Hydrogen and FCEVs discussion thread

[lorenfb]

With BEV developing so quickly,

Really? And what data do you have to support that view? Hopefully other than the ongoing hyperbole that's
expressed by Elon and the "progress"? of Giga.

Don't get out much, do you?

Leaf 1.5 (30 kwh battery pack, coming soon to a theater near you)
Leaf 2.0 - 2017-2018
Chevy Bolt - 2017

Hardly anything of real significance! Nothing to really cause a major transition for the typical ICE consumer.
Those products will only keep the BEV growth from being flat.

 

[Stoaty]

Hardly anything of real significance! Nothing to really cause a major transition for the typical ICE consumer.
Those products will only keep the BEV growth from being flat.

Can I have some of whatever you are smoking?

 

[TonyWilliams]

Hardly anything of real significance! Nothing to really cause a major transition for the typical ICE consumer.
Those products will only keep the BEV growth from being flat.

Can I have some of whatever you are smoking?

lorenfb is a consistent Tesla hater and generally Debbie Downer, and I predict a short seller of TSLA. I'm not sure much of anything meaningful will ever come from him, except the usual drivel.

 

[lorenfb]

Hardly anything of real significance! Nothing to really cause a major transition for the typical ICE consumer.
Those products will only keep the BEV growth from being flat.

Can I have some of whatever you are smoking?

lorenfb is a consistent Tesla hater and generally Debbie Downer, and I predict a short seller of TSLA. I'm not sure much of anything meaningful will ever come from him, except the usual drivel.

Typical of you in this thread to use an ad hominem, but that's typical of most when they're short on data
to refute a post!

 

[lorenfb]

We only hear about vapor-BEVs, e.g. Leaf2, Bolt, & Model E, to counter the potential threat of a FCEV
which will overcome most ICE consumers' key concerns, i.e. lengthy charging times, and range.
The FCEV is NOT a forecast for 2016/2017 as are the BEVs mentioned. Yes, the infrastructure issues,
e.g. availability, consumer interface, and reliability, will be resolved most likely over the next year and
surely before the vapor-BEVs potentially arrive.

It's really unfortunate that the typical ICE consumer views the present BEV as a novelty or a very expensive toy,
i.e. the Tesla. Given that, for those that have concern for the climate and a heavy dependence on fossil fuels,
the evolutionary time frame may be much longer with a reliance on one technology than most envision.

 

[GRA]

Via GCR [my emphasis]:

Toyota Tackles Hydrogen Fueling Challenges As Mirai Launch Approaches: UPDATED

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1099323_toyota-tackles-hydrogen-fueling-challenges-as-mirai-launch-approaches

Also contains more detail on the prices and incentives Toyota is offering, including fuel.

As this autumn's launch of the 2016 Toyota Mirai fuel-cell car approaches, its maker is taking steps to ensure that the small number of initial buyers and lessees will be able to fuel up their hydrogen-powered sedans with ease.

Some of the 70 or so Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell SUV drivers in Southern California have complained that they can't reliable refuel their cars, which they've leased over the last year.

But Toyota notes that those stations aren't "ready for prime time," and wouldn't necessarily be capable of fueling a new Mirai.

In a recent interview published in Forbes, Toyota's Craig Scott notes that "there's still a lot of development work that needs to occur" on a hydrogen fueling infrastructure, and that while it's "vastly improved this year," its development is "still lagging. . . ."

California now has 48 hydrogen stations planned and funded, with two completed and another eight now under construction. Toyota expects 10 to 15 stations "open and ready" by the end of the year and capable of fueling its Mirai.

Next year, Scott said, he expects roughly 20 more stations to open.

Like Hyundai, Toyota will only offer its Mirai to customers who live and work near hydrogen stations. So far, it has designated only eight dealers--four each in Northern and Southern California--to distribute the hydrogen-powered vehicles. . . .

More insight into Toyota's approach to marketing the Mirai and addressing concerns over fuel availability come from Southern California reader Doug Kerr.

The owner of two electric cars, he was invited to a Mirai introduction event in Laguna Beach put on by the carmaker.

The gathering included video presentations, explanations of how a hydrogen fuel-cell powertrain functions, and a half-hour Mirai test drive.

