Toyota Advanced Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle Achieves 431 Mile Estimated Range; Toyota Targeting Commercialization Within Six Years
07 August 2009
The Toyota Highlander Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle – Advanced (FCHV-adv) (earlier post) achieved an estimated range of 431 miles on a single full tank of compressed hydrogen gas, and an average fuel economy of 68.3 miles/kg (approximate mpg equivalent) during a day-long trip down the southern California coast.
In mid-2008, the US Department of Energy (DOE), Savannah River National Laboratory (SNRL) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), approached Toyota to participate in a collaborative evaluation of the real world driving range of the FCHV-adv. On 30 June 2009, two fuel cell vehicles, two Toyota Technical Center engineers, an SRNL engineer and a NREL engineer completed a 331.5 mile extended round trip drive between Torrance, California and San Diego.
The drive began at TMS headquarters in Torrance, traveled north to Santa Monica, turned south to San Diego and finally retraced the route back to Torrance. The route encompassed a variety of drive cycles, including high speed highway driving, moderate highway driving and stop and go traffic on surface streets, in an effort to capture a typical commute. Each vehicle was outfitted with a data collection system that captured vehicle speed, distance traveled, hydrogen consumed, hydrogen tank pressure, temperature and internal tank volume.
Driving range data from each vehicle was calculated by SRNL and NREL engineers. The results were averaged for an estimated range of 431 miles, with an average fuel economy of 68.3 miles/kg.
This evaluation of the FCHV-adv demonstrates not only the rapid advances in fuel cell technology, but also the viability of this technology for the future.
—Jared Farnsworth, Toyota Technical Center advanced powertrain engineer
For comparison, the 2009 Toyota Highland Hybrid achieves an EPA-estimated rating of 26 mpg combined fuel economy and has a full-tank range of approximately 450 miles. With premium grade gasoline currently priced at about $3.25, the gasoline-powered V6 Highlander hybrid is estimated to travel approximately 26 miles at a cost of about $3.25. Currently, hydrogen gas pricing is not fixed, but DOE targets future pricing at $2 to $3 per kilogram. Therefore, Toyota estimated the FCHV-adv to travel approximately 68 miles at a projected cost of about $2.50 - more than double the range of the Highlander Hybrid, at equal or lesser cost, while producing zero emissions.
SRNL and NREL analyzed all data gathered during the evaluation and prepared a formal report to DOE verifying range results and miles per kilogram achieved. This report will assist regulators and government research programs to accurately assess the status of the fuel cell industry and viability of the current technology.
Toyota’s hydrogen fuel cell technology has advanced rapidly over the last two years. In 2015, our plan is to bring to market a reliable and durable fuel cell vehicle with exceptional fuel economy and zero emissions, at an affordable price.
—Irv Miller, TMS group vice president, environmental and public affairs
Separately, at the Center of Automotive Research’s Management Briefing Seminars in Traverse City, Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota Motor Corporation, said:
I have started the ball rolling at Toyota by asking our associates around the world to develop answers for the next 100 years. We intend to pursue those answers with a passion…and efforts are already under way. Twelve years ago, we developed the first 21st century car...the hybrid Prius. So far, we have sold 2 million hybrid vehicles around the world ...and more are coming.
Late this year, we will launch a plug-in hybrid for fleet customers...followed by a pure electric vehicle in 2012. We’re also making great progress on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and hope to make this technology available and affordable for customers within the next half dozen years. As to alternative fuels, we have extensive research projects under way...in house...and with outside partners...and will not rest until we find a suitable substitute for oil.
We are proceeding on all these fronts because there is no one solution for future needs, but the need for many. Because energy solutions that work for Traverse City may not be the best for Shanghai, or Sydney, or Sao Paulo.
Good news indeed. My hat off to the extremely competent Japanese engineers for developing the technology. Clearly there will be a vehicle with sufficient range, good fuel milage, quick refueling, and low emmissions in our future.
Posted by: Mannstein | 07 August 2009 at 07:01 AM
Good news for another advancing technology. Wonder what would be the initial comparative cost between this vehicle and a BEV version with the same range, i.e. with a 100+ Kwh e-storage unit.
Could the two technologies be used in a BEV-10 (miles) equipped with a much smaller (15 Kwh?) fuel cell as a range extender? The BEV version e-storage unit could be a small 15 Kwh ESStor ESSU.
