Comment by whitezombie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by whitezombie | Hacker News Reader

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This is unmitigated bullshit. A huge PR stunt.

Sharing batteries doesn’t work. That’s why Tesla dropped it even though the cars are designed to have batteries swapped in minutes. The only way for battery swaps to work is if truly nobody owns their own car. Which brings me to the next point.

Nobody wants to share their fucking car in America. Your car is your best friend in 90 percent of the country. Nobody wants dirty strangers fucking up their cars. Nobody wants the bed bugs, scabies, dandruff flakes and all the rest. Not to mention crumbs and garbage. It’s bullshit. There will never be widespread car sharing. People have been stroking themselves to this idea for a Fucking decade.

And when they started showing images of the car CATCHING INTRUDERS and opening your door for you, my bullshit alarm rang so loud it fucking exploded. We already depend on a pile of broken bullshit taped together with scotch tape. Taking the disaster that is the IOT and using it to open your door WITH YOUR CAR is a stupid and bad idea and everyone knows it except the idiots at Toyota PR.

Toyota has been making the wrong moves for decades. They INSISTED on making the murai even when it was clear that hydrogen wasn’t going to cut it. The EV revolution is here and all Toyota has is their pathetic failed hydrogen vehicle and the rav4 that they have cancelled and hamstrung multiple times. Meanwhile all the other big players have been busy getting pure EVs on the lot.

This is solar roadways levels of bullshit!

> Toyota has been making the wrong moves for decades.

Have they? Then why are they among the top three car companies in the world and why is Toyota the top selling car brand? The Toyota Corolla was the second best selling car model in the world in 2018:

https://www.jato.com/global-car-market-remains-stable-during...

I don't think these things would be true if Toyota had really been "making the wrong moves for decades".

I think a much more likely scenario is that Toyota knows more about the car business than you do.

Yes, Toyota is one of the best performing car companies in the world. I don't know what the parent comment is referring to either.

By the way, my only criticism against Toyota would be that their cars don't always seem to keep up with the style and aesthetics trends. However, their newer Yaris for example reminds me of a samurai helmet, which to me looks good. On that front I think there is room for improvement to challenge how we think a toyota should "look".

Apart from that, I think they are performing very well.

EDIT: The same holds for when they release EVs. The Prius is an unattractive car, but it did sell well despite (or because of) that.

My only criticisms of Toyotas/Lexii (thanks Alan Partridge) are that they're 5 years late on Carplay, and have stuck with the efficient but unpleasant geartrains for too long on their hybrids.

Toyota Hybrid Electric cars are also quite successful.

They have been making the wrong move in green tech is what I meant. Toyota makes good ice cars. I own a Toyota Corolla. I love the Toyota Corolla.

I agree with most of your points. But on this one:

> Toyota has been making the wrong moves for decades. They INSISTED on making the murai even when it was clear that hydrogen wasn’t going to cut it. The EV revolution is here (...)

You are forgetting that for Toyota, they need to deliver a solution that works for their domestic market. For Japan, cutting emissions while shutting down their nuclear power while increasing electricity demand due to EVs is a complete non-starter. They can't produce enough through renewables, and they most certainly won't build up a system that depends on import of electricity from China or Russia. So large scale hydrogen import from Australia, Europe or the US is the only geopolitically feasible option. In that context, it's hydrogen vehicles or nothing.

I honestly don't think this is true. For one, Japan is not shutting down its power plants. It is restarting them (or at least the one 6 km from where I live claims to be -- although they've been shut down for something like 10 years because they can't get their act together). Everything I hear from inside the country says that nuclear power plants are slowly going to be coming back online.

Secondly, while Japan can't currently produce enough through renewables, you would be surprised at the pace at which renewables are increasing. I pay something close to 30 cents per KWh right now. At that price household solar is basically a no-brainer. I haven't seen a single new house in my area built without solar panels for at least 3 years now. You can buy solar panels in any normal hardware store now (and it's the absolute first thing when you go through the doors). Sun and wind are abundant in Japan (especially the latter, given the amount of coastline we have).

Hydrogen vehicles are going absolutely nowhere in Japan. It ain't going to happen. EV charging points are absolutely everywhere. I live in the countryside in an apartment (my town has a single main street to give you an idea of the size). We don't have charging access at the apartment, so I charge my Leaf at charging points exclusively. We've gone on road trips up into the mountains. There are charging points everywhere. There is literally nowhere that I can't go as far as I can tell. Japan is gearing up for EV.

Can someone explain to me how hydrogen import would work if hydrogen literally leaks through any container it's in? A lead bottle with hydrogen will evaporate naturally within month or two - how is any substantial amount going to survive few weeks at the sea?

The Mirai uses carbon fiber tanks for this reason.

Some good info here on the transportation problem: https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/features/japan-taking-a-...

Actually having now read a link elsewhere in this discussion (https://www.thedrive.com/tech/26050/exclusive-toyota-hydroge...)...

It seems that _liquid_ hydrogen escapes from small containers fairly quickly (weeks) and requires temperatures close to 0K, so cars use pressurized hydrogen _gas_ (700 bar for the Mirai) which doesn't escape.

_Mass_ storage of liquid hydrogen is no problem (months).

Car ownership is on the decline. Ride sharing usage is also up.

Is it that hard to imagine a future with vastly lower car ownership?

> Sharing batteries doesn’t work. That’s why Tesla dropped it even though the cars are designed to have batteries swapped in minutes. The only way for battery swaps to work is if truly nobody owns their own car. Which brings me to the next point.

There's a narrative presented, including by Tesla in some of their statements, that the pilot showed there was low interest in battery swaps. But the battery swap pilot was the complete opposite of what was presented in the announcement and what would have been a compelling offering. The original announcement was that it would be faster than supercharging and more convenient. The pilot program required you to schedule an appointment days in advance. So, the choice became convenient, free supercharging with a "fill up" right when I need it, or paying money to get a "fill up" that I schedule days in advance. Of course supercharging won that experiment...

I am actually glad a small portion of the car industry is working an alternative to Battery power. Hydrogen makes sense is some very limited areas right now (long range scenarios), but inefficiency of it makes it very dumb system right now. I could see it making more sense if in the future we would really implement a lot of cheaper electricity power plants (fusion power).

> I could see it making more sense if in the future we would really implement a lot of cheaper electricity power plants (fusion power).

Even in that case, wouldn't the higher-efficiency EV still be cheaper?

As a general rule, if the feasibility of any demand-side cleantech depends on power "too cheap to meter" (or something close to it), you're going to have a bad time.

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