[HN Gopher] Toyota Mirai hydrogen car depreciation: 65% value lo...
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Toyota Mirai hydrogen car depreciation: 65% value loss in a year
Author : iancmceachern
Score : 59 points
Date : 2026-02-21 18:09 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (carbuzz.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (carbuzz.com)
| sremani wrote:
| I once did some research on Mirai and found at that time Plano,
| TX where Toyota NA is Headquartered did not have a Hydrogen
| station. Not sure if they have one now. It is such a limited car
| and because of the infrastructure stuck to LA and San Diego, I
| guess.
|
| Pure range is 500+ miles but not many Hydrogen stations.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| This is one of those cars that's interesting to me, but I don't
| know that we'll ever go this route in a significant amount.
| Problem is how complex it is to create hydrogen, although 'green
| hydrogen' is a thing, it would take quite a bit regardless.
| Interesting to note that if we could extract only 2% of the
| hydrogen burried under the earth, we could power the entire world
| for over 200 years. Which is crazy to think about.
|
| The other interesting thing about these cars is the output is
| water out of the tailpipe.
| pjc50 wrote:
| It's very easy to create hydrogen from fossil natural gas.
| Which is the real motivation behind 99% of H2 projects;
| continue to emit CO2, just hidden from the end user.
|
| Battery electric is now pretty much inevitable.
| pfdietz wrote:
| In fairness, hydrogen from gas would enable the CO2 to be
| sequestered. If the vehicle itself burned the natural gas
| that would require recapturing the CO2 from the atmosphere
| itself, which is much more challenging.
|
| None of this is to detract from the attractiveness of battery
| vehicles.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Carbon sequestration is another of those "if we did this,
| it might solve the problem, but there's no serious move to
| do it and pay for it on the scale required, plus it's prone
| to cheating".
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| How do you solve aeronautical and maritime applications?
| danhor wrote:
| Certainly not with hydrogen directly. It might be involved
| in the production chain, but it's such a pain. If it's at
| all possible to electrify, that'll very likely win.
|
| For flights, a combination of batteries for smaller,
| regional planes starting with "islands hoppers" now and SAF
| from either Biofuel or produced from Electricity (with
| Hydrogen as an intermediate step). Although I think that we
| might first see moves to reduce the 2x non CO2 Climate
| Impacts which can be much cheaper to tackle (such as
| Contrails).
|
| For maritime applications, batteries when regularly near
| ports, probably hybrids with methanol for cross-ocean
| passage far away from coasts.
| fsh wrote:
| Hydrogen is not great for airplanes since the extremely low
| density makes the tanks too large. The best solution would
| be synthetic hydrocarbons (synthesized using hydrogen)
| which can outperform fossil jet fuel.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The Toyota Mirai neither flies nor floats.
|
| There's a bit of a movement for battery electric ships, but
| currently limited to short haul ferries. I have a suspicion
| this simply won't be "solved" for quite some time after car
| and heating electrification.
| mono442 wrote:
| It's possible to create hydrogen from coal and carbon capture
| is supposed to be feasible. Though I don't know how
| commercially viable this is.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| Carbon doesn't really contain all that much hydrogen.
|
| Feasibility is key.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GSV2kVkO1w
| pfdietz wrote:
| > Carbon doesn't really contain all that much hydrogen.
|
| The hydrogen also comes from water reacted (mildly
| endothermically) with carbon, and by further reaction of
| carbon monoxide with water.
|
| C + H2O --> CO + H2
|
| CO + H2O --> CO2 + H2
| Rohansi wrote:
| Creating hydrogen isn't the only problem. Storage and
| transportation is a big one since it is an actual gas instead
| of a liquid. Needs to be compressed, causes embrittlement,
| highly flammable, etc...
| helterskelter wrote:
| I've seen exactly one of these in person while in San Diego for a
| month or so. I never did see a fueling station for it though.
| kotaKat wrote:
| There's only... well, 51 of them. If you're lucky, you're near
| one of the 42 that are actually online and available for
| fueling (as of this comment).
|
| Stations running out of fuel and stations going offline for
| hardware failures runs rampant.
|
| Oh, and some stations might not be able to provide the highest
| pressure H2, so you might be stuck taking an 85% tank fill...
| and at nearly $30/kg and a 5.6kg (full) tank, that's an
| expensive fill.
|
| https://h2-ca.com/
| peterfirefly wrote:
| And they are not even supposed to explode anymore!
| themafia wrote:
| In the US. How does their value fare in Japan?
| decimalenough wrote:
| Given the complete collapse in sales last year (-83% to 432
| units, in a market of over 4M cars sold), I'd venture to guess
| they're faring pretty badly.
|
| https://www.automotiveworld.com/news/fcev-sales-in-japan-fal...
| numpad0 wrote:
| https://www.carsensor.net/usedcar/bTO/s235/index.html
| wlesieutre wrote:
| It's not really fair to compare depreciation against MSRP when
| they were being sold new at massive discounts. You could've
| gotten one of these for $40,000 off.
