# Toyota's new Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicle **URL:** \ **Category:** General Discussion\ **Created:** [July 14, 2015, 5:18pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604 "2015-07-14T17:18:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![VDCdriver](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/cartalk/user_avatar/community.cartalk.com/vdcdriver/32/30_2.png) [@VDCdriver](https://community.cartalk.com/u/VDCdriver)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 5:18pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/1 "2015-07-14T17:18:35Z")
…is apparently now available in California, with more states to follow in the future. It’s not cheap, but–then again–brand-new technology is rarely cheap. As to its styling, I think that is something that people will either love or hate. > **[2016 Toyota Mirai Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle first drive](https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a1911101/2016-toyota-mirai-fuel-cell-electric-vehicle-first-drive/)** > > The future is going to be mighty futuristic, starting right now ---
**Author:** ![the\_same\_mountainbike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@the\_same\_mountainbike](https://community.cartalk.com/u/the_same_mountainbike)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 5:24pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/2 "2015-07-14T17:24:58Z")
The stylist must have been drinking. Hydrogen is technically a great alternative… but in practical terms, it’s terrible… there’s no infrastructure! And no indication that anyone is working on creating one. ---
**Author:** ![circuitsmith](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/cartalk/user_avatar/community.cartalk.com/circuitsmith/32/40376_2.png) [@circuitsmith](https://community.cartalk.com/u/circuitsmith)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 5:28pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/3 "2015-07-14T17:28:35Z")
There’s no serious effort to provide infrastructure for producing and distributing hydrogen. ICE engines can be converted to run on hydrogen. This would be an intermediate step to the switch to hydrogen driven transportation. Demand and experience would be gained, similar to what’s happened with propane and methane powered vehicles. ---
**Author:** ![ok4450](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ok4450](https://community.cartalk.com/u/ok4450)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 5:40pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/4 "2015-07-14T17:40:02Z")
That one is kind of ugly; mostly due to the nose section. I think the Honda Clarity hydrogen fueled car James May drove on Top Gear wasn’t bad looking at all. I hate to veer off into another angle but the one thing I don’t get is why the people who subscribe to the global warming theory would be in support of hydrogen cars. Moisture in the atmosphere traps heat and if there are countless millions of hydrogen cars running around contributing their share of moisture they would all be contributing to that theory. ---
**Author:** ![texases](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/cartalk/user_avatar/community.cartalk.com/texases/32/862_2.png) [@texases](https://community.cartalk.com/u/texases)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 5:49pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/5 "2015-07-14T17:49:49Z")
I don’t understand what an effective SOURCE of hydrogen would be, one that makes economic sense in competition with electric cars. ---
**Author:** ![oldtimer-11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e79b87/32.png) [@oldtimer-11](https://community.cartalk.com/u/oldtimer-11)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 8:30pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/6 "2015-07-14T20:30:24Z")
The only certainty is that it takes more power to produce hydrogen than you can get from using it. ---
**Author:** ![BillRussell](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/cartalk/user_avatar/community.cartalk.com/billrussell/32/3179_2.png) [@BillRussell](https://community.cartalk.com/u/BillRussell)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 8:57pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/7 "2015-07-14T20:57:12Z")
Ugliest car I ever saw. ---
**Author:** ![Mustangman](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/cartalk/user_avatar/community.cartalk.com/mustangman/32/44130_2.png) [@Mustangman](https://community.cartalk.com/u/Mustangman)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 9:21pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/8 "2015-07-14T21:21:52Z")
Hydrogen is an energy transport device, like nat gas or gasoline or batteries for that matter. Energy density for hydrogen is a bit higher than batteries and less than gasoline or nat gas but it can be refueled in a 2-3 minutes like gasoline or nat gas rather than 30-90 minutes or far more for recharging batteries. It is much cleaner and safer (leaks dissipate into the atmosphere and the flame burns cooler than gas or nat gas) than gasoline or nat gas. By product is water vapor at the vehicle. Hydrogen is made from natural gas, about 70% efficient. It can, however be made from electricity and water at efficiencies of about 65-70% from wind or solar so that excesses can be stored. That is the “green” argument, water vapor not withstanding. Overall it would be more efficient to use nat gas directly in cars and trucks an eliminate the middle-man losses but that wouldn’t be “carbon neutral”. Plus we need to save our nat gas for the sun-spot mini-ice age coming up in 15 years. > **[Mini ice age could bring freezing temperatures by 2030](http://www.wired.co.uk/article/mini-ice-age-earth-sunspots)** > > A mini ice age could hit the Earth in the 2030s, the first such event to occur since the early 1700s ---
**Author:** ![MikeInNH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a587f6/32.png) [@MikeInNH](https://community.cartalk.com/u/MikeInNH)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 9:23pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/9 "2015-07-14T21:23:25Z")
> **Ugliest car I ever saw.** It looks like the Predator (movie with same name). ---
**Author:** ![MikeInNH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a587f6/32.png) [@MikeInNH](https://community.cartalk.com/u/MikeInNH)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 9:27pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/10 "2015-07-14T21:27:19Z")
> **The only certainty is that it takes more power to produce hydrogen than you can get from using it.** For Now. > **[Hydrogen production breakthrough could herald cheap green energy](https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/archiveofnews/2014/september/headline_358595_en.html)** > > Scientists have taken a major step forward in the production of hydrogen from water which could lead to a new era of cheap, clean and renewable energy. ---
