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Toyota announced that it plans to start selling fuel cell vehicles in 2015
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13th January. Toyota announced that it plans to start selling fuel cell vehicles in 2015. They also announced they will release a plug-in hybrid later this year and an all-electric two seater in 2012. Speaking at the North American International Auto Show Masatami Takimoto, Toyota’s executive vice president of research and development, said “Toyota believes that in the long run we’ll have small electric cars for short-distance driving, plug-in hybrids that run on biofuels for regular use, and on a bigger scale hydrogen fuel-cell cars will survive in the end game.”
Thanks to Jon Moore for providing this piece.
Wallis’ excellent paper attempts to show why cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells are not the immediate future of private motoring, and why batteries have an important and immediate part to play.
Note: (‘Nazi sharks etc.’ refers to a no doubt bad taste joke, made by James May during the recent BBC TV Top Gear show, the popular lads programme about cars: Jeremy Clarkson, of Top Gear has recently reviewed the Tesla electric / battery powered car in The Times On-Line)
The paper briefly examines the existing and possible future energy sources for vehicles, and tries to disentangle some of the commonly used definitions for proposed vehicles, and then examines the sustainable alternatives – and compatibilities – for road transport.
There are some very good examples of what current vehicles can do, and some calculations of the likely contribution need from nuclear or wind energy.
The paper concludes that electric mode vehicle use can shift transport in the UK away from oil towards sustainable low carbon solutions. It can be done quickly and inexpensively, with the technology we have right now and over a timescale of ten to twenty years. Moreover it does so by switching demand to a power source which does not sacrifice the comfort and real-world performance that we have come to expect from fossil fuel cars.
In the United States things look even better. Their proportional savings remain about the same as UK but they save upwards of 120 million tonnes of oil per year.
Looking up to and beyond the next couple of decades Wallis concludes that hydrogen is going to be a big part of the automotive future, one way or another – just not the immediate future, and none of us can afford to wait till then.
The Future Role of Hydrogen – Text of presentation that was scheduled to be given at the October Claverton Conference by David McGrath – M.D. of Regentech.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
I shall share my perspectives. This is how I see things based on the evidence I have available. If you like it is my working hypothesis. A different evidence base, as we saw in the 80’s and 90’s gives differing interpretations.
The 3 central platforms of our modern world are Energy, Environment, and Economy.
Our economy today has evolved as a direct consequence of unlimited availability of cheap fossil hydrocarbon energy. Its continuation is conditional upon continued unlimited availability of cheap energy.