Posted by: HarveyD | 07 August 2009 at 07:21 AM
This page-
http://www.designnews.com/blog/I_Have_The_Power_/1853-Low_Liquid_Hydrogen_Energy_Density_Presents_Gas_Tank_Challenges.php
-sums up the problems I have with hydrogen. Now to be fair the car in this link has an IC engine not a fuel cell but they used liquid H2 which has a high energy density than compressed H2. Plus&minus
Simply put; the energy density per volume of H2 is important because a car's fuel has to be stored INSIDE the car. There's a reason the FCHV-adv is a SUV, it has a lot of room inside, room they traded for range. If you use hydrogen you either have to give up range or trunk space, or design the car to be super light and aerodynamic. That's all I'm trying to say, I'm not against hydrogen as a fuel but we shouldn't all jump on the bandwagon with out having some idea of where it will take us.
Posted by: ai_vin | 07 August 2009 at 08:32 AM
Most of the fuel cell cars are using the high pressure tanks, I have not read of any of them using an adsorption method at lower pressure. Hydrogen is still a gas and unless they find a good way to store it, liquids are more compact and easier to store, transport and handle. That is why the NECAR was a good design, they reformed methane to hydrogen on the vehicle.
Posted by: SJC | 07 August 2009 at 11:14 AM
Correction:
NECAR reformed methanol to H2 and not methane. Methanol can be made from many feed stocks, is widely used in the chemical industry, costs about $1 per gallon and can be made from renewable sources. It is easy to store and transport and can be used directly or reformed.
Posted by: SJC | 07 August 2009 at 01:13 PM
Methanol is one way. Another is ammonia, which can be easily liquefied, transported, and used (directly or indirectly) as a clean and renewable fuel. The toxicity of ammonia[and methanol] is one of the main issues holding it back.
Posted by: ai_vin | 07 August 2009 at 01:59 PM
http://www.memagazine.org/contents/current/webonly/webex710.html
Posted by: ai_vin | 07 August 2009 at 02:04 PM
> There's a reason the FCHV-adv is a SUV it has a lot
> of room inside, room they traded for range.
Not true. There's also the Honda Civic FCX. The reason they make fuel cell SUV's with a 400 mile range is because they can.
H2 at 700 bar has an energy density of 5.6 MJ/L compared to 34.2 for gasoline. However, H2 energy is 2.5 times as efficient as even a gas-electric hybrid.
That means H2 requires 2.4 times the volume and only 0.13 times the weight to go the same distance as gasoline.
By way of contrast, a lithium ion BEV requires 12 times the volume and 26 times the weight to go the same distance as a gasoline (battery energy is used 3.5 times as efficiently as gasoline in an ICE).
The best estimates are that an H2 fuel cell stack is currently about $125/kw or about twice as expensive as a gasoline based power train.
That's why battery cars are still a sick joke for anything other than very short trips. I've estimated that when the capitalized price of the batteries are included, the cost-equivalent price per gallon is as follows:
Fuel cell vehicle: $5/gallon
Volt PHEV-40: $10/gallon
Tesla Roadster: $15/gallon
Shai's Place: $15/gallon
In other words, BEV's with a 100 mile range don't make sense until gasoline gets to $15/gallon.
-Mercy
Posted by: Mercy Vetsel | 07 August 2009 at 03:34 PM
Yeah, and where is all of the hydrogen for these vehicles supposed to come from? It doesn't come out of thin air.
Currently all of the hydrogen that we use comes from natural gas, so if that's what you want, just get a natural gas powered vehicle. But people are fascinated by tech gadgets, and a natural gas powered car doesn't excite anyone.
And for that matter, natural gas isn't renewable, so at the end of the day it has the same problems that we currently have with oil having to do with depletion.
Posted by: Jack Russell | 07 August 2009 at 03:47 PM
@Jack R,
Did you fall asleep in high school chemistry when they taught electrolysis of water? What are the products?
Posted by: Roger Pham | 07 August 2009 at 03:53 PM
Ya.. you love the bev with a fuel tank the size of a walk in closet and a range of a fatman on rollerskates but poo poo the car with a fuel tank the size of a small fat guy and the range of a normal car as being far too big?
Fact is the fuel will be cheap enough the tank small enough the range long enough the price low enough and the durablity good enough soon enough.
Posted by: wintermane2000 | 07 August 2009 at 04:15 PM
No I didn't fall asleep. Yes, you can split water, but it takes a *LOT* of electricity, and the process isn't 100% efficient. The fuel cells generally aren't 100% efficient either, so you lose a good chunk of the energy (maybe half) going this route.
