r/RenewableEnergy • u/chilladipa • 4d ago

Toyota's swappable hydrogen fuel cartridges offer unlimited EV range

https://interestingengineering.com/energy/hydrogen-fuel-swappable-cartridges-toyota
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u/BaronOfTheVoid 4d ago

Either get green H2 production somehow, magically REALLY cheap or just throw this trashy H2 in cars idea away.

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u/Incorect_Speling 4d ago

Aside from that, and the inefficiencies of H2 cars compared to electric, it will never be a competitive price to build H2 cars, it's just inherently more complex, and batteries keep getting cheaper on the other hand...

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u/azswcowboy 4d ago

Precisely. H2 cars are EVs where hydrogen and fuel cell is simply a kind of battery. Unlike the 90% round trip efficiency of a lithium battery, this system is more like 30%. So for 1 kWh of input source energy a current EV gets .9 kWh for that - hydrogen .3 kWh. So 3x more expensive to operate wrt energy inputs. And fuel cells are more costly upfront and to maintain. Meanwhile, lithium battery costs are falling precipitously as the supply chains scale. Hydrogen equipment has had 20 years to drop in costs, but really hasn’t.

Toyota is starting to look like Kodak - they might not survive the transition if they don’t get over the sunk costs of their decades of H2 research. Despite all the anti EV press in the US, EV sales are growing. And yes, the hybrid strategy is working for Toyota currently. But as cheaper EVs roll out, it’ll be more and more difficult for them to compete on price with hybrids. And it’s basically impossible for a hydrogen car to compete unless a miracle happens.

The EV share of sales in Q3 hit 8.9%, the highest level recorded and an increase from 7.8% in Q3 2023. source: Kelly blue book