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Ash (not verified)    December 26, 2020 - 2:45PM

In reply to by Alan Pastor (not verified)

Hydrogen fuel cells won't take off because they're still very impractical. There's the fuel source problem. If you get it from natural gas, it's cheaper, but not "green". If you get it via electrolysis, it takes about 4x the electricity to split the hydrogen, compress it, truck it to the fueling station, then recombining the hydrogen with oxygen in the vehicle. Lots of energy conversion losses along each step

So to do all that to drive that hydrogen car 1 mile, you could've driven a battery electric car 4 miles if you just simply used the electricity to charge up a battery.

The refueling time is also only true for the first 1-2 cars. After that it takes some time for the machines to compress the hydrogen to a usable level, which can be anywhere from 20-60 minutes.

Toyota isn't really helping to pay for infrastructure costs, at least in the US. That's why there's only a few dozen stations, all of which are basically in California. Each station itself costs around $2-3 million to build.

Yes, they help cover the cost of the hydrogen, but you have to wonder why you get $15k in fueling for the first 3 years or during the lease period. And what will that hydrogen cost you in year 4 of ownership and beyond? You're also limited in where you can drive because of this, and a Mirai lessee/owner can borrow a Toyota gas car for longer trips. And there's this thing called "hydrogen embrittlement" that will wear out components on the car and especially the fueling equipment, since hydrogen doesn't like to be contained.

Contrast that charging stations, especially Tesla's Supercharger network, built and paid for entirely by them. With that, you can travel through most of the US, and many other parts of the world. Sure, it takes 15-30 minutes per charge, but you're probably also using the bathroom, stretching your legs, or eating/drinking at that time. And there's always in-car entertainment such as Netflix, YouTube, Twitch, games, that you can do to pass the time.

As for home charging, yes, it takes hours to charge. But you're probably sleeping, eating, watching tv, surfing the net, playing games, during that time. Yes, not everyone owns a garage or driveway. But public chargers are slowly but surely cropping up in more places. They can also be easily installed in a parking lot/complex, whereas a hydrogen fueling station needs to be built far away from residential areas due to the explosion risks.

Finally, there's the cost of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. They're typically in the $50k+ range, and don't have a lot of performance for that price point. Sure, not everyone needs a fast 0-60, but most people would probably rather drive a Model 3 than a Mirai if you asked them. Look at how many Mirai have been made/sold around the world. Then look at how many battery electric cars have also been made/sold in that same time frame.

Bottom line is that hydrogen fuel cell cars sound promising on paper, but in reality they're at significant disadvantages in terms of cost of the vehicle, cost of installing fueling stations, cost of maintenance, and cost of fuel. The fast filling time Toyota loves to promote is slowly being caught up by battery electric cars, and they're wasting tons of money and resources on this instead of investing it into battery electric cars.

I can't buy or lease a Mirai in the Midwest. But my Tesla Model Y charges up just fine in my garage, and I have the Supercharger network if I ever want to do longer trips. And I've done a 564 mile road trip just recently thanks to that.

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