Toyota wants hydrogen to succeed so bad it’s paying people to buy the Mirai

That is, if customers can find the hydrogen to power it.
That'd be my big concern; where tf would you re-fuel it?
There one single hydrogen fuel station in each of the two major cities near me.
- They just announced they’re shutting down some in California.
- To be fair, EV's had that same obstacle, and have pretty much overcome it.
  
  I disagree, EV are the exact opposite. Electricity was EVERYWHERE even before the EV were a thing.
  A regular plug can charge an electric car and for few thousands $ you can install an 11 or 22kW charger.
  Hydrogen on the other hand is extremely hard to store and transport. Unlike electricity the hydrogen production is very limited right now and full of unknown.
  
  I don't think they're the same at all. Electricity distribution is practically everywhere already. Even if you need fast charging, setting it up in comparison to setting up a petrol or especially a hydrogen station, is extremely easy and extremely cheap, relatively speaking.
  One hydrogen station cost millions to install. People assume based on the appearance that they'd be like a petrol station, but it's actually a fair bit more of an engineering challenge. Plus there's shitloads of costly red tape surrounding them (because hydrogen go boom if you're not careful).
  
  As did ICE vehicles when they came on the scene. People seem to get really upset that manufacturers are exploring multiple possibilities rather than all of them collectively deciding on a single option as if everyone in the country drives the same car and has the same needs.

Most Hydrogen fuel is still made from natural gas. It’s greenwashing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/climate/hydrogen-fuel-natural-gas-pollution.html
- And most electricity is still made from fossil fuels. The point is that it doesn’t have to be, unlike gasoline.
  
  Depends where you live. Plenty of countries with high % of renewables
  
  Yup, I think there is a solid argument BEVs will win in the long run (once battery technology improves ... all the downsides of BEVs start disappearing rapidly). However, I haven't ever liked the argument that "most hydrogen is made from fossil fuels" that's looking too short term.
  
  That's not true, Gasoline doesn't have to be made from Fossile fuels either. It's pretty easy to make actually - there are a number of European companies doing it and with the Co2 Taxes, it will be a viable option by 2028.
  
  Yeah but you can charge EVs with solar panels if you have them installed. Not everybody can make hydrogen for their Toyota Mirais.
- We could use wind electricity, instead of stopping the windnturbines when the production gets so high that prices drop...
  At some point hopefully we will realize
- it is however extremely easy to make from water. Making the switch to green easy and seamless, and it will surely happen if there's demand.
  
  It might be theoretically easy, but the massive power demands (and loss) make it pretty hard in practice.
  
  And not every car requires a ton of lithium, like it would if everyone wants to go both EV + massive range.

I think the hydrogen is intended to be sourced from natural gas, which is not a great thing. The only way I see this working in an environmentally sustainable way is an efficient means of solar hydrolysis (much more efficient than photosynthesis).
- It's important to see where the hydrogen is being sourced from. Grey Hydrogen comes from natural gas and is not ideal as you point out.
  Green hydrogen is promising however, and comes from electrolyzers. The key there is where the electricity to operate them comes from, but that's true for electric vehicles as well. It seems an unfair criticism against hydrogen vehicles to hold that against them when the same isn't done for electric vehicles.
  In any case, I think we do want to build out hydrogen infrastructure (and I'm biased since I work in hydrogen energy). The future we're envisioning is one where solar and wind provide us excesses fairly often. That's where it's perfect to run electrolyzers to store the energy as hydrogen.
  
  It seems an unfair criticism against hydrogen vehicles to hold that against them when the same isn’t done for electric vehicles.
  Well the idea is that BEV is more efficient with the energy that it gets...
  Which I understand...
  But what I don't understand is what part of our usage is actually "efficient" from the get go? Also that 'extra' energy we lose to the electrolysis process could easily be made up with extra solar/wind/renewables... and Nuclear without much issue.
  Further, desalination mechanisms are desperately needed for our water problem too... Guess what process can help with that... cough totally not electrolysis cough. It's almost like it's a win all around... Yet everyone is super against it for one nebulous reason or another... and none of those reasons ever make sense to me.
- Yeah one of the big downsides of hydrogen is that you need massive amounts of clean energy to make it worthwhile.
  