|
| https://www.carscoops.com/2024/02/toyota-offers-crazy-40k-di...
| appcustodian2 wrote:
| It's extremely fair to compare depreciation against MSRP.
| What's not fair is to say that they were being "sold new at
| massive discounts" when in reality it's an asterisk-ridden
| rebate process that applied to one model year under specific
| circumstances. That article was spam when it was written, can
| you provide a first party source for these massive discounts?
| Aurornis wrote:
| Depreciation is measured against the price someone actually
| paid.
|
| The MSRP doesn't matter. The S stands for suggested.
| stetrain wrote:
| This is a source of a lot of similar press around EV
| depreciation. They compare the MSRP of an EV 3 years ago with
| the current used market price, ignoring that the actual price
| paid is often significantly less due a combination of
| discounts, tax credits, and rebates.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| The part that's interesting to me is how much the
| depreciation is posed as negative rather than positive.
|
| The long term value of a car is only really relevant if one
| is constantly cycling through cars and needs the trade-
| in/resale value. If a car isn't viewed as an investment
| and/or the intention is to drive it into the ground,
| depreciation is purely positive because it means that there's
| insanely good deals on some great cars right now. Of course
| everybody's needs are different, but for a lot of people
| there's nothing that comes remotely close of the value of a
| gently driven, practically new 1-3 year old lease return EV.
| loeg wrote:
| My state assesses annual car taxes based on MSRP rather than
| real market value, unfortunately, so these fake MSRPs matter
| to me. :-(
| LTL_FTC wrote:
| Toyota restricted the sale of its hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to
| specific, qualified customers who lived or worked near existing,
| functional hydrogen refueling stations. I remember looking into
| them when first released but realized I wasn't eligible and the
| fact that Toyota restricted the sale meant there was a huge risk
| in buying them.
|
| With all the recent outrage and lawsuits, I wonder how many
| buyers actually did their due diligence and weighed the risk
| before committing to them? Or maybe the huge fuel subsidy was
| seen as a win even if this event played out? Idk but I commend
| Toyota for taking the risk and going for it.
|
| Edit: typo
| decimalenough wrote:
| Approximately zero regular consumers purchased hydrogen cars.
| They were all fleet purchases designed primarily to publish
| burnish eco-friendly credentials, like this:
|
| _" This new initiative reinforces Air Liquide's commitment to
| decarbonizing transportation and accelerating the shift toward
| sustainable and low-carbon mobility solutions."_
|
| https://www.airliquide.com/group/press-releases-news/2025-11...
|
| Of course, Air Liquide would also profit massively from
| building hydrogen infra if it did become commonplace.
| kotaKat wrote:
| Funny thing, Air Liquide. They were going to build a massive
| green hydrogen plant in upstate NY and backed out when the
| tax credits disappeared...
|
| https://www.airproducts.com/company/news-
| center/2025/02/0224...
| Aurornis wrote:
| > and backed out when the tax credits disappeared...
|
| As they should. If the terms of the deal change, you need
| to start over with the business case and financials.
|
| If you want someone to be mad at, it's the politicians
| making these bad tax credit decisions. Not the companies
| trying to respond to the tax credit incentives. Getting
| companies to build things they otherwise wouldn't is the
| entire purpose of tax credits.
| butvacuum wrote:
| Hydrogen systems just don't make sense. Neither do
| molecular Hydrogen Fuel Cells.
|
| Now, green hydrogen for ammonia, and Ammonia fuel cells?
| Yes.
| LTL_FTC wrote:
| Well... I did/do see many around the Bay Area. Especially
| during the morning commute. But I agree, overall it was a low
| volume car.
| BadBadJellyBean wrote:
| I don't think hydrogen will ever be a thing for personal cars.
| Apart from the abysmal "well to wheel" efficiency it's also just
| such a hassle to create a fuel network for it. Gasoline is bad
| enough but a gas that will just leak away whatever you do seems
| like a stretch. It is just so much simpler with electricity.
| Pretty much every gas station already has it. No driving it
| around with trucks. Just maybe once install a bigger cable or a
| battery/capacitor.
| bombcar wrote:
| My understanding is most hydrogen fueling stations produce the
| hydrogen onsite via electrolysis of water.
|
| EDIT: My understanding was wrong - it's produced locally onsite
| but via steam-methane reforming:
| https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-production-na...
| hvb2 wrote:
| If you can do that at a meaningful rate you might as well
| install ev charging and just not electrolyse when cars are
| charging
| b112 wrote:
| He didn't say it doesn't have local tanks. Only that it
| makes h2 local. You can still make h2 to replenish, and
| have storage.
|
| This is akin to how almost all power used to charge cars,
| is not-green. For example, there are still Ng, coal, and
| other types of power plants. If cars switched to gas,
| instead of electric charging, then some of those could be
| shut down.
|
| But the true point, is as we convert to more and more
| solar, we'll eventually shut down the last of the fossil
| fuel burner plants, and eventually the cars will all be
| green power sourced.
