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from the control-your-own-vroom-vroom dept.
Visions of cars that drive themselves without emitting a bit of pollution while entertaining passengers with online movies and social media are what's taking center stage at the Tokyo Motor Show.
Japan, home to the world's top-selling automaker, has a younger generation disinterested in owning or driving cars. The show is about wooing them back. It's also about pushing an ambitious government-backed plan that paints Japan as a leader in automated driving technology.
...
some automakers at the show are packing the technology into what looks more like a golf cart or scooter than a car, such as Honda Motor Co.'s cubicle-like Wander Stand and Wander Walker scooter.Instead of trying to venture on freeways and other public roads, these are designed for controlled environments, restricted to shuttling people to pre-determined destinations.
A prescient Soylentil observed here last year that one day soon driving your own car will be illegal. That might bear out.
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Thursday October 29 2015, @02:15AM
Honda isn't only designing a small self driving golf cart.
They are still heavily invested in Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars.
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2998362/emerging-technology/honda-unveils-hydrogen-powered-car-with-400-mile-range.html [computerworld.com]
http://www.cnet.com/products/2016-honda-clarity-fuel-cell/ [cnet.com]
http://www.wired.com/2015/10/honda-clarity-hydrogen-fuel-cell-sales/ [wired.com]
On Tuesday, the Japanese automaker unveiled the production version of its Clarity Fuel Cell sedan, which it will begin leasing to customers in Japan in March. It’s a handsome enough car, vaguely futuristic, with a hint of Tesla’s Model S.
But the styling is almost beside the point; the entire point of this car—an idea Honda’s been kicking around for nearly three decades—is the hydrogen fuel cell, about the size of a V6 engine and stuffed under the hood, that keeps it going. That stack of cells will produce about 175 horsepower, and sent the car more than 300 miles between refueling stops.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by TrumpetPower! on Thursday October 29 2015, @02:42AM
Honda keeps digging that hole deeper and deeper.
With rounding, there are zero places where you can refill a fool cell vehicle in the States. In stark contrast, with rounding, 100% of the garages in the country already have an outlet that'll put over 60 miles in a battery between the time you get home from work and the time you leave again in the morning. For the negligible few who need more, you can spend the thousand or so for a rapid charger.
With rounding, zero fool cell cars have actually been sold. EVs are selling at a rate of hundreds of thousands per year.
There is zero infrastructure for moving hydrogen across the country, but the electric grid is everywhere.
With rounding, 100% of hydrogen is made from mined hydrocarbon in a process that requires more energy to refine than gasoline. But a third of all electric vehicles are already nuclear-powered for those in love with nuclear, and a disproportionate number are solar-powered -- early EV adopters are very likely to also be early solar adopters.
Professional motorsports isn't even on the fool cell radar. Electrics not only have Formula E, but electrics are already taking some titles away from gasoline-powered vehicles (land speed for sidecar motorcycle, Pike's Peak, etc.).
The best luxury sedan ever made is an electric, and the most-talked-about new SUV is an electric. But nobody can even name a single fool cell vehicle because...
...did I mention?
You can't buy the things, and they're un-refillable paperweights if you're foolish enough to buy an experimental one.
Electric has already won the race, and fool cells haven't even made it out of the starting blocks.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2015, @03:04AM
...The best luxury sedan ever made is an electric, ...
Huh? How about the Bugatti Royale, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugatti_Royale [wikipedia.org] -- bad timing (1929 crash) limited the sales to royalty. Or any other true top end car, Rolls-Royce comes to mind and at one point Hispano-Suiza, Cord (early front drive), Packhard and Pierce-Arrow were also strong competitors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2015, @04:29PM
Your link says that royalty were the target market, but did not buy it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Adamsjas on Thursday October 29 2015, @05:21AM
Even Electric cars started somewhere.
Nobody puts charge stations in for cars that don't exist, and nobody will put in hydrogen stations for cars that don't exist.
Small hydrogen generators are already commercially available, although they reform propane or natural gas so they are are less than totally renewable. Solar ones are also available. And oddly enough Honda is building some.
http://world.honda.com/news/2010/c100127New-Solar-Hydrogen-Station/ [honda.com]
(Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday October 29 2015, @06:13AM
In stark contrast, with rounding, 100% of the garages in the country already have an outlet that'll put over 60 miles in a battery between the time you get home from work and the time you leave again in the morning.
What is the percentage of car owners who have a garage? In cities it seems to be like 10% or less, as apartment buildings house lots of people, and the parking is in the street or under a carport (with no charger anywhere.)
It might be so that one day landlords will install chargers at every parking place. However the cost of charging would be enormous (just because they can) - in line with everything else that happens in the market.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2015, @07:44AM
Up north it is typical for every space to have an outlet. However, I strongly suspect that you are only ever intended to draw about 450W-750 from the outlet.
It varies from building to building of course. (My new apartment has a dedicated 15A circuit for the space (mainly so that it is metered)). The outlets are designed to keep your engine block from freezing solid, not charging the traction battery.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday October 29 2015, @05:00PM
The outlets are designed to keep your engine block from freezing solid, not charging the traction battery.
Yes, it is common to see extension cables sticking out of the grille of many cars in Canada. But as you are correctly stating, the 15A outlet will not be able to charge an EV. As matter of fact, the reporter who wrote that article about brickage of his Tesla did try to charge at such an outlet... but it is only good enough to stop the discharge. The car cannot be brought to the drivable power level with it.
Is it possible to equip every parking space with a charger? Certainly. There is no technical problem with that - outside of overloading the grid, but I do not know how much capacity the grid has at night. Perhaps it will be just fine. The real problem is that nobody is going to offer the electrons for free. And the price will be set by the principle of "how much money you have? I want it all." The chargers will vary from street units taking a credit card to garage units, activated by code that you punch in. In either case the power consumption of these chargers will be high; while initially a few businesses didn't mind that one or two EV owners borrow a few coulombs, if everyone does it then the costs become very visible. It is not beyond belief that the energy will be sold for prices comparable to the cost of gasoline, simply because that's the price people are willing to pay already. Furthermore, landlords will have captive audience, as renters can charge their cars only in their parking spots - or at public chargers; but who will be willing to spend a few hours per day at a public charging station?
I think the upcoming decade will be interesting in this aspect. Myself, I'm driving a 10 years old hybrid, and I cannot say at this point what I will buy next. I have no access to a charger currently; I moved to an apartment building recently. The parking is in the garage under the building, but the walls are bare, no chargers, no nothing. I could use a Leaf, perhaps, for most trips if a charger becomes available. But I do have longer trips now and then... a rental vehicle will cost me so much that I'd be better off owning a gas/hybrid in the first place. The biggest problem with rental cars is that I need them not to drive non-stop, but to go on vacation for a week and stay there - and the charges are per day. (A non-stop round trip would be financially justified.)