Toyota Mirai Fuel Cell

JasonA said:

LOL... how are those Mirai sales doing guys?? Getting close to Tesla or ANY BEV sales?? :lol:

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Actually, better than a lot of PEVs, which is to say that a lot of those sell in small amounts. By my count, they'd fall in 24th place for the year (1,155) if they were a PEV, just behind the Hyundai Ionic PHEV and just ahead of the Volvo XC90 T8 on IEVS' scorecard. Other PEVs whose 2018 sales are less than the Mirai include the Soul EV, Smart ED, Cayenne S-E, Clarity BEV, e-Golf, Optima PHEV, GLE 550e, C-Max Energi (disc.), Focus Electric, i8, Sonata PHEV, GLC 350e, S90 T8, Ionic BEV, 740e, CT6, B250e, and S550e.

So, to answer your question, the Mirai has better sales than 19 PEV models including 6 BEVs, over a wide spectrum of MSRPs, both considerably less and considerably more than the Mirai. Many of these, like the Mirai, are California or CARB state-only cars. I imagine they could boost sales by at least 50% if the car weren't so ugly, assuming Toyota could make that many (they say they're now able to) and even with the limited fueling infrastructure that won't see any significant increase until 2019.

Yet any of those cars have worldwide sales well in excess of the Mirai, whereas the Mirai is only available in a tiny area, incentivized to a frankly absurd degree, and still only gets a tiny slice of the pie after almost 5 years of availability.

mux said:

Yet any of those cars have worldwide sales well in excess of the Mirai, whereas the Mirai is only available in a tiny area, incentivized to a frankly absurd degree, and still only gets a tiny slice of the pie after almost 5 years of availability.

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Exactly! and some of those PHEV's or models GRA mentioned are 1st year vehicles or ones NOBODY really even knows about!

We just did a few DriveElectricWeek events and I saw a couple of Hyundai owners that I both talked to and watched people come up to look at the car and they loved it but never knew it existed. :lol:

However... the Mirai is now 5 years old... and HOW MUCH $$$$$$$ gets funneled into that damn car/technology?

Remember GRA... the beginning of this thread ages ago you telling us where the future was and is going...

Welp... we're still here waiting while Tesla M3 sales and everyone else is killing it!

Ohh yeah.. I heard that M3 sales are bigger then Corolla now!

WHO WOULD HAVE THUNK :mrgreen:

The above posts say it's been around 5 years now??? The very first post in this thread was mid-2014 and it didn't have a name yet. I remember attending the intro event in 2015. Unless I can't do math right, that is 3 years, not 5.

Given the available service area of the H2 infrastructure, the car seems to be selling fairly well - beating out 19 PEVs, which could be sold anywhere there is a functioning electrical grid. Also, I don't recall Toyota ever indicating this was going to be a mainstream product with large sales volumes. Given the early stage of the FCEV concept, a more apples to apples comparison would be to compare its sales numbers to that of the EV1. The EV1 was 1997 - 1999. Comparing Mirai's 3 year numbers versus BEV numbers at their 21 year mark is kind of silly. Wikipedia lists the EV1 total units as 1,105. So one could say that the Mirai is off to a better start than BEVs. :lol:

If we look on an apples to apples basis, FCEV is winning out over BEVs, which have an 18 year head start.

DarthPuppy said:

Given the available service area of the H2 infrastructure, the car seems to be selling fairly well - beating out 19 PEVs, which could be sold anywhere there is a functioning electrical grid. Also, I don't recall Toyota ever indicating this was going to be a mainstream product with large sales volumes. Given the early stage of the FCEV concept, a more apples to apples comparison would be to compare its sales numbers to that of the EV1. The EV1 was 1997 - 1999. Comparing Mirai's 3 year numbers versus BEV numbers at their 21 year mark is kind of silly. Wikipedia lists the EV1 total units as 1,105. So one could say that the Mirai is off to a better start than BEVs. :lol:

If we look on an apples to apples basis, FCEV is winning out over BEVs, which have an 18 year head start.

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You are correcting others' views of history, so let's not then write your own. Toyota started introducing fuel-cell vehicles into the CA market in 2005. For completeness, I'll just quote my entire post here:

RegGuheert said:

The History Channel aired "Modern Marvels: Cartech of the Future" on January 6, 2005. Here is the entire 90-minute episode on YouTube:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZZGpMjJr4A[/youtube]

This documentary spent most of the time discussing the past of automobile design and innovation and about 1/4 of its time extolling the virtues of the fuel of the future: hydrogen.