Kerr characterized the event as "low-key and targeted to those early adopters who had the income and the technical interest sufficient to become a hydrogen pioneer."

Knowledgeable electric-car drivers, including Kerr, may raise questions about the car and the technology, as Kerr did. He writes:

The Toyota marketing representative, Geri Yoza, was ready for any questions I brought up in the small group I was in.

Regarding the Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell drivers and their issues with hydrogen availability, she said each of those stations were experimental, and were never considered as part of the consumer experience [by Toyota].

Several hydrogen stations were just finishing construction, she said, and would be available around October. She said the new stations, built by FirstElement, had performance standards, and that they would fill a Mirai within five minutes. . . .

The new, "ready for prime time" hydrogen fueling stations will all have a Point of Sale system, just as customers expect at gasoline stations. A meter on the pump will display the cost per kilogram, total amount dispensed, and amount of transaction. . . .

On another note, last week I happened to ride by the gas station that's listed by CAFCP as being the future H2 fueling station site in my city, and noticed that they were digging up part of the lot and were installing a a big, rectangular concrete box, maybe 16' x 4' x 5', in the hole, while the rest of the station remained open for business. Attempts to elicit if this was being done as part of the H2 install were stymied by a combination of my lousy hearing and the station attendant's limited English skills, but I will try and ride by every week or so and monitor the situation.

 

[walterbays]

This bears out what many here had been predicting for a long time. AndyH may well be right about a future in which cars are refueled at home by total home solar energy stations producing both electricity and hydrogen. But here's what $100M of California taxpayer money buys today with hydrogen.

48 stations now plus 20 expected, 68 stations at an average cost of $1.5M each.

Leave aside the H2 reliability issues, because remember the early days of QC with only Blink stations that were down more than they were up? Let's assume eventual perfect reliability.

An H2 station can fill a car much faster than QC can charge a car, but then it takes a long time for the station to produce and/or pressurize enough H2 to fill the next car, so these stations can only handle 2 cars per hour. With perfect utilization, no queueing and no idle stations, at 16 hours operation per day these 68 stations can do 2,176 fill-ups per day.

Assume a range of 300 miles per fill-up, with the car always pulling up completely empty and leaving completely full. Assume an average of 40 miles driven per day, and 100% of all fueling done at public stations, and that means those stations could support a population of 16,320 H2 cars.

What might $100M have bought instead? A CHAdeMO QC station costs about $40K installed, so that's 2,500 additional QC stations.

QC sessions might take as much as 30 minutes, with probably more 20 minutes or 10 minutes for a quick top up. Assume each station can handle 3 cars per hour, so in 16 hours of perfect utilization these 2,500 stations can do 120,000 charging sessions per day.

EV's do, conservatively, 10% of their charging at public QC stations, with most charging at home. So that's enough charging sessions to support an additional 1,200,000 cars.

So the net effect of spending $100M on H2 stations is to keep an additional 1,184,000 gasoline cars on the road. Not quite the green dividend hydrogen backers had in mind.

I still believe we'll someday get to a future where H2 is an important factor in transportation, and I believe it's proper for the government to spend money to help move towards that future for hydrogen, just as it did for battery electric. But this was the wrong way to spend it. The $100M should have gone to build H2 fueling infrastructure for long distance trucks and intra-city delivery trucks, where fuel cells make more sense today and where the fleet operators could move quickly to self sustaining infrastructure. Then tomorrow's consumer automobiles powered by H2 could start out by leveraging the existing truck fueling infrastructure, as the consumer infrastructure was developed.

 

[GetOffYourGas]

The $100M should have gone to build H2 fueling infrastructure for long distance trucks and intra-city delivery trucks, where fuel cells make more sense today and where the fleet operators could move quickly to self sustaining infrastructure. Then tomorrow's consumer automobiles powered by H2 could start out by leveraging the existing truck fueling infrastructure, as the consumer infrastructure was developed.

This vision makes a lot of sense to me. Which is probably why it isn't happening that way.

 

[JasonA]

But here's what $100M of California taxpayer money buys today with hydrogen.48 stations now plus 20 expected, 68 stations at an average cost of $1.5M each.

