Interesting quick read on Hydrogen costs currently

[Shumdit]

Hydrogen is Ridiculously Expensive, or Free - 2016 Toyota Mirai Long-Term Road Test

 

[Saghost]

Yup. Where you get the hydrogen from and how much it costs is one of the bigger problems with the Fuel Cell programs. (10,000 psi bombs in the car are another.)

 

[adiggs]

Can you check that link? It's not getting me to an article - it's taking me to an Edmunds make/model page, I don't know what for (I gave up).

 

[Troy916]

Correct link:
Hydrogen is Ridiculously Expensive, or Free - 2016 Toyota Mirai Long-Term Road Test

 

[lklundin]

Yup. Where you get the hydrogen from and how much it costs is one of the bigger problems with the Fuel Cell programs. (10,000 psi bombs in the car are another.)

The linked article is written by someone dumb enough to have a hydrogen powered car.

Thus the 'Free' in the title comes from not understanding what 'Prepaid' means.

 

[3Victoria]

Try a Google search with the article title.

 

[James Anders]

H2 fuel cells are now irrelevant. High infrastructure costs, H2 handling issues, H2 embrittlement concerns, safety concerns, cost of steam reforming of petroleum, etc.

This is all being pushed by oil companies.

 

[Saghost]

The linked article is written by someone dumb enough to have a hydrogen powered car.

Thus the 'Free' in the title comes from not understanding what 'Prepaid' means.

The article was written by a car review site which was given a Mirai for long term review (do you really think they'd say no to that opportunity, no matter how they feel about hydrogen?) and I thought the article clearly pointed out that the free meant prepaid by Toyota so folks wouldn't worry about it, while the author went on to point out just how expensive it really is.

 

[lklundin]

The article was written by a car review site which was given a Mirai for long term review (do you really think they'd say no to that opportunity, no matter how they feel about hydrogen?) and I thought the article clearly pointed out that the free meant prepaid by Toyota so folks wouldn't worry about it, while the author went on to point out just how expensive it really is.

I am not thinking anything but rather relying on the article's phrases 'our Mirai' and 'our car'.

And no, 'Free' does not mean 'Prepaid'.

So to sum it up:

Terrible click-bait headline.

 

[mspohr]

I was at a transportation lecture last month with a UC Davis professor who is also on California's CARB.
I asked why California was wasting money on H2 stations. He hemmed and hawed a bit then said that California requires a percentage of H2 to come from renewable resources... and also EVs are not pollution free due to source of electricity. (He had driven a Mirai to the meeting.)
Interesting study just published by MIT.
Carboncounter | Cars evaluated against climate targets
This gives total lifecycle CO2 from 125 different cars. Mirai has higher emissions than any EV (and also highest cost/mi).
Tesla is much lower (cost and CO2).
All EVs beat the 2030 CO2 emissions targets. Mirai is just above the target. Some hybrids also beat the target.

 

[gregd]

H2 fuel cells are now irrelevant. High infrastructure costs, H2 handling issues, H2 embrittlement concerns, safety concerns, cost of steam reforming of petroleum, etc.

This is all being pushed by oil companies.

I think this is the key point. Follow the money, as they say. Getting hydrogen accepted (excepted, perhaps) as a green fuel means that the oil companies can continue to suck dinosaurs and ancient algae out of the ground, and thus stay in business.

I just watched a video podcast from a recent Maker Faire, where Shell was sponsoring a hydrogen fuel cell based competition for who could build a vehicle to go a distance the fastest. Cool exercise for the high school kids involved, to be sure. But the kids are repeating the mantra about fuel cells being totally non-polluting ("all that comes out is water, and you can even drink it"), never mentioning that the hydrogen itself largely comes from oil or natural gas. All that altruism about engaging kids in such an attractive maker project appears to me to have another hidden motive, and it kind of makes me angry that they are using our kids to that end.

 

[ChadS]

I was at a transportation lecture last month with a UC Davis professor who is also on California's CARB.

That would be Dan Sperling.

Yeah, he's been a strong H2 proponent for a very long time. I could understand it, say, a decade ago when automakers were all saying that electrics wouldn't work and H2 was the future. Working with CARB, point-source pollution is the whole focus so electric and H2 are the only real options they are looking at.

 

[3Victoria]

That is one great tool -- thanks!

From the associated paper: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.6b00177

"For the one FCV model examined (Toyota Mirai), emissions reductions are only achieved when hydrogen is producing using SMR. When hydrogen from electrolysis is used, the Toyota Mirai’s emissions are almost almost at the same level as some of the highest-emitting ICEVs on the market."

 

[Cosmacelf]

It would be interesting to button hole Mr. Sperling and press him on the exact reason for H2. It just doesn't make sense pouring millions of public money into this technology at the expense of electric. Now if the fossil fuel companies wanted to invest in hydrogen infrastructure, sure, a little public private partnership might be appropriate. But this current state of affairs where we spend a million dollars of public money per refueling station is nuts.

 

[mspohr]

It would be interesting to button hole Mr. Sperling and press him on the exact reason for H2. It just doesn't make sense pouring millions of public money into this technology at the expense of electric. Now if the fossil fuel companies wanted to invest in hydrogen infrastructure, sure, a little public private partnership might be appropriate. But this current state of affairs where we spend a million dollars of public money per refueling station is nuts.

He seems like a good fellow and I don't think he's in the pocket of fossil fuel (but I didn't ask him if he bought/owned the Mirai he was driving).
His answer seemed to boil down to keeping options open and exploring alternatives but given the amount of money that H2 infrastructure costs, it seems foolish to keep spending it now that it's clear that much more efficient and less expensive BEVs are a reality.

 

[adiggs]

Hydrogen is Ridiculously Expensive, or Free - 2016 Toyota Mirai Long-Term Road Test

If you're having trouble with the link (it takes me to a generic New Car Edmunds page), here's another attempt:
Hydrogen is Ridiculously Expensive, or Free - 2016 Toyota Mirai Long-Term Road Test

And that fails for me to, in the same way. There's an intermediary linkage through TMC that I've never had trouble with before, but fails here.

You can go to Google and search for the article (I searched on 'edmunds mirai hydrogen expensive').

 

[adiggs]

I was at a transportation lecture last month with a UC Davis professor who is also on California's CARB.
I asked why California was wasting money on H2 stations. He hemmed and hawed a bit then said that California requires a percentage of H2 to come from renewable resources... and also EVs are not pollution free due to source of electricity. (He had driven a Mirai to the meeting.)
Interesting study just published by MIT.
Carboncounter | Cars evaluated against climate targets
This gives total lifecycle CO2 from 125 different cars. Mirai has higher emissions than any EV (and also highest cost/mi).
Tesla is much lower (cost and CO2).
All EVs beat the 2030 CO2 emissions targets. Mirai is just above the target. Some hybrids also beat the target.

Did you see where they estimate Tesla Model 3 fits on that chart? If they hit that spot, it's going to crush everything in sight. But I guess we knew that already