TOYOTA AIMS TO NEARLY ELIMINATE GASOLINE CARS BY 2050
chicagotribune.com October 14, 2015 | Tokyo
Toyota, under ambitious environmental targets, is aiming to sell hardly any regular gasoline vehicles by 2050, only hybrids and fuel cells, to radically reduce emissions.
The automaker promised to involve governments, affiliated companies and other "stakeholders" in its push to reduce average emissions from Toyota cars by 90 percent by about 2050, compared with 2010 levels.
Electric cars weren't part of their vision, outlined by top Toyota Motor Corp. officials at a Tokyo museum on Wednesday, striking a contrast with rivals such as Nissan Motor Co., which has banked on that zero-emissions technology.
Toyota's commitments come at a time when the auto industry has been shaken by a scandal at Germany's Volkswagen AG, in which it admitted it cheated on diesel emissions tests covering millions of cars.
Toyota projected its annual sales of fuel cell vehicles will reach more than 30,000 by about 2020, which is 10 times its projected figure for 2017.
Fuel cells run on hydrogen and are zero-emissions. Toyota's Mirai fuel cell went on sale late last year. Toyota has received 1,500 orders for the Mirai in Japan, and it just went on sale in the U.S. and Europe.
Annual sales of hybrid vehicles will reach 1.5 million and by 2020 Toyota would have sold 15 million hybrids, nearly twice what it has sold so far around the world, it said.
The fourth-generation of the world's best-selling hybrid is set to hit dealerships in January, 2016. Love it or hate it, the Toyota Prius helped fuel the mainstream market acceptance of disruptive fuel economy technology.
Hybrids switch back and forth between a gasoline engine and an electric motor to deliver an efficient ride.
The Toyota Prius, which went on sale in 1997, is the top-selling hybrid, with about 4 million sold globally so far. Toyota is promising to develop a hybrid version in every category, including usually gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles, as well as luxury models.
"You may think 35 years is a long time," Senior Managing Officer Kiyotaka Ise told reporters. "But for an automaker to envision all combustion engines as gone is pretty extraordinary."
Ise acknowledged some gasoline engine cars would remain in less developed markets, but only in small numbers.
He and other Toyota officials insisted on the inevitability of their overall vision, stressing that the problems of global warming and environmental destruction made a move toward a hydrogen-based society a necessity.
Experts agree more has to be done to curtail global warming and pollution, and nations are increasingly tightening emissions standards.
But they are divided on whether all gasoline engines will disappear, or they'll stay on, thanks to greener internal combustion engines, as well as the arrival of clean diesel technology.
Tatsuo Yoshida, senior analyst at Barclays Securities Japan in Tokyo, said Toyota's goals weren't far-fetched.
"The internal combustion engine is developing and metamorphosing into hybrids," he said. "Toyota has been working on this technology for a long time. When officials speak out like this, it means they are 120 percent confident this is their scenario."
As part of its environmental vision, Toyota also promised to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from production lines during manufacturing in 2030 to about a third of 2001 levels.
Toyota said it will develop manufacturing technology that uses hydrogen, and will use wind power at its Tahara plant, both by 2020. It also promised to beef up various recycling measures, including developing ways to build vehicles from recycled ones.
When asked why Toyota remained so cautious on electric vehicles, they said they take too long to recharge, despite battery innovations that have made them smaller, restricting them for short-range travel in cities.
Toyota Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada, known as the "father of the Prius," said the company was taking the environment seriously because it has always tried to contribute to a better society.
"We have the same principles since our founding," he said, showing on stage a photo of Sakichi Toyoda, the Toyota founder's father, who invented a textile loom in 1891. "That is Toyota's DNA."
Associated Press
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Max on -
Info on fuel cells:
http://www.fuelcells.org/base.cgim?template=faq
Vehicles
How do fuel cell vehicles compare to other vehicles?
Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) are an attractive alternative to battery-powered cars, internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, and hybrids. Like battery vehicles, FCEVs have zero tailpipe emissions, and have a convenient, onboard engine like an ICE vehicle. However, FCEVs are much cleaner than both vehicle types because they avoid combustion and use input fuels much more efficiently than their counterparts. FCEVs can also be refueled quickly and can go longer between refueling. The Toyota FCHV-adv, Toyota’s latest fuel cell vehicle, achieves an impressive 68 miles per kilogram, and can go over 430 miles on one tank of hydrogen. The combination of range, efficiency, and cleanliness is why hydrogen offers the best promise of completely removing motor vehicles from the pollution equation.
Looks like NG will be around a long time...
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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on
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Good information. Thanks for the link, Max.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Aldridge on
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The problem with Hydrogen is how do you generate it. I don't know of any Hydrogen producing wells around. To break the H2 away from other elements takes considerable energy. Sooooo I don't see any REAL advantage.
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Permalink Reply by Max on
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Joe has made an important point.
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-01-03/myth-hydrogen-economy
Basic chemistry tells us that it requires more energy to break a hydrogen bond than to form one. This is due to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, and there is no getting around it.
There is no "free" hydrogen here on Earth to gather up and put in fuel cells. All the hydrogen is bonded with other elements. Producing hydrogen from NG would require a great deal of energy, and there will be problems of what to do with what's left over after we've separated the hydrogen. However, I'm sure we'll come up with a process that would provide the needed hydrogen if we invest enough time and funds.
Fossil fuels are the low hanging fruit, someday someone will figure out how to "gather" those apples in the top of tree.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Aldridge on
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Those apples need to be gathered from the top of the tree before these car companies start going down this road.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Aldridge on
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All they have to do is start mounting windmills and solar cells to the roofs of the cars and then they can recharge the batteries or use that power to separate H2O into H2 and O2 for fuel cells. its that simple.........
