Slashdot Mirror
Toyota Names Upcoming Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car
An anonymous reader writes Toyota has announced the name of its new hydrogen-powered car: Mirai, which means "future" in Japanese. Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda said: "Today, we are at a turning point in automotive history. A turning point where a four-door sedan can travel 300 miles on a single tank of hydrogen, can be refueled in under five minutes and emit only water vapor."
This car is going to have a major problem with most people because there are no stations that carry hydrogen to refill it. It's hard enough for the Tesla to gain traction because you can't refill it in as many places as a standard gasoline powered car, but at least in that case you can charge it every night at home, and it has enough range to last you for the day. You won't be able to generate or store hydrogen at your house. And until there's enough hydrogen stations across the city, it will be very inconvenient to own one of these cars. Even a couple in every city wouldn't be enough because nobody wants to go 20-30 minutes out of their way just to pick up fuel for their car.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Oil is under a lot of pressure as of late, including new-found supplies.
Now we're all going to drown with all of the emitted water vapor in the air.
Let’s see, my Volkswagen Passat, which I paid 18K, for will go 450 miles and refuel just about anywhere.
Green is nice and all, but why even bother rolling something out that is obviously not ready for primetime? At least Hybrids can refuel anywhere even if over priced. I’ll go all electric or hybrid once the economics are in place, and I have no problem with early adopters, but getting one of these seems to be for masochists only at this point. Give me a range of 500+ miles, or the ability to fuel at home (maybe natural gas to hydrogen conversion – though that somewhat defeats the purpose).
Remember, Hydrogen is really just a battery when you think about it, the power still has to come from somewhere else like coal (though ideally wind or solar). In most cases hydrogen is generated from natural gas, generating, you guessed it, carbon dioxide in the process.
Letter To Iran
A turning point where a four-door sedan can travel 300 miles on a single tank of hydrogen, can be refueled in under five minutes and emit only water vapor.
Finally, vaporware we can actually use.
Compressed gas? Cryo-slush (unlikely!)? Metal Hydrides?
And, of course, hydrogen - like batteries - is just a storage mechanism. The power still need to be generated somewhere, and there are the typical transitional losses.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
You have to start somewhere. If we required the full infrastructure to be in place first then we would never advance at all. This may or may not end up working in the long term, but could theoretically have the advantages of gas (i.e. pour some liquid into your car every few miles) and the advantages of electric vehicles (efficiencies of scale by generating large amounts of power instead of all the cars generating small amounts inefficiently).
Toyota is currently considered as one of the best companies and great strategic planners. Pioneers too. I did follow the development of this innovation and it is worth saying that Toyota has invested billions of dollars into this project. The same way they have invested in gas-hybrid prototype currently known as Prius.
There will be Hydrogen energy skeptics, the same way there was a reasonable skepticism towards electric cars. Most of the skeptic comments coming from the opponents of electric cars are actually, valid. Such as electric cars are being charged with the coal burned electricity.
The key risk will be mentioned that Hydrogen is extremely volatile and combustive. BMW has developed hydrogen powered cars long time ago. Toyota has actually solved the issue by developing fuel cell. Fuel cell basically is a sponge of certain minerals which chemically absorbs hydrogen so that it is not that volatile.
I am taking a risk and predicting that in ten and fifteen years there will be marketed systems that will convert photovoltaic energy to hydrogen, which will be used to fill Hydrogen cars.
Do not listen too seriously to those who say that there will be no hydrogen refill stations. A decade ago there were not too many electricity recharge stations (though you could recharge your car home). I am sure Toyota has a plan in their sleeve to be in the hydrogen business.
While former criticism for current EV cars was valid, there will be valid complains for Hydrogen cars, let's not forget the key thing: competition is actually a good thing. Embrace it, because even if you are driving a gas car, hydrogen cars will keep the price of gas down due to lower oil demand. Win-win.
seriously, folks, I gotta tell ya, it drives 300 miles, period. there is one fuelling station in the country, out in the toolies, because of zoning rules. 400 miles from the dealer.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
when the first ICE cars rolled off the assembly line?
