Here are the top Hydrogen Car Revolution blog posts:
2. 7 reasons to love Toyota hydrogen fuel cell vehicles
5. Major announcement: Southern California Hydrogen Fueling Station Cooperative
7. Cost of hydrogen from different sources
8. Cost of hydrogen fuel cell cars will be affordable in 2015
9. Eight ways to finance the initial hydrogen fueling stations
11. YouTube video: Call for grassroots hydrogen advocates
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The Nissan Leaf plug-in battery car is set to arrive at dealerships in December. Nissan said last month that the driving range of the Leaf will be anywhere between 47 and 138 miles depending on a variety of factors.
If you want a preview of the next 6-12 months, check out minute 4:00 to minute 5:18 in the following CNBC video from earlier this week. The Nissan Leaf charging time and the car itself is ridiculed by CNBC anchors and a producer.
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One of the key issues with hydrogen fuel cell cars is where the hydrogen will come from. Up until this point, I thought hydrogen produced from natural gas would power the first hydrogen cars before eventually moving to the ultimate solution of hydrogen from wind, solar, etc.
However, my feelings on this issue changed recently after I watched the documentary movie Gasland on HBO. I had no idea the new natural gas drilling techniques were causing these problems. You can watch the Gasland trailer at the following link.
Fortunately, the industrial gas company Air Products is working on a way to produce hydrogen from wastewater facilities. The company has partnered with FuelCell Energy on a demonstration project at the Orange County (California) Sanitation District. You can read more about the project in the following article.
Furthermore, if you look on page 19-20 in the following presentation, you will see that Air Products estimates that approximately 210 million cars in the U.S. could be powered by hydrogen produced from wastewater facilities and landfills. There are currently about 250 million registered passenger vehicles in the U.S.
Can you imagine powering cars with locally-produced hydrogen that is renewable and not made from fossil fuel?! Municipalities that operate wastewater facilities would replace oil companies (and have a nice new source of revenue).
Furthermore, if the hydrogen fueling stations were financed by consumers via cooperatives (see how I have proposed doing this first in Southern California), consumers could power their hydrogen fuel cell vehicles with locally-produced hydrogen at a locally-owned hydrogen fueling station.
No fossil fuel. No oil companies. No government subsidies.
This sounds really good.
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Fortune reported that last Tuesday there was a Nasdaq ad in the Wall Street Journal promoting Tesla which included the following excerpt:
“Tesla builds highway-capable, zero-emission electric vehicles. No hybrids. No hydrogen. No hype.”
The Tesla Motors website contains similar language.
Since Tesla CEO Elon Musk took a swipe at hydrogen, I am issuing the following challenge to back up my belief that both Tesla and plug-in battery cars in general are a lot of hype:
Elon, I want to bet you $1000 that Tesla stock will be in the single digits (i.e. $9.99 per share or less) a year from now on July 5, 2011.
You can accept this bet by e-mailing me at gblencoe (at) hydrogendiscoveries (dot) com.
I am posting this before the Nasdaq market opens on Tuesday, July 6th. The Tesla stock price was $19.20 per share at the end of the day on Friday. Basically, I am willing to bet that a year from now the Tesla stock price will be worth just above half (or less than that amount) of what it is today.
I believe the Nissan LEAF will likely contribute to a decline in the Tesla stock price. Once a lot of people get to experience the real-world driving range of the Nissan LEAF beginning later this year, I think the range anxiety issue (and the other problems with plug-in battery cars) will cause mainstream consumers to be a lot less confident in plug-in battery cars than they are today.
There are many people in the auto industry who are questioning plug-in battery cars. For example, I highly recommend reading the following article.
While I am aware that Toyota has invested $50 million in Tesla, I think this was mainly a PR move considering the two companies now don’t seem to have a very close relationship.
I want to be very clear that I respect and admire Elon Musk and all of the other Tesla employees for what they have done. Considering how extremely difficult it is to break into the auto industry (“nearly impossible” might be the best description), I think it is a huge accomplishment that Tesla has sold over 1000 cars.
