Sorry, again I hit SEND before my message was done. Continued here..
A few cars like the Impact and EV1 appeared but did not last long. Then
the Tesla Roadster happened and the game changed. There was finally a
company seriously trying to make EVs work, and be innovative, adding
great features to the cars and implementing excellent charging
capability. Nothing much heard from the fuel cell development group.
Charging for EVs has developed world-wide more than I thought it would
in my lifetime and fuel cell charging is pretty stagnant.
EPA site, Alternative Fuels Data Center, Fueling Station Locator:
Hydrogen - 45 sites in US and Canada
Electric - 28,344 sites in US and Canada
Battery powered EVS are going to continue to improve and expand the
facilities. Base on the current numbers for hydrogen and electricity I
see no chance that fuel cells can ever catch up and become popular. So,
I think David is right.
Gail
On 12/9/2019 12:49 PM, EVDL Administrator via EV wrote:
On 8 Dec 2019 at 23:12, Mark Abramowitz via EV wrote:
Your statement about Toyota not making money on the Mirai is pretty silly.
It wasn't the poster's statement, it was from an article he quoted. And I
don't understand why you would call it "silly."
Who knows if they will make money on it, but they didnTMt make money on the
Prius for a number of years.
The Marai and Prius aren't at all comparable. The Prius is a true mass
production vehicle. The Mirai is effectively a proof of concept vehicle. A
better analogy for it would be the GM EV1.
I can't say I "know" that the Mirai will never be profitable, but it'd be a
pretty safe bet. It may be a marvel of technology and a joy to drive for
its few ownerst, but i's a highly specialized, narrow-appeal vehicle. It's
safe to say that Toyota will never amortize its development cost, let alone
sell it above production cost.
It's far from unknown for automakers to accept initial losses on new vehicle
(ICEVs) when they're introduced, in order to establish them in the market.
Honda did that with the original Accord, and Toyota with Prius. But those
cars had a reasonable expectation of success. I can't imagine that Toyota
actually expects to ever make money on the Mirai.
Hopefully the success of the [Mirai] will be longer than the 10 or so
years it took to make money on the Prius
The Prius turned a profit in 2001, 4 years after introduction.
If Toyota really wants the Mirai to be successful, they should probably plan
on bulding as many hydrogen filling stations as Tesla has superchargers, and
as rapidly. (Not that I actually think it's good for drivers when an
automaker, either Toyota or Tesla, builds its own filling stations.)
That would require a substantial financial commitment. While a supercharger
costs $250k to build, I've seen estimates anywhere from $1 million to $5
million for hydrogen filling stations. Maybe the cost isn't well
established because so few have been built.
Tesla has over 1600 superchargers. That many H2 stations would cost between
$1.6 billion and $8 billion. I could be wrong, but my guess is that Toyota
isn't going to spend that money, but rather wants governments to build the
stations for them, using our taxes.
David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA
EVDL Administrator
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