120-150kW is enough, then why are CCS, CHAdeMO and GB/T all either already installing or getting ready to introduce QCs that more than double, triple, quadruple or even sextuple those rates, despite the fact that no current vehicle is yet capable of using the full rates, and all but one soon to arrive (Taycan @ 280kW) will be limited to no more than 150kW (Audi e-Tron Quattro), and most considerably less? Even though Tesla has now backed off from going for 350kW, they still say 250kW, limited by battery capacity and longevity rather than desire. Apparently they agree with me that customers will insist on faster charging.

Some people will be fine with being forced to stop every two hours; others won't be, but no one is going to object to faster charging being available; the choice of using it or not is up to them. As to stopping every two hours being less fatiguing, sure. Stopping every hour is better yet, and every 30 minutes would be better still. Are you willing to accept being forced to do either? if not, why is one interval acceptable to you and not another? Besides, with real AVs (hopefully) soon to arrive, why should driver fatigue that affects safety be a controlling factor?

Personally, my prostate's still in good shape, and I don't need to stop every two hours to pee - four or five hours non-stop repetitively is typical for me on a road trip, and I've done six or a bit over a few times. Maybe my dad's truck driving genes were passed on to me, but a comfortable seat with good control ergonomics goes a long way to reducing driver fatigue, and I've ensured that every car I've bought (after the first) had adequate levels for both. When I'm retired I may not care about the extra time wasted on being forced to take more frequent and/or longer stops, but until then my free time's limited, and I do mind. A lot.

[GRA]

Except that they can and in some case are being powered by H2 produced by PV (currently, wind is more common).

No, they cannot. While you find it convenient for your argument to ignore the horrendously-low efficiency of H2 FCVs, physics does not care about your belief system. Simply put, in a world that has managed to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels from 83% of its needs to only 81% of its needs in 50 years, the idea that we can GROW the amount of electricity produced in the US by over 50% just so that most of that electricity can be wasted by H2 FCVs is ludicrous.

It will be enough of a challenge to grow it by 25% to enable BEV-based transportation. Simply put, the renewable resources that we currently can access are extremely limited in much of the populated world. Destroying our landscapes with wind generators is NOT the answer.

As opposed to destroying our landscapes with say lithium or cobalt mines? All tech solutions have environmental costs, and Nimbyism will always be with us.

Asking if we can build a vehicle that runs on H2 which can be created using renewable energy is NOT enough. We need to look for solutions which are actually good for the environment. Truly H2 FCVs are the solution that solves absolutely nothing.

Yes, they can be so powered, and yes, they are, as I've linked to many examples of same in the "H2 and FCEV" and "AFV Truck/Commercial Vehicle and (non-BEV) Bus" threads. I don't ignore the inefficiency; I just don't think the 60% efficiency of current PEM fuel cells (plus all the additional inefficiency of the conversion) is the most important issue or critical issue, any more than I think the 20% efficiency (40% best state of the art) of the typical fossil-fueled ICE has been critical. Important, sure, and AOTBE the preferred option, but always balanced against other factors.I just don't think it's the most important issue or critical issue, any more than I think the inefficiency of fossil fuels has been critical. Important, sure, and AOTBE the preferred option, but always balanced against other factors. As I've said repeatedly, anywhere a BEV can meet the operational requirements and do so at the lowest TCO, it's the obvious choice; in some cases, even if it isn't the lowest TCO option, but it must always meet the operational requirements, c.f. https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=22441&p=531998#p531998

I've never argued for or been an advocate of all-H2, just as I've never argued for or been an advocate of all-solar, or all-wind, or all-anything, as my Sig should make plain. I'm not an advocate of any of them, but I support any of them that I believe have a reasonable chance of success. We've had this argument many times before, and as I've pointed out, nothing said here is going to change the plans of the governments and industries who are investing in H2/FCEV R&D and limited deployment any more than they're going to affect the ones investing in PEVs or PV, wind, tidal, wave, nuke, biofuel or what have you energy. Billions are being spent, billions more will be and much of it will be wasted, and I'm okay with that considering what I believe to be the even more costly (not just in economic terms) alternative if we fail to find _at least one_ solution to the issues we face.

[GRA]

Yeah, in the long run you're probably right. At that point, you are kind of running into equipment cost again, much like with hydrogen. 175/350kW right now is doable without special buffering (you can just run a 2MW trunk to the station, no problemo) and with simple water-cooled cabling. As you scale up to the megawatt range, you really need to be thinking about 1.2-2kV drivetrain systems to keep current flows in check, which right now is not commodity for EVs and carries much larger risks and isolation requirements with it. Actually, I kind of don't think this will happen for these reasons, I think the really high (absolute) charge rates will be reserved for trucks and semis just because of space constraints.