|
| Same with h2. Getting non-polling cars out the door and
| into people's hands, is key. Eventually, where the power
| comes from will be clean. And really, we're already having
| issues with power infra, even before AI, so re-purposing Ng
| pipelines for H2 would be a great thing.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| We won't get rid of natural gas any time soon. Ng
| pipelines are not in _any way_ similar to H2 pipelines
| except the word 'pipe'. You can't just put hydrogen in
| them. You can't even retrofit them. You're looking at
| laying an entirely new pipeline either way.
|
| Furthermore, most H2 is produced by fossil fuel
| extraction. We aren't cracking water to get H2, we're
| pulling it out of the ground. Cracking water is
| _hideously_ expensive.
|
| All in all, combustion engines are more efficient than
| green hydrogen. That's the core problem. We simply don't
| have the absurd amounts of unused energy required for
| green H2 production. If we did, we'd be pumping fully
| half of that energy into the atmosphere as waste heat.
|
| Hydrogen cars aren't going to happen. We won't have grid-
| scale hydrogen. It's just a terrible idea. Hydrogen is
| too difficult to handle and incredibly dangerous to
| store. The efficiency is so ludicrously bad that you
| would genuinely do better to create syngas from captured
| atmospheric carbon and burn it in regular combustion
| vehicles.
|
| Avoiding carbon emissions is not the only concern in
| regards to the climate. Focusing on carbon and nothing
| else leads you to really dumb and bad ideas like piping
| hydrogen gas across the continent.
| b112 wrote:
| h2 can be co-mingled with Ng and extracted with a molar
| filter at the other end.
|
| Ng pipelines are everywhere, so it makes perfect sense.
| adastra22 wrote:
| None of the pipes or valves are designed for hydrogen. It
| will steal leak. And leaking a very flammable gas isn't
| great.
| fsh wrote:
| This is not quite true. The original gas pipes in most
| cities were built for "town gas" which was produced from
| coal and is 50% hydrogen by volume. The infrastructure
| could handle hydrogen just fine, but the low conversion
| efficiencies make it impractical.
| blibble wrote:
| this is the case while they're in the hype building phase,
| when people are paying attention
|
| if hydrogen even gained widespread adoption, it would be mass
| produced via steam reforming of natural gas
|
| (which is why the oil majors are the ones desperately pushing
| it)
| b112 wrote:
| That makes no sense. If the oil companies were pushing H2,
| every car would be H2 by now.
|
| H2 can be generated anywhere there is power. Any power that
| can be used to charge a car's battery, can be used to make
| H2. Yes, I'm sure you have 1000 reasons, but I don't really
| care, it's just not reasonable to discredit h2 because of
| made up paranoia.
|
| We should embrace _any_ way to get a clean running car on
| the road.
| BadBadJellyBean wrote:
| But isn't that a counter point? Just putting the
| electricity directly into a car seems sensible instead of
| converting it to H2 and then back to electricity.
| Especially now that wo don't usually have a huge
| oversupply of green energy. We can think of ways to use
| the oversupply when it really becomes a problem. But I'd
| assume then BEV will be so dominant the no one will go
| through the hassle of supporting H2.
| Tade0 wrote:
| There's no point. EVs go 50% further on the same amount
| of energy, are easier to charge and are, of course,
| cheaper.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| H2 from electrolysis is wildly expensive. H2 from natural
| gas is more affordable. Both are alternatives to BEVs,
| which are the better approach to electrifying transport.
| If Toyota had gone all in on BEVs when it began its H2
| strategy, it would be selling more EVs than Tesla.
| Instead it entirely ceded the field to others, first
| Tesla and BYD.
| blibble wrote:
| say you're Shell
|
| you are vertically integrated, you have billions invested
| in oilfields, refineries, distribution, and the retail
| channel ("gas stations")
|
| if transport switches to electric, what's your role?
|
| answer: there isn't one, you are completely redundant
|
| but what if hydrogen took off instead?
|
| if you produce via electrolysis, you only keep the retail
| channel
|
| but if you can get H2 established, then you can do a
| switcheroo and feed in H2 produced from your existing
| natural gas infrastructure, and massively undercut
| everyone's electrolysis business
|
| at which point you're back to the old days, just instead
| of selling gasoline from your oilfields, you're supplying
| hydrogen produced from their gas
|
| ... and that's exactly what they're trying to do
| constantcrying wrote:
| >We should embrace any way to get a clean running car on
| the road.
|
| No. We should embrace the technically most feasible,
| which opens up new technology to the most people.
|
| EVs are the clear winners. Every cent spent on hydrogen
| infrastructure is a cent wasted, because it could go to
| making the one feasible technology better. Arbitrary
| openness to technology long after it has been clearly
| established that the technology is inferior is not a good
| thing, it is a path to stay on ICEs forever.
|
| Hydrogen is a _bad_ idea. The only way to defend it is by
| pretending modern EVs do not exist, since they solved all
| the existing problems and offer numerous benefits over
| hydrogen.
