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At a car factory in this city named after Toyota, the usual robots with their swinging arms are missing. Instead, workers intently fit parts into place by hand with craftsmanship-like care.
The big moment on the assembly line comes when two bulbous yellow tanks of hydrogen are rolled over and delicately fitted into each car's underside.
While much of the world is going gung-ho for electric vehicles to help get rid of auto emissions and end reliance on fossil fuels, Japan's top automaker Toyota Motor Corp. is banking on hydrogen.
Toyota sells about 10 million vehicles a year around the world. It has sold only about 4,000 Mirai fuel cell vehicles since late 2014, roughly half of them outside Japan.
Is Toyota going to build the network of hydrogen-refueling stations to serve its hydrogen-powered cars?
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday November 17 2017, @06:04PM (1 child)
I'm sorry, are you arguing that batteries have better "fuel" density than hydrogen? Or that the "filling stations" are convenient, cheap, and fast? Or maybe you are arguing that battery-electric is simpler than a hydrogen power plant? Maybe you are arguing that battery-electric is efficient and loss-free from power station to battery charger? Because NONE of that is true.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday November 17 2017, @06:51PM
I'm sorry, are you arguing that batteries have better "fuel" density than hydrogen? Or that the "filling stations" are convenient, cheap, and fast? Or maybe you are arguing that battery-electric is simpler than a hydrogen power plant? Maybe you are arguing that battery-electric is efficient and loss-free from power station to battery charger? Because NONE of that is true.
Wrong.
Batteries now have pretty similar range to hydrogen-powered vehicles, and batteries are getting better as energy densities increase. Hydrogen isn't getting any better.
Batteries don't have filling stations now, but you can charge them at home. Try that with hydrogen or gasoline. Regardless, batteries are just as good as hydrogen here: hydrogen filling stations don't exist either.
Battery-electric is most certainly simpler than a hydrogen power plant. With hydrogen, you either burn it in an internal combustion engine (which means you have the same situation as today, but with a much heavier fuel tank), or you use a fuel cell to convert it to electricity, which means you now have the same drivetrain as an EV, plus a fuel cell and heavy tank. Battery EVs are simpler than either version.
Battery-electric is efficient from power station to charger, in the 80-90% range. Hydrogen is not; it has to be trucked around (it leaks too much to use in long-distance pipelines), and the production process uses a lot of energy. Electricity however can be generated by numerous methods: solar, hydro, nuclear, etc., and you aren't stuck with one.