Who wants an almost free car?
If you hurry, you can get it $40,000 discount a 2023 Toyota Mirai Limited, a fuel cell vehicle that sells for $66,000; When you factor in the $15,000 in free hydrogen over six years and the available 0% interest loan, the new car will cost you just $11,000. That’s how much it costs Toyota to build the vehicle’s fuel cell stack on its own, according according to the most recent estimate. You buy the fuel cell, Toyota pays for the rest of the car.
It would be great if you could find the hydrogen to power it.
Toyota’s discount comes after Shell announced three weeks ago that it was closing hydrogen filling stations in California. Granted, the oil company only had seven to begin with (five of which were decommissioned), but that still represents more than 10% of the Golden State’s stations, almost all clustered around Los Angeles and San Francisco. Of those remaining, about a quarter are offline, according to the Hydrogen fuel cell collaboration.
California was, and still is, the only state where a fuel cell vehicle makes logistical sense — if you have a gas station nearby, that works. And if you squint. And he tilted his head.
Just don’t tell that to Honda, which recently found the time convert Its best-selling CR-V in a car 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 you’ve used it up, the front-mounted fuel cell starts drinking hydrogen from a pair of carbon-fiber tanks. One tank is under the rear seat, the other behind, where it takes up too much space in the trunk.
For all that complexity and compromise, what do you get? A total of 270 miles of range, or about the same as a mid-pack electric crossover. Except the EV isn’t limited to driving around LA or SF.
Now, hydrogen has great potential as a fuel source for many parts of a carbon-free economy, from industrial heat to steelmaking and long-distance shipping. This is why so many hydrogen startups are pitching themselves as zero-carbon solutions for these sectors. Electric Hydrogen, which has raised $600 million, is courting steel, electricity, methanol and ammonia production. Advanced Ionics, a 2023 Startup Battlefield finalist, is targeting hydrogen from its electrolytes to ammonia and chemical producers. Hgen also hunts steel and ammonia. Are you sensing a trend?
Where hydrogen has not found traction is in the promotion of passenger cars and trucks. Hydrogen production and distribution is still too trivial for Mirai or CR-V owners to take on road trips. Plus, despite the Mirai’s selling price, fuel cells don’t come cheap. And if FCEVs are going to reduce carbon emissions, then they need to run on green hydrogen, not the fossil fuel-derived gray hydrogen that dominates today. Until that happens, he is alone marginally better for the climate than advanced hybrids.
In the short term, it’s pretty clear that zero-emission light vehicles will have to be battery-based. So why are Toyota and Honda (and Hyundai and others) still so bullish on hydrogen?
It’s hard to know what goes on inside closed boardrooms, but there are several reasons why automakers might be pushing fuel cells. The cynical view is that automakers know that hydrogen infrastructure and fuel cell vehicles won’t be ready for a decade or more, but by touting the advantages of the powertrain (ie, quick refueling), they can convince the wary consumers (and politicians) of electric vehicles. to embrace fossil fuel vehicles in the meantime. To some extent, it’s as if they wanted to invest in an image of being climate conscious and technologically innovative by eschewing electric vehicles – the more common vision of a low-emission transport future.
A more charitable view is that companies cannot fight their institutional inertia. Fuel cells might just excite existing engineers and corporate executives. Like internal combustion engines, they are complex and highly mechanical, powered by pumps and pipes and relieved by exhaust pipes. Furthermore, most of the design and manufacturing know-how can be kept in-house, unlike batteries, which are almost always made by suppliers.
Finally, automakers may believe that consumers won’t switch until filling times match gas-powered vehicles. While charging times for EVs continue to drop, they likely will never reach the five-minute mark like hydrogen. Automakers may actually believe that an extra five or 10 minutes might turn off most consumers.
Someday, the automakers may be proven right. If today’s hydrogen startups succeed, and if they are able to build enough capacity to meet industrial and marine demand, then it might make sense to start selling fuel cell vehicles to the masses. Will this day be 10 years from now? Or maybe 20? Let’s put it this way: it’s not currently on anyone’s road map.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that the Toyota discount only applies to the Mirai Limited.
