Posted on 07/01/2015 2:37:08 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Toyota has been very vocal about its lofty plans for the new Mirai.
After severing ties with Tesla in 2014, Toyota has shifted its focus toward fuel cells and away from all-electric cars.
On Wednesday, Toyota announced that the Mirai had achieved an EPA-estimated range of 312 miles. That’s the longest range of any zero-emission vehicle on the market today, including electric vehicles.
“Toyota realized in the early 90’s that electrification was key to the future of the automobile,” said Toyota’s North America CEO Jim Lentz in a statement
“Just as the Prius introduced hybrid-electric vehicles to millions of customers nearly twenty years ago, the Mirai is now poised to usher in a new era of efficient, hydrogen transportation.”
One major hurdle left for Toyota to surmount is the lack of hydrogen filling stations, which cost about $1 million each to build. According to the Department of Energy, there are only a dozen hydrogen filling stations nationwide, most of which are in California.
The 2016 Mirai is expected to come with an initial price tag of $57,500 — less than initial estimates, and keeping the car much more affordable than its electric counterparts. (Tesla’s Model S starts at $69,900).
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
A fuel-cell vehicle is an electric vehicle. In a battery-electric vehicle, a battery converts chemical potential energy to electricity, which drives an electric motor. In a fuel-cell vehicle, a fuel cell converts chemical potential energy into electricity, which dries an electric motor.
Also hydrogen gas leaks rise up and eat the ozone layer. It’s just not going to work as a mass market product.
I actually saw one of those on the 405 freeway in SoCal. Had a bunch of test-gear-looking stuff strapped to the roof and a bored engineer behind the wheel. Didn’t look better live. Giant air scoops are needed apparently for the fuel cells.
Yup. Fusion nuke plants.
Curious. Doesn’t a fuel cell system have a battery, too? Make sense to use the deceleration/braking to charge the battery and the fuel cell to charge it and both to drive the car.
After all, electricity is electricity.
Hydrogen is not an energy source. It’s an energy storage system, much like a battery. Like batteries, it takes quite a bit more energy to charge the battery than you get back out of it.
The emissions of a fuel cell vehicle, like electric vehicles, depends on how you generate the electricity or hydrogen.
Hydrogen can be generated by cracking water with electricity. Don’t know the efficiency loss. But that just moves the emissions back to the electricity generation, as with electric cars.
Hydro, solar, wind and nucular are zero-emissions, and so is the hydrogen generated using them. Any fuel burning source is not, with amount varying by fuel type and plant efficiency.
Most hydrogen, however, is refined from natural gas. Don’t know how clean that approach is.
See post #3 & #4. It has a battery.
Queue the Hindenburg, or the Manatee.
Show $/mile or BTU/mile or go pound sand.
Statists don’t want you mobile. Mobility means suburbs and suburbs aren’t “green” and “sustainable”.
If you’re not on mass transit, you’re not in their collective.
Yup.
Supposed to be a good little hive dweller.
After all, we’re no better then a bacteria, right?
Yes, most fuel cell vehicles will also have a battery — for the reasons you cite. (There are other alternatives — e.g. hydrolyic or pneumatic accumulators, or flywheels — but, batteries are the most logical solution.) These batteries don’t have to be big to do the job (e.g. the Prius batteries are quite small, yet they are used for regenerative braking.
My point was that both battery-electric, and fuel-cell-electric vehicles are all-electric vehicles. Both are driven by electric traction-motors. A technical article should be more careful with terminology.
Yup. Too bad battery technology is still limited. Probably the best metrics are energy storage per unit volume, life, and operation across temperature. I am sure that weight is important too.
It would be interesting to do a comparison of energy of gasoline per unit volume vs batteries energy per unit volume. And weight.
Of course, you have to put the energy in the battery which means some kind of energy conversion process (nuke, hydro, coal, etc. distribution to stored charge) which includes efficiencies and losses. Thank you Tesla (not the car manufacturer)!
Gasoline is best because the energy is already present in the fuel and essentially free other than the extraction and refining costs.
Read that the energy/torque conversion (at the wheel) for an electric motor is much better than gasoline or diesel.
And last but not least, our current power grid and power production system is incapable of supplying the power required if everyone drove electric cars. A major upgrade of the power grid is needed costing billions. Important point: wind and solar won’t cut it so nukes are the best.
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