Posted on 12/11/2013 3:27:33 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Twelve years ago, Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) began testing a unique — and outlandishly expensive — automobile in California: a car powered by hydrogen fuel cells. This so-called FCHV (fuel cell hybrid vehicle) was an electric car that didn’t need to be plugged in. Its electricity was generated by a stack of fuel cells that ran on compressed gaseous hydrogen, a relatively cheap fuel that gives off no harmful emissions; its only byproduct was water vapor. The FCHV never made it to dealer lots, however. Production of plug-in electric cars proved more viable, partially because the FCHV technology was prohibitively expensive.
Fast-forward a decade, and things have changed. In 2015 Toyota will begin selling a production version of its hydrogen fuel-cell (HFC) car that can refuel in three minutes with enough hydrogen to drive more than 300 miles, the company says. Toyota won’t be alone. Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Nissan, Honda Motor Co. (NYSE: HMC), Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) (in partnership with Renault), and Chevrolet at General Motors (NYSE: GM) are also all expected to begin producing HFC cars, beginning a new revolution in automobiles that, Toyota estimates, should result in “tens of thousands” of HFC cars on American roads by 2020.
“We think this is the only alternative-fuel technology right now that comes close to gasoline,” says Craig Scott, advanced technology manager for Toyota — and someone who’s been working on fuel-cell cars for the company since the program’s onset. “There are no compromises, unlike with other alternatives.” Scott also works on plug-in electric cars, and loves them, but notes that they are limited by current battery technology; batteries are heavy and expensive, and you just can’t drive very far using them as a power source. An HFC car, however, “looks and drives like a gasoline-powered car” with no range limitations. That is critical, Scott notes. Consumers want to be good environmental stewards — if they can do it without being inconvenienced. “You have to be able to let people drive it like a normal car,” Scott says.
Scott says that politics helped push EVs to the forefront, while relegating HFCs to the back burner, but he also admits that the cars weren’t ready, technologically, for the mass market. “We hadn’t solved durability, or cold weather. These were major engineering hurdles that we spent the past eight years cracking.”
Once Toyota cleared those hurdles, the next challenge arose: making the HFC car affordable for mass production. The original prototypes were valued at $1 million or more per car. “For the last four years or so we’ve been steadily working on how to get the cost out,” Scott says. “That’s what Toyota does best.”
Toyota welcomes competition, Scott says, because HFCs can only be viable if there’s an infrastructure to support them. And convincing the business world to invest in hydrogen filling stations will require volume — enough cars to make those stations profitable.
He understands that consumers are naturally hesitant to take a risk on anything new, but he’s confident that they’ll come around. After all, when Toyota introduced the Prius, now America’s best-selling hybrid, sales were sluggish. “Fuel-cell cars will probably be polarizing at first,” he says. But over time, people will see that a HFC car has the range and convenience of a gasoline-powered car, with absolutely no emissions. “Then they’ll realize, ‘Why wouldn’t I buy this?’”
If it’s reliable and the cost of owning and operating it make sense, sure. But the environmentalist crowd will eventually realize that water vapor is by far the most prevalent source of “greenhouse gas.” I don’t much care but they will, and they’re going to be the early adopters while the numbers don’t make economic sense. They may shoot it down before economies of scale can kick in.
I have been waiting for hydrogen powered automobiles for forty years. Hydrogen will be the solution to the range anxiety that haunts battery powered vehicles. We will be able to eliminate carbon from the fuel cycle.
I thought there was a “hot” problem....and lifting the hood alone was dangerous. Read that a long time ago???
I’m guessing that’s what has taken so long to work on.
Water is also a combustion product of existing fuels.
This is a breakthrough, usually cars are made out of metal and plastic.
/bingo
It’s not about the environment, it’s about A) scrambling for power and B) trying to avoid holding a job.
There’s two problems, or three really — hydrogen storage doesn’t yield good density, liquid fuels are always more compact; there is no hydrogen distribution network and it will cost a fortune to build one; and hydrogen has to be made and stored, and SOLD, all of which will require MORE production of electricity while Clinton and Obama have both fought against coal mining, a fight they have been doing on behalf of their OPEC masters.
Huh? What about liquified gas? Plentiful, easily managed, and your existing car can be converted to dual fuel use in a few hours for a few hundred bucks.
Also it’s well known that hydrogen gas leaks eat the ozone layer. The big ozone scare of the 70s was the successful template for the global warming scam.
Storage is the problem with LNG, as I understand it. They have a design contest going on to fix that.
Only about thirty for me. I remember a NOVA show about this, "The Invisible Flame", from the early 80s. IIRC there was a town somewhere out west (Colorado?) where the vehicles had been adapted to run on either hydrogen or gasoline. The switch back and forth was accomplished by only throwing a couple of valves under the hood. Never heard the outcome of that experiment..
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, since you brought it up. It wouldn’t matter what energy source you came up with, completely free, non-carbon based, limitless, and non-polluting in any way. Liberals will come up their usual delusional rants about why it’s evil / destructive / good for the rich & bad for the poor, yada, yada, yada, unto infinity.
Simple chemistry tells me that breaking bonds to free hydrogen from the molecules it is always bound up in costs at least as much energy as is retrieved by reforming the bonds with oxygen to make water. Even if the bond energy is identical (i.e. the hydrogen is extracted from water and later used to make water), there is always some energy loss to the system.
Where is the energy coming from to break the R-H bonds? (By chemical notation convention, “R” is any atom that functions in that position in the chemical reaction.)
How in the world can hydrogen fuel cell cars solve our energy problems?
I wanna see methane cars.
You just light a match over the tail pipe and off they go!
I think the eco-nuts will be opposed to it right from the start because it is not a “solution” that comes from govt.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.