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submitted 9 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/evs@lemmy.world

Akio Toyoda, Toyota Motor’s chairman, has never been a huge fan of battery electric vehicles. Last October, as global sales of EVs started to slow down amid macroeconomic uncertainty, Toyoda crowed that people are “finally seeing reality” on EVs. Now, the auto executive is doubling down on his bearish forecast, boldly predicting that just three in 10 cars on the road will be powered by a battery.

“The enemy is CO2,” Toyoda said, proposing a “multi-pathway approach” that doesn’t rely on any one type of vehicle. “Customers, not regulations or politics” should make the decision on what path to rely on, he said.

The auto executive estimated that around a billion people still live in areas without electricity, which limits the appeal of a battery electric vehicle. Toyoda estimated that fully electric cars will only capture 30% of the market, with the remainder taken up by hybrids or vehicles that use hydrogen technology.

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[-] hark@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

Storage and transportation of hydrogen continue to be the limiting factor for hydrogen and those hurdles don't seem like they can be cleared easily. Only Toyota has really given it much of a try and the hydrogen stations are available in very limited areas. Plus with how complicated the stations are and the problems they can encounter, I've heard they go out of order pretty frequently. Plus the number of vehicles that can fuel at the same time is limited. Given how the hydrogen has to be pressurized or liquefied or whatever, I'm struggling to understand how a home setup would work.

The cool thing about batteries is that there are all sorts of materials to choose from. For example, sodium-ion batteries are hitting the scene now. There are trade-offs, but options are there. Yes, not everyone can recharge at home, but it's a lot easier to set up a charging station than a hydrogen fuel station (or a gas station, for that matter). I think the best option at this point is a plug-in hybrid petrol vehicle, though the downside is the complexity of the drivetrain.

[-] Hypx@kbin.social 1 points 9 months ago

Those are wildly exaggerated. The main limitation is that society hasn't invested enough in hydrogen infrastructure. At least not yet. The problems would quickly go away if we did.

You also forget that we've poured many billions of dollars into electrification and battery production. That amount of investment would have solved a lot of those limitations.

As green hydrogen is made from water, there is basically no battery chemistry that can rival it in terms of availability. It is basically the best energy storage mechanism of this type already. Saying that batteries can get better is just misdirection. Also, you can have plug-in hydrogen cars too. The natural path is probably hybrids -> PHEVs -> plug-in FCEVs. Pure BEVs are in many ways a side-trip.

this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
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