Here is an interesting quote from Toyota:

Jim Press - Then COO of Toyota North America at 49:40 said:

There's a lot of debate today about what powertrains will emerge tomorrow: internal combustion engines, hybrid-electric, diesel, fuel cells, solar. All of these are great new technologies that are emerging that are making internal combustion engines better.

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Did he miss something there? It seems that perhaps Toyota wrote their playbook back at the beginning of this millenium and they are sticking with it. Here is more from Mr. Press:

Jim Press - Then COO of Toyota North America at 1:00:15 said:

The hydrogen cars of tomorrow are not that far away. We've already sold two in the state of California and they're running. They're full SUVs. Have had great experience from them. We're developing the technology to identify what we can do to commercialize it.

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Here's what he has to say about their hydrogen refueling stations:

Jim Press - Then COO of Toyota North America at 1:02:15 said:

The fact is our current hydrogen fueling station uses tap water. We use electricity through the water to crack the hydrogen out. The hydrogen is compressed, put into the tank of the car and the car drives. Absolutely no pollution. And the electricity that we use here is all renewable, from either solar power, hydro or wind. The only emission from the car is a little bit of water vapor. If you're really thirsty, you could drink what comes out of the tailpipe.

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What's not to love about that? Oh, he didn't mention the very low efficiency of this approach. He also didn't mention that most hydrogen comes from fossil fuels.

But he does hint at where the issues lie:

Jim Press - Then COO of Toyota North America at 1:03:03 said:

Cost has to come down and we need to create a hydrogen infrastructure so people can refuel their hydrogen-powered cars. Those are the two obstacles that are going to take another 15 or 20 years to perfect before they're on the road and common.

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Then he makes his predictions:

Jim Press - Then COO of Toyota North America at 1:03:18 said:

Ten years from now, you'll begin to see hydrogen-powered cars here and there.

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O.K. There are a handful out there. But I've never seen one. What I do see "here and there" are BEVs. He goes on:

Jim Press - Then COO of Toyota North America at 1:03:22 said:

But 15 to 20 years from now they'll be the norm.

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Really, it sounds to me like he is describing exactly what is happening with BEVs, not hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.

Fuel-cell vehicles still have *precisely* the same problems they had when he made his prediction over 10 years ago: They are too expensive and there is no refueling infrastructure in place to support their proliferation. Toyota's predictions were so bad that they had better hope that the governments can ramp up their subsidies in order for Toyota and the oil companies to maintain the status quo. In the meantime, the future of transportation is rapidly changing for the better in the form of BEVs.

So, what did Modern Marvel predict for BEVs?

<crickets>

Literally, BEVs were discussed only as a technology of the far past, but there was not a single mention of BEVs being used in the future.

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So, yes, Toyota COMPLETELY dismissed BEVs and instead told us these fuel-cell vehicles would be the norm possibly starting in about a year.

I have been driving a BEV for 6.5 years now, and have yet to see a single Toyota Mirai or any other fuel-cell vehicle on the road.

RegGuheert said:

[You are correcting others' views of history, so let's not then write your own.

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Actually, my assessment is accurate despite your attempt at insults. If you want to count concept cars, etc., then BEVs have a 190 year head start. (Or I suppose it would be more accurate to say 177 years (190 that BEVs have been available vs. 13 for FCEVs). Oh, and since you like linking posts to prove something, read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle

In there, it states "In 1828, Ányos Jedlik, a Hungarian who invented an early type of electric motor, created a small model car powered by his new motor." Gee, isn't it nice to have posts that don't take a full page of blather to get to the point?

So I was a little off on my numbers. FCEV has been a market option for 13 years according to you instead of the 3 that the Mirai has been available. Hmm, I thought this was a Mirai thread? By your logic, BEVs have been a market option for 190 years instead of 21. Gee, 190 years on and less than about 1% adoption rate. So using your presumably accurate logic regarding history since you think I rewrite history, BEV has failed (190 years to get 1% adoption is failure). FCEV is off to a much better start. :lol:

Again as I mentioned, people were saying that the Mirai has a 5 year sales track record when it only has 3 (that is a fact - not rewriting history even though it doesn't align with the narrative you want). My correcting that is not rewriting history.