It is truly remarkable how short-sighted people on a tech site can be.
Obviously as more companies build Hydrogen cars, more refueling stations will be built. With a real 300 mile range you don't need them ofter to make long cross country trips possible.
If you think about it it's easier to convert existing stations to hydrogen refueling than it is to convert them to something like a supercharger station, so buildout of hydrogen stations will happen more rapidly as the percentage of hydrogen vehicles increases.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Prius" is Latin for "before" while "Mirai" is Japanese for "Future." Kind of sets a bold statement; an old language for hybrids and a new language (Japanese roughly dates back to the 8th century) for the purported future of cars ... which still has yet to be determined.
Contrast this with Nissan, another Japanese automobile manufacturer, which has invested so deeply into battery technology that if the Leaf were to fail, it's quite likely that they'd become a battery company. (A while back, I read (or watched?) a really compelling article/documentary on Nissan's battery research. It concluded that Nissan was gambling so heavily on both its own future with the Leaf and the future of automobiles as being electric that the company would likely stop making cars if the Leaf were to fail. Sorry I can't find a good citation to that.)
The presumption that Hydrogen Fuel Cells will be the "next" car fuel (after either gas or after electric) is still quite a strong one. I've seen it painted (iirc, by the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?) as something the oil companies latched onto because it competed with electric cars (which are ready now) and because hydrogen fuel cell cars are still quite a distant future prospect.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Is it necessarily easier, it may be, but the problem with hydrogen is it has to be store a very high compression to achieve useful energy densities, and gas station don't have necessarily have the ability to handle that yet.
I, for one, welcome our new exploding-car overlords.
the 24 hour news stations are going to be showing old films of the Heisenberg
"Oh, the humanity!"
"It's uncertain how much humanity though."
Compressed gas? Cryo-slush (unlikely!)? Metal Hydrides?
I'd pay a nickel for that last one.
There goes my ideas of The Bomb, Splosion, or H2OMG. Seriously? You're not allowed to drive around in an unmarked car with explosives but you can drive a car made out of explosives? But then again this is the agency that makes you drive a certain model truck with tons of markings and fill out endless forms to drive an HIV sample across the country in a sealed biohazard transport module and doesn't make you do anything if the driver has HIV. Lots of logic at the DOT.
I feel like this just moving the goal posts. Sure I guess you could have some elaborate contraption to make Hydrogen only using solar or wind power, but it's more than likely it was made in a factory that burned lots of hydrocarbons. This is just a way of storing energy. We need to look at the whole picture of where the Hydrogen came from to do a true "full-cost accounting" of the benefits or lack thereof.
To make up for lack of infrastructure I envision hydrogen refueling trucks driving to you on weekly basis.
95% of hydrogen is made from methane (wikipedia told me, "hydrogen vehicle" entry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... )
Methane is uh, made from cow farts. Cow Fart Collector, anyone? ( http://www.fastcoexist.com/302... )
so, now the fun part. Why not just make a Hydrogen Fueled vehicle that has room for a Cow
-badford
'nuff said.
Watch out for the burning shards of plastic and metal on impact.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
I have seen so many industrial, public transport and now this citizen targeted fuel cell vehicle. If history teaches us anything (no not the Hindenburg) it's that these things run HOT AS HELL and needs a cooling system that is louder than an ICE.
Well to wheel efficiency is HORRIBLE on fuel cells. Clean energy to hydrolysis to hydrogen is around 50 KWh for 1 kg hydrogen. 1kg hydrogen ~= 35 KWh potential. That's 30% loss which is just there on par with an ICE. Then you actually have to recombine with O2 in a fuel cell. That peaks at about 60% efficiency (PEM) and at best 70% on others.
Go home Toyota, you're drunk.
Sorry, already used, and that car goes and goes.
I missed the naming competition - Banger , Fukishima, Hiroshima, Hindenburg are runners up.
Toyota should have named it Hindenberg.
Oh, wait...
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
boom