Toyota Motor Corp. released new details on its fuel cell car Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas - including plans for an adapter allowing the car to power your home.
The automaker chose the big tech gathering to display the four-seater, which looks like a futuristic Prius, to highlight its advanced engineering. A fully-fueled vehicle will be able to supply enough energy to power a house for a week in an emergency, Toyota said. Its engineers are working on an adapter that will connect the car into a home’s electrical grid. After debuting the concept car at the Tokyo Motor Show in November, Toyota plans to start selling the car in the United States next year. While it has yet to disclose pricing, the company said it has slashed the cost of bringing the car to market by tapping an electric powertrain it already uses on one of its hybrid vehicles and other common parts.
“Fuel cell electric vehicles will be in our future sooner than many people believe, and in much greater numbers than anyone expected,” said Bob Carter, senior vice president of automotive operations for Toyota’s U.S. sales arm.
Toyota is one of three companies pushing forward with fuel cell vehicle cars. Hyundai will start offering one later this year and Honda plans one next year.
So they are going the fuel cell route, and not the liquid hydrogen fuel route. I always thought that using liquid hydrogen would be a bit more convenient from a design perspective since hydrogen burns at a similar rate to gasoline. Although I understand that there are problems creating a gas tank for hydrogen that can keep the hydrogen cold enough to stay liquid and remain small enough to fit in a car. BMW had created a few cars like this years ago, the hydrogen 7.
Interesting they're announcing it at CES and not the javits center, ah well, I guess I think of nyc as the center of the universe.
I wonder what hydrogen car accidents will look like. Currently if a car catches fire, it's on fire but doesn't usually explode like they do in the movies (right?). But now they have compressed hydrogen. What happens if that catches on fire? Can we expect a compressed air missile or an explosion? Anyone know?
On April 19 2014 04:16 Djzapz wrote: I wonder what hydrogen car accidents will look like. Currently if a car catches fire, it's on fire but doesn't usually explode like they do in the movies (right?). But now they have compressed hydrogen. What happens if that catches on fire? Can we expect a compressed air missile or an explosion? Anyone know?
I don't know the answer with regards to hydrogen fuel cell cars, but this was part of the issue with GM's EV1 electric vehicles, which silly people think were cancelled and recalled due to some blah blah oil conspiracy theory. It wasn't a safe car and the batteries were extremely dangerous and volatile in accident settings.
On April 19 2014 04:16 Djzapz wrote: I wonder what hydrogen car accidents will look like. Currently if a car catches fire, it's on fire but doesn't usually explode like they do in the movies (right?). But now they have compressed hydrogen. What happens if that catches on fire? Can we expect a compressed air missile or an explosion? Anyone know?
I don't know the answer with regards to hydrogen fuel cell cars, but this was part of the issue with GM's EV1 electric vehicles, which silly people think were cancelled and recalled due to some blah blah oil conspiracy theory. It wasn't a safe car and the batteries were extremely dangerous and volatile in accident settings.
? Your impression is wrong, they weren't sold to people the EV1 was leased to people legally GM couldn't sell the car due to various paperwork and requirements that need to be fulfilled in order to sell cars in the US let alone a given state. Safe wasn't the issue... Nor was it much of a conspiracy that oil companies lobbied heavily the CA government after their passed their zero emission standard in 1990. The car companies lobbied just as well but not nearly as much. A conspiracy would be to claim that oil companies pressured GM to end EV1, which there is no record of.
Anyways problem with hydrogen fuel cells iirc is performance in freezing weather, robustness for work vehicles, infrastructure, cost of making fuel cells.
As far as a hydrogen fire from a leaky container is probably safer than a gasoline fire and would be over much quicker as hydrogen disperses very quickly, although probably means less time to get out and if the hydrogen gets stuck and pools in someplace it can create an explosion, fukushima for a bad refrence. But it's also much easier to start a hydrogen fire than a gasoline one.
As far as storage goes liquid is stupid difficult for a car to do, compressed gas hydrogen is much easier and smaller so possible for cars both are difficult to contain and maintain though. Plus the whole thing about how quickly hydrogen will evaporate out of a tank. Not sure how much of this has improved over the years or changed but hydrogen cars is too much of a pipedream.
On April 19 2014 04:16 Djzapz wrote: I wonder what hydrogen car accidents will look like. Currently if a car catches fire, it's on fire but doesn't usually explode like they do in the movies (right?). But now they have compressed hydrogen. What happens if that catches on fire? Can we expect a compressed air missile or an explosion? Anyone know?
I don't know the answer with regards to hydrogen fuel cell cars, but this was part of the issue with GM's EV1 electric vehicles, which silly people think were cancelled and recalled due to some blah blah oil conspiracy theory. It wasn't a safe car and the batteries were extremely dangerous and volatile in accident settings.
? Your impression is wrong, they weren't sold to people the EV1 was leased to people legally GM couldn't sell the car due to various paperwork and requirements that need to be fulfilled in order to sell cars in the US let alone a given state. Safe wasn't the issue... Nor was it much of a conspiracy that oil companies lobbied heavily the CA government after their passed their zero emission standard in 1990. The car companies lobbied just as well but not nearly as much. A conspiracy would be to claim that oil companies pressured GM to end EV1, which there is no record of.
It was leased as a $30,000 car, that cost over $80,000 to make with horrible marginal costs. That's why they stopped making it. It was recalled and all the cars were stripped and destroyed because it was a hazard. The state of lead acid and NiMH batteries in the 90's created a lawsuit waiting to happen, which GM was especially fearful of because they knew they were about to get killed in the fuel tank explosion lawsuit. If they knew the risk existed (which they did) and had it happen again, they would've been torched and the punitive damages from the other lawsuit (the $4.9b one) probably would've been a lot greater. That lawsuit had major influence on their decision making.
The documentary on the car is deeply flawed (as documentaries tend to be.)
Still, Hydrogen is a much better future route than a pure-EV setup, minus the major issues of "source supply". Though if someone figures out a way to split Water cost-efficiently, then you've got plenty.
Edit: It should probably be pointed out this tech has been around for a while (see: Apollo Mission Power Supplies), it's just not economically feasible. Though if a Government throws enough money at companies, they'll do it. (It's effectively free R&D) It's nice to have the tech around, though, in case there is some massive breakthrough in Hydrogen production in the future. Then it becomes useful to the mass market.