BTW - I support BEVs and think that FCEV have a huge infrastructure challenge that makes it the wrong solution from a cost perspective. But claiming I rewrite history is rather trollish. I will attempt to correct clear errors when I encounter them in the interest of keeping things honest.

I suppose I should thank you as I hadn't gotten the number of years for each option accurate. I never proclaimed to exhaustively researched every post I make, especially when the relevant models to hit the market are within easy recollection.

mux said:

Yet any of those cars have worldwide sales well in excess of the Mirai, whereas the Mirai is only available in a tiny area, incentivized to a frankly absurd degree, and still only gets a tiny slice of the pie after almost 5 years of availability.

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Since Toyota could only make about 3k Mirai stacks annually until recently, the public's appetite has shifted to CUVs from sedans, the fueling infrastructure in California is behind schedule, and to top it off the car's looks are at best polarizing, at worst ugly, it's hardly surprising that the Mirai's numbers haven't increased significantly - they can't. The Clarity FCEV suffers from the many if not all of the same limitations, albeit its looks seem to be slightly less of an issue.

Several things have or are about to change. Toyota now says they've been able to reduce the amount of hand work each stack requires, allowing them to boost production significantly (by an order of magnitude, while reducing costs from around $50k/stack to $11k, with $8k in sight), and they are using two Mirai stacks in the buses and Class 8 tractors that are being introduced here and in Japan. The fueling infrastructure should start to increase much more rapidly next year, as CEC/CARB tightened up the requirements considerably for getting grants in the current round of awards, and most of them went to companies with the experience (First Element, who've built 18 or 19 of the 35 full retail H2 stations in California) and financing (Shell, who also owns or franchises the gas stations where H2 dispensing will be added) to ensure rapid completion. Also, economies of scale through building stations with larger capacities, as well as the learning curve, have dropped the cost/kg. of station capex significantly already, and greater familiarity with the process has shortened the time from permitting through completion.

Several headwinds remain. First, as yet there isn't enough competition between stations to bring the retail cost of H2 down significantly, so leasing (while the manufacturer picks up the fuel tab for three years) is the only rational choice.

Second, while fueling infrastructure construction will pick up significantly in 2019 and 2020, virtually all of it will be in urban areas to provide more people with convenient fueling for routine use. This is necessary to allow sales to grow, but does nothing to expand coverage to new areas for road trips, the usage where FCEVs have considerable operational advantages over BEVs because of longer useful ranges and rapid refueling.

Finally, Toyota and Honda are stuck for a few years yet with a body type that the public has mostly lost interest in and whose looks are controversial (I'm being polite), so major sales growth is unlikely. If priced correctly, I suspect the Hyundai Nexo CUV will see far bigger sales/leases than both the Mirai or Clarity once it arrives.

JasonA said:

Remember GRA... the beginning of this thread ages ago you telling us where the future was and is going...

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We've already established the unreliability of your recollections of what I've written in this topic even when it was trivial to check, as when you stated that I had started it (it was RegGuheert). Your question (I know, it was just snark) about whether the Mirai had outsold any BEVs is just another example of your making statements without making even the slightest effort to check their accuracy. I look forward to you providing direct quotes from me as to where I though the future was and is going - I know what I've been writing for 7 years. Here's my three earliest posts in this topic:

GRA said:

Wed Jun 25, 2014 2:33 pm

TomT said:

Could they have made it any less attractive?! It's almost as if Toyota doesn't WANT anyone to buy it...

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I think that's just the concept car they've been schlepping around to auto shows. I can't imagine Toyota producing anything so awkward looking in this day and age, although I can remember Toyota Crowns from the late '60s/early '70s, when they did.

That Japan price presumably includes VAT, 8% this year and 10% next, plus whatever other taxes Japan imposes.

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Followed shortly thereafter by:

GRA said:

If this article

http://insideevs.com/toyota-reveals-700 ... europe-us/

is correct, that really IS what it will look like. If accurate, I'm almost speechless. Even Subaru, in their worst days (I'm talking waaaay beyond the B9 Tribeca), never put into production anything with such oddball proportions and polarizing styling for so many people.

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Followed a couple of hours later by:

GRA said:

Wed Jun 25, 2014 5:21 pm

evnow said:

What evchels means is that in person it doesn't look that bad.

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I know what she meant, and I'll have to take her word for it for the moment (just as I have to take some people's word that the i3 isn't as butt ugly in person* as it appears in pictures, because I haven't seen one yet). Besides, looks are all subjective.

evnow said:

In any case, why would Toyota care - if they just want to lease a few hundred a year ?