Furthermore, I applaud Elon Musk and the other Tesla employees for trying to help solve the oil crisis which I believe is the greatest problem that mankind has ever faced.
However, while I believe that advocates of plug-in battery cars (including those involved with Tesla) have good intentions, I think they are backing the wrong technology.
I believe hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (which will arrive at dealerships in 2015) are the solution to the oil crisis. To see how much progress has been made with the technology, I highly recommend reading the following article.
Moreover, I think the hydrogen fueling stations should be financed by consumers through cooperatives which would not involve the U.S. federal government or the oil companies. Details on how this could be done in Southern California can be found here.
However, since Elon Musk is unlikely to become an advocate of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles any time soon, the one question that needs to be asked right now is:
Does he believe enough in his company and plug-in battery cars to take the bet?
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Here are the top 20 quotes from Toyota and Honda executives criticizing plug-in battery cars (and one from Hyundai and Audi):
1. Los Angeles Times article – June 15, 2008
“‘Petroleum is not a long-term solution for cars, and battery cars have real limitations,’ said Bill Reinert, national manager for advanced technologies at Toyota Motor Corp. ‘Hydrogen technology is getting much better.’”
2. Wall Street Journal article – June 16, 2008
“(Former Honda CEO) Takeo Fukui: We feel the practical feasibility of the electric vehicle is very limited. The biggest issue is driving distance. The other issue is the recharging time. The FCX Clarity can be recharged in one minute. With the electric vehicle, it can take several hours. However, this is not to deny the possibility of battery electric vehicles. It’s very useful for vehicles with restricted applications, like golf carts.”
3. AutoblogGreen post – November 14, 2006
Steve Ellis, Manager of Fuel Cell Marketing for Honda, said that:
“There is a group of ‘EV Zealots’ who are constantly criticizing all hydrogen related work based on flawed arguments and without examining all the costs of a plug-in system.”
4. Earth2Tech article – June 15, 2008
“Standing next to a converted plug-in Prius (Reinert is in the brown jacket), rough language and impassioned rhetoric was exchanged, with neither side conceding anything. Much of the argument boiled down to the perceived demand for fully electric vehicles: Reinert and Toyota contend that there isn’t a viable market; Plug In America says quite the opposite.”
5. Cnet.com article – October 17, 2008
Masaaki Kato, president of Honda R&D, said:
“Our stance is that the use of electric vehicles is limited. To get the performance of an Accord, in terms of driving range, from today’s battery-only drivetrain, we would need to carry 2 tons of batteries. That’s no good.”
6. Toyota website – As of July 1, 2010
“Toyota Motor Corporation discontinued production of the RAV4 Electric Vehicle worldwide in the spring of 2003. Therefore, Toyota will no longer take orders for the RAV4 EV.
Toyota remains committed to developing an ‘Eco Vehicle,’ one that will have a minimal impact on the environment. Toyota believes that in order to have a positive environmental impact, a large number of consumers must embrace the technology. In order for this to happen, the vehicle must meet the lifestyle needs of, and be affordable to, the mass market. Although a significant marketing effort was undertaken for the RAV4-EV, we only sold about 300 vehicles a year.
In addition to overall customer acceptance, technical issues tied to electric vehicles remain a major hurdle. Industry practice regards batteries to be at the end of their useful life when capacity decreases to 80% of original capacity. A battery’s capacity is the amount of charge that it holds, and is commonly measured by the range of the vehicle. It is cost-prohibitive to replace an EV battery. The cost to replace the battery is more than the value of the vehicle.”
7. Edmunds.com Green Car Advisor article – September 15, 2008
“(Honda research chief Masaaki) Kato told Bloomberg that Honda engineers don’t believe lithium-ion batteries will satisfy most consumers because of their high cost and limited range compared to gasoline engines.
