Hacker News Reader

Comment by akssri | Hacker News Reader

Some geopolitical context:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Senkaku_boat_collision_in...

https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/comme...

Japan was one of the first countries to be hit with rare-earth export-restrictions by China - going back to 2010. It seems that a lot of policy came out from this unpleasant shock, incl. the decision by Toyota to focus on developing FCEVs which would be less dependent on Chinese supply-chains. Ironically, the resulting vacuum may have actually led to Chinese/American companies gaining market share in the BEV space.

Still, given how things are going, FCEVs (and Japan with it) might actually end-up having the last laugh.

View on HN

I’ve always been amazed at how differently the PHEV, HFC, and standard EV market ended up (well, until recently) playing out, in Japan Vs The Rest of the World. I always found the hydrogen stations here in California to be an interesting anomaly — but once you learn about the infrastructure and vehicles forced on the Japanese by gov/corp alliance, you really get a fascinating ‘alternate reality/history’ localized entirely on the island of Japan lol

Japan, as an island nation, it’s only natural that Japan look for ways that can use the ocean around them, it is also natural for them to look to recycle, and cost is no object, relatively speaking, because you have to try to use the resources at hand around you.

Hydrogen stations basically don't exist in Japan either. There are less than 100 total throughout Japan and whopping ten in Tokyo. California probably have more per capita of those.

> last laugh

Can I ask your reasoning?

Currently hydrogen is just oil with extra steps. Efficient electrolysis either needs ultra-rare materials like iridium and platinum, or exotic ceramics for continuous high-temperature electrolysis.

I personally can't see how this arrangement can supplant oil and batteries.

I don't understand how "Japan is betting on Hydrogen" meme survived this long. Toyota sold something like up to 20k total of passenger FCEV in past 10-20 years. That's less than a quarter worth in Prius sales numbers. It always has been a joke and a futurism porn.

Is it coming from some internal Slack channel at Tesla or something? Whoever spreading it don't know what they're talking about.

Between METI, Toyota & others, they appear to have spent > $40B over multiple decades.

It's a bit silly to downplay their investment based on the sales numbers of Toyota Mirai.

So we should ignore the Mirai sales numbers and conclude, uh, what, that the entire $40B investment is wasted and hasn't produced anything of value?

Or if we want to be charitable, surely the $40B has resulted in some advancement of the scientific knowledge. From which we can conclude that the "hydrogen economy" remains a pipe dream despite all the investment so far?

$40B is also less than a single year's worth of defense budget, of Japan, so... it's just about what's expected of a vaguely forward looking government funded program. It's not really a giant high risk make-or-break bet.

If anybody else wondered FCEV = Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle.

There's a reason Japan could be burdened with the largest modern nuclear disaster and then choose to double down on nuclear capacity. It's an island nation with no domestic energy reserves - completely dependent on energy markets.

FCEVs make no sense if you have plenty of fossil fuel or access to cheap lithium batteries. But if you see hydrogen as a less resource-bottlenecked way to store energy, it starts to make sense.

>Still, given how things are going, FCEVs (and Japan with it) might actually end-up having the last laugh.

There's really no evidence and trend to back this up as a likely outcome.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com