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The market for them at that price, and with the current limited infrastructure, is going to be small in any case, so why limit it even further by using some extremely unusual, not to say bizarre, styling cues? I mean, what exactly is the point with that whole 'hood lifted off the fenders' gimmick? And the nose side intakes look like they were stolen from a F-18. Then someone apparently decided that one side crease wasn't enough, so it's got two, the second curving down the rear fender and extending across the fuel filler door, and looking at the video I realized those fenders reminded me of the Echo/1st Gen Prius, not a good thing.

The steeply dropping rear roof line looks like backseat headroom is going to be limited, and only the rear view doesn't make me gag or cry "what the hell were they thinking?!" To me it's a mish mash, a camel designed by a _drunken_ committee. YMMV.

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*Having seen many i3's subsequently, it's not bad looking. I wish I could say the same for the Mirai.

DarthPuppy said:

Also, I don't recall Toyota ever indicating this was going to be a mainstream product with large sales volumes.

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In fact, Toyota DID predict that fuel cells would be a mainstream product with large sales volumes about now. Since you completely ignored it, I'll post it yet again:

RegGuheert said:

Then he makes his predictions:

Jim Press - Then COO of Toyota North America at 1:03:18 said:

Ten years from now, you'll begin to see hydrogen-powered cars here and there.

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O.K. There are a handful out there. But I've never seen one. What I do see "here and there" are BEVs. He goes on:

Jim Press - Then COO of Toyota North America at 1:03:22 said:

But 15 to 20 years from now they'll be the norm.

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Really, it sounds to me like he is describing exactly what is happening with BEVs, not hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.

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DarthPuppy said:

Actually, my assessment is accurate despite your attempt at insults.

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Sorry, but I have not insulted you. If you feel insulted, that's all your doing.

DarthPuppy said:

If you want to count concept cars, etc., then BEVs have a 190 year head start. (Or I suppose it would be more accurate to say 177 years (190 that BEVs have been available vs. 13 for FCEVs). Oh, and since you like linking posts to prove something, read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle

In there, it states "In 1828, Ányos Jedlik, a Hungarian who invented an early type of electric motor, created a small model car powered by his new motor." Gee, isn't it nice to have posts that don't take a full page of blather to get to the point?

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Blather? Perhaps you don't like me pointing out, yet again, the fact that Toyota has been telling us for over a decade that H2 FCVs would be commonplace by now or within the very near future. They are not. And their most recent pronouncements that they will be commonplace in another decade are incorrect. You can record that as MY prediction. Let's be clear: Infrastructure is only one minor obstacle that H2 FCVs face. The main one is fatal for the transportation application: extremely low energy efficiency.

And since you are so interested in writing about the history of these things, here are some more facts that should interest you.

Fuel cells were first invented in 1839, only 39 years after Alessandro Volto invented the modern battery. But after nearly 180 years of development, the modern fuel cell still suffers from extremely low energy efficiency when compared with the modern battery. The reason is that batteries underwent a major breakthrough with the invention of the Li-ion battery. Specifically, the Li-ion battery achieves a round-trip energy efficiency of over 98% while the fuel cell, when fueled using water and hydrolysis, suffers a round-trip efficiency of less than 1/2 that value. As a society, we simply cannot afford to put such wasteful energy consumers into widespread use.

As far as modern H2 FCVs, GM is credited with developing the first one in 1966. The GM Electrovan was such a beautiful machine, I cannot imagine why no one wanted it!





No, fuel cells weren't born yesterday. They weren't even born in the previous century. But they still are far inferior to batteries.

In general, having been on the hydrogen train since 2005 now, actively working on FCEVs for 4 years and having been very aware in an enthusiast kind of way of hydrogen vehicles since their renaissance in 1999-2000, I've personally gone through this whole cycle of enthusiasm, interest, hopefulness, denial and finally acceptance a couple of times now. I recognize myself in people like GRA but man, it's so much better for your health if you just face the facts and drop the religion.