In Japan, he said, battery developers are still trying to meet a government goal of boosting energy storage capacity by seven times while slashing battery costs to just 2.5 percent of current costs.
‘That gives you a pretty clear example of what type of gap we’re facing relative to a gasoline vehicle,’ Kato said. ‘At this point, I’d say it’s impossible to imagine a date at which such a breakthrough could occur.’
He said Honda believes it will be easier, less costly and quicker to perfect the fuel-cell electric vehicle, such as the FCX Clarity that it is leasing in small numbers to select consumers in Southern California and Japan.”
8. Popular Mechanics article – October 2, 2008
“In an earlier interview with PM, (Toyota’s Bill) Reinert pointed out that in very cold temperatures, mountain regions in the winter, and hot zones, the American southwest in the summer, ‘You can lose an order of magnitude of energy availability in the battery. So if you have a 40-mile range normally, in Boulder, Colo., when it was 10 below zero, you might end up with a 4-mile range, with the heater going and all the other things.’”
9. BusinessWeek article – October 9, 2008
“Toyota has other queries about plug-in hybrids and electric cars, both of which will be offered by rivals GM, Nissan, Mitsubishi, and Chrysler in the next couple of years. In all cases, it is assumed that owners will plug them in at night when local power utilities have electricity to spare. But (Toyota’s Bill) Reinert says that plenty of owners will want to plug in during the day. In some areas, that won’t be a problem. But in locales with older electric power systems or maxed out capacity, it could be an issue, he says.”
10. USA Today article – January 18, 2008
“If you take into account emissions from the powerplant generating the electricity to recharge the battery, the picture gets murky. If that power comes from hydro-electric dams or nuclear or natural gas plants, Toyota says emissions are cut. But not for the USA overall, Toyota says, because half our power comes from coal-fired plants.
Averaged across the USA, ‘There’s very little (emissions) benefit’ compared with a current Prius hybrid, says Jaycie Chitwood, senior planner at Toyota’s advanced technologies unit in the USA.”
11. Wall Street Journal article – December 30, 2008
“Some people don’t think the infrastructure is in place to support the widespread use of plug-ins. ‘For plug-ins to be all encompassing and to replace basic hybrid technology, the electric grid would need to morph into something we don’t have yet,’ says Jaycie Chitwood, Toyota’s senior strategic planner for advanced technologies.”
12. Energy Tribune interview of Bill Reinert from Toyota – February 2, 2009
“Within Toyota, we’re working on a niche electric vehicle (Toyota FT-EV battery-only vehicle with a ~60 mile range – see the following YouTube video). At the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this year, we showed a concept of what our current thinking is. A small, city car with relatively limited range, that’s reasonably affordable, targeted at non-traditional markets. But it’s not intended to be a mass-market car. We’re looking at sales volumes of thousands not millions. To produce an electric vehicle that’s truly intended for a mass market, a replacement for your current gasoline car, we’re going to need a battery chemistry that isn’t currently available.”
13. This quote was given by Bill Reinert from Toyota at around minute 46 in the following video of a session at the Google plug-in battery conference in June 2008 in Washington, D.C.:
“The fact of the matter is there is a huge variability in the gas mileage you get, I see 100 miles per gallon here. And yeah, you can do it if you are driving 35 miles an hour. But if you’re on the 110 Freeway going to Pasadena where you’ve got an on-ramp that’s not even as long as this stage, you’ve got to run wide-open throttle to get into the lane and not get killed. And when you start doing that, you know, what you started out with a 20-mile range becomes a 5-mile range. And what you started out as 110 miles per gallon ends up being more like the common Prius. So you gotta worry about that kind of stuff, because you don’t want to send mixed messages out to the customer.”
14. New York Times article – June 7, 2009
“Bill Reinert, the company’s national manager of advanced technology, brought the PowerPoint. In his presentation and a subsequent interview, he cast doubt on plug-in cars achieving the 100-m.p.g. claimed by some aftermarket conversions. The extra weight resulting from larger battery packs, he said, means that brakes, springs and subframes also have to get bigger and tougher, adding more pounds. ‘We can achieve 50 to 55 miles per gallon, but after that there are diminishing returns,’ he said.”