Alternatively, this kind of charging will require currents in the many-kA range, which means direct water jacketed cables or heat pump cooled cables. Or, well, automated charging, because then the cables don't have to be made thin enough for a human to carry, so you can use thicker, less-heating cables and connectors. Long story short, this is really a long ways away I think. Even though, funny enough, battery tech is basically there.

But in the meantime we do all try to make this point to you that in actual practical use, 50kW is so close to adequate that I can't imagine anybody really making a big fuss about 175-350kW chargers that are deployed now, as soon as cars support it of course.

I think the major cost issues of high-speed QCs will be due to demand charges, as well as having the necessary service capacity in remote areas. The former and to some extent the latter can be reduced through storage, but that requires cheap batteries or some other type of inexpensive storage; either way, capital costs go up.

[Oils4AsphaultOnly]

We have no disagreement that charging speeds are increasing and must do so to be fully competitive with ICEs, the issue is at what point it will become moot, i.e. how close to ICE capability do charging speeds and range need to be to be considered generally acceptable to the public as a full ICE replacement. I don't believe 150kW is enough, 350-400 kW is closer and will satisfy many, but 900-1000kW (China's talking about 900kW for GB/T) would probably be necessary to render the discussion moot, as 6-7 minutes would give enough range to allow my 4 hour plus reserve freeway with HVAC replenishment, and that's probably close enough assuming every energy replenishment stop will at least include a bathroom break. The cost of the infrastructure necessary to provide anything approaching such rates is so far unknown. Such high-rate infrastructure can be limited to major road trip corridors, but will still be expensive.

I think you still fail to understand everyone else's point, but on the question you've asked, 150kw is indeed fast enough.

Much like how I learned through direct experience that the leaf's 84 mile range was all that was needed as a commuter car, the superchargers are indeed fast enough for vacation travels. Yes, we need to stop a little more frequently (every 2-3 hrs instead of 4-5), but that's actually safer, since you're less fatigued. The thought that 6-7 min full charge times are required for ICE replacement is a red-herring.

I understand their point, I just disagree with it. Car owners have been conditioned to think of ICE capability as normal, so any full replacement for them must approach ICE capabilities, or (I believe) a large % will reject it. The difference is between stopping when the car demands it, and stopping when the driver wants/needs to. If 120-150kW is enough, then why are CCS, CHAdeMO and GB/T all either already installing or getting ready to introduce QCs that more than double, triple, quadruple or even sextuple those rates, despite the fact that no current vehicle is yet capable of using the full rates, and all but one soon to arrive (Taycan @ 280kW) will be limited to no more than 150kW (Audi e-Tron Quattro), and most considerably less? Even though Tesla has now backed off from going for 350kW, they still say 250kW, limited by battery capacity and longevity rather than desire. Apparently they agree with me that customers will insist on faster charging.

Some people will be fine with being forced to stop every two hours; others won't be, but no one is going to object to faster charging being available; the choice of using it or not is up to them. As to stopping every two hours being less fatiguing, sure. Stopping every hour is better yet, and every 30 minutes would be better still. Are you willing to accept being forced to do either? if not, why is one interval acceptable to you and not another? Besides, with real AVs (hopefully) soon to arrive, why should driver fatigue that affects safety be a controlling factor?

Personally, my prostate's still in good shape, and I don't need to stop every two hours to pee - four or five hours non-stop repetitively is typical for me on a road trip, and I've done six or a bit over a few times. Maybe my dad's truck driving genes were passed on to me, but a comfortable seat with good control ergonomics goes a long way to reducing driver fatigue, and I've ensured that every car I've bought (after the first) had adequate levels for both. When I'm retired I may not care about the extra time wasted on being forced to take more frequent and/or longer stops, but until then my free time's limited, and I do mind. A lot.

The fact that you recognize the current mindset as being a "conditioned" expectation and yet expect it to continue is astounding!

Conditioned behavior just makes it easier to continue the status quo, but does not preclude the adoption of new behavior. Your reply to downeykp points to a logical inconsistency that you're not recognizing. 95% of driving public aren't refusing to drive an EV due to a lack of charging when 67% of americans have a dedicated garage or car port: https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fa ... or-carport.

No, the lack of acceptance is due to either the higher purchase price, or the "perceived" shortcomings of EV's. Once people try it, they get it. I have 2 recent converts who are helping to spread the word after they spent almost a year worrying that there weren't enough chargers along their driving route, or that they'd forget to charge their car and would be stuck, or that 30 minutes for a fast charge was too long a wait. Perception and money are the only things holding people back, and the price of EV's are dropping and making the money issue moot.