|
| Additionally the customer has already chosen and he has
| chosen the right technology, because the value
| proposition of an EV is far greater than that of a
| hydrogen car.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > We should embrace any way to get a clean running car on
| the road.
|
| Only if it's also feasible to fuel that car in a clean
| way.
|
| And looking at where the hydrogen would come from is not
| "made up" or "paranoia".
| toast0 wrote:
| Natural gas vehicles make way more sense than hydrogen. But
| they didn't survive in the (US) market outside specific
| fleet applications.
|
| Turns out compressed gas fuel is a big PITA.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| They were popular in Thailand and Cambodia for awhile due
| to domestic natural gas reserves. But after those wells
| began to dry up Thailand at least decided EVs were the
| future instead.
| BadBadJellyBean wrote:
| Okay not driving it around then. But somehow it's worse. You
| still have to build the special tank and the special pump and
| also get an electrolysis device that is big enough to create
| enough hydrogen and also you have to get heaps of power
| somewhere that could instead be just straight put into a
| battery in a car. Make it make sense. What's the point? Who
| is willing to do that?
| MBCook wrote:
| Don't forget keeping everything cold enough.
|
| On the vehicle side, you can make a gasoline tank in pretty
| much any shape you want. We have lots of experience making
| batteries in different shapes thanks to cell phones.
|
| High-pressure tanks only want to be in one shape. And it's
| not especially convenient.
| BadBadJellyBean wrote:
| Is the shape round? I bet it's round.
| flir wrote:
| Ultimately, it's shrapnel-shaped.
| BadBadJellyBean wrote:
| Is that shrapnel arranged in a roundish pattern?
| mmooss wrote:
| > battery
|
| Batteries create a lot of toxic waste. I'm willing to live
| with that if it doesn't cause climate change but there is
| an advantage to hydrogen? What is the impact of H2 fuel
| cells?
| XorNot wrote:
| Batteries do not create a lot of toxic waste and are
| essentially fully recyclable.
|
| The lead in automotive lead acid batteries today is
| almost entirely recovered and remanufactured into new
| batteries.
| hannob wrote:
| Your understanding is entirely wrong.
|
| Most hydrogen fueling stations receive it from the next steam
| reformer, which will make it from fossil gas.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Isn't this bad? This means H2O molecules are being destroyed
| and the water is not returning to the water cycle to be
| reused. We will literally run out of water if everyone did
| this.
| dxdm wrote:
| Water gets split into oxygen and hydrogen using energy. The
| hydrogen then gets burned to release usable energy, which
| creates water. At least as far as I remember from chemistry
| class ages ago.
| aunty_helen wrote:
| That's not a thing. Anyone who's seen hydrogen being split
| from electrolysis knows it takes a lot lot lot of electricity
| and is very slow. If two people needed to fill up in the same
| day it would run the well dry.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Completely wrong.
|
| Globally over 95% of hydrogen is sourced from fossil fuels,
| particularly natural gas wells. Electrolysis is very limited
| to niche applications or token projects.
| mmooss wrote:
| The electrolysis needs power and could be fueled by fossil
| fuels.
| bombcar wrote:
| Maybe that's what it was - produced onsite via steam
| extraction from piped in natural gas (which means you could
| just as easily burn the natural gas in the vehicle).
|
| Either way there aren't many trucks full of hydrogen
| zipping around.
| buckle8017 wrote:
| > Pretty much every gas station already has [electricity].
|
| Sure but they don't have electric vehicle recharging
| electricity.
|
| They have run the pumps and power the lights electricity.
| BadBadJellyBean wrote:
| Still seems like a smaller investment to get a bigger cable
| than H2 infrastructure (Tanks, Pumps, maybe even electrolysis
| system).
| MBCook wrote:
| True, but they already exist.
|
| Hydrogen stations don't. If you have to build new ones,
| especially if you have to supply them with enough power to
| create their own hydrogen for water, what's the difference
| from just building EV chargers?
|
| And if you're going to add hydrogen to existing gasoline
| stations then same question.
|
| If hydrogen was somehow able to use existing gasoline
| infrastructure it would make a lot more sense. But it's not.
| glitchc wrote:
| H2 can be transported by trucks. Must lay expensive hydro
| infrastructure to do the same for electricity.
| XorNot wrote:
| But not by the same trailers, not stored in the same
| tanks as gasoline, nor transferred by the same pumps.
|
| This like saying obviously we can distribute grain using
| gasoline infrastructure: after all, also both transported
| by trucks.
| helterskelter wrote:
| I always figured it would make more sense for hydrogen to be an
| option for renewable infra if the problems with leaking and
| embrittlement could be solved. Currently, moving renewable
| power over very long distances and storing it at scale is a
| non-trivial issue which hydrogen could help solve.
|
| This way, for example, Alaska in the winter could conceivably
| get solar power from panels in Arizona.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Storage is the bigger problem, specifically very long
| duration or rarely used storage (to cover Dunkelflauten, for
| example) for which batteries are poorly suited. Hydrogen (or
| more generally e-fuels) is one way to do that, but another
| very attractive one is very low capex thermal storage.