  No problem IF the energy is cheap and/or free

Considering I have no hydrogen stations within a 100 mile radius, if they give me the car I would only get one tank out of it.
- You could fill the tank with the hot air from the pro-hydrogen crowd.
  
  We must compress them first

In the near term, it’s pretty clear that zero-emission, light-duty vehicles will need to rely on batteries. So why are Toyota and Honda (and Hyundai and others) still so bullish on hydrogen?
To some degree, it’s like they wanted to invest in an image of being climate-conscious and technologically innovative while eschewing electric vehicles — the most common vision of a low-emissions transportation future.
Why is this article so agressively angled?
While it's clear the infrastructure isn't there right now, isn't hydrogen in the long term a clearly better alternative than ev's? The biggest problem with EV's being the battery, with all the horrible chemicals that go in to making them.
Shouldn't hydrogen, in the long term, be the obviously greener alternative, or am I missing something?
- Hydrogen is incredibly inefficient compared to using electricity directly. You have to first use the electricity to make the hydrogen, this is very inefficient in itself. then you have to "burn" it to drive the vehicle, which wastes most of the energy just like ICE vehicle. So you need several times the initial energy generation to drive a hydrogen vehicle the same distance compared to using electricity directly.
  Of course the batteries is then the issue when it comes to EVs, so they're not a magic bullet. But I wouldn't say hydrogen is the obvious better choice either since it is so wasteful with the energy.
  
  In a conference that in attended, they talked about usbhavimg to look at energy sources like a flow of energy and not as limited sources.
  Currently, wind turbines are imtemtionally stopped, when there is so much wind that the generated electricity becomes too cheap to sell!
  Instead, you could run them and use the electricity to convert the energy into hydrogen. Yes some energy is lost but it would be lost anyway as wind
  With wind, sun, wave energy, we can look at energy in different ways that we usually do with fuel and coal. It's there and it just keeps coming.
  
  Oh, that's a good reason, I didn't know that.
  
  Agreed, but 2 important things in my eyes.
  1 - renewable surpluses. As wind and solar keep ramping , hydrogen is a fantastic way to store that energy. Sure, there are efficiency losses but it's transportable, able to be stored long term, and able to be used from small scale to grid scale applications.
  2 - total life cycle cost. There is an incredible amount of emissions embodied in evs. Haven't seen a comprehensive analysis of a h2 vehicle but I would imagine a few hundred kilos of missing lithium is a good thing.
  
  You don't burn hydrogen . But your point still stands.
  https://www.ineos.com/inch-magazine/articles/issue-16/how-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicles-work/#:~:text=But%2C%20unlike%20an%20engine%2C%20a,that%20can%20drive%20a%20vehicle.
- Hydrogen cannot be greener than an EV, because it's just an EV with more steps. It's energy intensive to turn electricity + water to hydrogen, transport it, pump it, then convert it back to electricity.
  The losses from simply running electrons through a wire are very small.
  It is physically impossible for hydrogen cars to ever be as green as EVs. In order to do so you'd have to break laws of physics.
  E: ok people. You live in your little fantasy world where thermodynamics aren't a thing.
  
