Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

gefnew

Hi All
Warning of chargers could be hacked.
Home car charger owners urged to install updates - BBC News.
hope it helps.

EVandPV

gefnew said:

Hi All
Warning of chargers could be hacked.
Home car charger owners urged to install updates - BBC News.
hope it helps.

Just watched that this morning, sounds like they've addressed the security issues with firmware updates.
Bit concerning that the Wallbox charger uses a 6 year old Raspberry Pi though. 

Martyn1981

Toyota still don't get it. Which is a shame, as I genuinely believe that they could be at the very forefront of the ICEV manufacturers switching to BEV's, given their excellent technology.

Toyota Actively Lobbying To Slow Down EV Revolution

Toyota seems to be doing everything possible to become known as one of the most despicable corporations on the face of the Earth. Last month it was revealed that it was the largest corporate contributor to members of Congress who voted against certifying the result of the last election. When it was called out for doing that, Toyota attempted to put up some lame defense before finally backing down. Does it disturb you that a Japanese corporation is funding an insurrection against the the US government? It does me.

Now, the New York Times reveals Toyota is lobbying hard to sidetrack President Biden’s electric car and climate change initiatives. It says a top Toyota executive has been scurrying off to Washington for closed-door sessions with various members of Congress, urging them to water down the administration’s policies for electric car charging stations, EV incentives, and tailpipe emissions. Instead, the lobbyist, Chris Reynolds has been pushing for more time to get the company’s long-delayed hydrogen fuel cell car program off the ground and to enact policies that favor more hybrid automobiles, which Toyota likes to call “self charging electric cars.”

Martyn1981

This article contains a ton(ne) of stats for BEV's and also PEV's for June and 2021 H1. Quick summary - looking good, and sales of BEV's now close to disruption at a World level, with 6.1% of overall sales in June (disruption tends to 'take off' after the 5-10% mark has been reached, but BEV penetration varies across the differing markets in the World).

Tesla Model 3 & Model Y Take #1 & #2 In World Record Month For Electric Vehicle Sales!

Global plugin vehicle registrations were up an impressive 153% last month compared to June 2020, scoring a record 583,000 units (or 8.7% share of the overall auto market). Add this record performance to the 700,000-plus hybrids and mild hybrids registered last month (their second best month ever) and we get over 1.3 million registrations in June with some some form of electrification … which is roughly 20% of the total market! Fully electric vehicles (BEVs) continue to outperform PHEVs (+154% YoY vs. +151%), with pure electrics representing 70% of plugin registrations. In total, there were some 407,000 registrations of BEVs, or 6.1% share of the overall auto market.

With the YTD tally now above 2.5 million units (and 6.3% share), and knowing that the second half of the year is traditionally stronger, we should be seeing the plugin vehicle (PEV) market easily surpass not just 5 million but 6 million units this year!

JKenH

Martyn1981 said:

Toyota still don't get it. Which is a shame, as I genuinely believe that they could be at the very forefront of the ICEV manufacturers switching to BEV's, given their excellent technology.

Toyota Actively Lobbying To Slow Down EV Revolution

Toyota seems to be doing everything possible to become known as one of the most despicable corporations on the face of the Earth. Last month it was revealed that it was the largest corporate contributor to members of Congress who voted against certifying the result of the last election. When it was called out for doing that, Toyota attempted to put up some lame defense before finally backing down. Does it disturb you that a Japanese corporation is funding an insurrection against the the US government? It does me.

Now, the New York Times reveals Toyota is lobbying hard to sidetrack President Biden’s electric car and climate change initiatives. It says a top Toyota executive has been scurrying off to Washington for closed-door sessions with various members of Congress, urging them to water down the administration’s policies for electric car charging stations, EV incentives, and tailpipe emissions. Instead, the lobbyist, Chris Reynolds has been pushing for more time to get the company’s long-delayed hydrogen fuel cell car program off the ground and to enact policies that favor more hybrid automobiles, which Toyota likes to call “self charging electric cars.”

That did seem like quite a vicious post against Toyota on CleanTechnica. It seeks to reinforce narrative of a fundamental divide between left and right being between good and evil, clean and dirty. 

It appeared to be suggesting Toyota was actively supporting sedition whereas Toyota in fact contributed (marginally) more to Democrats than Republicans in the 2020 cycle and in early July  (before the CleanTechnica piece) Toyota announced it had stopped making donations to the politicians who voted against certifying the election result. Why wasn’t that the story?

https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/toyota-motor-north-america/C00542365/summary/2020

Make Toyota look evil and by association the technology it is developing must be evil. 

Toyota is backing hydrogen which is not surprising given that Japan is also backing hydrogen as a way to decarbonise it’s economy. It is a clean technology and may prove to be viable in decarbonising road transport. Because Elon Musk has ridiculed fuel cells doesn’t mean they won’t ever be viable. Look where batteries were 20 years ago. 

What is wrong with asking the US government to support the technology? 

CleanTechnica has openly stated that it has an anti hydrogen policy as far as road transport is concerned and we should just be aware that articles like this may be pushing pushing an agenda rather than being objective. 

QrizB

JKenH said:

Toyota is backing hydrogen which is not surprising given that Japan is also backing hydrogen as a way to decarbonise it’s economy. It is a clean technology and may prove to be viable in decarbonising road transport. Because Elon Musk has ridiculed fuel cells doesn’t mean they won’t ever be viable. Look where batteries were 20 years ago. 

What is wrong with asking the US government to support the technology?

Fuel cells, much like fusion power, have been "the next big thing" since the 1960s but neither seems much closer to being a viable everyday technology.

