Transportation | July 04, 2012 |
Fuel Cell Vehicles: Not Dead Yet
by Lisa Jerram
In spite of many efforts to declare fuel cell cars dead, top automakers are moving ahead with plans to produce commercial fuel cell vehicles (FCVs). That was one of the key messages from the World Hydrogen Energy Conference, held last month in Toronto.
Granted, it’s not surprising that a group of people willing to spend time and money to get together and talk about hydrogen are, in fact, bullish on hydrogen. But from the automakers’ media panel, where representatives from Daimler, Toyota and Honda sat for a long Q&A with the press, and from the hydrogen plenary and a panel on hydrogen market demand that I participated in, it’s clear that companies are still committed to this effort even though there are real hurdles in the way.
The automakers once again stated their commitment to releasing commercial FCVs roughly in the 2015 timeframe. Some are more specific than others. Honda’s Steve Ellis said the Japanese maker has not announced a hard date, but the company is working on a full model change from its current offering, the FCX Clarity. Daimler reiterated that it will have a next generation FCV on the road in the 2014/2015 timeframe, and Toyota gave 2015 as its target.
Even though they have been talking up this timeframe for a couple of years, to be honest, I was half expecting the manufacturers to start walking back their dates, since enthusiasm for FCVs in some parts of the world has waned. But they did not. What has been pushed back is the timeframe for large-scale uptake, which OEMs are now saying likely won’t happen until close to 2020.
Daimler’s Christian Mohrdieck said his company plans to get the price of the fuel cell drivetrains down to around that of a diesel hybrid, through volume production and some materials cost reduction. Here I think he is talking about platinum, and it would behoove the platinum industry to think about making that happen. I don’t think Mohrdieck was including the cost of hydrogen tanks in this estimate, in which case you have to bump up the FCV price further. Hitting a competitive price point is still a concern for OEMs, from what I see.
It’s clear that hydrogen infrastructure is still a thorny issue. The three OEM representatives at the conference were unanimous that they should not have to foot the bill for infrastructure buildout. Even though Daimler has partnered with Linde to build 20 stations in Germany, Mohrdieck referred to this a “triggering” signal of the company’s intent to produce cars that can use hydrogen fuel. Toyota also noted that it’s partnering with energy and gas companies in Japan to build stations, which will be placed in the same regions where Priuses are popular.
From my conversations with hydrogen companies, it is clear that they’re enthusiastic about the potential market from fuel cells. While they’ve been involved in building infrastructure, especially in terms of materials handling but also with early passenger cars and buses, the fact remains that distributed vehicle fuelling is not their traditional business. Eventually retail gas station operators must step in if the FCV market is to become viable. This is happening in Germany, where Total Germany is part of a new initiative to build 50 stations by 2015.
No one doubts the major obstacles ahead. But the OEMs are spending a lot, in terms of money and reputation, to forge ahead with fuel cell cars.
Lisa Jerram is an analyst at Pike Research with a focus on fuel cells and emerging transportation technologies.
