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Toyota wants hydrogen to succeed so bad it’s paying people to buy the Mirai (techcrunch.com)

submitted 8 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Toyota wants hydrogen to succeed so bad it’s paying people to buy the Mirai::Toyota is offering some amazing deals for its hydrogen fuel cell-powered Mirai. That is, if customers can find the hydrogen to power it.

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[–] FiskFisk33@startrek.website 14 points 8 months ago (25 children)

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?

[–] DreadPotato@sopuli.xyz 37 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (12 children)

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.

[–] Majoof@aussie.zone 1 points 8 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] Fisch@lemmy.ml 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

But the hydrogen also has to be transported, which produces CO2, you need containers for that that also produce CO2 when getting manufactured. I'm not saying it's more than with a battery but it could be. We'd need actual numbers to really know tho.

[–] MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 months ago

I've seen plans for hydrogen fuel stations to create the hydrogen there on site.

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