more (technical) info about the Mirai

bruin nut said:

Rather, technology advances will make the production and delivery of hydrogen more economical and more ecologically friendly. The same has happened with EVs. I just think battery technology is much further along.

The infrastructure is more developed; it has become more efficient and reliable. I'm a big fan of EVs but am also excited about FCVs. Clearly, most folks here don't feel the same way. But the orthodoxy among EV diehards is troubling and the failure to realize the potential of Hydrogen is myopic.

And I'm not a troll. I've been on this cite for 2 years. Difference of opinion does not equal being a troll. But I do think my time is up on this cite. Frankly, I don't like the echo chamber and boorish attitudes.

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Hydrogen is not an energy source but a store of energy, much like a battery. Today 96% of hydrogen is made from natural gas, in a process that is 72% efficient. Hydrogen can be made from water in a process called electrolysis -- which is 70% efficient. However, because it is the smallest, lightest, and least dense element hydrogen must be compressed to be stored. When one considers the energy losses of creating hydrogen (say from wind or solar powered electrolysis) then compressed into a vehicle's fuel tank, it will never be as efficient, nor as cheap, as taking that electricity and putting it straight into a battery.

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Electricity is relatively cheap, but hydrogen fuel is pretty expensive. Right now, state-of-the-art hydrogen extraction from natural gas, pressurized and delivered to the customer, costs about $4.50 for a gallon of gasoline equivalent (GGe). Since the fuel is derived from natural gas, and requires a lot of electricity to compress, store, and dispense, the net global warming potential reduction for the fuel is modest compared to hybrids like the Prius, let alone BEVs. Hydrogen production from fossil fuels is a mature technology because there are industrial uses for the gas. As a result, price reductions are unlikely. You can produce hydrogen from renewable energy, but costs escalate quickly. Right now, it’s between $6.00 and $11.00 per GGe. That’s actually assuming economies of scale that don’t exist right now. Yes, that’s right, your highly expensive new-fangled fuel cell automobile will also cost you between 3 to 5 times the current price for fuel, to actually make a difference in CO2 emissions, and it won’t actually do all that much better on that fuel than the Prius in terms of fuel economy.

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It’s a tragic cul-de-sac in the search for sustainable mobility, being used to game the California Air Resources Board’s rules requiring carmakers to build zero-emission vehicles. Any way you look at it, hydrogen is a lousy way to move cars.
Face it: Fuel-cell technology has been eclipsed by vastly cheaper, here-now advances in batteries and plug-in electric vehicles. To knit together even the barest network of H2 refueling stations would cost billions. And, in any case, the fuel itself, whether produced by cracking natural gas or hydrolyzing water (consult your freshman chemistry texts), represents a horrible energy return on investment.
Some illustrative math: It takes about 60 kilowatt-hours of electricity to gin a kilogram of hydrogen from water. The FCX Clarity’s tank holds about 4 kilograms of H2 and that gives it a range of about 270 miles on 240 kWhs.
The all-electric Tesla Roadster has a 53-kWh lithium-ion battery and a range of 220 miles. So the Tesla’s per-mile costs in electricity are roughly one-quarter what they are in the FCX Clarity.

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The large amount of energy required to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds (water, natural gas, biomass), package the light gas by compression or liquefaction, transfer the energy carrier to the user, plus the energy lost when it is converted to useful electricity with fuel cells, leaves around 25% for practical use — an unacceptable value to run an economy in a sustainable future. Only niche applications like submarines and spacecraft might use hydrogen.

“More energy is needed to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds than can ever be recovered from its use,” Bossel explains to PhysOrg.com. “Therefore, making the new chemical energy carrier form natural gas would not make sense, as it would increase the gas consumption and the emission of CO2. Instead, the dwindling fossil fuel reserves must be replaced by energy from renewable sources.”

“The advantages of hydrogen praised by journalists (non-toxic, burns to water, abundance of hydrogen in the Universe, etc.) are misleading, because the production of hydrogen depends on the availability of energy and water, both of which are increasingly rare and may become political issues, as much as oil and natural gas are today,” says Bossel.

“There is a lot of money in the field now,” he continues. “I think that it was a mistake to start with a ‘Presidential Initiative’ rather with a thorough analysis like this one. Huge sums of money were committed too soon, and now even good scientists prostitute themselves to obtain research money for their students or laboratories—otherwise, they risk being fired. But the laws of physics are eternal and cannot be changed with additional research, venture capital or majority votes.”

Even though many scientists, including Bossel, predict that the technology to establish a hydrogen economy is within reach, its implementation will never make economic sense, Bossel argues.
“In the market place, hydrogen would have to compete with its own source of energy, i.e. with ("green") electricity from the grid,” he says. “For this reason, creating a new energy carrier is a no-win solution. We have to solve an energy problem not an energy carrier problem."

