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[Richard230]

This comes from an article in my newspaper today written by Peter Douglas, titled "Toyota May Be First to Deploy a Solid-State Battery".  His article quotes another article in Nikkei Asia that was boasting that Toyota has developed a solid-state battery and will unveil a prototype next year. The Nikkei Asia article claims that "Toyota plans to be the first company to sell a vehicle equipped with a solid-state battery in the early 2020's". Nikkei Asia says that Toyota has taken out over 1,000 patents related to solid-state batteries, more than any other company.

[caza]

I'll be really surprised if we actually see solid state in any meaningful way in this decade. We hear about breakthroughs and patents, but scientific breakthroughs are one thing, building a factory that can produce the quantities you need economically are another. Even once someone has properly announced they're putting solid state into production, it's going to take them a long time to sort out all the logistics and supply chains to truly get started, and the quantity at first will likely be limited to batches of vehicles so small they may as well be considered marketing material.

After watching battery tech improve over the last 15 years, the one constant is that progress is incremental and big breakthroughs are often announced but rarely materialize.

I'm especially skeptical of Toyota, which has been extremely cautious of EV's in general despite making the most popular hybrid.

[princec]

Toyota undoubtedly suffer from massive infighting amongst factions within the company with the hydrogen guys and hybrid guys keen to explain to everyone why their engineering is the best solution.

Cas

[caza]

Call me pessimistic but I think their push for hydrogen is purely a marketing ploy to delay EV's as much as they possibly can while still being able to release zero emission compliance cars.

The infrastructure challenges of hydrogen are so massive there's no way they don't understand how unattainable it is.

[Crissa]

Japanese companies' focus on hydrogen has to do with the lack of power sources at home.  They don't have giant deposits of lithium to make batteries from and import nearly all of their energy.  So they're devoted to this solution that gets around their battery shortage.

-Crissa

[princec]

You'd think they'd maybe devote more, er, energy, into alternative battery chemistries that don't involve lithium instead of the insanity of hydrogen.

Cas

[Crissa]

Well, they have lots of water.  And not so bad in the sun and wind department, either.

-Crissa

[caza]

That's interesting context, but doesn't mesh with the idea that they're also working on solid state batteries that still use those resources they don't have.

I wonder if building the hydrogen infrastructure is an easier process for them too, since their country is relatively small and dense so the investment to build enough fill stations is much smaller.

[Crissa]

Well, even the hydrogen economy needs battery tech to supply peak power.

So anyhow I think it's an attempt at self-sufficiency.  They can make hydrogen and fuel cells, but batteries are more resource intensive.

The US can make a battery economy without looking outside.

-Crissa

[caza]

I mean the US still gets a lot of its battery resources from imperialism. To quote mr. musk "we'll coup whoever we want"

[Crissa]

Japan doesn't quite have that ability.

-Crissa

[Curt]

Well, they have lots of water.  And not so bad in the sun and wind department, either.

Such a good point. It's great to be not only energy independent but also materials independent.

Here is some data I researched:
- Total energy content of H2 is 33.6 kWh, very similar to gallon of gasoline.
- FCEV motor efficiency 70 mi/kg H2. Only about 2 mi/kWh, half that of batteries.
- Best efficiency of electrolysis 80%, 48 kWh/kg H2 (theoretical best 39 kWh/kg)
- Better than batteries for time shifting solar/wind ("grid storage")
  (H2 can be manufactured at point of electricity generation or point of use)
- Typical vehicle range 300 miles.
- Vehicle refueling time similar to gas
- So clean
- Elon Musk lobbies so hard against it, so we know it must be quite a viable threat.

Nevertheless, they are failing in the US.

That H2 fueling station at STP has been dead for 18+ months, ever since the 3 years of government boondoggle money ran out. What a surprise.

[Richard230]

The H2 station next to the Skylonda General Store has apparently been functional for the past couple of years. According to one of the owners of Alice's Restaurant, which is located across the street, no one has every seen an H2 car filling up at the station.  The station's office remains vacant and there is no brand name on the station.  My understanding is that the station cost something like $3 million to construct.

One other thing:  I assume that the energy in H2 depends upon the pressure in the fuel tank. I notice that the pump at the H2 station has two nozzles. One is 350 bar and the other is 700 bar.  How much pressure can you stand?   

[princec]

I think the real reason that hydrogen is so unpopular is because it creates far more problems than it solves. It's super-dangerous and incredibly difficult to use safely. It's not at all efficient to produce by the time it gets into a fuel tank. It's very hard to transport in any quantity. A remarkable amount of it simply escapes without being burned, and leaving it in a fuel tank for a long time eventually leaves you with ... no hydrogen. The engine tech required is even more complex than the most complex petrol engines and doesn't lend itself to small applications at all.

Then you compare it to electricity from a battery and an electric motor and you'd be thinking, why would anyone ever think it was a better idea? Which is why we're in this forum.

Cas

[caza]

All good points. To me the biggest issue with hydrogen is just the chicken and egg problem.  You can't switch to hydrogen until you have enough extremely expensive infrastructure to support them. You can't justify that infrastructure cost until people are buying hydrogen cars. So even if you put all of the efficiency and safety problems aside, hydrogen is hard to to implement and grow.

If we could just flip a switch and have every gas station replaced with hydrogen, it would be adopted quickly since it doesn't suffer from the very real practical challenges of charge time and range that EV's have. Most consumers care more about convenience than efficiency or even safety. But we can't flip a switch, and no one is going to invest in building hydrogen infrastructure everywhere before they sell a single car.

EV's biggest advantage is simply that a homeowner can install a charging station in their garage and not have to rely on a bigger infrastructure for the majority of their driving. Many apartment dwellers with parking spots have done the same thing. This is what's allowed EV's to grow as much as they have. They can sidestep the chicken/egg issue.