Then you start to think about the sorry state of affairs our electrical grid is in, and wonder about the possibility of placing new huge loads to generate the electricity.
To me what this is all about is trying to reassure people that business-as-usual will be possible in the future. Give it up - it aint gonna happen.
Posted by: Jack Russell | 07 August 2009 at 04:24 PM
"natural gas isn't renewable"
Natural gas is 98% methane and methane IS renewable. I suppose it is a matter of semantics, but the methane is what provides the fuel and it IS renewable.
Posted by: SJC | 07 August 2009 at 04:27 PM
Mercy said:
"That's why battery cars are still a sick joke for anything other than very short trips."
Not at all, if you also add a natural gas or gasoline powered range extending generator to the car (a la Chevy Volt or Fisker Karma), and have only enough batteries in the car to go 100 km (to keep costs down). The batteries will cover most needs for most people, and on the occasion when you want to go more than 100 km the generator kicks in and gives you indefinite range provided you have the fuel, and you motor along at 100 mpg in series hybrid mode. That way, overall, your gasoline consumption drops by like 98%.
Posted by: Mark_BC | 07 August 2009 at 07:21 PM
"> There's a reason the FCHV-adv is a SUV it has a lot
> of room inside, room they traded for range.
Not true. There's also the Honda Civic FCX."
Actually the Honda Civic FCX proves my point: "If you use hydrogen you either have to give up range or trunk space, or design the car to be super light and aerodynamic." The SUV has a 400 mile range[but uses a lot of H2 to get it] while the smaller Honda Civic FCX has only a 240 mile range. And it only gets that much because it was designed to be lighter and more aerodynamic.
Posted by: ai_vin | 07 August 2009 at 09:37 PM
Think again ai vin the toyota fcev uses a 6.3 kg fuel tank not exactly a huge amount of fuel. The honda uses 4 kg.
Both the tank and fuel cell stack will improve before launch so we should see rather good milage numbers and ranges..
Oh and did anyone else note that the toyota is getting the same exact 68 mpk as the clarity?
Posted by: wintermane2000 | 07 August 2009 at 10:06 PM
@Jack R.,
In the near future, there will be more and more solar PV's on rooftop of buildings and parking spaces, which will ease the burden on the grid, since electricity will be produced locally and used locally. Some BEV's will be charged directly from solar PV's electricity, while excess renewable solar electricity will be used to produce H2 to be used later for FCV's or for electrical generation when direct solar or wind electricity is not sufficient.
The rapid adoption of renewable energy is the only way to avert global warming catastrophe...the more, the sooner, the better! And with BEV's, FCV's and with HEV's running on biomethane from waste biomass will allow us to wean off petroleum and fossil fuel.
Posted by: Roger Pham | 07 August 2009 at 10:48 PM
"excess renewable solar electricity will be used to produce H2 to be used later for FCV's" In theory, yes, but I wonder if this would ever be competitive with just stripping it off natural gas. I really don't know, does anyone know the relative cost? I think nat gas will be around for awhile.
Posted by: Mark_BC | 07 August 2009 at 11:53 PM
If a gradually increasing tax on fossil fuels will be imposed, there will come a point in time that renewable fuels will be cheaper than fossil fuel. During this same time, solar PV panels will cost less and less, and wind energy is already cost-competitive with fossil fuel.
Posted by: Roger Pham | 08 August 2009 at 01:32 AM
Al Fin:
> the smaller Honda Civic FCX has only a 240 mile
> range. And it only gets that much because it was
> designed to be lighter and more aerodynamic.
This is a silly argument. FCV's could just as well be designed to be heavier and less aerodynamic. You seem to be thinking of BEV cars which do have a serious problem with volume and weight of the energy storage.
Let's review the numbers because it's very simple:
H2 @ 700 bar:
-----------------------
2.4 times the volume
0.13 times the weight
Lithium ion batteries:
-----------------------
12 times the volume
26 times the weight
You know what a 5 gallon gas can looks like, right? With H2 an 8 gallon Honda Civic tank become a 19 gallon H2 tank that holds H2 that weights the same as 1 gallon of gasoline.
It's just not that big of a deal, especially since you actually have less weight. There are issues with H2, but the volume of the tanks really isn't that big of a deal.
Methanol requires twice the volume of gasoline and ethanol requires 1.5 times the volume. Again, it's simply not a big deal.
-Mercy
Posted by: Mercy Vetsel | 08 August 2009 at 04:53 AM
"Think again ai vin the toyota fcev uses a 6.3 kg fuel tank not exactly a huge amount of fuel."