15. BNET Auto article – June 2, 2009
“(Toyota’s group vice president of environmental and public affairs, Irv) Miller said that the promise of the lithium-ion battery pack—used in both PHEVs and pure battery EVs—has led to ‘inflated expectations beyond the technical realities.’”
16. Post by Phil LeBeau on CNBC’s Behind the Wheel blog – July 20, 2009
“(President of Toyota North America Yoshi) Inaba is skeptical we will see electric cars sold in mass numbers any time soon. He says he has seen the breakthrough in battery technology needed to support mass production and sales of electric models.”
17. AutoblogGreen post – July 18, 2009
Quote from Bill Reinert from Toyota:
“Using ethanol for fuel is like electing the dumbest kid in school as class president. As for plug-in electrics, they’re just not plausible right now. Lithium-ion batteries are too expensive by at least an order of magnitude. They’re not energy-dense enough. And we generate a lot of our electricity from coal…I mean, Shai’s bragging about driving an electric RAV4 with a seventy-mile range. How many of your friends are going to buy that car?”
18. Financial Post (Canada) article – July 15, 2009
“Toyota is bringing a plug-in version of its Prius hybrid car to North America later this year. But that will be on a test basis only and in limited numbers, Mr. Beatty (Stephen Beatty, managing director of Toyota Canada Inc.) said. ‘We’re not entirely convinced that the technology is a winning proposition for consumers today,’ he said.”
19. New York Times article – August 19, 2009
“Toyota executives rattle off reasons to be skeptical of electric cars: They do not travel far enough on a charge; their batteries are expensive and not reliable; the electrical infrastructure is not in place to recharge them.
Executives also say that Toyota’s reputation for reliability could be tarnished if the company forged ahead with an unproven technology.”
20. AutoblogGreen post (“Honda CEO: People will embrace fuel cells when they realize battery limits”) – October 22, 2009
“According to (Honda CEO Takanobu) Ito, who assumed the top post at the company last June, hydrogen fuel cells are still the best long term strategy for vehicles. The only reason Honda is developing a plug-in vehicle right now is to meet California zero-emission vehicle mandates coming up in about five years.”
21. HybridCars post – June 23, 2010
“However, don’t expect full electric cars from Hyundai, according to The Detroit Bureau. Woong-chul Yang, president of Hyundai’s R&D operation, contends that lithium batteries still are still too costly and do not offer adequate range. ‘We’d need seven times the level of performance at 20 times less price,’ he said.”
22. MSN Autos article – September 2, 2009
“(Audi of America President Johan de Nysschen) dismissed GM’s upcoming plug-in hybrid as ‘a car for idiots,’ saying that few consumers will be willing to pay $40,000 — the Volt’s estimated base price — for a car that competes against $25,000 sedans and conventional hybrids. Nor, he noted, is the Volt a luxury car whose green-technology costs will be excused because it also delivers prestige or performance.
‘No one is going to pay a $15,000 premium for a car that competes with a (Toyota) Corolla,’ he said. ‘So there are not enough idiots who will buy it.’”
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I believe the $50,000 price figure for Toyota hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in 2015 that was reported in a Bloomberg article last month by Alan Ohnsman is much higher than the high-volume figure (i.e. if at least a couple hundred thousand vehicles were produced) would be.
Let me explain…
Lots of evidence that the high-volume price of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would be much lower in 2015
The title of Alan Ohnsman’s Bloomberg article on May 6th is “Toyota Targets $50,000 Price for First Hydrogen Car.” And as you can see at the following link, which is a Google search of “Toyota, hydrogen car, 2015, $50,000″, the $50,000 figure has spread around the Internet.
The problem is that this is a low-volume figure which is misleading to people who likely view this as a high-volume figure.
