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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?

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

Hydrogen cannot be greener than an EV, because it's just an EV with more steps. It's energy intensive to turn electricity + water to hydrogen, transport it, pump it, then convert it back to electricity.

The losses from simply running electrons through a wire are very small.

It is physically impossible for hydrogen cars to ever be as green as EVs. In order to do so you'd have to break laws of physics.

E: ok people. You live in your little fantasy world where thermodynamics aren't a thing.

[–] desconectado@lemm.ee 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

There are laws of thermodynamics and there are laws of kinetics.

Fuels have much more power density than batteries. You can't deliver power as fast with a battery compared to a fuel. It doesn't matter if thermodynamically one is more efficient or greener than the other. You would be crazy to suggest moving an airbus with a battery, that's physically impossible.

I'm a researcher in both fields (batteries and hydrogen)

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

Sure, but I'm not talking about jets, which yeah, do need a far greater energy density than batteries can currently provide.

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