You can always tell when someone's pro-hydrogen; they always use the weight of the fuel and never the volume. 6.3 kg is not exactly a HEAVY amount of fuel, but as Mercy points out "With H2 an 8 gallon Honda Civic tank become a 19 gallon H2 tank."
And Mercy: It is that big of a deal because the issues with H2 isn't just with the volume of the tanks but also it's shape, a shape that limits where you can put it.
A non-pressurized liquid tank can be shaped to fit into just about any otherwise un-used space in the car.
Even the heavy battery pack of a BEV is made up of many smaller units that are only connected by thin wires. So the pack can be broken up and spread around inside the car wherever you're got extra space, like under the seats. And the batteries themselves can come in different shapes, like flat so they fit inside body panels or under the floor mats.
Oh and BTW: Did you not get it when I said "I'm not against hydrogen as a fuel but we shouldn't all jump on the bandwagon with out having some idea of where it will take us." ??? Any technology carries with it it's own set of strengths and weaknesses, pluses & minuses, pros and cons. And when you change over from one to another you have to make compromises, at least until you get used to the new way of doing things. It's all a matter of which compromises we WANT to make.
Personally, I could go either way. If this system- http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/ -was ready for market I could put PV panels on the roof of my house and make my own fuel. OTOH, as I've said before:
"If I had a BEV with a 20mile range it would handle 100% of all the trips I NEEDED to do last year.
If I had a BEV with a 100mile range it would handle 100% of all the trips I actually did last year.
If I had a BEV with a 200mile range it would handle 100% of all the trips I wanted to do last year.
If I had a BEV with a hitch for a genset trailer it would handle 100% of all the trips I've ever done in my life."
Posted by: ai_vin | 08 August 2009 at 09:07 AM
The point ai vin is its not using alot of h2 in fact its using just the same amount as the clarity is its just an older tank design.
For an suv 156 liters isnt too big specialy for a demo unit. My interest is if they plan to still use these 10k psi tanks in the retail product or if they have a newer tank design in mind. I am thinking they will use the 10k psi tanks simply to get it out sooner.
In the end I expect to see 10k psi h2 as premium and 5k as a cheaper more commonly used fuel.
Posted by: wintermane2000 | 08 August 2009 at 06:57 PM
"For an suv 156 liters isnt too big"
'Too big' is relative.
I'm writing from experiance here; I used to drive deliveries for a pizza outlet that converted it's fleet to CNG. I remember how big the tank was for that and how much range it got.
The energy density of CNG@3626psi is 266,000BTU/ft3
The energy density of CHG@3626psi is 68,000BTU/ft3
Bump that up with a 10,000psi tank and you're still only 187,000BTU/ft3. However a fuel cell will use the CHG at about 3X greater efficiency than the ICE on CNG did so it should get twice the range.
Posted by: ai_vin | 08 August 2009 at 09:22 PM
Yup but as a start point this far from full production its a rather splendid start. I realy didnt expect h2 fuel cell cars to be this good before they were crammed onto the streets when oil goes pththththtBOOOOOOOOM...
Fact is unless hell freezes over and flaming bavarian pigs sing opera we are gona use every type of car imaginable just to cope with the loss of oil.. and still be royaly fubared.
Posted by: wintermane2000 | 09 August 2009 at 12:05 AM
I am against H2 as a concept. The reason in not because tanks, expensive FC and undeveloped technology but because the concept itself. WHY hydrogen? WHY not methanol, butane, ethanol, methane or any other synthetic fuel or simply electricity? Why hydrogen? You have to spend the same amount or even more of energy or electricity when producing hydrogen. You have lot of hassle when transporting and storing hydrogen. Only benefit in comparison with any other fuel EXCEPT ELECTRICITY you have cleaner environment on the spot of using fuel. Only on that issue score electricity vs hydrogen is equal. On any other issues electricity vs hydrogen - hydrogen is heavy looser. The main loosing point that in the automobile you are using FC to produce electricity, the battery and all other systems shall be the same as BEV. The overall process efficiency electricity to wheels double in comparison with hydrogen.
Some information concerning battery size “problem”. Pleas find “Addendum 2: Doesn't gasoline have a lot more energy density?” at the http://www.daughtersoftiresias.org/greenwiki/Electric_vehicle#What.27s_coming_out_soon.3F
Posted by: Darius | 09 August 2009 at 12:31 AM