Arctic Leaf

The hydrogen car finally takes shape

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In his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 2003, President George W. Bush proposed $1.2 billion in research funding so that America “can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles.”

“With a new national commitment,” the president added, “our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom, so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free.”

That child, now an adolescent, still has another 4 and a half years before obtaining a driver’s license, so that dream of his or her first car being hydrogen-powered is well within reach. After almost a decade of talk and promises, the first hydrogen cars are now making it from the drawing boards into showrooms.

Hyundai was first out of the box last spring with the introduction of the hydrogen fuel-cell Tucson. The company now claims to have 71 cars on the road, all of them in California. But it will be soon joined by Toyota, which is treating the introduction of its Mirai (the word means “future” in Japanese) like the arrival of a new baby. Only 3,000 are to be sold during the first year, only in California, and potential buyers are being screened like 3-year-olds applying to an exclusive preschool. “To buy Toyota’s new hydrogen car you’ll need to pass an interview,” read one headline. Deliveries will start in October.

“We’re looking for the bold and the few,” Toyota says on its marketing video, making ownership sound like joining the Marines. Potential buyers are being vetted very seriously to make sure they are prepared for the challenges and not just seeking novelty. And there will be challenges: The car will only be sold at eight dealerships in California. The $57,000 car has a driving range of 320 miles, putting it right next to gasoline engines and well ahead of the 200-mile range of electric vehicles. Its 67 miles-per-gallon puts it in a class by itself. Refueling takes no longer than an ordinary gasoline car. BMW, Honda and Mercedes will also have entries in the next few years.

But refueling stations will be few and far between. There are only eight in the state right now, with 48 more in development, according to this locator operated by the California Fuel Cell Partnership. Toyota has pledged to build more, including a bunch in Connecticut, but that is still far in the future. “Marketing this car is the reverse of selling,” says Mike Sullivan of Toyota Santa Monica, one of the exclusive outlets. “We’re going to turn people down if this car isn’t for you.”

Hydrogen cars run on fuel cells, which are entirely different from the combustion process. The hydrogen is fed into a “polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM),” which separates the molecule’s electron from its proton. The proton passes through the membrane, but the electron is routed around it in a way that creates an electric current. The electron is then reunited with the proton on the opposite side, where it joins oxygen from the air to produce the fuel cell’s only “exhaust” — water vapor. No carbon dioxide is emitted during the process.

The process is ideal for replacing traditional auto exhausts from the combustion process. The only trick is producing the hydrogen, which does not exist freely in nature. Most hydrogen is now being derived from natural gas (methane), although that process produces carbon dioxide. (Toyota shows that livestock manure is one source of the hydrogen that can power the Mirai.) Various experiments have been tried in producing hydrogen from food wastes and other organic materials, but the carbon dioxide remains. The other method is splitting the water molecule through electrolysis, but this is very energy-intensive and expensive. (Fuel cells are often described as reversing electrolysis.)

Although fuel cells have been slow in coming in the automotive sector, they have been making rapid progress in other uses. A good portion of the nation’s forklifts now run on hydrogen, since it is relatively easy to keep a refueling station on-site. A company called Plug Power in upstate New York has had success in selling fuel cells as backup power in businesses and residences. And Bloom Energy, a California company, has made a business of selling fuel cell systems — the “Bloom Box” — to power data centers.

Setting up a network of fueling stations around California and the rest of the country may prove to be more of a challenge, however. A story in Green Car Reports last month said complaints are mounting among hydrogen car owners that even the few refueling stations around California are not working properly. “The stations are frequently inoperative, drivers say, closed for days or weeks at a time,” wrote reporter John Voelcker. “Moreover, even when the stations are functioning properly, there is often an hour-long wait after the first one or two cars – and some stations can only fuel cars to half-full.”

An entire Facebook group of disappointed owners has emerged, and the caustic comments are abundant. “The expectations that were being portrayed — 15 stations being up by the end of 2014 — fell woefully short,” wrote one Hyundai Tucson owner. “There are eight so-called active consumer stations, with three currently working. I would say my wife and I are HUGELY disappointed as we firmly believe in this technology. … But if someone does not plant a huge boot in the behind of the people who are in control of delivering the fueling infrastructure, this will be an epic fail.”