The view I have these days are boren out of insights you only get from a combination of academic honesty and lots of time to think about things. I've had 10+ years to mull things over before I got to as strong and well-founded of an opinion as I do now. There is no shame in hoping and believing, I mean, lots of people are still religious these days even though if you're honest with yourself it's blindingly obvious there's no such thing as a god or gods. Hydrogen, nuclear power and to some extent the future relevance of fossil fuels are the big religions of energy these days. People believe in them and only seem to be strengthened in their views and beliefs the more you tell them it's never going to go anywhere. And the most ardent 'haters' are often the ones, like me, that once belonged to that religion.

mux said:

In general, having been on the hydrogen train since 2005 now, actively working on FCEVs for 4 years and having been very aware in an enthusiast kind of way of hydrogen vehicles since their renaissance in 1999-2000, I've personally gone through this whole cycle of enthusiasm, interest, hopefulness, denial and finally acceptance a couple of times now. I recognize myself in people like GRA but man, it's so much better for your health if you just face the facts and drop the religion.

The view I have these days are boren out of insights you only get from a combination of academic honesty and lots of time to think about things. I've had 10+ years to mull things over before I got to as strong and well-founded of an opinion as I do now. There is no shame in hoping and believing, I mean, lots of people are still religious these days even though if you're honest with yourself it's blindingly obvious there's no such thing as a god or gods. Hydrogen, nuclear power and to some extent the future relevance of fossil fuels are the big religions of energy these days. People believe in them and only seem to be strengthened in their views and beliefs the more you tell them it's never going to go anywhere. And the most ardent 'haters' are often the ones, like me, that once belonged to that religion.

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Ain't no religion here, just an interest in the tech (as I have with batteries) without believing they're the second coming, the answer to life, the universe and everything, or even a guaranteed success. To me, it's just one of two possible ZEV techs that may get us off fossil-fueled transportation. I'll be happy if either or both succeed, but I'm not emotionally invested in either of them. I'll weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each, and recommend they be used appropriately. Just as I've been doing with AE for 30-odd years now, and AFVs for 20.

What I care about is providing sustainable transportation (which may include some amount of biofuels) that people want. How that's done is of secondary priority to me at this time. And now, to avoid yet another extended repetition of the OT and never-ending debate about FCEVs vs. BEVs (when I consider it most likely they'll end up being complimentary), I'll end.

GRA said:

mux said:

In general, having been on the hydrogen train since 2005 now, actively working on FCEVs for 4 years and having been very aware in an enthusiast kind of way of hydrogen vehicles since their renaissance in 1999-2000, I've personally gone through this whole cycle of enthusiasm, interest, hopefulness, denial and finally acceptance a couple of times now. I recognize myself in people like GRA but man, it's so much better for your health if you just face the facts and drop the religion.

The view I have these days are boren out of insights you only get from a combination of academic honesty and lots of time to think about things. I've had 10+ years to mull things over before I got to as strong and well-founded of an opinion as I do now. There is no shame in hoping and believing, I mean, lots of people are still religious these days even though if you're honest with yourself it's blindingly obvious there's no such thing as a god or gods. Hydrogen, nuclear power and to some extent the future relevance of fossil fuels are the big religions of energy these days. People believe in them and only seem to be strengthened in their views and beliefs the more you tell them it's never going to go anywhere. And the most ardent 'haters' are often the ones, like me, that once belonged to that religion.

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Ain't no religion here, just an interest in the tech (as I have with batteries) without believing they're the second coming, the answer to life, the universe and everything, or even a guaranteed success. To me, it's just one of two possible ZEV techs that may get us off fossil-fueled transportation. I'll be happy if either or both succeed, but I'm not emotionally invested in either of them. I'll weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each, and recommend they be used appropriately. Just as I've been doing with AE for 30-odd years now, and AFVs for 20.

What I care about is providing sustainable transportation (which may include some amount of biofuels) that people want. How that's done is of secondary priority to me at this time. And now, to avoid yet another extended repetition of the OT and never-ending debate about FCEVs vs. BEVs (when I consider it most likely they'll end up being complimentary), I'll end.

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Let's see now. The opinion of someone who's used both BEV's and FCEV's versus that of someone who has never lived with neither - test drives and reading about other's experiences is not the same. Who's opinion should we value here?

GRA said:

And now, to avoid yet another extended repetition of the OT and never-ending debate about FCEVs vs. BEVs (when I consider it most likely they'll end up being complimentary), I'll end.

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End? Is that it? The last “not-a-hydrogn-dude-hydrogen dude” on this forum is hanging up his spurs?

I’ll give you this; unlike the hydrogen dude from Texas (AndyH?) who berated everybody with his hydrogen-dude-ness, (and then he flamed out like a burst hydrogen tank), you have always maintained your composure.