| Personally, I feel the latter would beat hydrogen: the round
| trip efficiency is similar or better, the complexity is very
| low, power-related capex should be lower, and there's no need
| for possibly locally unavailable geology (salt formations)
| for hydrogen storage.
|
| With this sort of storage, Alaska in winter gets its energy
| from Alaska in summer.
| BadBadJellyBean wrote:
| Only if we had a true oversupply of green energy. Converting
| electricity to H2 and then back is so incredible inefficient.
| It's less work to just create better electrical transmission
| systems. China did that with their high voltage DC lines.
| fsh wrote:
| These problems are grossly exaggerated in popular
| discussions. Hydrogen has been routinely transported and
| stored in standard steel cylinders for over a century. Most
| cities originally used coal gas (50% hydrogen by volume) for
| heating and illumination before switching to natural gas
| after World War II. What kills the idea is the abysmal
| efficiency of electrolysis and hydrogen fuel cells. Standard
| high-voltage DC power lines would be much better suited for
| getting solar power from Arizona to Alaska.
| stetrain wrote:
| Moving renewable power is easy, we have a grid for that.
| Infrastructure for movement of electricity is ubiquitous in
| places that have never seen a hydrogen pump.
|
| If the grid is insufficient in a particular place or
| corridor, investing in upgrading it will provide a better
| long term solution than converting electricity to hydrogen,
| driving that hydrogen around on roads, and converting it back
| into electricity.
|
| Storage is a bigger issue for sure.
| mappu wrote:
| Gaseous form is a problem, but have you seen the Fraunhofer
| POWERPASTE? I was optimistic when the news was first announced,
| but that was a decade ago and of course it's not widely used.
| XorNot wrote:
| At that point you're just building a weird battery storage
| system again though.
| cbmuser wrote:
| > It is just so much simpler with electricity.
|
| Yet the market still thinks differently. Lots of countries
| still keep subsidizing EV despite them already being mature
| technology for such a long time.
|
| We didn't have to subsidize the smart phone to make it
| successful, we shouldn't have to subsidize electric cars
| either.
| pjerem wrote:
| Maybe if we had smartphones that emitted greenhouse and toxic
| gases by using a mini ICE engine that were so cheap nobody
| would buy anything else, we would subsidize the electric
| ones. We may even ban the gas phones.
| kibibu wrote:
| We also wouldn't need to if environmental externalities were
| costed into petroleum prices.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| > we shouldn't have to subsidize electric cars either.
|
| Smart phones were subsidised, just less obviously. Much of
| the fundamental research into the radio systems was done by
| government labs, for example.
|
| Not to mention that governments provide maaaaasssive
| subsidies to the entire fossil fuel industry, including
| multi-trillion dollar wars in the middle east to control the
| oil!
|
| Look at it from the perspective of pollution control in
| cities. China just invested tens of billions - maybe hundreds
| -- into clearing out the smog they were notorious for.
| Electric vehicles are a part of the solution.
|
| The alternative is everyone living a decade less because...
| the market forces will it.
| haunter wrote:
| Beautiful car but for example I live in Hungary and there is a
| grand total of one charging station in the whole coutry in
| Budapest. Yes it's free to charge but probably only makes sense
| to get a Mirai if you are a Bolt or Uber driver. Nice tech demo
| though.
|
| Here is the european charging station map https://h2.live/en/
| Benelux countries, Switzerland, and the Ruhr area are most likely
| the best places to own this car
| joecool1029 wrote:
| Why was it made? I ask because GM's EV-1 was discussed earlier
| and it basically existed due to California's zero-emission
| requirement in the 90's. Is this just Toyota doing some random
| R&D while fulfilling a state minimum requirement?
| testing22321 wrote:
| To trick people into thinking hydrogen cars are the future so
| they don't buy an EV now.
|
| I've driven my own vehicles through 65 countries on 5
| continents, and even the most remote villages in Africa and
| South America had electricity of some form.
|
| I've never seen a hydrogen filling station in my life. The idea
| we can build out that infrastructure faster than bolster the
| electric grid is laughably stupid. Downright deceptive.
| avidiax wrote:
| I think there's some truth to this. Toyota desperately needs
| the future to play to their strengths, something more
| complicated than EVs, which I think is behind their obsession
| with hybrids.
|
| Not sure that a fuel cell vehicle isn't just an EV with extra
| steps, however.
| numpad0 wrote:
| I think that + it's an EV that Toyota don't have to source the
| battery cells. FCEVs are full EVs just like Tesla, that uses a
| different kind of battery than Li-ion.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| I still feel hydrogen fuel cells are the better choice. The
| convenience of refilling quickly is great. Maybe that'll matter
| less if PHEVs are allowed to exist but with some places banning
| gas cars entirely, I don't have hope.
| elsonrodriguez wrote:
| The inefficiency of creating, transporting, and converting
| hydrogen into motion is way too much to bear for the purpose of
| eliminating a 45 minute charging stop.
