this post was submitted on 13 Nov 2023

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Toyota trials hydrogen-powered vehicle on public roads in Australia (japantoday.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 11 months ago (6 children)

A hydrogen engine is so much worse for efficiency than a hydrogen fuel cell, and even that is not good compared to batteries. I'd estimate the round trip efficiency of a hydrogen engine to be about 10-15%. So for the same energy that could be used to drive a battery EV 100km, this car from Toyota could drive 12km.

Additionally, hydrogen is not very energy dense per volume. A compressed hydrogen tank that replaces the boot/trunk of the car would have enough hydrogen for about 100km of range.

Please let me know if I'm wrong about any of these numbers. For Toyota's sake, I really hope I'm wrong.

[–] SupraMario 17 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Your numbers are way off. No manufacture would even think about touching hydrogen ICE motors if they only got 10-15% efficiency.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

no manufacturer except one that's still desperately trying to push for a hydrogen economy because they invested too much into hydrogen production

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[–] KpntAutismus 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

https://insideevs.com/news/332584/efficiency-compared-battery-electric-73-hydrogen-22-ice-13/

according to this website, hydrogen ICEs are very inefficient. same with fuel cell vehicles. the main losses come from converting the hydrogen into and out of electricity. but if said electicity is generated in abundance with renewable energy at a cheap price, this could really be something.

edit: you can't really burn electricity, so as a car enthusiast i really hope hydrogen ICEs become a thing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

BEVs are a lot of fun to drive. Car people are nostalgic for burning fuels and roaring engines, but future generations will be far less so. We just need far lighter batteries.

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[–] SupraMario 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The issue with this metric is they're talking about energy used to get the power. It completely ignores the fact that hydrogen can already be pulled from the atmosphere using solar plants. There are a few companies out there now that are developing stations that are basically automated.

The ICE motors Toyota and Hyundai have shown, have very little loss of HP/Tq numbers from their gas counter parts. Unless the battery industry comes up with a super light, quick charging (5 mins) and long lasting battery, EV will be resigned to the city at best and no heavy workloads for it either.

[–] Pipoca 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Efficiency still matters significantly with hydrogen solar panels, because solar panels aren't free.

Suppose solar to wheel is 60% efficient in a battery electric vehicle, but 30% efficient in a hydrogen vehicle. You need half as many solar panels to power the battery electric vehicle, and spend at most half as much to charge it. That matters.

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[–] jose1324 5 points 11 months ago

Well. Basically no one except for dumbass boomer executives forcing the company in a direction. Like Toyota.

[–] PeterPoopshit 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I thought they were using ammonia powered vehicles and calling them hydrogen just because ammonia contains hydrogen. Wasn't there a bunch of hype a few months ago about Toyota inventing an ammonia internal combustion engine that was so efficient it would "make electric cars obsolete"? The article just mentioned liquid hydrogen though. So I don't know what to believe anymore.

[–] Geobloke 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think the biggest thing that people forgot in the efficiency debate is cost. What will hydrogen actually cost to go 100km compared to electricity

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The current cost to drive a car with green hydrogen from electrolysis (not blue or grey hydrogen from methane reforming) is roughly equivalent to $50/L (AUD) for petrol, or $120/Gal (USD) for gas. This is one of the reasons most hydrogen today is made from fossil fuels.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

and you have to use it up within a week or two, or your fuel disappears

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[–] Burn_The_Right 17 points 11 months ago (16 children)

Why hydrogen? Why not electric at this point?

[–] FooBarrington 27 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Because Toyota invested a lot into hydrogen instead of EV, and they need to recuperate at least some of it.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Honestly I'm glad that somebody is exploring other environmentally friendly alternatives too, nothing wrong with having options.

[–] FooBarrington 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Kind of? Hydrogen can be environmentally friendly, but EVs have big advantages:

Creating and burning hydrogen is way less efficient than EVs (almost an order of magnitude)
Hydrogen is much cheaper to create in environmentally unfriendly ways (using natural gas etc.)
Unless we have massive overproduction of power, the additional energy can be better used to de-carbonify other processes with larger impact

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's why generating hydrogen during off-peak hours from a nuclear power plant will be very beneficial. It may be less efficient but way better for the environment then lithium

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[–] Geobloke 2 points 11 months ago

They've invested heavily into a partnership with Panasonic to build solid state batteries too . They hand just spread their risk

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (3 children)

While most car companies initially believed liion batteries isnt ready for the market, and wanted to wait for a more safe and dense battery tech to hit market (solid state battery), toyota invested in hydrogen. Then Tesla took the bullet and sort of went against thr grain and created the liion based evs, and the rest of the companies are scrambling to catch up due to the demand for them.

Any push for hydrogen is because toyota invested into it and doesnt want for it to go to waste.

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[–] ours 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Because some companies just can't get rid of the idea of ICEs. And they don't like that their expertise in making high-quality ICEs doesn't give them much benefit in making electric cars. So they prefer hydrogen to win over electric otherwise they'll have a very hard time competing against newcomers.

In my opinion, it's dinosaurs clinging to their old ways while the asteroid looms large in the sky.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If there is an asteroid in the sky then everyone dies. Not just the "dinosaurs". This is not a good analogy

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (15 children)

I know about 7y ago everyone was salivating at the idea of hydrogen powered vehicles.

I'll be very interested to see how well it works in practice...

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[–] chronicledmonocle 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (9 children)

Hydrogen fuel cells or engines are a useless joke. Toyota REALLY needs to be thinking more about power generation with Hydrogen and then electric cars so that their vehicle production can be universal across the world. Electricity is the most versatile form of energy and can be produced using lots of natural resources. I get it.....Japan has limited natural resources and the seawater around them is abundant (thus hydrogen), but the hydrogen vehicle makes zero sense literally anywhere else in the world and you're a GLOBAL COMPANY Toyota.

Also with all of the saltwater around them you'd think they'd be working on sodium-ion battery technology and how to utilize the salt they extract during the hydrogen production to be used in batteries, but no.....keep making ICE engines for some stupid reason. FFS Toyota.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are EVs, have electric motors, and qualify when you talk about "power generation with Hydrogen" and "versatility of electricity". The hydrogen in the tanks is fed into an anode and oxygen into a cathode to power a circuit and drive an electric motor. It's an EV, but the 'battery' is hydrogen. FCEVs could be the key to shoring up a lot of conventional EV shortcomings; lithium-ion waste, electricity grid load, and lifespan, for instance. Combine that with the ICE vehicle in question in the article; Hydrogen ICE engines could provide routes for retrofitting existing combustion vehicles, adding additional demand to improve supply infrastructure and improve green hydrogen supply. These are well-warranted experiments for Toyota to be undertaking on the global stage; as crucial as any EV battery investigation!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

And don't forget it's way faster to refill a hydrogen tank than an battery. Also, cars are such a big industry it's actually easier to not have a middleman (hydrogen -> ~~electric grid~~ -> EVs) because all the infrastructure would have to be built without any real need for it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

And don't forget it's way faster to refill a hydrogen tank than an battery.

For now, this should change with solid state batteries

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Is faster, but with modern EVs it’s really not a problem.

Depart home with 100%, drive for 4 hours, stop to grab an meal and use the facilities and the car is finished before you. Modern EVs take 15 minutes to go 20-80% charged.

Hydrogen is 3x less energy efficient than a battery electric vehicle. It certainly has use cases, but it came 20 years too late for light vehicles.