Here is evidence from other car companies that the high-volume figure will be much lower than $50,000 in 2015:
1. Ironically, here is an excerpt from a Bloomberg article that was written by Alan Ohnsman on October 9, 2009:
“GM, Toyota, Honda Motor Co. and Daimler AG say durability improvements and cost reductions may enable them to sell the zero-emission vehicles by 2015. Costs to make the fuel-cell cars have fallen from $1 million each a few years ago, and automakers are working to meet a proposed goal of slashing the premium for the cars to $3,600 more than a midsized gasoline model.”
2. Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche discussed the cost of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the following excerpt from a Spiegel (Germany) article that was published in March 2009:
“But the question remains: When will hydrogen-fueled cars be mass-produced and affordable? Zetsche says that annual production of the new vehicles would have to reach 100,000 and that by around 2015, the vehicle prices could match those of conventional cars.”
3. Hyundai/Kia said in July 2009 that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles produced at that time would cost $50,000 if 50,000 units were made each year. Furthermore, a key point to mention is that Hyundai/Kia did not start researching hydrogen fuel cell vehicles until 2000.
But Toyota started their hydrogen fuel cell program back in 1992 (Daimler started their program in 1994). Moreover, Toyota invests nearly one million dollars per hour on future technologies. Therefore, Toyota should be at least as far along as Hyundai is.
Bill Reinert from Toyota being very critical of hydrogen fuel cell cars a few years ago…
Toyota has a history of downplaying their hydrogen fuel cell program.
The movie “Who Killed the Electric Car?” (2006) was on TV two nights ago. I saw it was on when the movie was about half over. And I ended up watching most of the rest of the movie including the part where hydrogen fuel cell cars are criticized.
You can see the discussion about hydrogen fuel cell cars from minute 4 to minute 10 in the YouTube video below which is part of the movie.
Here are various statements that Bill Reinert from Toyota (one of my favorite people in the hydrogen industry) made in this segment. I’m guessing the interview was probably done in 2005 since the movie was released in the middle of 2006.
1. Question from reporter (starting at 5:44 in the video below): “Consumers are probably going to want to know how long it would be for this (Toyota hydrogen fuel cell car) to be mass produced?”
Response from Bill Reinert: “That’s quite a ways off. We’ve got some real technical issues we’ve got to solve with hydrogen storage, durability, with cost reduction.”
2. Question from other reporter (starting at 5:56 in the video below): “Is it a practical solution at this point?”
Response from Bill Reinert: “The cars have a limited range, the durability of the cars isn’t so very good and the…let me see, what else? Oh, they don’t do well in cold weather. Other than that, they’re great. (Bill Reinert laughs.)”
3. Bill Reinert comment (starting at 9:20 in the video below): “These (hydrogen fuel cell cars) could be a long ways out into the future. Toyota says: ‘Fuel cell cars, 30 years away.’”
…But now Toyota is talking A LOT differently about hydrogen fuel cell cars
It’s pretty hard for me not to laugh when I compare what Bill Reinert said in the movie with what Toyota is saying now which can be seen below which is my post the “7 reasons to love Toyota hydrogen fuel cell vehicles”:
(Please note that many of these developments were announced in 2007-2009 which was only ~2-4 years after the Bill Reinert interview, so I believe he probably knew that a lot of these things were going to happen.)
Here are 7 reasons to love Toyota hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (which the company started developing in-house back in 1992 when I was a senior in high school):
1. 431-mile real-world driving range with Toyota FCHV-adv (mid-size SUV) hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (See the following YouTube video)
2. 68.3 real-world miles per kilogram fuel economy with Toyota FCHV-adv (See the following YouTube video)
3. Ability to operate in temperatures as low as minus 35 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 37 degrees Celsius)
4. Irv Miller, TMS group vice president, environmental and public affairs, made the following comment on August 6, 2009:
“In 2015, our plan is to bring to market a reliable and durable fuel cell vehicle with exceptional fuel economy and zero emissions, at an affordable price.”