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Comments By Readers
I'm looking to buy a car here and was doing the recesrah. The Cost to Own of Hybrids was consistently more than similar (or same) model non-Hybrids. The only advantages Hybrids have is with the fuel costs over the life of the car, and the Hybrid tax credit. But, they're at a disadvantage with almost everything else. And, they're killed by the depreciation, due it seems to the high invoice price. (O.K. I think I just unintentionally made a really good argument for buying Hybrids Used.)But, just to compare the two cars I'm liking, the Honda Civic super-basic trim has a CtO of $24,200 and the Honda Civic Hybrid $26,900. And, the Civic Hybrid is actually way more affordable and closer to the CtO of its non-Hybrid sister model than the other Hybrids I've been looking at.Here's what I'm thinking. The projected Cost to Own is based on a few guesses, like how much mileage you're likely to have, and the price of gas pretty much staying where it is.Now I don't want to read doomsday predictions about how we're going to go all Mad Max. I don't. But, it's natural to suppose the trend of gas prices going up is going to continue.I mean the reason it happened in the first place is because people in developing countries have been buying cars, so the demand for gas has gone up. These countries aren't done developing. Or, to put it another way, there's alot of people in the world who haven't bought a car yet.Back to the Civic I figure with the differences in CtOs not including the cost of gas ($4,300), the cost of gas would pretty much have to double ($4,300/($8,600-$6,200)=~1.8). And, that's pretty much just for the Honda Civic. I'm having a real hard time imagining a horrible nightmare scenario where the Ford Fusion Hybrid New would be a better buy than the Ford Fusion New.I guess I've pretty much already answered my own question. But, I have another scenario for all of you. If someone starts mass producing Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars for mass sales, what's that going to do to the price of gas? I'd expect it to go down partly because the demand for gas would be stemmed somewhat, but mostly just because the gas companies would want to incentivise their consumers keeping combustion cars.I guess the big question there is, how likely is that to happen in the next 5 years? Or however long? Isn't it odd how these alternative cars have the potential to sabotage each other?And, how competitive is hydrogen with gas as a fuel? Obviously, there's the old issue that hydrogen would have to build their distribution from the ground up. But, once that's done, how much would a mile fueled by gas cost vs. a mile fueled by hydrogen?Gas comes out of the ground with it's energy already in it. Petroleum pumps try to be (and are) highly energy efficient. But, pumping a liquid out of minerals Well, isn't that like squeezing blood from a stone?Hydrogen you have to use up energy to electrolyze it or refine it from fossil fuels. I'm not bothered so much by the greenhouse implications. From an engineering standpoint it's an energy storage device. What's the cost? Electricity is cheap. Right?Then there's the comparative fuel economies of fuel cell and combustion cars. Hydrogen is more energy intensive than gas. A full tank is lighter. The lightening of the cars load would give it a slight advantage in fuel economy. Wouldn't it? (Get the image of hydrogen making balloon floaty cars out of your head please. It so doesn't work that way.) Also, since the internal drag is on a much shorter drive train, wouldn't that give Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars a tremendous advantage in fuel economy?So an swers, are you saying that if I asked these other questions separately you WOULD answer them? Besides I'm dubious of that on it's own, it kind of sounds like Y!A points farming to me, at a cost to me!Beyond that it's occurred to me you don't have to double the price of gas. For vocations that involve alot of driving you could easily more than double the mileage and the fuel consumption. Like I imagine Taxi companies, if they're not using Hybrids are pretty much losing money.From the National Hydrogen Association: The estimated costs for producing and delivering hydrogen to thefueling station using today’s technologies vary from $2.10/gallon of gasoline equivalent (gge) to $9.10/gge. These hydrogen costs do not include highway taxes and do include the increased fuel efficiency of fuel cell vehicles compared to gasoline-powered hybrid electric vehicles. So best case scenario hydrogen is just competitive with gas.An swers, sorry you did write that mileage can make a Hybrid worthwhile first. But, I still don't like the other thing you wrote, if only because that means flooding the latest question pages with spam questions. There's enough inane crap on here as it is.On the other side of things, saying hydrogen as a fuel isn't going to happen in a big way tomorrow is not the same as saying it's never going to happen. The price of gas will go up, not least of all because people consider it to be an essential consumable. People don't just use less simply because demand outstrips supply, so the price has to go way up to be prohibitive. Next we'd need to see a big drop in the price of electricity. Maybe when they mine the moon for tritium for fusion power, though the new fusion powerplants and the power infrastructure will still cost money on top of the price tag of a commercial lunar space program. I think the big energy conglomerates like GE can afford to do it easy. But I've never been a big fan of electric cars. I don't think the oil companies are trying to keep them buried because they threaten their monopoly. I just don't think they've ever really been any good. Granted tremendous advances in battery technology have given them a huge step forward. But, even with that and regenerative braking (an old technology which has gained new interest) electric cars' ranges just aren't very good. I know that sound like a strawman attack, like the old one that electric cars can't make it up hills. But, it's true. At the least, going on a roadtrip in an electric car is out of the question. It doesn't help there the batteries are pretty dang heavy. But again the weight is less important than internal drag on the drive train, as well as regenerative braking. (Batteries are also expensive, but not more so than engine blocks and full drive trains, and definitely not more than hydrogen tanks and fuel cells.)
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