I never understood how anybody could be so myopic about their own very unique personal situation when debating this stuff, and I’m even less impressed that you have “no skin in the game” about which you speak. Virtually EVERYBODY here, without exception, knows either EVs or H2 first hand. But not you!

Here’s the obvious; no current transportation technology is perfect, nor will there ever be perfect. I don’t know even if we will have personal cars in 200 years. But, we humans accepted horse **** all over the streets for thousands of years, until something better came along, and yet some people still clung to their “Subaru horse”. I suppose a few of those those people hotly debated how it met their personal needs, and were not bashful about telling others what they should think about the Ford Model T or Stanley Steamer.

Obviously, an EV could work for you. You don’t want it to. I’m equally certain a diesel, gasoline or hydrogen powered car would, too. I fell empathy for you, because you’re a dog chasing his own tail in circles... except a dog is happy while doing it.

Good luck with your gasoline car and the gasoline infrastructure that you support with it.

TonyWilliams said:

GRA said:

And now, to avoid yet another extended repetition of the OT and never-ending debate about FCEVs vs. BEVs (when I consider it most likely they'll end up being complimentary), I'll end.

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End? Is that it? The last “not-a-hydrogn-dude-hydrogen dude” on this forum is hanging up his spurs?

I’ll give you this; unlike the hydrogen dude from Texas (AndyH?) who berated everybody with his hydrogen-dude-ness, (and then he flamed out like a burst hydrogen tank), you have always maintained your composure.

I never understood how anybody could be so myopic about their own very unique personal situation when debating this stuff, and I’m even less impressed that you have “no skin in the game” about which you speak. Virtually EVERYBODY here, without exception, knows either EVs or H2 first hand. But not you!

Here’s the obvious; no current transportation technology is perfect, nor will there ever be perfect. I don’t know even if we will have personal cars in 200 years. But, we humans accepted horse **** all over the streets for thousands of years, until something better came along, and yet some people still clung to their “Subaru horse”. I suppose a few of those those people hotly debated how it met their personal needs, and were not bashful about telling others what they should think about the Ford Model T or Stanley Steamer.

Obviously, an EV could work for you. You don’t want it to. I’m equally certain a diesel, gasoline or hydrogen powered car would, too. I fell empathy for you, because you’re a dog chasing his own tail in circles... except a dog is happy while doing it.

Good luck with your gasoline car and the gasoline infrastructure that you support with it.

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Tony, I ended the post before it got into yet another OT debate; I'm not ending my participation here. As noted many times before, I've driven many BEVs and FCEVs and lived with one of the former for a week 20 years ago, but my comments about their relative strengths and weaknesses are general, not specific (except when I make them so). We obviously have very different views about the lifetimes we demand from our cars, Tony - you've bought more than twice as many cars since 2011 when I became a member here as I've owned in my life, and I'm a couple of years older than you.

As to your statement that "Obviously, an EV could work for you. You don't want it to." No, it couldn't yet, but it's getting close, and as to my not wanting one to, that's ridiculous. I'll be happy when one can.

I need several things to happen before they will work for me: The CEC building the QC infrastructure to/through Yosemite and down the east side of the Sierra they've been promising for the past year or two (or a similar building of the H2 fueling infrastructure, although less of that would be needed owing to FCEV's better range), and an AWD BEV (or FCEV) with adequate range at an acceptable price, plus relatively inexpensive home or public charging or fueling. The Kia Niro BEV is getting close to my minimum requirements, and I'm going to take a good look at it and consider it, even though it's not AWD and its range is a bit short.

Backing that up, after several years of gentle persuasion I've got a still somewhat tentative commitment from my landlord to put PV here (I'd long since done a basic scoping out of the suitability, and he's asked me to look at the estimates when he gets them), and if the two of us can work out a long-term lease for me (I've already been here 18 years) I'd pay to install an L2 circuit for charging. Actually, the PV isn't essential to that, as the whole city contracts for green power. Anyway, that's not likely to happen before next year at the earliest, which will be about the time that the CEC (and EA) networks start to be useful to me and longer range CUV BEVs and FCEVs appear (the latter along with its fuel still far too expensive, we'll see about the former). So, there's a convergence of factors that likely point to 2019 or 2020 as the earliest time when an EV becomes a practical option for me.