The rest of your argument about how often one is forced to stop to recharge is pure sophistry. My point was about what's available now and whether it's acceptable (even accounting for self-selection), not about equipment design.

[Oils4AsphaultOnly]

Except that they can and in some case are being powered by H2 produced by PV (currently, wind is more common).

No, they cannot. While you find it convenient for your argument to ignore the horrendously-low efficiency of H2 FCVs, physics does not care about your belief system. Simply put, in a world that has managed to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels from 83% of its needs to only 81% of its needs in 50 years, the idea that we can GROW the amount of electricity produced in the US by over 50% just so that most of that electricity can be wasted by H2 FCVs is ludicrous.

It will be enough of a challenge to grow it by 25% to enable BEV-based transportation. Simply put, the renewable resources that we currently can access are extremely limited in much of the populated world. Destroying our landscapes with wind generators is NOT the answer.

As opposed to destroying our landscapes with say lithium or cobalt mines? All tech solutions have environmental costs, and Nimbyism will always be with us.

This argument is so wrong and flawed that I can't leave it be.

Most of the cobalt is produced as a by-product of nickel and copper mining. There aren't any dedicated cobalt mines. Go ahead and research this. As for the lithium, most of that come from the brine pools in Chile (look up the top 10 producers: https://investingnews.com/daily/resourc ... producers/ and research how they produce lithium: https://www.thebalance.com/lithium-production-2340123). It's significantly cheaper to extract lithium from the brine pools (and even seawater) than to extract it out of minerals.

You should drop that fossil-fuel FUD so that you don't look like a fool.

[mux]

I think the major cost issues of high-speed QCs will be due to demand charges, as well as having the necessary service capacity in remote areas. The former and to some extent the latter can be reduced through storage, but that requires cheap batteries or some other type of inexpensive storage; either way, capital costs go up.

I hate these kinds of comments, because you shift the burden of proof here. Quantify these things! Because that's the whole point, we're not talking about feasibility in the 'can we ever do it' sense, we're talking about feasibility in the 'is it cheap enough' sense. So if you want to argue a point, argue quantities!

Batteries are *really* fucking cheap. Capital costs are basically a non-concern here. Installing 200kWh of brand spanking new batteries underground, including a liquid cooling system, is maybe $50k at the most. Compared to, for instance, a gasoline/CNG/diesel/hydrogen tank, that's basically nothing. Even with battery buffers, a DCQC station will be significantly cheaper than any alternative fueling station and will be able to provide similar charging speeds. And regardless; most likely DCQC stations will use decommissioned batteries for buffering.

Even if you go and factor in running a brand new overhead line to the station to allow for more cars to quick charge on a day (without needing the time for the batteries to recharge in between), you're looking at maybe $100k/mi. You can run these lines for 30 miles before you even start to approach the capital cost of putting down a different kind of fueling station. If you include the cost savings on continued distribution, it's even better. There are very, very few places even in the most rural places in the US where you're more than 15mi away from a 72 or 145kV line (and there is a road that needs a fueling station).

And the same goes for your demand charge argument at face value; even the highest demand charges don't exceed 100%. This is simply not an issue, the customer can just pay more? If they need to fill up NOW, you just charge the extra cost of the convenience. Gas stations along interstates already do this.

[downeykp]

I think you still fail to understand everyone else's point, but on the question you've asked, 150kw is indeed fast enough.

Much like how I learned through direct experience that the leaf's 84 mile range was all that was needed as a commuter car, the superchargers are indeed fast enough for vacation travels. Yes, we need to stop a little more frequently (every 2-3 hrs instead of 4-5), but that's actually safer, since you're less fatigued. The thought that 6-7 min full charge times are required for ICE replacement is a red-herring.

I understand their point, I just disagree with it. Car owners have been conditioned to think of ICE capability as normal, so any full replacement for them must approach ICE capabilities, or (I believe) a large % will reject it. The difference is between stopping when the car demands it, and stopping when the driver wants/needs to. If 120-150kW is enough, then why are CCS, CHAdeMO and GB/T all either already installing or getting ready to introduce QCs that more than double, triple, quadruple or even sextuple those rates, despite the fact that no current vehicle is yet capable of using the full rates, and all but one soon to arrive (Taycan @ 280kW) will be limited to no more than 150kW (Audi e-Tron Quattro), and most considerably less? Even though Tesla has now backed off from going for 350kW, they still say 250kW, limited by battery capacity and longevity rather than desire. Apparently they agree with me that customers will insist on faster charging.

