[shortbread]

After all the hue and cry as to how the push for electric is not necessary, Toyota gives in.

After revealing the e-TNGA, a modular platform dedicated to pure electric vehicles, the company is now focusing on batteries.

Does this benefit it's foster child, Suzuki India? Your guess is as good as mine, but wouldn't hold much hope.

What might happen is Maruti might get access to hybrid tech that's slowly being phased out for pure EVs.

Meanwhile Toyota also being committed to the EV race is brilliant, competition only improves choice for the customer.

Toyota to spend $13.6bn on battery development in effort to win electric battle

Toyota will invest ¥1.5tn ($13.6bn) in battery development and supply over the next decade as the world’s largest carmaker aims to stay ahead in the race for cheaper and longer-lasting electric and hybrid vehicles.

The Japanese group outlined its plans as it attempted to quell criticism it had been slow to shift to electric cars because of its dominance in hybrid vehicles that use both petrol and battery power.

Executives said the company, which has a partnership with Tesla supplier Panasonic, also remained on track to develop next generation solid-state batteries by 2025.

To achieve the shift to electric vehicles to meet carbon reduction targets, rival Volkswagen has placed a $14bn order for batteries from Northvolt in the next decade. The German carmaker has also said it will build or open six battery factories across Europe by 2030.

Geely has said it will spend $5bn building a new battery factory in Ganzhou, while Stellantis will spend more than €30bn over the next four years developing electric cars.

By leveraging its strength in developing both vehicles and batteries, the company will also aim to reduce the cost of batteries by half in the second half of the 2020s.

The company has consistently argued that a longer-term fix for global warming should be a mix of hybrids, EVs and hydrogen-powered vehicles instead of a single bet on battery-powered cars.

Over the past year, however, Toyota has given more clarity to its EV plans, saying it will launch 15 by 2025. It also plans to sell 8m electrified vehicles by 2030, of which 2m will be battery-powered cars and fuel-cell vehicles.

Full report:

https://www.ft.com/content/45ac2c2a-...b-36bc1f66b837

[extreme_torque]

Toyota has been working on a solid state battery for a while now and if the grapevine is to be believed, they are pretty close. This investment is more likely in manufacturing them at scale. Interesting times.

[mvadg]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/greggar...-manufacturers

https://www.greencarreports.com/news...is-that-enough

https://www.indiatoday.in/auto/lates...208-2020-04-15

https://www.wired.com/sponsored/stor...tric-vehicles/


I don't know where Toyota is currently with its FCV, the Mirai, but it could be an alternative to BEVs in countries like India with a poor charging infrastructure. Even if unreliable electricity supply is a deliberate policy, it would be easier to fill up with Hydrogen than fix the power problems for which you'd have to deal with the government on an individual basis for your area.

[GTO]

Finally. Toyota should realise that it's not the car company, but the car customer who chooses what technology is going to succeed. And IMHO, the market has chosen electric over hydrogen. Forget anywhere else, even in USA with huge support, Toyota & Honda hydrogen cars flopped & sank without a trace.

With Toyota's enormous reserves, they'll catch up easily. And that's good news for Suzuki too. I hear Maruti is throwing a big party on this news. Where else will they get their EV tech, if not from Toyota? Poor Maruti guys don't even know how to design a gearbox.

That being said, hydrogen fuelling definitely has scope in other applications (trucks for instance).

[Mafia]

Glad to know Toyota has changed its ostrich hiding mode and finally announced the battery development for EV.

It even works in their favour to come to the party late as they have the advantage of the funds and can easily start at a very advanced stage with all the developments that are happening by many talented small companies.

Being one of the largest car manufactures, they will be able to implement and profit from EV's more rapidly than a smaller manufacturer. Their current reputation for being reliable and affordable to maintain should help Toyota.

Long and short of it, even scientists predict that the most advanced species will harvest all their energy requirements from their star. That makes EV transition only more real.

[padmrajravi]

There is no surprise in this news really. Toyota had the technology for years. It was clear they will jump into it all guns blazing when the time is right. How difficult can a pure electric car be to someone who mastered hybrids a decade ago?

This is just business as usual for Toyota. They invested in multiple future techs - Hybrids, Hydrogen Fuel cells. All these investments allowed them to defer the decision till the moment cost of not making a decision was higher than sitting idle.

I believe plug-in hybrid will be the ultimate luxury for the next decade and Toyota will have an edge over others in that case.