:lol: There's no way 48 stations are going to be built anytime soon.

People in this thread are drinking the Hydrogen Cool-Aid and it seems Toyota and Hyundai have sold people strong on the fact.

One look at the Hyundai Tuscon HCFV owner group shows what a disaster and disappointment it's turned out to be. Stations running out of fuel... NOT ENOUGH TO RETURN BACK TO HOME.. on the FB group TODAY!

Has anyone fueled up at OCSD yet with H70 (full fill)? Got just enough fuel to get there and back but not there again so I want to make sure. OCSD which is sometimes referred to as Fountain Valley

And those stations that are said to "being built and when they'll be on line:" :lol: :lol: :roll:

More like...

Approved to Build [3] : LA - Bev Blvd, UCI, Woodland Hills

Planning Approval [8]: Costa Mesa, Hayward, La Canada Flintridge, Lake Forest, San Jose, Santa Barbara, Woodside, Ontario

That does NOT mean they are building stations... :lol:

The only stations in operation right now are....

Open Stations [8]: Burbank, UCI (offline starting 7/9), Torrance, Harbor City, Newport Beach, Emeryville, Thousand Palms (limited access), West Sacramento

Re-Opening Stations [2]: Fountain Valley (targeting 7/10), LAX

Fully Constructed, in commissioning [3]: Diamond Bar, West LA -SM Blvd, CSULA (Hyundai customers can fuel here from my understanding)

And they cannot get fuel... :roll:

So... now let's talk about the dog known as the Mirai shall we? :roll:

HEY!! P.S. Why don't you go here and ask them all how their "Hydrogen Dream" have turned out! :lol:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/513010068843714/

Newport Beach is completely offline. UCI shuts down Thursday. No stations in OC. Guess I park my car until September and rent a gas car.

 

[JasonA]

Good luck with your Mirai... :roll:

Please note that the status light is "red" at Shell Newport Beach, but the low pressure fill is still operational. They are working to resolve the alarm.

TORRANCE station is LOW PRESSURE. I only received an 80% fill. Plus... One pump is down

Have been trying to contact Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell concierge for the past 30 minutes and every time it goes to a hold for multiple minutes and then either goes to an AARP towing recording asking me if I want to join AARP (what??), or just disconnects without anyone answering. Over and over, so we can't find out if we should drive out to OCSD to fuel or not. CaFCP site says 700 bar is online at OCSD, but also says that they are getting inconsistent status readings from that station too. Isn't this why we have the concierge line??

very bummed to hear you can no longer share information about the hydrogen stauptus as that has been a hurge help to us! Greg, totally agree with your comment! Interesting that when we leased our FCEV we were told the concierge would be available 24 / 7 and very recently concierge sent out a reminder that they prefer us to contact them before contacting Air Products or any other station management. But hard to follow the policy if there is no response!

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

Is it feasible to have a H2 delivery tanker that could go around and fuel vehicles?

 

[NeilBlanchard]

Seems to me, for someone who wants to push the transition to EVs or is just into tech, needs long freeway driving range (especially in winter) and fast refueling, but can't afford a Tesla and doesn't want a PHEV, this is a reasonable option, certainly a better value than a $50k RAV4 EV with half the range or less. Obviously it's still fugly, and you have to live somewhere there's fueling infrastructure, but since all the FCV manufacturers are restricting sales/leases to areas which have same, that shouldn't be a major issue.

There are only about 12 or 15 public hydrogen filling stations, and many of those are either not working for weeks at a time, or cannot service more that 1 or 2 cars per hour.

So, long distance driving is IMPOSSIBLE, and therefore the speed of refilling is also moot.

Is it feasible to have a H2 delivery tanker that could go around and fuel vehicles?

No. Think about it - a truck would have to follow every FCEV around. That would be ridiculously expensive.

 

[JasonA]

There are only about 12 or 15 public hydrogen filling stations, and many of those are either not working for weeks at a time, or cannot service more that 1 or 2 cars per hour.

As per my previous post... there's not 12 OR 15...

There's only 8 (count'em EIGHT) open stations... and a few are being built..

The rest are in planning or approved.

