Toyota sticking with hydrogen

[Flatcoat]

Good to hear! I suspect it will take a while to get momentum however I still think hydrogen is the better option than EV’s to meet the western worlds bandwidth of car use. 
 

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/technology/toyota-plans-rebuild-story-hydrogen-vehicles

[Mushu84]

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!!!! (Futurama quote)

I can't wait for them to push the Hydrogen cars on the market, since I was the video on Top Gear I loved the idea and also seems more viable then batteries at the moment, where chargers are not working and the wait time is too much, or you do not have the space to install a charger at home.

 

[Cyker]

You won't say that when you see how much it would cost to refuel them - It makes petrol look as cheap as tap water!  

 

 

[flash22]

Hydrogen has the same issues as EV - infrastructure and Fuel cell life, the Mirai is only certified for 60 months or 60k miles and at £65K+ it's not cheap

1kg equivalent to a gallon is £10-15 with only 6-10 filling stations in the UK @ 70-80 mpg thats a big NO

[Cyker]

I consider it much worse - At least with an EV you can charge at home or at any friendly person's house at a pinch; The Mirai and Clarity are literally the worst of both worlds - The Terrible range of an EV with the refuelling hassle of an ICE vehicle. They need to make them *much* better.

If they'd given the Mirai 1000miles of range, or even 500-600, it would have done a lot better, but they made the same mistake they made with the Mk2 Prius and didn't aim high enough to give it a stand-out advantage in some area.

This is one of the things I give props to Tesla for - They were one of the only companies to realize that making an EV as good as a normal car is not enough - It has to be *much* better in at least some areas in order for people to overlook its bigger deficiencies. The stupid software gimmicks and spleen-busting acceleration is something no ICE car can hope to match and that gives them a powerful USP, even in the face of the awful range and charging hassle. And they are still the only manufacturer to really take the charging side of the coin seriously, realizing it's a integral part of EV ownership, instead of expecting someone else to deal with it and ending up with all sorts of stupid compatibility and maintenance problems.

It's one area where Toyota's conservative tried-and-tested nature works against them - Can you imagine if Toyota had put in a motorway-capable electric motor and the reduction gear the new ones have, to get around the MG1 speed limitation, in the original Prius Mk2, which was absolutely within their ability back then?? It would have *destroyed* every other car on the market - Strong acceleration and ludicrous mpg? They wouldn't be able to make them quickly enough!   But instead they went the more conservative route and brought out a rather limp uninspiring vehicle that really didn't show any USPs apart from low emissions, which nobody cares about, and ended up poisoning the term Hybrid for decades...!

I love my Mk4 but this is really how hybrids should have been from the beginning!

[Paul john]

11 hours ago, Cyker said:

I consider it much worse - At least with an EV you can charge at home or at any friendly person's house at a pinch; The Mirai and Clarity are literally the worst of both worlds - The Terrible range of an EV with the refuelling hassle of an ICE vehicle. They need to make them *much* better.

If they'd given the Mirai 1000miles of range, or even 500-600, it would have done a lot better, but they made the same mistake they made with the Mk2 Prius and didn't aim high enough to give it a stand-out advantage in some area.

This is one of the things I give props to Tesla for - They were one of the only companies to realize that making an EV as good as a normal car is not enough - It has to be *much* better in at least some areas in order for people to overlook its bigger deficiencies. The stupid software gimmicks and spleen-busting acceleration is something no ICE car can hope to match and that gives them a powerful USP, even in the face of the awful range and charging hassle. And they are still the only manufacturer to really take the charging side of the coin seriously, realizing it's a integral part of EV ownership, instead of expecting someone else to deal with it and ending up with all sorts of stupid compatibility and maintenance problems.

It's one area where Toyota's conservative tried-and-tested nature works against them - Can you imagine if Toyota had put in a motorway-capable electric motor and the reduction gear the new ones have, to get around the MG1 speed limitation, in the original Prius Mk2, which was absolutely within their ability back then?? It would have *destroyed* every other car on the market - Strong acceleration and ludicrous mpg? They wouldn't be able to make them quickly enough!   But instead they went the more conservative route and brought out a rather limp uninspiring vehicle that really didn't show any USPs apart from low emissions, which nobody cares about, and ended up poisoning the term Hybrid for decades...!

I love my Mk4 but this is really how hybrids should have been from the beginning!

Agreed with your comments about Hydrogen / Mirai but not your comments on the mk2.

20 years ago the mk2 was extremely popular, so much so a lot of people resisted the upgrade to the mk3 and i still see some on the road in london today. As with all car development it improves over time. The main difference between the mk2 and mk4 in my opinion is the “twichyness” it had on slippery surfaces like metal covers in heavy rain or snow. The mg1/2 was tweaked on the 2007 facelift which gave a little more power and 5 more mpg in my experience. 

All car manufacturers change the shape and capabilities of their marks over time you only need to look into the differences between the Ford Cortina mk2 and mk4 to appreciate that… the mk2 would have been an even better car if it it had ABS which was introduced to a limited number of other cars the year after the mk2 was discontinued ...

hindsight is a beautiful thing. 

[Cyker]

When you say the Mk2, do you mean the 2nd gen Prius, i.e. the original one sold here, or the Mk3 Prius, which was the 2nd model of Prius sold here?

Because the original one, the actual Mk2 Prius (The Mk1 I'm not even sure was sold here to the general public it's so rare!) with the 1.5L engine, while it was very popular, was really not a very good car IMHO - It was a great statement for environmental consciousness, which was why a lot of virtue-signalling-types bought it, but it had worse mpg than most diesels of the time, and had a 0-60 that would give a Mk1 1L Yaris a run for its money   Aside from the fact it was a hybrid it really didn't do anything other cars could do already, aside from the fantastically smooth HSD.

The Mk3 was a massive improvement and made it a more useful car outside urban use, but Toyota were still trying to set it up for economy. I reckon if they had put in the more powerful MG2 and especially the ICE-MG1 reduction gear, it would have been a far better car to drive and a lot more popular.

I don't think a lot of people realize that the biggest improvement in the current HSD drivetrains, that lets them run at motorway speeds on MG2 at much higher speeds, is just the little innocuous reduction gear for MG1 to remove the ~40mph limit! That simple little gear is the biggest improvement that has allowed the new ones to rival diesels for mpg at motorway speeds, whereas before diesels were still supreme at 60+.

(The other big improvement is the wideband cam phasing to allow Atkinson/Miller AND Otto-cycle mode switching on demand, but to be fair that would have been trickier to engineer reliably back then!)