| audunw wrote:
| The convenience of filling is only there if you have the fuel
| stations. Considering how expensive it is I'd argue that it's
| far better to spend that money on EV charging infrastructure,
| you get a lot more bang for gour buck. And EVs are arguable
| significantly more convenient when you have the infrastructure.
| Would you buy a phone that lasted a week or two, but you had to
| go to a phone filling station to refill it?
|
| And yes, EVs can be more convenient also for street parking.
| It's just an infrastructure problem and by now there are dozens
| of different solutions for every parking situation imaginable.
|
| It's frankly absurd reading debates about this online from
| Norway. It's over. Yeah Norway has money and cheap electricity,
| that's what makes it possible to "speed run" the technology
| transition. But other than that it's a worst case scenario for
| EVs. Lots of people with only street parking in Oslo. Winter
| that's brutal on range. People who love to drive hours and
| hours to their cabin every weekend. With skis on the roof. Part
| of schengen so people drive all the way down to croatia in
| summer. We gave EVs and Hydrogen cars the same chance. Same
| benefits. EVs won. End of story. Though a hydrogen station near
| me blew up in a spectacularly loud explosion so maybe that
| makes me a bit biased.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > The convenience of refilling quickly is great.
|
| Is it more convenient than plugging in an EV overnight at home,
| and having a full "tank" every morning?
|
| It is not.
|
| Electricity supply is everywhere. More so than Gasoline supply,
| and far far more so than hydrogen supply.
| vel0city wrote:
| I'll take the convenience of being able to charge my car every
| night compared to having to drive out of my way to go to the
| extremely rare hydrogen fuel station.
|
| I spend more of my time pumping gas in my ICE car than I do
| waiting on my EV to charge. Quite a bit more time despite
| having a similar-ish mileage.
| constantcrying wrote:
| When comparing EVs to hydrogen cars it is very obvious that one
| is the superior solution.
|
| An EV is a clear simplification of an ICE. Add a Battery and
| replace the mechanical complexity of a combustion engine with a
| relatively simple electric motor. So many components are now
| unnecessary and so many problems just go away. EVs also make
| charging simpler.
|
| Hydrogen cars on the other hand are very complex and also quite
| inefficient, requiring many steps to go from hydrogen generation
| to motor movement. And they require a very sophisticated network
| of charging infrastructure, which has to deal with an explosive
| gas at high pressures. Something which is dangerous even in
| highly controlled industrial environments.
|
| I just do not see a single reason why hydrogen cars would catch
| on. EVs are good already and come with many benefits.
| glitchc wrote:
| > An EV is a clear simplification of an ICE. Add a Battery and
| replace the mechanical complexity of a combustion engine with a
| relatively simple electric motor. So many components are now
| unnecessary and so many problems just go away. EVs also make
| charging simpler.
|
| Is it? Then why isn't it cheaper to produce and cheaper to own?
|
| > Hydrogen cars on the other hand are very complex and also
| quite inefficient, requiring many steps to go from hydrogen
| generation to motor movement. And they require a very
| sophisticated network of charging infrastructure, which has to
| deal with an explosive gas at high pressures. Something which
| is dangerous even in highly controlled industrial environments.
|
| It's a standard combustion engine, nothing special.
| mjamesaustin wrote:
| EVs are cheaper to own - the fuel savings are enormous.
|
| EVs aren't cheaper to produce yet, but battery costs are
| still falling and they will reach parity with ICE vehicles
| soon.
| bdangubic wrote:
| EVs are so much more cheaper to own that it is difficult to
| explain to people who own ICE cars as they, in majority of
| cases, just cannot comprehend it
| vel0city wrote:
| My EV has cost me ~$1,100/yr less to operate over the last
| few years for the same mileage compared to my ICE, and I
| didn't even have any major issues with my ICE. Meanwhile its
| been charged with almost exclusively 100% renewable, zero-
| emission energy.
| aunty_helen wrote:
| Kinda glad this is the case. When people go out of their way to
| avoid common sense they should be punished.
|
| Hydrogen is such a terrible idea it was never getting off the
| ground. There seems to be some kind of psychosis around it being
| the next oil and therefore greedy people want to get in early on.
| But this blinds them to the basic chemistry and physics.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > There seems to be some kind of psychosis around it being the
| next oil
|
| There's a very well financed propaganda campaign.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Yes, it's not the new oil, it's the same oil in "green"
| packaging. Plus some comforting lies about carbon capture.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Why is it such a terrible idea? In theory you can generate it
| via electrolysis in places with plentiful renewable energy, and
| then you've got a very high-density, lightweight fuel. On the
| surface, it seems ideal for things like cars or planes where
| vehicle weight matters. Batteries are huge and heavy and
| nowhere near as energy dense as gasoline.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Besides being expensive to generate unless you already happen
| to have an electrolysis plant handy, hydrogen is awkward and
| hazardous to store. Once generated, it costs yet more energy
| to liquefy, and then it seeps right through many common
| metals, weakening them in the process. It's just not a good
| consumer-level energy source, and nobody could figure out why
| Toyota couldn't see that.