5. Masatami Takimoto, a Toyota executive vice president and board member, made the following comment about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in January 2009 at the North American International Auto Show:
“By 2015, we will have a full-fledged commercialization effort.”
6. The Toyota FCHV-adv (Highlander) hydrogen fuel cell vehicle has the same trunk and passenger space as the gasoline-powered version.
Click on the following link to see a picture of the trunk in the Toyota FCHV-adv hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.
7. Here is a comment made by Justin Ward, advanced powertrain program manager-Toyota Technical Center, in a Ward’s Automotive article (subscription required) that was published on July 16, 2009:
“We have some confidence the vehicle released around 2015 is going to have costs that are going to be shocking for most of the people in the industry. They are going to be very surprised we were able to achieve such an impressive cost reduction.”
In my opinion (and there is no way I can prove this), Bill Reinert from Toyota was downplaying the Toyota hydrogen fuel cell program when he was interviewed for the “Who Killed the Electric Car?” movie.
Benefits of downplaying
Why would Bill Reinert want to do this?
Just ask yourself these two questions:
1. Are competitors likely to increase or decrease their focus on hydrogen fuel cell vehicle research and development if they hear Toyota (arguably the top car company at the time) saying the technology is a long way off?
2. Are customers more or less likely to buy a new car powered by gasoline if they think hydrogen fuel cell cars are a long way off?
If I’m seeing this correctly, this was a very shrewd business move. Toyota would end up making more money in the short-term and the long-term. And when you follow the money, a lot of things make sense.
How this relates to the Toyota $50,000 price figure for 2015
People should keep all of this in mind when thinking about Toyota’s recent comment in a Bloomberg article last month by Alan Ohnsman about the price of hydrogen cars possibly being $50,000 in 2015.
In the article, Toyota said a small number of vehicles would be produced and the company would set a price where money would be made on the vehicles.
Here is the key point:
In my opinion, the price would need to be this high (i.e. $50,000) if only a small number of vehicles are produced. But I believe the price could be A LOT lower (i.e. likely around the price of a hybrid) if hundreds of thousands of vehicles are produced.
Here is the most important sentence in the Bloomberg article:
“Shifting from low-volume assembly to mass-scale production would lead to further cost reductions, he said.”
Perhaps the reporter should have focused on this issue A LOT more?
Furthermore, I suggest reading the comment above by Justin Ward from Toyota where he says that Toyota feels like they are going to have hydrogen fuel cell costs in 2015 that are so low that it will be “shocking” to most people in the auto industry.
And take a look at the statement above by Irv Miller from Toyota where he says the company plans on selling an “affordable” hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in 2015.
Would a $50,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in 2015 shock most people in the auto industry?
No
Is $50,000 affordable?
No
Along the same lines as question #2 above, I think this can be explained by asking yourself the following question:
Are customers more or less likely to buy a new car powered by gasoline today (instead of waiting to buy a hydrogen fuel cell car in 2015) if they think hydrogen fuel cell cars will cost $50,000 in 2015 instead of a much lower figure?
Final thoughts
With the BP oil spill being yet another reminder of the consequences of oil, reporters who write about alternatives to oil have an ethical responsibility to present the facts about alternative technologies in clear terms.
And readers need to think a little more before buying into headlines.
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Below is a short YouTube video (just over 30 seconds) from the California Fuel Cell Partnership of somebody who had just driven the Toyota FCHV-adv hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. You can see a picture of the vehicle, which is a mid-size SUV, at the top of the following post.
The video was taken at the “Ride and Drive” event at the National Hydrogen Association annual meeting which took place last month in Long Beach, California.
I think this is just the type of reaction you want from a mainstream consumer.
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Over the weekend, I came across a very interesting presentation by Craig Scott from Toyota that was given at the Toyota Sustainable Mobility Seminar back in April in La Jolla, California. He discussed the company’s hydrogen fuel cell vehicle program.
The video is just over 9 minutes long and can be found at the following link.
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