Some people will be fine with being forced to stop every two hours; others won't be, but no one is going to object to faster charging being available; the choice of using it or not is up to them. As to stopping every two hours being less fatiguing, sure. Stopping every hour is better yet, and every 30 minutes would be better still. Are you willing to accept being forced to do either? if not, why is one interval acceptable to you and not another? Besides, with real AVs (hopefully) soon to arrive, why should driver fatigue that affects safety be a controlling factor?

Personally, my prostate's still in good shape, and I don't need to stop every two hours to pee - four or five hours non-stop repetitively is typical for me on a road trip, and I've done six or a bit over a few times. Maybe my dad's truck driving genes were passed on to me, but a comfortable seat with good control ergonomics goes a long way to reducing driver fatigue, and I've ensured that every car I've bought (after the first) had adequate levels for both. When I'm retired I may not care about the extra time wasted on being forced to take more frequent and/or longer stops, but until then my free time's limited, and I do mind. A lot.

The fact that you recognize the current mindset as being a "conditioned" expectation and yet expect it to continue is astounding!

Conditioned behavior just makes it easier to continue the status quo, but does not preclude the adoption of new behavior. Your reply to downeykp points to a logical inconsistency that you're not recognizing. 95% of driving public aren't refusing to drive an EV due to a lack of charging when 67% of americans have a dedicated garage or car port: https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fa ... or-carport.

No, the lack of acceptance is due to either the higher purchase price, or the "perceived" shortcomings of EV's. Once people try it, they get it. I have 2 recent converts who are helping to spread the word after they spent almost a year worrying that there weren't enough chargers along their driving route, or that they'd forget to charge their car and would be stuck, or that 30 minutes for a fast charge was too long a wait. Perception and money are the only things holding people back, and the price of EV's are dropping and making the money issue moot.

The rest of your argument about how often one is forced to stop to recharge is pure sophistry. My point was about what's available now and whether it's acceptable (even accounting for self-selection), not about equipment design.

Thanks for the shout out. GRA acts like no one has a garage.

[RegGuheert]

I don't ignore the inefficiency; I just don't think the 60% efficiency of current PEM fuel cells (plus all the additional inefficiency of the conversion) is the most important issue or critical issue, any more than I think the 20% efficiency (40% best state of the art) of the typical fossil-fueled ICE has been critical.

You just have absolutely no idea where all that electricity might possibly come from. I promise you it will not come from the electricity fairy. You seem to be confused because of the fact that oil is inefficient and we adopted that fuel source. What you have chosen to ignore, though it has been repeatedly pointed out to you, is that oil was plentiful, cheap, AND more efficient than coal or wood for transportation. Yes, batteries were more efficient at the time, but they were not suitable for the task. That has all changed now.

Texas has a chance of making all of their *current* electricity from wind and sun in the fairly near future. But Texas is, by far, the exception in this regard. Places like Portugal which have immense hydroelectric resources are even more rare.

So, be my guest: Show us how you can produce enough hydrogen to power New England! No more hand waving about how you "don't think" this is the most important issue. The fact is that it's not even CLOSE to being possible.

And, BTW, the round-trip efficiency for storing energy in hydrogen is on the order of 35-40% compared with the round-trip efficiency of a Li-ion battery which is over 97%.

[RegGuheert]

A large majority of the remaining ~99% of the world's car owners who haven't bought a PEV and who might consider one, don't have that option currently, so a PEV is a poor fit for them (barring convenient workplace or other charging).

95% of driving public aren't refusing to drive an EV due to a lack of charging when 67% of americans have a dedicated garage or car port: https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fa ... or-carport.

Simply put, nearly 2/3 of those in the U.S. who haven't yet purchased a BEV have the ability to charge a BEV. And, guess what? You don't have to have a garage OR a carport to charge a BEV, so there are actually more than that 2/3 who could charge a BEV.

Since the US is 21% of the world's automobile market, even if we ignore ALL the other people in the world who could purchase a BEV and charge it at home, then GRA's estimate that only ~1% of the world's non-BEV car owners could purchase one and charge at home is off by a factor of at least 12X. In reality, it appears that he is off by a factor of about 50X, if not more. In other words, he is living in another world than the rest of us.

So, please, GRA, stop making up nonsense to try to support the most polluting automotive technology the world has ever seen.

Isn't education fun?

It appears that must be an honest question, so I'll answer it: Yes, those of us who have educated ourselves on this topic found it very beneficial. Give it a try sometime.