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Permalink Reply by Max on
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Joe,
On gathering the apples before they start down the road, in 1890 there were no gasoline stations in the U.S. and the newly developed gasoline powered engine was the buzz of the day.
By 1930, gas stations were common. They had become a part of the everyday lives of those Americans who could afford an automobile.
Windmills and solar cells on car roofs won't cut it. Hydrogen separation plants will have to placed where those renewable's are available, or in the case of solar, moved into a fixed position in low Earth orbit.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Aldridge on
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Well, let's see Max. Maybe we could put a large piece of sodium in a sealed container in each car and drip water on it and get the H2 that way. Oh, there is a problem: No sodium mines. And the by product is NaOH (caustic soda or lye). What do we do with that chemical that is formed as a by product? Then there is the possibility of putting satellites in orbit and powering them with the Sun and then microwaveing or lasering the power down to each car with GPS guidance and separating the Hydrogen and Oxygen from water that way. Is this what you mean by picking high on the apple tree?
No matter what you do there is no free energy. The more steps you put into a problem the more the efficiency is degraded and the more loss you have. We have nothing better than petroleum to power vehicles at this time.
Now if you want to really make a difference in the efficiency and pollution characteristics of Internal Combustion engines do a Methanol/Water injection. That reduces the pollution and ups the efficiency at the same time. I experimented with that back in the 60's in an old Chevy Malibu. The water and alcohol flash to steam in the hot cylinder and add power. They also absorb any carbon residue.
Well, that's the science lesson for today. I'm going to keep working on the Satellite and Sodium thing. Just if someone can find a Sodium mine that would be great.
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Permalink Reply by JHH on
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Ahead of his time: George W was advocating hydrogen fuel cell technology 10 or so years ago? By product would be H2O.
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Permalink Reply by Skip Peel - Mineral Consultant on
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Boy, Honda’s Not Giving Up This Whole Hydrogen Car Thing
Alex Davies Gear Date of Publication: 10.28.15 wired.com
Honda, it turns out, is serious about this hydrogen fuel cell thing.
On Tuesday, the Japanese automaker unveiled the production version of its Clarity Fuel Cell sedan, which it will begin leasing to customers in Japan in March. It’s a handsome enough car, vaguely futuristic, with a hint of Tesla’s Model S.
But the styling is almost beside the point; the entire point of this car—an idea Honda’s been kicking around for nearly three decades—is the hydrogen fuel cell, about the size of a V6 engine and stuffed under the hood, that keeps it going. That stack of cells will produce about 175 horsepower, and sent the car more than 300 miles between refueling stops.
Automakers, especially Japanese and German automakers, love fuel cells. There’s a lot to love about them. They combine all the benefits of battery electric vehicles like the Tesla Model S and Nissan Leaf—zero tailpipe emissions, excellent torque—without the drawbacks of limited range or waiting around for your battery to charge.
But there are some downsides, the most glaring of which is the acute lack of stations offering hydrogen. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe and there are some truly renewable ways of producing it, but it is most often produced by steam reformulating natural gas, a process that spits a fair amount of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. What’s more, there’s not much infrastructure for moving the stuff around once it’s produced.
None of these problems is insurmountable. The California Fuel Cell Partnership claims 68 strategically placed stations would be enough to support 10,000 hydrogen cars in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and for drives between the two. At the moment, there are exactly two that are open to the public, with a third set to open this week (there are about 8,000 gas stations in the state). To be fair, dozens more are in the pipeline, but solving the infrastructure problem will take a lot of time and money.
That’s the thing about hydrogen—everything about it is expensive. Honda hasn’t said what the lease on a Clarity will run you, but says the MSRP will be $63,000. Toyota’s fuel cell vehicle, the Mirai, costs $57,000. That kind of money gets you a new Corvette or puts you within striking distance of a second-hand Tesla Model S. Fuel cell vehicles are expensive because the underlying technology is expensive. Yes, that could change with economies of scale, but getting there will take time.
The situation is a little better in Japan, where the government subsidizes the cars and the infrastructure to support them. Still, the country has just 81 hydrogen fueling stations, according to Bloomberg Business, and about 34,000 gas stations. One Mirai driver told Bloomberg Business he loves his car, but must plan around the fact that the fueling spot near his Tokyo home closes at 5 pm.
None of this is to say fuel cells don’t have their place. They make a lot of sense in fleet applications—which may be why Honda is offering the Clarity only to government agencies and “business customers” for the first year—and in big vehicles like city buses, which always refuel at the same place.
The problems can be resolved, of course. Subsidies or tax breaks like those offered for electric vehicles can blunt the high cost of the vehicles and win over consumers. More stations can be built, and hydrogen production can be increased. Making the case for such a strategy in the US is hard when gas is going for an average of $2.19 a gallon, but the math changes when you consider fuel prices inevitably will go up and the fact we’ve got to deal with climate change.
Honda isn’t the only company pushing the tech. Toyota started selling the Mirai at eight California dealerships in July, and Mercedes-Benz offers its F-Cell in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Politics plays a role in this, too, because the California Air Resources Board requires automakers to offer a specific number of zero-emissions vehicles for sale each year.
For that reason, it’s a safe bet that the Clarity is headed to the US eventually (Honda leased an earlier version, the FCX Clarity, in California for awhile). For now, it’s being offered only in Japan, and only to those who live near a fueling station. Potential customers must complete an application and do a phone interview before forking over their cash, as clear a sign as any that this technology’s not ready for the mass market.
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