This will be the problem that Toyota and the others will be facing as they prepare to enter the hydrogen race.

More William Tucker posts about alternative vehicles:

 

Landon Hall

Rauch smacks down ‘corrosive’ argument about ethanol

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One of the most often-repeated attacks on ethanol we hear is that “It hurts my engine.” We hear it from people who buy into the oil companies’ misinformation; from people who are (reasonably) concerned about using a new fuel type after 100 years of using the same gasoline tank after tank; and even from car people who insist that it’s the small portion of ethanol — not the dirtier gasoline — that is responsible for engine deposits and wear on fuel systems.

Here’s the truth: Some older vehicles should not use any ethanol blend above E10, which is up to 10 percent ethanol and what virtually all of us use as regular gasoline. Higher ethanol blends also aren’t approved for motorcycles, boats and yard equipment. But E15 is approved for all vehicles model year 2001 and newer, and there are more than 17 million cars, trucks and SUVs on the road in the U.S. that are flex-fuel vehicles — built to run on E85, which is between 51 percent and 83 percent ethanol.

What happens if a non-FFV uses E85? As many of our supporters on social media have noted, nothing. No engine damage, no corrosion of parts, no locusts descending, nothing bad at all. All that happens is that they pay less at the pump, and go to sleep at night knowing that they’ve made the world a tiny bit better place, because they’ve used an American-made fuel that emits fewer toxic pollutants than gasoline.

In a post last week on Green Car Reports, writer John Voelcker mentioned research promoted by the Urban Air Initiative showing that ethanol-free gasoline (E0) is more corrosive than E10. But Voelcker then takes a swipe at higher ethanol blends:

Ethanol in its purer forms, specifically E85, is long accepted as more corrosive to rubber and other engine components than gasoline.

That’s why carmakers have to develop “Flex-Fuel” engines specifically designed to withstand the effects of fuel that contains a majority of ethanol.

I e-mailed Voelcker’s post to Marc Rauch, executive vice president and co-editor of The Auto Channel (and one of the breakout stars of our 2014 documentary PUMP), and he called me right away. Weary over the persistent “corrosive” debate point, Rauch asked whether ethanol — which is also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol or “moonshine” — ate away at the plastic bottles that hold such booze at the liquor store. The answer is no.

“What people don’t get is, everything is corrosive,” he said. “You have to find a material that is not as susceptible to corrosion.”

Rauch then went to the comments section of the Green Car Reports post to elaborate:

Ethanol opponents trump up mythical ethanol mandate predictions and horrific false stories of ethanol-caused damage to frighten consumers. The boating community is a prime example. If boat owners want to hear some truthful comments about ethanol blends they should watch the Vernon Barfield ethanol boating videos on YouTube and listen to the Mercury Marine “Myths of Ethanol and Fuel Care” webinar from August 2011.

… In fact, water is corrosive; wind is corrosive; air is corrosive; gasoline is corrosive; solar rays are corrosive; moving parts are corrosive; human interaction with seating and flooring materials is corrosive.

The reality is that auto manufacturers have had to develop “specially designed” containers to hold water for automatic window washing. That’s right, if they used most metals to hold the water it would rust and/or corrode. Manufacturers had to develop “specially designed” coatings or parts to prevent chassis and fenders and bumpers from water corrosion. Manufacturers had to develop “specially designed” body paint and rubber to prevent solar corrosion. And, over the years auto manufacturers had to develop “specially designed” engine parts, rubber, and body paint that was resistant to the corrosive characteristics of gasoline and diesel.

In other words, if auto manufacturers had to make some alterations to accommodate ethanol, so what? It’s not even worth a serious discussion, and it certainly doesn’t befit a person like you who is supposed to know something about automobiles and industrial engineering.

There’s more good stuff there. Take a look.

If you’d like to see Rauch bat away that and other myths about ethanol one by one, or ask him a question yourself, he’s going to be taking part in a special Twitter conversation with @fuelfreedomnow on Wednesday at 12 noon. Follow the hashtag #FuelChat.

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Arctic Leaf

U.S. is trailing the rest of the world on EVs

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As oil prices have tumbled, one thing has become clear: Electric vehicles are making much greater headway in the rest of the world than they are in the United States.