Of course, that assumes that I buy another car at all, when the more suitable transport methodology for me given my very limited auto usage* is intermodal MaaS. I believe that is likely the future of transportation, for urban residents at least, saving considerable amounts of money. I consider it ludicrous to spend tens of thousands on a vehicle that even for daily auto commuters sits unused 90+% of the time (even higher % for someone like me), once we have another option of roughly equal convenience at much lower cost.

I expect the advent of AV EVs will be the trigger for mass-market adoption of that. Personal auto ownership (along with driver's licenses) will likely seem bizarre to most people two or three decades from now. The question for me then becomes do I spend tens of thousands for another car for what (to me) is likely to be a short useful lifetime until those car-shared AVs used in MaaS become available, or do I stick with the ICE car I have now so I can give up car ownership entirely a few years down the road? The rate at which those services are likely to appear will heavily factor into my decision.


*My 15+ year-old Subie has 66k miles on it, with annual usage dropping considerably over the past few years as I put even more emphasis on avoiding its use, including not taking any out-of-state road trips until I can do so in a ZEV. I'd hoped to be able to resume those several years before now, but not even Tesla's SC network yet reaches many of the places I want to visit, even if their cars weren't far too expensive.

I can’t imagine a SINGLE place in the lower 48 states that I can’t drive a Tesla Model 3 LR with 310 miles of range. It’s avaible with AWD (all Tesla cars are).

You don’t need to wait for the government to procpvide you with government sponsored charging (or government paid for hydrogen).

Turo the thing out when you don’t use it. You could charge up at a local Supercharger once a month or so.

Given your vast experience with an EV, let me suggest that you either “don’t know what you don’t know”, or choose not to learn.

Go ahead.. pick a spot that I couldn’t drive a bone stock Tesla Model 3 from the S.F. Bay Area.

TonyWilliams said:

I can’t imagine a SINGLE place in the lower 48 states that I can’t drive a Tesla Model 3 LR with 310 miles of range. It’s avaible with AWD (all Tesla cars are).

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We obviously go different places, and do different things when we get there. I not only can imagine it, I've run the trips using EVTriplanner.
And even if I could afford a car that currently starts at $49k (more with AWD, and I'm not willing to pay that much for any car given my limited usage; they just aren't worth that much of my life. The first new car I bought (in 1988) cost me $15,227 out the door (incl. TTL); the car that replaced it 15 years later after it was stolen, which I have now, was $24,344 ditto, so as it's approaching 16 years on from that, I'm willing to pay no more than $35k OTD. Besides,the Model 3's not a hatch/wagon/CUV, and it's longer and wider than I need or want, which is an issue on some of the dirt roads I drive on.[/quote]

TonyWilliams said:

You don’t need to wait for the government to procpvide you with government sponsored charging (or government paid for hydrogen).

Turo the thing out when you don’t use it. You could charge up at a local Supercharger once a month or so.

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Sorry, if I own a car, I'm not letting anyone I don't know use it. My cars last a long time because I take care of them, even when i drive them a lot more than I have this one. and unlike this one, Once I have access to a ZEV I'll be free to resume taking the out-of-state trips I've been putting off for years while I've waited for a ZEV that met my needs, and will be retired in not too many more years so I'll be putting a lot more miles on it, and range degradation will be an issue.

TonyWilliams said:

Given your vast experience with an EV, let me suggest that you either “don’t know what you don’t know”, or choose not to learn.

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My experience, limited though it is, answered the big questions for me as regards range, charging speed and needed infrastructure. If a car can't meet those requirements, the rest doesn't matter.

TonyWilliams said:

Go ahead.. pick a spot that I couldn’t drive a bone stock Tesla Model 3 from the S.F. Bay Area.

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Okay, off the top of my head the trailhead east of Likely in the South Warner Mtns SE of Alturas. Or Great Basin N.P. via U.S. 50 across Nevada. Or Utah from Blanding through Capitol Reef down to Bryce Canyon and on to Zion. I've done all of those, and want to again. We still need one in Kayenta, AZ, which Tesla has been putting back annually for 3 years now. How about Glacier National Park - still no SC in Kalispell (put back for another year), or the three along I-15 (Helena/Great Falls/Shelby), let alone one at/west of St. Regis on I-90 to avoid the detour to Superior?