|
| Interestingly, liquid hydrogen is nowhere near the most
| energy-dense way to store and transport it. I don't recall
| the exact numbers but absorption in a rare-earth metal matrix
| is said to be much better on a volumetric basis. [1] Still
| not exactly cheap or convenient, but it mitigates at least
| some of the drawbacks with liquid H2.
|
| 1: https://www.fuelcellstore.com/blog-section/what-hydrogen-
| sto...
| smcin wrote:
| Remember that China briefly embargoed Japan for rare earth
| metals in 2010, and Toyota launched the Mirai in 2014. My
| theory was that it was developed as a national fallback for
| Japan in case that embargo continued or got worse. Think
| 1930s Volkswagen. Anyone can comment on that?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Japan went heavy into hydrogen for a couple of decades
| ago. The only reason we are even talking about hydrogen
| passenger vehicles now is because Japan thought it was
| the future, they made a mistake.
| stephen_g wrote:
| It's horrible to work with - dangerous, embrittlement issues
| etc., and very energy intensive to compress into very heavy
| cryogenic storage containers...
| credit_guy wrote:
| > dangerous
|
| It is actually less dangerous than other fuels, for the
| simple reason that it is extremely light and buoyant. A
| gasoline fire is bad, because the gasoline stays where it
| is until it fully burns. A hydrogen fire is less bad,
| because it will tend to move upwards.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| Hydrogen mixed with air has a very wide range of
| concentrations where it is explosive. It accumulates
| inside containers or just the roof of the car... where
| the passengers are. It takes just one lit cigarette for
| it to go boom.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| And it burns _really_ hot
| chongli wrote:
| That's assuming the hydrogen is just loose in the area,
| like it'd been released from a balloon in a chemistry
| classroom. That amount of hydrogen is extremely small,
| from an energy standpoint. Equivalent to a teaspoon of
| gasoline or so.
|
| If you assume a realistic fuel capacity for a hydrogen
| vehicle, the hydrogen tank will be both much larger than
| a gas tank and the hydrogen will be under extreme
| pressure. A tank like that in your car would be extremely
| dangerous even if it were filled only with inert gas.
| Rygian wrote:
| Check out the "Clean Hydrogen Ladder" document.
|
| Hydrogen wastes a large amount of energy.
| cbmuser wrote:
| Unless you produce it using the Sulfur-Iodine cycle in a
| high-temperature nuclear reactor.
|
| See:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur%E2%80%93iodine_cycle
|
| and: https://www.jaea.go.jp/04/o-arai/nhc/en/research/hydro
| gen_he...
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| Hydrogen is the minimum viable atom: one proton, one
| electron. H2 is a tiny molecule. "hydrogen embrittlement" is
| when it's small enough to diffuse _into_ solid metal, because
| it 's that much smaller than iron atoms.
|
| It's hard to work with, and what's the point? For most uses,
| electricity supply is everywhere.
| L-four wrote:
| The cheapest way to make hydrogen is to use fossil fuels.
| loeg wrote:
| It's hell to store. The energy density is terrible and as a
| tiny molecule it escapes most seals. When it transitions from
| a liquid to a gas, it expands manyfold (i.e., explodes).
| ssl-3 wrote:
| Ignoring some of the other issues:
|
| Imagine we have this electrolysis plant, splitting up water
| to produce the hydrogen we need for an area. That's fine.
|
| But it needs fed electricity to keep the process going. Lots
| of it. It needs more electrical power to split the water than
| combining it again produces.
|
| So it starts off being energy-negative, and it takes serious
| electricity to make it happen. Our grid isn't necessarily
| ready for that.
|
| And then we need to transport the hydrogen. Probably with
| things like trucks and trains at first (but maybe pipelines
| eventually). This makes it even more energy-negative, and
| adds having great volumes of this potentially-explosive gas
| in our immediate vicinity some of the time whether we're
| using it individually or not.
|
| Or: We can just plug in our battery-cars at home, and skip
| all that fuel transportation business altogether.
|
| It's still energy-negative, and the grid might not be ready
| for everyone to do that either.
|
| But at least we don't need to to implement an entirely new
| kind of scale for hydrogen production and distribution before
| it can be used.
|
| So that's kind of the way we've been going: We plug out cars
| into the existing grid and charge them using the same
| electricity that could instead have been used to produce
| hydrogen.
|
| (It'd be nice if battery recycling were more common, but it
| turns out that they have far longer useful lives than anyone
| reasonably anticipated and it just isn't a huge
| problem...yet. And that's not a huge concern, really: We
| already have a profitable and profoundly vast automotive
| recycling industry. We'll be sourcing lithium from automotive
| salvage yards as soon as it is profitable to do so.)
| dehrmann wrote:
| > Hydrogen is such a terrible idea it was never getting off the
| ground.
|
| It's coming from Toyota because Toyota can't wrap its head
| around not making engines. Ironically, the place hydrogen might
| work is airplanes where the energy density of batteries doesn't
| work.
