No, the problem is domestically, the Japanese government wants Toyota to do fuel cells, not batteries. It's causing no doubt development problems for them to work on both.
EDIT: thanks, the possibility that they could create a local industry of manufacturing fuel cells instead of relying on foreign-manufactured batteries makes a lot of sense to me.
While BEVs are the clear technological winner based on “source to wheels” efficiency - you could make the case that, if looking at Hydrogen vehicles in isolation, that Japan would be one of the best places for it / the most likely place where it could have success. From high density metropolises (less expense for fueling stations than would be required elsewhere), a strong political interest to not use oil anymore (as Japan as to import almost all of their primary energy), to a desire to build out with less dependence on China based minerals and supply chains - building out a domestic supply chain of fuel cells and hydrolyzers is arguably easier than for BEVs (even though, some of the most experienced and respected li-ion cell developers are Japanese).
The Japanese car market is also significantly more utilitarian than in other parts of the world (meaning performance matters less).
Yes, the Japanese government would be wise to shift course. But from a Japanese national security perspective/energy independence perspective, as well as hypothetical roll out - if there is any place it could work, it would be Japan.
I also can't believe that the production and distribution network for hydrogen could be anywhere near as efficient as direct distribution of electrons. This whole idea seems like a nation-scale Rube Goldberg machine.
2021 Toyota Mirai:
0-60 in 9.2 seconds
$49,500
43 publicly available hydrogen stations in the US
2020 Bolt EV:
0-60 in 6.3 seconds
$33,000
41,400 EV charging stations in the US (and charging at home is easy)
If you're going to claim that an FCEV is more reliable in spite of the extreme differences in mechanical complexity, I'm all ears and would love to see some cites for that.
BEVs are getting cheaper faster than FCVs, FCVs don't have a prayer of ever competing with BEVs on performance, and there are ~1000x public EV charging stations compared to hydrogen stations.
Hydrogen buses are already cheaper to operate than battery buses and are more reliable: https://cafcp.org/sites/default/files/07-24-2020-Foothill-ZE...
Real world testing has already proven you wrong.
Yes, there are some prototypes that get close to the performance of a decently-spec'd Tesla Model 3.
> Hydrogen buses are already cheaper to operate than battery buses
There are some serious gymnastics going on with the math in that paper. The paper shows FCEV buses cost 3x the maintenance per mile and cost ~30% more per mile for the fuel. A lot of that price difference rides on the assumption that batteries will never go down in price, which is pretty debatable.
Almost as much gymnastics as you're using here. Maintenance and fuel costs will drop for FCEVs too. Right now, battery buses are more expensive. More importantly, you can get away with much fewer buses and a smaller refueling footprint since each fuel cell bus has significantly more range and shorter refueling times.
Err, no, the Model 3 Performance (which is a real car you can buy right now) does 0-60 in 3.1 seconds. The Forze VIII[1] isn't that fast (they quote "< 4 seconds"), and the Forze IX might be faster but doesn't exist yet. No circles are being run, at best the fastest operating FCEV I've been able to find might be able to keep up with a production family sedan BEV.
If we're comparing cars in development, the Tesla Roadster is quoted as being able to do 0-60 in 1.1 seconds.
Given the Toyota's scale and general scarcity of rare-earth minerals, betting fully on the li-ion tech would be indeed too risky without a viable plan B towards EV. Does the world economy need any more reasons to empower China? Can't see Japan's interest in that, given the recent developments in South China sea and environs.
I hope Toyota's engineering efforts will again provide an alternative which would progress beyond the current trend.
There may be some in electric motors, but 1) hydrogen vehicles need those motors too and 2) it is not required (some EV have zero rare-earth mineral already).
Tesla does not source cobalt from the Congo.
I'm not saying hydrogen actually is better here, mind you, but if they think so, they may want to just go ahead and do it.
The kink in the plan being that the rest of the world is going the other way.