Author: Dugan Flanakin
July 18, 2024
In a high-profile conversation with host Peter Bryant at the recent RealClearEnergy Future Forum, Toyota chief scientist Gill Pratt said his company's philosophy focuses first and foremost on quality of life. From this perspective, he added, the future of the automobile must be a multi-path that respects the diversity of humans and the diversity of uses of motor vehicles (see the film above for Pratt's segment).
He said Toyota recognized the difference between decarbonization (a goal) and electrification (a means to achieve that goal). As a result, Toyota is making hybrid cars, electric vehicles (EVs) and internal combustion engines that use hydrogen as fuel instead of gasoline or diesel. He added that in developing countries with power shortages, the best option may be low-carbon liquid fuels.
Before being hired by Toyota to lead its research institute, Platt worked on robotics and neuromorphic computing at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, building machines that could help respond to disasters and computers that work more like the human brain. There, he said, he learned that technology forecasts are often unreliable and that we must be prepared for the unexpected.
Today's vehicles are much more advanced than those of 20 years ago. Today, GPS can help guide drivers through urban traffic and rural roads. Our cars are now equipped with phones and the Internet; today’s on-board computers are advanced enough to safely drive autonomously with or without passengers.
But we also concluded that the products of fossil fuel combustion exceed the limits of human tolerance and threaten our future. A “quick fix” to electrifying everything has proven to be a daunting challenge, considering just the number of battery electric vehicles needed to replace the 300 million vehicles in the U.S. and 1.5 billion globally, most of which run on gasoline or diesel. scale.
To achieve safe autonomous vehicles, Toyota has chosen a diverse approach focused on saving lives as quickly as possible. The company's approach to decarbonization is also focused on a variety of solutions, including battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles and fuel cell electric vehicles. “We want to provide people in all walks of life around the world with the best tools to solve the problem of global climate change,” Platt said in a 2021 Toyota Research Institute video.
“Different people,” he said at the time, “have different situations and different needs. Some people live in areas that have grids powered by renewable energy; others live in areas that will be powered by fossil fuels for some time. Some people have homes with There are convenient charging stations; some people have them at home. Others live in cities, and it's more difficult. Some people are wealthy. Most are not.
One of the advantages of this strategy is a more judicious use of available lithium, a key element in today's electric vehicle batteries. Platt explained that Toyota's strategic focus is to maximize carbon return on investment for each battery cell produced, which is defined as grams of carbon dioxide reduced divided by grams of lithium used.
The average daily commute in the U.S. is 32 miles, and towing a battery with a range of 320 miles can produce a low-carbon ROI. Distributing the same components of these large EV batteries across multiple hybrid vehicles can double the carbon return on investment of these expensive battery components. A battery electric car uses approximately 90 times as much lithium as a hybrid car. On the other hand, braking energy increases the efficiency of battery electric vehicles in urban traffic.
Toyota found that hybrids and plug-in hybrids have similar lifetime carbon emissions to battery electric vehicles but are cheaper for consumers. As long as there are ample fast-charging options and enough power capacity at an affordable price, pure electric vehicles may still be the better choice.
But in developing countries, and even in much of the United States today, this is not the case. That's one reason Toyota is focusing on hydrogen-powered cars, which also have zero-carbon tailpipe emissions. While hydrogen is a gas that must be cooled to near absolute zero or pressurized before it can be used in motor vehicles, there is an abundant supply. The petrochemical industry alone produces enough hydrogen to fuel millions of cars.
Hydrogen is already used in racing internal combustion engines, but Toyota believes its “sweet spot” may be 18-wheel trucks, tanks, cranes and other large vehicles that would otherwise require huge batteries, adding weight and reducing load capacity. As it strengthens its European presence with a European hydrogen plant, Toyota is applying fuel cell technology to buses and trucks, rail, maritime and inland waterways, and even baseload power generation.
A recent article noted that Toyota's hydrogen-burning engine delivers outstanding performance while taking advantage of the engine's functional efficiency. These engines can deliver up to 400 horsepower, equivalent to many piston Atkinson cycle gasoline engines, and can achieve thermal efficiencies of up to 45%, comparable to the best diesel engines. The only emission from these engines is clean water vapor.
Another recent article explains that Toyota's hydrogen fuel cell system involves hydrogen gas stored on the vehicle chemically reacting with oxygen from the surrounding environment to generate power for the electric motor without the need for the heavy lithium-ion batteries used in battery electric vehicles. .
Platt compared Toyota's decision to pursue a multi-path approach to the future of cars to the old debate between VHS and Beta. Those who put all their eggs in the Beta basket ended up going bankrupt because VHS proved to be better for consumers than the technologically superior Beta. But, he said, battery electric vehicles, hybrids, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen-powered vehicles could all play an important role in the automotive landscape of the future.
But the bottom line is that the world's poor and middle classes will continue to rely on gasoline and diesel-powered internal combustion engines until these new technologies can produce vehicles they can afford to buy and maintain, and until fuel supplies (including adequate electricity) are also Conveniently available at affordable prices.
While a gasoline fuel hose and a charging cable have roughly the same area, today's fuel hoses provide ten times the power of a charger in less time. Multiply the charging time by the liquid refueling time and you start to see the magnitude of the challenge.
Texas-based Buc-ee's just opened its largest gas station, a 75,000-square-foot facility with 120 pumps. They would have to have 1,200 of today's best chargers, covering perhaps 750,000 square feet, to serve the same number of electric vehicles today
Currently 80% of electric vehicle chargers in the United States are slow chargers, and even in developed countries, the transition may be slower than politicians and bureaucrats demand.
Duggan Flanakin (duggan@duggansdugout.com) is a senior policy analyst at the Council for a Constructive Tomorrow, writing about a variety of public policy issues.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and provided via RealClearWire.
