Posted on 10/15/2015 2:34:20 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Toyota, under ambitious environmental targets, is aiming to sell hardly any regular gasoline vehicles by 2050, only hybrids and fuel cells, to radically reduce emissions.
The automaker promised to involve governments, affiliated companies and other "stakeholders" in its push to reduce average emissions from Toyota cars by 90 percent by about 2050, compared with 2010 levels.
Electric cars weren't part of their vision, outlined by top Toyota Motor Corp. officials at a Tokyo museum on Wednesday, striking a contrast with rivals such as Nissan Motor Co., which has banked on that zero-emissions technology.
Toyota's commitments come at a time when the auto industry has been shaken by a scandal at Germany's Volkswagen AG, in which it admitted it cheated on diesel emissions tests covering millions of cars.
Toyota projected its annual sales of fuel cell vehicles will reach more than 30,000 by about 2020, which is 10 times its projected figure for 2017.
Fuel cells run on hydrogen and are zero-emissions. Toyota's Mirai fuel cell went on sale late last year. Toyota has received 1,500 orders for the Mirai in Japan, and it just went on sale in the U.S. and Europe.
Annual sales of hybrid vehicles will reach 1.5 million and by 2020 Toyota would have sold 15 million hybrids, nearly twice what it has sold so far around the world, it said.
Hybrids switch back and forth between a gasoline engine and an electric motor to deliver an efficient ride.
The Toyota Prius, which went on sale in 1997, is the top-selling hybrid, with about 4 million sold globally so far. Toyota is promising to develop a hybrid version in every category, including usually gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles, as well as luxury models.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
But it takes even more coal and gas burning to make the electricity for those Eco cars.
Unless they can self charge this is no better.
Them or Honda I’ll buy pulling it off and making it work right. Not an American automaker. Too much agenda here of the Lib kind.
“Fuel cells run on hydrogen and are zero-emissions.”
Oh...must be because you can drill a hole in the ground an get pure hydrogen.
Or not.
Getting your hydrogen fuel cell in the future will require that you sign an agreement, on pains of death, that you will adhere religiously to the unquestioned doctrines of “climate change” and will not speak against it even in secret. To make sure, you will also agree to have monitoring devices placed throughout your home.
You will also agree to bow down to the gay god whenever it makes its appearance.
But go Toyota. Congrats on the long term planning.
“Electric cars weren’t part of their vision,...”
Good grief! Fuel-cells produce electricity. Fuel-cell cars are electric cars. Hint Fox News copywriters: if you want your articles about science and technology to have any credibility, whatsoever — at least get the terminology right.
BTW, hydrogen could also be used as the fuel for combustion engines (piston, or turbine — internal or external combustion). That would be a case where a hydrogen-fueled car is not an electric car. However, every car powered by a fuel cell is an electric car.
I’m not an engineer, but regarding fuel cells, I have the understanding that every time you convert from one form of energy to another efficiency lost?
That is, converting natural gas or coal to electricity, then using the electricity to get oxygen and hydrogen out of water, then burning the hydrogen. Not to mention spending the energy to compress the hydrogen.
Nice. Love those rims!
You spoke! Is this a first?
Good looking car BTW!
The cars will be powered by Unicorn farts
Anti-gasism?
What say you?
Someone needs to tell Toyota hybrids run on gasoline.
Less than 40% of American electricity is sourced from coal and it is falling.
Electricity can be sourced from Natural Gas, Wind, Nuclear, Dams(hydropower),Solar,Geo-Thermal,Tidal Wave.
BTW 90% of worlds hydrogen is sourced from natural gas/methane. In CA hydrogen at the pump is 2/3 sourced from natural gas and 1/3 sourced from solar/wind powered water electrolysis. This makes it as “clean” as the US grid.
Hydrogen cost $14/kg in CA and you get ~60 miles per kg. That is $0.23 per mile.An average electric car charging at the US average price of $0.12 per kWh cost about $0.03 per mile to run.
I am pulling for a fuel cell that operates on Compressed Natural Gas. This would involve not only using hydrogen to combine with atmospheric oxygen, but also a side reaction by which the carbon in methane is combined with oxygen as well (while generating heat), producing carbon dioxide, which our plant life desperately needs as plant food.
Come on, engineering marvels. Let’s get to work on this.
A fuel cell that uses various hydrocarbons WITHOUT reforming into methyl alcohol first. All the reactions proceed within the fuel cell itself.
Or, alternatively, we could go to thorium-powered nuclear reactors using molten salt medium to produce steam which generates electricity, for electric powered vehicles, with a full steam/water reclamation loop. These thorium-powered nuclear reactors could be quite small.
Perhaps even smaller and lighter than the battery set in a Tesla.
The fuel economy equivalent would be fantastic.
Way more than I can afford.
Explosion or electrocution?
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