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Incredulocious said:

Let me call special attention to that one short and sweet sentence: "But the laws of physics are eternal and cannot be changed with additional research, venture capital or majority votes.” You must use energy to extract and compress hydrogen. No free lunch. A suggestion: how about if we use that energy instead to move our vehicles??

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fromport said:

With the simple "laws of physics" it would make more sense to put larger/heavier batteries in EV's and increase the charging capability.
Will it be as quick as putting any kind of (compressed/cooled) gas in a ice car/fcv ? No not for a while.
But from the point of (clean) energy efficiency , a BEV will be superiour for the next decades. Because of the above mentioned law of physics.

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Incredulocious said:

To be clear, the quote about the laws of physics refers to how it will always take a lot of energy to extract hydrogen and to compress it. There is no way around this, no way to improve this.

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But the future of improving batteries is open-ended and, as you mentioned, there are various methods already being explored, including the use of graphene. The future of battery storage is much higher energy density: meaning much more energy in the same volume and mass. Higher energy density means not having to make batteries physically bigger or heavier to get more energy into them. It also means faster charging time with existing charging tech and it means less need to charge on long road trips. Imagine having 200 kWh instead of 90 kWh on board!

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Incredulocious said:

To be clear, the quote about the laws of physics refers to how it will always take a lot of energy to extract hydrogen and to compress it. There is no way around this, no way to improve this.

The future of improving batteries is open-ended though and, as you mentioned, there are various methods already being explored, including the use of graphene. The future of battery storage is much higher energy density: meaning much more energy in the same volume and mass. Higher energy density means not having to make batteries physically bigger or heavier to get more energy into them. It also means faster charging time with existing charging tech and it means less need to charge on long road trips. Imagine having 200 kWh instead of 90 kWh on board!

My biggest beef with hydrogen remains the fact that we'll be forced to buy another expensive fuel in a specific form rather than being able to generate our own however we wish: solar, wind, hydro, etc. That's the beauty of battery electrics, you can get your electricity from any source that's convenient!! (And that source doesn't have to contribute to climate change.)

Heck, you could even install hydrogen fuel cells in your garage and get your electricity from there, but what's the sense of taking perfectly usable electricity and using it to extract and compress hydrogen only to convert it back to electricity with great losses?? You wouldn't do that in your garage, so why do it in your car? Faster fueling is really the only reason and that advantage will become less and less important as batteries improve.

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Incredulocious said:

bruin nut said:

Rather, technology advances will make the production and delivery of hydrogen more economical and more ecologically friendly. The same has happened with EVs. I just think battery technology is much further along.

The infrastructure is more developed; it has become more efficient and reliable. I'm a big fan of EVs but am also excited about FCVs. Clearly, most folks here don't feel the same way. But the orthodoxy among EV diehards is troubling and the failure to realize the potential of Hydrogen is myopic.

And I'm not a troll. I've been on this cite for 2 years. Difference of opinion does not equal being a troll. But I do think my time is up on this cite. Frankly, I don't like the echo chamber and boorish attitudes.

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Personally, I don't think you're a troll. But I also don't think hydrogen fuel cells make sense for personal transportation. Due to the pure physics of how hydrogen must be extracted, compressed and then turned into electrical energy, fuel cells will always require much more energy than pure battery electrics to move a vehicle a mile. It's not a question of future technological improvements or battery technology being further along. On top of that, we/you will have to buy the hydrogen.

So, don't color me "myopic". I instead see far ahead to the potential for much improved electrical storage technology (battery or otherwise, but not hydrogen fuel cells). On the other hand, I do see how fuel cells could be a good, cleaner stop gap for large transport vehicles, until electrical storage tech gets better.

I'm sorry we're all "echoing" what you don't want to hear, but that's how we see it. Good luck to you, but I wish no luck on Toyota or others pushing fuel cells on us. I don't think they'll be able to, but I don't want to see the rosy, make-your-own-fuel without-burning-fossil-fuels future stalled.

(Note the spelling of the word you want is "site", not "cite".)

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Aries said:

Sigh.. And I thought this thread would contain technical information about this vehicle. It seems not to. Whether I believe in them or not, I am curious about the workings and implementation of these early specimens. Pictures, tear downs, reverse engineering of CAN busses, etc. Was hopeful to find some of that here.

Maybe the thread title should be updated? At least remove the "(technical)" aspect? I'm not sure the word "info" applies either but ...

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fromport said:

It seems you are looking for the mytoyotamirai.com forum ?!

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Aries said:

Now that truly is informational - I didn't know there was such a forum! Good info for this thread. Thanks!

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fromport said:

Aries said:

Now that truly is informational - I didn't know there was such a forum! Good info for this thread. Thanks!

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But you were seriously looking for technical information of a car which hasn't been delivered yet, on a rav4ev forum expecting reverse engineering info ?

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