| breve wrote:
| > _It 's coming from Toyota because Toyota can't wrap its
| head around not making engines._
|
| Of course they can. Toyota sells BEVs. As time goes on BEVs
| will become a greater percentage of their sales.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Toyota sells bad EVs and was the last OEM to offer one.
| It's the most anti-EV OEM by far and engages/engaged in the
| most EV FUD.
| dehrmann wrote:
| The bZ4X? 10+ years after the Nissan Leaf?
| satvikpendem wrote:
| What does this mean? They have electric vehicles too.
| nandomrumber wrote:
| There _is_ a great way to store, transport, and use hydrogen:
|
| Bind it to various length carbon chains.
|
| When burned as an energy source the two main by products are
| carbon dioxide which is a plant growth nutrient, and water
| which is also essential to plant growth.
|
| Environmentalists will love it!
|
| And they can prise my turbo diesels engines from my cold dead
| hands.
| retired wrote:
| Cheapest second generation Mirai I could find is EUR9950
| including VAT. It has scuffs all-round but no major or structural
| damage. Only 103k km.
|
| This was a EUR71,000 car four years ago. That is 86% of the value
| gone. And you were driving around on very expensive hydrogen
| (compared to diesel and BEV).
| vel0city wrote:
| > And you were driving around on very expensive hydrogen
|
| That original owner was probably doing all those miles on the
| free hydrogen given by Toyota.
| alexose wrote:
| I've always been fascinated with these things. Is there any way
| to make your own H2 to fuel them? I suspect the purity
| requirements are too high for at-home electrolysis...
| empathy_m wrote:
| At one point recently the Mirai came with a fuel incentive
| program: when you buy the car, Toyota gives you a gift card worth
| $15,000 towards fuel at hydrogen stations.
|
| An interesting second part of the program was that if you live
| near a hydrogen station but it's broken, Toyota will instead
| reimburse a rental car and gas for the rental, one week at a time
| but presumably for as long the hydrogen fuel station remains
| broken.
| kccqzy wrote:
| $15,000 worth of fuel card sounds generous until you find that
| hydrogen stations have jacked up prices to $36/kg.
| smcin wrote:
| Full tank capacity of a Mirai is ~5 kg / (120 liters in
| volume).
| stbtrax wrote:
| still means nothing, what is the mileage or $/mi there?
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Apparently 1kg of hydrogen is about 60 miles range, which
| seems like a lot, but apparently fuel cells are that good.
|
| Currently hydrogen fuel if you can get it is about 15 quid
| a kilo in the UK, giving a tank range of around 400 miles
| for PS80. This makes it a little more expensive than
| diesel, considerably more expensive than petrol, and
| roughly the same price as electric.
|
| By comparison Autogas LPG is around 92p/litre (or about
| PS1.80 per kilo) and in a very large heavy 4.6 litre Range
| Rover you get around 250-300 miles for your PS80 tankful,
| depending on how heavy your right foot is.
| newyankee wrote:
| I think a few people were expecting the same cost curves that
| happened with batteries to happen with hydrogen but it seems
| the challenges are more difficult to overcome. Otherwise I
| think a Solar PV plant combined with Captive hydrogen
| production for refuelling on major highways sounds interesting,
| at least in countries like US, Australia etc. I believe this is
| not just about PEM or AEM electrolyser or specific tech, it
| never got the scaling boost.
|
| Ironically the stack comprising fuel cells of different types
| is possibly very well studied since decades.
|
| For me the Wells to wheel efficiency never made hydrogen
| worthwhile for short to medium distances and this battle is
| effectively over.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Forget the type of electrolyzer, even if they were free
| hydrogen would still be expensive. The challenges with
| hydrogen getting cheaper are thermodynamic and can't be
| innovated around. The amount of energy required to
| electrolyze water simply cannot drop by 10x.
|
| The other difficulties (low energy density, ability to leak
| through many materials, massive explosion risks, near-
| invisible flames, etc., etc.) are all inherent to H2 as a
| molecule.
| whatever1 wrote:
| Not that much worse than an ev.
| vel0city wrote:
| Used models for my five year old EV are still selling for ~50%
| of what I paid for, so no, its far worse than most EVs.
| sksasi wrote:
| A full tank would cost $200 for about 300-350 mile range.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| If you think depreciation on a few cars is bad wait until you
| find out how many hundreds of millions taxpayers spent to build
| hydrogen stations for cars that don't exist.
|
| At least it's not as blatant of a green energy scam as the high
| speed rail to nowhere. In this case they actually built a few
| stations that worked.
| stevenhubertron wrote:
| Cars are not investments.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Depends on the car. Some are so special they will have a better
| ROI than your retirement plan.
|
| https://www.myartbroker.com/investing/articles/top-10-most-i...
| dehrmann wrote:
| It's got the EV problem, but 100x worse. No only do you have to
| worry about where to find a place to refuel, there are _far_
| fewer of them, and level 1 charging isn 't a fallback. It also
| doesn't have the EV upsides.
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