[volkman10]

More Details of Toyota's carbon neutral plan :









Link (Toyota's new battery electric SUV ready for production)

[Venkatesh]

Toyota executives said in an online press briefing today that the company expects to cut the cost of battery production in half by the second half of the ’20s.

https://youtu.be/f9igsdNBDBo

By that time, it also expects to have solid-state batteries on the road and said that it had begun test driving a working prototype last year.

https://youtu.be/cfSSHYOrQNI

[sri_tesla]

Originally Posted by mvadg

I don't know where Toyota is currently with its FCV, the Mirai, but it could be an alternative to BEVs in countries like India with a poor charging infrastructure. Even if unreliable electricity supply is a deliberate policy, it would be easier to fill up with Hydrogen than fix the power problems for which you'd have to deal with the government on an individual basis for your area.

You are worried about unreliable electricity supply but are you aware that Hydrogen takes 3-4 more times of electricity, compared to batteries to travel the same distance? Also, the current small-scale (1 pump) hydrogen refilling stations would typically need ~15 minutes to re-pressurize after a ~5 minutes fill-up to allow the next vehicle to be refueled. At ~1-2 million dollars per station with typically a single pump, the cost is also a barrier to entry when it comes to financial investment.

Infrastructure for hydrogen is much costlier and complex than EV charging. California has the highest number of hydrogen stations (only 47 though in total), with the highest number of vehicles on road as of today. Out of these 47, only 22 are online right now as you can see in the below link. Refueling is the main reason why 3-year-old Toyota Mirais costs just 1/3rd of the purchase price and Toyota only sold 11,000 of them in over 7 years.

https://m.cafcp.org/


I see many ICE car enthusiasts obsessing over Hydrogen in many forums, but it's not happening. They are neither superior to BEVs in performance nor cheaper.

[DicKy]

Not much of a waking up, Toyota has been working on battery tech for a long time. Only that they have been looking at sustainable large scale operations instead of just PR friendly BEV talks.

And it is not as if they have abandoned other alternatives. They are still working on diesel-hybrids, HEVs, PHEVs, FCEVs and even stuff like hydrogen plug-in hybrids(?) and hydrogen powered ICE.

They are looking at the best options for all use cases and markets, than merely slapping some batteries and donning the green eco-friendly hat.

[Electromotive]

Originally Posted by GTO

That being said, hydrogen fuelling definitely has scope in other applications (trucks for instance).

Even for trucks or large vehicles it doesn't make much sense.

1. Hydrogen distribution and storage requires completely new infrastructure unlike electricity. Even LPG/Natural infrastructure is not suitable unless upgraded due to Hydrogen being a light gas.

2. Fuel cells still require rare earth elements.

3. Very explosive and hence dangerous.

4. Fast charging tech is already improving by leaps and bounds making long distance hauling feasible and economical.

Only thing hydrogen has going for it is higher energy density but the cost outweighs the benefits.

Hydrogen only makes sense as energy storage in facilities/power plants where it can be produced and consumed. Basically serving the same purpose as a battery bank.

[Shresth_EV]

Originally Posted by mvadg

I don't know where Toyota is currently with its FCV, the Mirai, but it could be an alternative to BEVs in countries like India with a poor charging infrastructure.

FCEVs pretty much have same issues as BEVs : costly and lack of infra. Even in so called developed nations like UK and USA, the H2 availability is even worse than PS5 amid chip shortage.

Jokes aside, BEVs of same price segment as the Mirai still get 350mi range (Model 3 LR) which isn’t bad, considering that even if you need 30min for full charge, vs the 10min for H2, there are more superchargers in USA itself than there are H2 stations in all of the world.

Then again, Toyota is doing nothing like Tesla to promote FCEVs. A 70K Mirai can be outrun by a base model 3. Over the years, Tesla has expanded the lineup to increasingly more affordable vehicles (a 40K sedan is still relatively affordable over their 100K Tesla roadster 1.0) while Mirai prices have only increased.

If Toyota wants adoption, maybe they should

1. Setup their own filling stations instead of relying on Shell or whoever the vendors in H2 space are. (Like Tesla setup superchargers and didn’t wait for Electrify America to do it)

2. Introduce FCEVs at more price points. Tesla sales are distributed over 4 cars with about 3 trims each. Toyota has a single FCEV with 3 trims.

3. Maybe not skimp on performance for the price. If not sportscar level performance, it should at least match its price segment. 9s 0-100 is not worth $70K. When someone is shelling out that kind of money one would expect it to be on par if not better than same segment cars. (Just like how people expect 130K Tesla’s to have same refinement and QC as a 130K Mercedes or Lexus)

Unfortunately, they’re doing none of the above, for good reason.

1. Toyota is not willing to take pains to invest back into developing an ecosystem. All successful companies make an ecosystem for overall consumer experience. Apple, Tesla, Samsung, just some examples.

2. People forgot how platinum is used in fuel cell and an FCEV still needs all the components a BEV needs — motor, inverter, BMS, Battery, and above that, the fuel cell and H2 tanks. When you share all the parts in a BEV with FCEV, how can you expect the FCEV to become cheaper? FCEVs will become cheaper only when BEVs do.