U.S. sales have remained flat over the past year after increasing steadily over the last decade. But sales have actually accelerated in some European countries, and several now have a larger percentage of their fleet in EVs than America does.

The website InsideEVs estimated that 160,670 EVs were sold around the world through the month of May, 34 percent ahead of last year during the same period. But U.S. global market share is declining: Domestic sales totaled 43,973 through May, a fraction ahead of last year’s pace. But when the June numbers came out, the U.S. had sold only 10,365, off 16.2 percent from the same month in 2014.

Norway is emerging as the world leader in making the transition from gasoline to electric vehicles. An incredible 33 percent of new-car registrations in the first quarter of 2015 were for EVs. Volkswagen’s e-Golf, the electric model, now sells 71 percent of its cars worldwide in Norway, giving it 40 percent of the Norwegian market. Tesla is not far behind with 16 percent of the market. Oddly, the Toyota Prius, the pioneer in the hybrid field, is seeing almost no sales now. People are beginning to opt for all-electric rather than the halfway point of gas-electric hybrids.

The Norwegian government has given EVs a raft of advantages over traditional gasoline-powered engines. Here’s a brief list:

• EVs get access to bus lanes
• The government has provided free charging stations
• EVs get free access to all toll roads
• EVs get free rides on ferries
• EVs get free parking in municipal parking spaces
• EVs carry a low annual road fee
• EV buyers pay no tax on purchase

Some of these advantages will eventually have to be cut back as the number of EVs on the road grows. But for now the incentives are huge and are not costing the government a great deal of money.

Other European countries have also been successful in promoting the purchase of electric vehicles. EVs now make up 5.7 percent of new car registrations in the Netherlands and 1.2 percent in the United Kingdom. The U.S. counts only 0.8 percent of new registrants as EVs, a figure that is matched by France. Germany and Japan counted only 0.6 percent of new registrations during the first quarter.

The reason EVs are doing so well in Europe is easy to identify: Europe imports nearly all its oil, and gasoline prices are much higher, mainly because of the imposition of heavy taxes. Gasoline sells for $8 a gallon in much of Europe, while prices are generally below $3 per gallon in this country. But air pollution is also playing a role. Pollution in some European cities has gotten as bad as it is in China and other parts of Asia. Paris shut down all auto traffic for three days last year when air pollution reached the same levels of Beijing and Shanghai. Sales of the Nissan Leaf – now the best-selling electric vehicle in the world – skyrocketed during this period. It’s expected that if emergencies like the one in Paris become commonplace, electric vehicles will be exempted from the ban.

Meanwhile, it appears that electric vehicles are finally taking off in China, which is now the world’s largest auto market. Back in the early 2000s, the Chinese government promised it would have 500,000 EVs on the road by 2011. Officials publicly announced they would be challenging the American industry by then. But as late as 2014, China was selling only 600 EVs a month, at the same time the U.S. was selling 6,000.
All that has reversed over the past year. In December, China sold 27,000 electric vehicles, almost 30 times the number as the previous January, and surpassed the U.S. in monthly sales for the first time. In 2015 China will probably become the world’s largest buyer of EVs.

All this has happened while Tesla was failing in its attempt to break into the Chinese market. The reason is plain: Tesla is marketing a luxury vehicle, something that few Chinese can afford. Meanwhile, the Chinese manufacturers, BYD, Kandi, Chery Zotye and BAIC, are selling no-frills vehicles that can only reach about 35 miles per hour. But such utilitarian vehicles are perfect for Chinese families to buzz around their cities for shopping and short commutes. There is even speculation that the Chinese manufacturers may start marketing their vehicles in the United States, where they would compete with entries such as the Chevy Volt and the Ford Focus. There is even talk that such vehicles may be able to feed off the rise of Uber for short-term ride-sharing in an urban setting.

Tesla’s moment of truth will come with the expected 2017 release of its Model 3, the $35,000 version of its EV, aimed at the average car-buyer. Then we will see if Tesla can really meet its deadlines, and if it can sell its highly stylized car on the mid-market. If it can, Tesla will probably have oodles of customers in both Europe and America, giving it a shot at the 500,000 sales Elon Musk has declared as his 2020 goal.