Maybe it's a "bet on both horses" strategy. Hydrogen cells have some advantages over battery cells (e.g. energy density, refueling time) but if there's no infrastructure they won't sell any significant amount of cars on that platform.
I live in an urban area in a EU country. Some thoughts:
* There is a huge subset of motorized vehicles that are spending a considerable percentage of their daily time on the road. Thinking about taxis, buses, trucks, etc.
* A large percentage of private cars are parked on the streets.
Those two observations alone make the case for electric vehicles slightly problematic.
Of course, a private individual with a garage can get an electric vehicle and use it almost like an ICE one, with a large environmental but also budgetary gain.
But for these other classes of vehicles, hydrogen could provide a better alternative.
Apologies if I'm missing something, but I cannot think what other zero emission technology could give the solution at this point, for these types of vehicle usage.
> There is a huge subset of motorized vehicles that are spending a considerable percentage of their daily time on the road. Thinking about taxis, buses, trucks, etc.
Model 3 currently has a range up to 353 miles. At 40MPH city driving that's more than 8 hours. Then you need ~20 minutes at a supercharger.
Eventually somebody is going to make an electric SUV with more batteries in it which will then have a >480 mile range when not towing anything, which gets you 12 hours between charges. That's a typical shift for a cab, and they already have the 20 minutes of down time during the shift change to clean the vehicle etc.
Trucks and buses will be the same. They'll fit larger batteries and then get enough range to last the full shift. It also wouldn't be surprising to see cities fit main thoroughfares with overhead lines and then have electric buses with pantographs so they can charge while in motion.
> A large percentage of private cars are parked on the streets.
So as electric vehicles get more common they'll start installing chargers on streets. The more vehicles there are, the more chargers they can justify. The more chargers there are, the more people buy electric vehicles. It doesn't have to go from zero chargers to every urban parking space has a charger overnight, but that's where you end up in a few decades.
>It also wouldn't be surprising to see cities fit main thoroughfares with overhead lines and then have electric buses with pantographs so they can charge while in motion.
These are already a thing but not done because Americans complain about things like wires in the sky and public transportation
how can trucks work on batteries? and be economical? you do know roads have a load rating you can't go over? so Trucks will have to carry less and we will have to make and use more trucks? driving up the cost of everything.
The load limit for most truck routes is 80,000 pounds and most loads don't weigh that much. Existing semi trucks already weigh 10,000-25,000 pounds. An electric semi would be at the higher end of that range, but it would also have lower fuel costs. So you get a cost savings for the large majority of loads that weren't already at the weight limit.
There will also be different electric semi tractors. The one with a 500 mile range will weigh more than the one with a 250 mile range. So then you can use the one with the shorter range for the heaviest loads, leaving more of the weight limit for the load. If you weren't transporting it farther than that range then it doesn't matter. If you were then you have to stop to charge more often, which has a time cost, but it's not obvious even in those cases that the extra charging time is going to cost you more than the fuel savings.
The general expectation is that overall costs will go down, because that's the thing causing truckers to buy electric trucks.
> * There is a huge subset of motorized vehicles that are spending a considerable percentage of their daily time on the road. Thinking about taxis, buses, trucks, etc.
Those also often spend the nights in specialized depots or garages. Moreover, lot of those public transport and utility vehicles spend a lot of time idling (think garbage truck or bus at stop) which makes them especially wasteful if ICE.
Around here, bus depots are colocated with tram and train depots so they already have powerful electricity lines.
> * A large percentage of private cars are parked on the streets.
I'm convinced there's a correlation between "parking on the street near condos" and driving relatively little day to day. The cars that drive the most distance would be the ones owned by people living in suburbs or villages. But people with houses can probably charge at home, right?
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For me specifically, my commute is 15 km one way, so even with something with not much range like Peugeot e-208 I would have to charge it about every two weeks if I'm onsite daily, or about once a month if I'm mostly remote. I'm still not planning to buy one because I'd rather use bike or public transport, but it would work.
There is something to be said about shipping around the energy source for quick refuel.
If there is anything to these new electrolytes and shipping them around to "gas" stations, I think they could end up replacing charging stations for sure.
Agreed - everyone is trying to frame this as a they are no longer betting on Hydrogen. They are betting on both horses - and moving away from O&G. Smart move since they work across different industries/use-cases and different countries (policy drivers).
It does seem like that's the play. Pretty sad that it took them this long to make this investment, but I am excited for what Toyota might bring to the EV market.