There were various portable fuel cell systems launched in the mid-2010s (see this Wired review of one) but they never took off; batteries are smaller, cheaper and more effective.

I would love to see fuel cells in the wild - they're Apollo technology and still seem space-age to me - but objectively, I can't see any advantage they offer over batteries for most transport applications. (One exception may be static applications when combined with big hydrogen tanks for time-shifting renewables generation.)

Martyn1981

QrizB said:

JKenH said:

Toyota is backing hydrogen which is not surprising given that Japan is also backing hydrogen as a way to decarbonise it’s economy. It is a clean technology and may prove to be viable in decarbonising road transport. Because Elon Musk has ridiculed fuel cells doesn’t mean they won’t ever be viable. Look where batteries were 20 years ago. 

What is wrong with asking the US government to support the technology?

Fuel cells, much like fusion power, have been "the next big thing" since the 1960s but neither seems much closer to being a viable everyday technology.

There were various portable fuel cell systems launched in the mid-2010s (see this Wired review of one) but they never took off; batteries are smaller, cheaper and more effective.

I would love to see fuel cells in the wild - they're Apollo technology and still seem space-age to me - but objectively, I can't see any advantage they offer over batteries for most transport applications. (One exception may be static applications when combined with big hydrogen tanks for time-shifting renewables generation.)

Yep, the technology sounds good, and opens the door to cleaning up some technologies, but for road transport they look to be a busted flush - cost more to build, cost more to maintain, cost more to fuel, need 3 to 4x the gross leccy input per mile driven, offer less sustained power, as they are built to a fuelcell cost, so aimed at average power demand.

The whole selling point seems to be that you can drive further on a tank full, and refuel faster ...... if we build out a H2 infrastructure, and BEV range/recharge speeds aren't good enough already.

Quite shameful of Toyota to keep pushing for reduced fuel economy standards in the US. At least GM had the 'dignity' to swop sides last November soon after Trump lost the election ....... not that the right believe he did!  ;-)

Edit - Also worth mentioning the NY Times reference to Toyota's plans to still be producing hybrids in 2050, when the World needs to move away from new ICE sales by the end of this decade / early 2030's, and is making progress on that goal. As I said sometime back when I first posted that news, it won't happen, Toyota will change direction, or go bust, there's no way they are going to drag all the other companies down this daft hydrogen and hybrid rabbit hole, instead of a faster transition to BEV's, especially when others have already ditched their H2 plans.

JKenH

QrizB said:

JKenH said:

Toyota is backing hydrogen which is not surprising given that Japan is also backing hydrogen as a way to decarbonise it’s economy. It is a clean technology and may prove to be viable in decarbonising road transport. Because Elon Musk has ridiculed fuel cells doesn’t mean they won’t ever be viable. Look where batteries were 20 years ago. 

What is wrong with asking the US government to support the technology?

Fuel cells, much like fusion power, have been "the next big thing" since the 1960s but neither seems much closer to being a viable everyday technology.

There were various portable fuel cell systems launched in the mid-2010s (see this Wired review of one) but they never took off; batteries are smaller, cheaper and more effective.

I would love to see fuel cells in the wild - they're Apollo technology and still seem space-age to me - but objectively, I can't see any advantage they offer over batteries for most transport applications. (One exception may be static applications when combined with big hydrogen tanks for time-shifting renewables generation.)

Interesting (no, surprising in fact) that you see fusion and fuel cells as being similar in terms of everyday viability. Fuel cells have been demonstrated to work and built in to cars that are commercially available. Buses are in commercial service using HFCs. I’m not aware that any fusion reactors have made it to commercial production. 

Ok, so only a few thousand FCVs have been sold but 15-20 years ago how many battery cars were there on the road? The technology works fine and as the tech develops costs will come down (or can that argument only be allowed for EVs?) but the issue is the availability of hydrogen fuel stations. It seems the EV lobby want to shut down the development of a hydrogen fuel charging network before it gets off the ground. Actually filling up is no more difficult than fuelling an lpg car once the fuel stations are in place. 

And what about the carbon footprint of battery manufacture? Is it really a more climate friendly tech than FCVs. 

The main argument made is that HFCs use 3 times as much electricity for the same energy output. Will that matter when we have overbuilt wind and solar 3-4 times on the way to a carbon free grid. There will be so much energy around that we will need the hydrogen plants to take it off our hands. 

The EV brigade seems to run scared of FCVs, wanting to shut down the debate and cancel the tech. Fortunately quite a few OEMs and other industrial giants including the oil giants are happy to throw money at it.

Perhaps the real issue for the CleanTechnica crowd is that If FCVs work it will be the OEMs and the oil companies making money from it.  

Solarchaser

I think running scared is venturing into hyperbole. 
Hydrogen can work, and it will be useful for storage once the more efficient batteries are full, but batteries are far more efficient,  so Hydrogen has ready lost the car market.
Lpg is in some ways a good comparison since you brought it up, most people know "a person" with lpg on their car 10 years ago.... don't see folks doing it these days

ABrass

Hydrogen fuel cells are a solution looking for a problem.

To be viable they need

To build hundreds of thousands to drive the unit cost down enough for them to build the millions they need to build to get them within shouting distance of BEVs.

Hydrogen filling stations everywhere.

Green hydrogen.

Affordable hydrogen.

Without all four things they will continue to be a novelty item in cars. If someone had sunk a few tens of billions into them a decade ago then maybe they'd be able to compete, but they've missed the boat.

Right now they're the most expensive way to fuel your car, the least convenient way to fuel your car and the most expensive drive train. And there's been negligible change in that for the last five years. Why would anyone think it'll change in the next five years?