  There are laws of thermodynamics and there are laws of kinetics.
  Fuels have much more power density than batteries. You can't deliver power as fast with a battery compared to a fuel. It doesn't matter if thermodynamically one is more efficient or greener than the other. You would be crazy to suggest moving an airbus with a battery, that's physically impossible.
  I'm a researcher in both fields (batteries and hydrogen)
  
  It is physically impossible for hydrogen cars to ever be as green as EVs. In order to do so you’d have to break laws of physics.
  In a pure fuel comparison sure, does that still hold true when you also factor in manufacturing?
  The losses from simply running electrons through a wire are very small.
  You conveniently forgot about battery charging and discharging losses.
- Honestly, the article answers its own question and acts oblivious to it, but I've been saying it for years.
  It's for boats. The easiest and most convenient place to store hydrogen is near a port, which conveniently also generally has the infrastructure for natural gas, used to make hydrogen.
  Honda and Toyota do make EVs, as does Hyundai, as well as patents for batteries, which would put them near the top of the market. Clearly, they're also betting on BEV cars. But they all also have a marine sector, and Toyota just partnered with a company to test out fuel cells for marine applications. The cars might as well have been a useful test bed which had its costs subsidized by consumers. Seems pretty clear what their angle is.
  Or maybe they're out of their mind. Who knows?
- Hydrogen is good when it's green hydrogen- made via electrolysis. Blue hydrogen is produced by gas companies, so it isn't clean, unfortunately. There are some other snags, such as designing a really hard gas tank that cannot be punctured, and hydrogen storage is a bit challenging. It's less dense than gasoline, particularly at normal temps. So it has to be cooled down, which takes additional power and delivery complications, and it's still less dense even as a liquid, so you don't get as far of a range vs gasoline or jet fuel.
  Hydrogen storage as a battery medium for overproducing wind, solar, even solar towers might make sense. I, for one am excited about the idea of hydrogen blimps coming back for lifting heavy loads to remote places, which Canada is toying with right now.
  Hydrogen might make sense for something like container ships, but short term, I think other efuels will be used for things like planes, buses, trucks, maybe cars. Stuff that is more inert or just less expensive to design across a supply chain. It also has potential offworld uses in the further future. It definitely has its uses, it just seems a bit difficult in personal vehicles.
- In H2 car the H2 is just a really inefficient battery. Sure it can hold a lot, but it loses a lot. You lose it in energy conversions (to H2 and from H2) and you have to transport the stuff, and it leaks (smallest element) and it has to be cooled and compressed.
  Battery tech is getting all the time, and really, you only need 300 mile range (many have that now) as humans have to stop for a rest/wee. With a charge network like or petrol network, you can charge then.
  Edit: English
- For personal vehicles, no, that is not at all clear and many of us would say clearly the opposite.
  However there are more heavy duty applications where batteries are unlikely to ever scale. I don’t think we have a clear winner yet so hydrogen is likely still in the running for things like aviation, shipping, construction and farm equipment, industry, maybe even grid scale energy storage
  
  There's no need for a "winner", why are people so fixated that it has to be one or the other?
  All the technologies we have are not exclusive, having more options is always better when it comes to energy.
  This "winning" debate has to stop. There's no gas vs diesel vs natural gas winner... There is no hydro, wind, PV winner.... They all can coexist just fine.
  There is a place for hydrogen fuel, and there's a place for battery vehicles.
  Stop debating this like they are football teams.

I would assume this falls into the "you couldn't pay me" category for most people.

I don't have a single hydrogen station here in Michigan. (There might be one in Detroit.) Meanwhile, I can plug in my electric car at home, or go to a public charger 10 miles away. Hydrogen's good as dead. At least to me, anyway.
- Hydrogen was as good as dead for years because compressing it is so wasteful
- We had one in my town until it closed down 3 years ago. Now the nearest one to me is a 90 mile round trip away.
  Hydrogen definitely feels like a fad which has had its moment.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
Granted, the oil company only had seven to begin with (five of which had been out of order), but that still represents more than 10% of the Golden State’s stations, nearly all of which are clustered around Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Just don’t tell Honda, which recently found the time to convert its best-selling CR-V into an automotive equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster: a plug-in hybrid, fuel-cell vehicle.
The crossover’s 17.7 kWh battery provides 29 miles of electric-only range, and once that’s spent, the front-mounted fuel cell starts sipping hydrogen from a pair of carbon-fiber tanks.
Now, hydrogen has great potential as a fuel source for many parts of a carbon-free economy, from industrial heat to steel production and long-distance shipping.
To some degree, it’s like they wanted to invest in an image of being climate-conscious and technologically innovative while eschewing electric vehicles — the most common vision of a low-emissions transportation future.
If today’s hydrogen startups succeed, and if they’re able to build enough capacity to satiate industrial and shipping demand, then it might make sense to start selling fuel-cell vehicles to the masses.
The original article contains 810 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 77%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