Oh, and you're not you, you're me, which means you're going to be driving the car directly to and parking it at trailheads often many miles up a dirt road with no electricity or any other services bar maybe a table and pit toilet, while you hike, backpack, climb or cross-country ski, it's often cold and/or you've needed to make thousands of feet of elevation gain to get there so range is decreased, your free time is limited and you aren't going to stay in RV parks or motels and spend as little time as possible at restaurants enroute, so only QCs are useful to you. I could add many more destinations that I've tried using EVtripplanner and can't get to (and return, of course) given the above, but you get the idea. In short, off-interstates, the SC network still falls far short of what's needed to get me where I want to go.

TonyWilliams said:

I can’t imagine a SINGLE place in the lower 48 states that I can’t drive a Tesla Model 3 LR with 310 miles of range.

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St John, North Dakota

Ok, you could get there with this stop:

https://www.plugshare.com/location/160654

That's correct exactly one L2 station can help.


Or several different RV campgrounds.

9 hours of L2, coming and going.

Places like this are getting harder to find.

GRA said:

Okay, off the top of my head the trailhead east of Likely in the South Warner Mtns SE of Alturas.

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This one?

https://www.evtripplanner.com/planner/2-8/?id=8ywz81ko

WetEV said:

GRA said:

Okay, off the top of my head the trailhead east of Likely in the South Warner Mtns SE of Alturas.

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This one?

https://www.evtripplanner.com/planner/2-8/?id=8ywz81ko

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Haven't been in via that trailhead yet, but close; I'm normally going in further north. Find Mill Creek Falls Campground a bit north and then follow Clear Lake Rd. east past the Falls trhd. to its end: 41.275219, -120.290382. Via Reno is one route and I've done it that way, albeit not the one I normally would take - I-5 to Redding, then across 299 to Alturas and south is slightly faster, and arguably more scenic off the interstate; Cutting over from Red Bluff via Chester and Susanville is another option; I haven't done that yet, but would like to.

Tesla had SCs in Redding, Adin and Susanville on their list of 2018 coming soon SCs, but pushed the last two back to 2019 (Redding is still shown as 2018, but no progress is known at Supercharge.info), and as I've noted in the Tesla SC topic they've virtually stopped expansion of coverage SCs, concentrating on increasing capacity in urban areas for all the Model 3s (that presumably can't charge at home).

Also, you're assuming 100% charge and 72 deg temps with no allowances for speed, cold, degradation, rain, headwinds etc. One of my requirements is to have the car meet my needs for at least 12 but preferably 15 years or more with the original battery and at the speeds I usually drive, any time of the year I'm likely (pun noted but not intended) to go somewhere, which definitely includes fall and probably someday there, winter (haven't X-C skied in the Warners yet), with anything up to a full load, so all those must be allowed for. To allow for degradation, I never figure on charging to 100% but a max. of 90% round trip from and return to an SC/QC, and that understates the degradation over that period of time. Travel between SCs/QCs should never require charging to more than 80%, and I want a minimum reserve of 15% but not less than 30 miles in the same conditions.

Try the Reno-Trailhead-Reno round trip with 1,000 lb. load, 32 deg. outside temp, speed factor 1.05 (more like 1.1 now, but we'll assume I'll be willing to take it a little easier once I retire) and 5 mph headwinds, start at 80% and 90% and end at 15%. Then try it from Corning SC. And then try it with a Model 3SR, which is at least theoretically in my price range, even if the Model 3 is the wrong body type. Which is why I'll be checking the Niro out, albeit it isn't AWD. And the Niro requires CEC and EA to build the CCS network in the places I've mentioned plus many others, but Tuolumne Mdws/395 access is the absolute minimum requirement for a car to be anything more than a very expensive lawn ornament (if I had a lawn) for me.

WetEV said:

TonyWilliams said:

I can’t imagine a SINGLE place in the lower 48 states that I can’t drive a Tesla Model 3 LR with 310 miles of range.

Click to expand...

St John, North Dakota

Ok, you could get there with this stop:

https://www.plugshare.com/location/160654

That's correct exactly one L2 station can help.


Or several different RV campgrounds.

9 hours of L2, coming and going.

Places like this are getting harder to find.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, those are exactly the sorts of places I'm most likely to want to visit. Well, not St. John, N.D., or really anywhere in N.D With only a few exceptions (Devil's Tower, Mt. Rushmore, Carlsbad Caverns and Guadalupe Mtns) I have no need to drive east of I-25 or a line extending northwards from its junction with I-90.