3. The volumetric energy density of H2 is very poor, that’s why you need 700psi to put reasonable mass of H2 in a tank. At sea level pressure, you’d store merely grams of H2. If Toyota would’ve put the kind of performance on Model 3 LR, they’d not be able to hit the impressive “400mi” target. The

The volumetric density is another problem with Mirai — subpar trunk and rear seat space due to whopping 120 litres of fuel tanks. If weight is the enemy of battery, volume is for H2. You can still carry 300kg batteries, but you can’t stuff more tanks than you have free space in a car.

In the small cars that are actually popular in India, don’t expect more range than an EV of similar size provides, if you want useful trunk and rear seat space. At same conditions of tank, the Nexon 40L tank will only store about 2kg Hydrogen.

Nexon EV consumption rate is about 150Wh/km, same as the Model 3. So assuming same relation, 0.8kg/km consumption of Mirai means 250km range in a FCEV Nexon assuming the fuel cells are as efficient as the Toyota ones. (Of course if Nexon EV had same parts as Tesla, the range would be higher than existing Nexon with Tata parts, so I’m actually comparing Nexon EV in present state to best case scenario for a Nexon FCEV)

[SKC-auto]

Hydrogen is a farce created by the oil industry, it's as dirty as fossil fuels unless created from electrolysis with renewable energy where it wastes 75% of the energy.

Now that H2 in mobility is almost dead, CCS(carbon capture storage) is the new farce, now every oil company wants to be carbon neutral with CCS.

Originally Posted by DicKy

Not much of a waking up, Toyota has been working on battery tech for a long time. Only that they have been looking at sustainable large scale operations instead of just PR friendly BEV talks.

Is lobbying the Trump govt to go against California and fleet wide mpg standards, talking against EVs part of the looking at sustainable large scale operations? I would really like Toyota to stick with HFCV, and see what happens, why to change into something which they do not believe.

[mvadg]

While I've been corrected by more knowledgeable members on the positives of BEV over FCEV, I would like to inject some thoughts for discussion about some issues that are likely to come up in India (and maybe other such countries).

Given the kind of infrastructure we have for electricity supply, we are likely to see such scenarios play out all across the country:
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/motor...5th-floor.html

The e-bike owner tried to install a charging point in the common parking bay of his apartment in Bengaluru. The apartment community with the stamp of approval from the Residents Welfare Association (wonder where the word "welfare" has landed) did not allow such an installation. Aggrieved, the resident used the elevator to take the e-bike to his fifth floor residence to plug it in for a recharge in the kitchen, as will be seen in the image on this link below.

The full news:-

https://m.timesofindia.com/city/beng...w/86027734.cms

The above scenario does not even involve the local electricity supply board which is usually a state government unit. How would they respond to a request for adding about 1000 points for charging (meter and supply), would the grid be able to handle it? Do they have the capacity?

This is where FCV would shine, your thoughts?

[mohanphadnis]

Originally Posted by mvadg

Given the kind of infrastructure we have for electricity supply, we are likely to see such scenarios play out all across the country:
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/motor...5th-floor.html


The above scenario does not even involve the local electricity supply board which is usually a state government unit. How would they respond to a request for adding about 1000 points for charging (meter and supply), would the grid be able to handle it? Do they have the capacity?

This is where FCV would shine, your thoughts?

Honesty that article is about a RWA not really being empathetic towards it's own members.

But, that is normal for most places, where RWAs will deny even basic requests, for fear that if they accept a minor request, tomorrow someone will come up with an outrageous request citing this as precedent. Anyway, most RWAs I know allow the residents to pull the wire from their meter to their parking slot.

Now back to Hydrogen.... 98% of all the Hydrogen today is produced from steam reforming. So what do you do with all the CO2, that is released? CCS costs way too much energy. Next the Hydrogen needs to be generated, stored, transported and distributed. As people have already said above, current distribution systems wont work with the high pressure a which Hydrogen needs to be piped/stored.
So you need to create a completely new distribution and transportation system (forget the generation and bulk storage). This costs money, in this money, you can happily upgrade the grid and add enough storage.

If you are actually getting Hydrogen through electrolysis, then you need to do it economically, right now it is just not economical, may be it will be in 5 years, but it is not today. For transportation, inefficiency of a HVDC line will always be way lower than a truck transporting a tank of hydrogen.

Last. Using Hydrogen is way more difficult than direct electricity. You can use Fuel cells, but they are expensive and use materials(Platinum and Paladium) that make cobalt and Nickel look like normal everyday materials. Or you can burn Hydrogen, but the moment you burn it, the high temperatures give you another side product and that is NOx.

Hydrogen is interesting as a storage medium for bulk energy, but it is almost dead as a fuel for small transport.