I am not in love with the idea of pure hydrogen cars due to the inefficiencies involved, but I can see a hydrogen/BEV plug in hybrid being a good option if hydrogen infrastructure gets built out. As is, I drive a Chevy Volt, and while its battery range is low it is enough for the majority of my daily driving. The biggest downside of pure EVs is charging time when you're driving on long trips, and in my Volt I don't have to worry about that as I can just fill up with gas. Well, do the same thing but with hydrogen rather than gasoline and you have a car that can refill quickly like a gas car but can be powered entirely from renewable energy sources like a pure BEV. You need some lithium but less than you would for a full size battery. You still have the capability to charge at home and assuming the battery can do a reliable 50 miles or so you would only need hydrogen for longer trips. You could leave the hydrogen tank empty to avoid leakage and safety issues when you aren't doing a road trip. Also, hydrogen cars are EVs anyways so the drivetrain doesn't need the extra complexity of a conventional hybrid, just switch power between the battery and hydrogeb fuel cell.

How expensive would it be to re-fit as a chargeable hybrid?

The ones at the Washington state border are actually in Canada. I'd love to see hydrogen take off, not necessarily take over. But that's the car enthusiasts in me and seeing all the new technologies. Doubt I'll see it in my working career.

This podcast episode strong critiques the technical challenges, lifecycle costs, and market effort of hydrogen. I was hydro-curious before this, but it really seems unfeasible.
The chemical engineer being interviewed, Paul Martin, has been working with hydrogen for years.
Paul Martin is a Canadian chemical engineer with decades of experience making and using hydrogen and syngas. As a chemical process development specialist, Paul offers services to an international clientele via his private consultancy Spitfire Research. He is also co-founder of the Hydrogen Science Coalition, a nonprofit organization providing science-based information about hydrogen from a position free from commercial interest

From really long term hydrogen makes a lots of sense, much more than Li-* batteries. There is no need for digging up rare earth metals, H2 is a byproduct of creating graphene and various processes can create it. Also filling up liquid hydrogen takes still less, than any charging available. And IMO it can be much cleaner than any other technology on horizon currently. Only more effective but not necessarily cleaner are the plans for small nuclear power plants.
- Hydrogen makes loads of sense at the point we have huge amounts of excess electrical energy. Until that point it's just too inefficient compared to alternatives.

Crash it and you have your own private Hindenburg.
- Not really. Hindenburg had hydrogen at air pressure.
  Pressurised hydrogen tends to fail in a much safer way (or just not fail). A regular fossil fuel car fire is much worse.
  The thing is you're not just burning hydrogen (or gas). You're also burning oxygen in the atmosphere and how bad the fire is depends how the gas mixes with the oxygen. The mix has to be just right or it won't burn at all (Hindenburg was just right).
  Gasoline tends to burn quite slowly which is particularly catastrophic as it generates heat over a long time which causes everything else in the car to also catch fire, while still burning fast enough that you might not be able to escape the car before it the fire gets dangerous.
  
  I don't know enough about hydrogen to know how big of a bang that would even make.
  
  I read somewhere that with the Hindinburg, the hydrogen pretty much just went straight up, while most of the deaths and burns were caused by the fuel for the engines.
- What do you think gasoline does when it’s set on fire?
  
  That's true. Or at least when you set too much of it on fire at once. Because obviously, engines set it on fire, but in a controlled manner.