 

[GRA]

See the H2 and Fuel cell thread for more details: http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14744&p=431804#p431804

Toyota, Honda and the state of California are all involved (read subsidizing) the build out of commercialized stations with standardized components, and they are on track to have them in the areas where the Mirai will initially be sold. In fact, the gas station in my city which is scheduled to get H2 refueling started tearing up part of their pavement and digging a trench last week. I still don't know for certain if this is for H2, but with such a short time before it's scheduled opening (originally Oct. 31st, now the vaguer 4Q 2015) and the fact that Toyota is paying for quite a lot of it, I expect it is. Suffice it to say that Toyota isn't going into this half-assed, and will only sell/lease the Mirai where the infrastructure exists so that the stations will have adequate reliability, fueling speed (<=5 minutes) and capacity.

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

Is it feasible to have a H2 delivery tanker that could go around and fuel vehicles?

No. Think about it - a truck would have to follow every FCEV around. That would be ridiculously expensive.

I was thinking more like home delivery. Like oil, only once a week or so. Maybe refill a larger home tank that would give you a couple fills. As long as OEMs are promising fuel with the cars, and paying, and H2 stations aren't up to speed. As it is early adopters are suffering a loss of use. Would be cheaper than a class action.

 

[GRA]

Is it feasible to have a H2 delivery tanker that could go around and fuel vehicles?

No. Think about it - a truck would have to follow every FCEV around. That would be ridiculously expensive.

I was thinking more like home delivery. Like oil, only once a week or so. Maybe refill a larger home tank that would give you a couple fills. As long as OEMs are promising fuel with the cars, and paying, and H2 stations aren't up to speed. As it is early adopters are suffering a loss of use. Would be cheaper than a class action.

If installing high power home charging is too expensive for many people, just imagine what providing a home H2 fueling supply would cost at the moment, when this is all very new. I can't imagine there's more than a few people who would bother, and the hassle of getting permits for the early adopters would be major. If we eventually get to the state where H2 is delivered (or made on-site) at most residences, in the way that NG is available, it might work, but that's way out in the future if ever. In the meantime, just go with the simplest, cheapest option, which is putting them at existing gas stations whenever possible.

 

[evnow]

In the meantime, just go with the simplest, cheapest option, which is putting them at existing gas stations whenever possible.

Simplest. cheapest option is to ditch H2.

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

If the taxpayers of CA wish to protest to end H2 subsidies, they should.

If Toyota and Hyundai FCV owners were promised free fuel with their vehicles, but either have to park their cars due to unavailability or drive excessively to get refueled, what is their legal recourse?

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

If installing high power home charging is too expensive for many people, just imagine what providing a home H2 fueling supply would cost a the moment, when this is all very new. I can't imagine there's more than a few people who would bother, . . .

Not the drivers, the OEMs. OEMs try to be careful to only sell cars where there's infrastructure, but if that fails, they need a plan B. OEMs should pay for home H2 delivery. Or something.

 

[GRA]

If installing high power home charging is too expensive for many people, just imagine what providing a home H2 fueling supply would cost a the moment, when this is all very new. I can't imagine there's more than a few people who would bother, . . .

Not the drivers, the OEMs. OEMs try to be careful to only sell cars where there's infrastructure, but if that fails, they need a plan B. OEMs should pay for home H2 delivery. Or something.

Or just make sure that enough stations are built to provide adequate fueling options without serious inconvenience, with a high enough level of reliability and short enough down times (owing to rapid maintenance and use of standardized components), all enforced by the performance terms of the loan agreement which Toyota (and presumably the state) signed with the operator. Oh, and make sure that not all stations are run by the same operator, so that if one crumps people still have somewhere to go while the legal situation plays out. Oh, and make sure that you have a mobile refueling station, to cover the inevitable situations where a station goes down for more than a short time; this will only be needed in the interim until station density improves to provide adequate backup without it.

Oddly enough, this is exactly the approach that's being taken with the new, first gen commercialized stations that are now being built, mobile station included. Doesn't guarantee that there will be no problems, but then if people aren't willing to chance the occasional inconvenience typical for early adopters, they should just avoid FCVs for now (and BEVs for the past 4.5 years).