**Author:** ![texases](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/cartalk/user_avatar/community.cartalk.com/texases/32/862_2.png) [@texases](https://community.cartalk.com/u/texases)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 9:41pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/11 "2015-07-14T21:41:20Z")
Still takes more energy, just can do it faster with less catalyst at lower pressures. ---
**Author:** ![MikeInNH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a587f6/32.png) [@MikeInNH](https://community.cartalk.com/u/MikeInNH)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 10:38pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/12 "2015-07-14T22:38:34Z")
No mater what energy source you use to drive your vehicle…the energy to produce will be higher then energy out. Look at the energy it takes to product gas from oil…it’s a LOT of energy…especially when you start factoring in Drilling, shipping the crude…transporting the finished product out…workers…and all their cars… ---
**Author:** ![texases](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/cartalk/user_avatar/community.cartalk.com/texases/32/862_2.png) [@texases](https://community.cartalk.com/u/texases)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 10:46pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/13 "2015-07-14T22:46:12Z")
It’s a lot, but much less than the energy content of the gasoline. As a rough estimate, compare the wholesale cost of a gallon of unrefined crude to a gallon of gasoline: $1.24/gallon vs. $1.94/gallon. That $0.70 has to cover all energy costs, transportation costs, labor, profit, taxes, etc., etc. to transform a gallon of crude to a gallon of gasoline. The energy costs have to be a fraction of that $0.70, much less than the cost of the gallon of gas. So it takes way less than a BTU of outside energy to put a BTU of gasoline energy in your gas tank. This is in contrast to hydrogen, where it takes more than a BTU of outside energy to create a BTU of hydrogen energy. edit - the number I’ve found is that it takes about 6 KW-hr of electricity to refine a gallon of oil into gasoline. Double that to cover other energy use, convert it to oil, and you have about 0.3 gallons of oil equivalent. Like I said, a fraction of the energy in a gallon of gas. ---
**Author:** ![MikeInNH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a587f6/32.png) [@MikeInNH](https://community.cartalk.com/u/MikeInNH)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2015, 11:35pm UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/14 "2015-07-14T23:35:08Z")
Too simplistic of a view…and you left out a great deal. I know that you have a vested interest if keeping oil alive and well. The true cost to refine oil is difficult to figure…especially when you take into account the oil subsidies. One thing NOT accounted in all those figures is the cleanup costs from gas pollution. I know NH spent MILLIONS cleaning up the MTBE mess. And it’s still a mess in some areas. What’s the energy cost for that? How do you calculate it? I think Hydrogen is a far better fuel source then gas is. But it’ll take us decades to get there. Hydrogen also has the potential of safely making your own hydrogen from home. ---
**Author:** ![texases](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/cartalk/user_avatar/community.cartalk.com/texases/32/862_2.png) [@texases](https://community.cartalk.com/u/texases)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 12:00am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/15 "2015-07-15T00:00:10Z")
I was actually quite generous with my estimates. And certainly there are other costs, but divide them by the HUGE consumption of gasoline and diesel, about 180 billion gallons per year, and it’s still cents per gallon. And energy subsidies (much greater for renewables, per BTU, by the way) aren’t the question here, right? ---
**Author:** ![missileman](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/cartalk/user_avatar/community.cartalk.com/missileman/32/1366_2.png) [@missileman](https://community.cartalk.com/u/missileman)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 12:15am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/16 "2015-07-15T00:15:41Z")
I’m all for the fuel cell but this car looks like it was designed to looked wrecked…right off the showroom floor. ---
**Author:** ![jtsanders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c2a13f/32.png) [@jtsanders](https://community.cartalk.com/u/jtsanders)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 3:05am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/17 "2015-07-15T03:05:52Z")
Mountainbike, this is a modern design, executed by a modern design team. They were _smoking_, not drinking! IIRC, there are a number of hydrogen powered buses in California. Folks with a hydrogen powered vehicle could refill at those stations if the state or local government that controls the stations was inclined to let them do so. ---
**Author:** ![meanjoe75fan](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/cartalk/user_avatar/community.cartalk.com/meanjoe75fan/32/552_2.png) [@meanjoe75fan](https://community.cartalk.com/u/meanjoe75fan)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 3:18am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/18 "2015-07-15T03:18:19Z")
It doesn’t look all that bad, except for that front bumper cover, which looks like “fast and furious” meets “blue light special on rice.” ---
**Author:** ![ok4450](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ok4450](https://community.cartalk.com/u/ok4450)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 4:11am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/19 "2015-07-15T04:11:17Z")
Someone needs to come up with a front bra for that car; or a sheet of corrugated tin. The Aztek used to define ugly for me but not anymore. That old Pontiac is looking better and better every year compared to Jukes and things like the Toyota Hydrogen car. ---
**Author:** ![B.L.E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/848f3c/32.png) [@B.L.E](https://community.cartalk.com/u/B.L.E)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2015, 4:46am UTC](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604/20 "2015-07-15T04:46:50Z")
> @ok4450 > > I hate to veer off into another angle but the one thing I don’t get is why the people who subscribe to the global warming theory would be in support of hydrogen cars. Moisture in the atmosphere traps heat and if there are countless millions of hydrogen cars running around contributing their share of moisture they would all be contributing to that theory. The exhaust of even countless millions of hydrogen powered cars would be trivial next to the amount of water that evaporates from the earth’s oceans every day. And, don’t forget that burning gasoline also produces water. The atmosphere can only hold so much water vapor before it precipitates as rain or snow. [Next page](https://community.cartalk.com/t/toyotas-new-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle/90604.md?page=2)