How Many Fuel Cell Cars Are Registered In California
From the May 2021 upshot of Car and Commuter.
In Apr 2004, the metropolis of San Francisco caused two Honda FCX cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Mayor Gavin Newsom held a press conference, and to show off only how clean the vehicles' emissions would be, he collected condensate from a tailpipe in a paper loving cup and took a sip. "You are looking, literally, at the future," he said.
Last fall, Newsom, now California'due south governor, signed an executive club requiring all new cars and calorie-free-duty trucks sold in the land to exist cypher-emission vehicles starting in 2035, his ambitions buoyed past a growing list of EVs and rising demand. If y'all desire to go electric, the Golden State is a fine place to exist. In that location are, according to the California Energy Commission (CEC), more than 70,000 public and shared private vehicle-charging plugs throughout the state. The Tesla Model three was the bestselling automobile in the state in the first quarter of 2020, a sign that Californians have an appetite for more environmentally friendly vehicles. That makes information technology a smashing test market for hydrogen cars, which are supposed to solve the range and charging headaches of today's EVs by carrying more energy and refueling more quickly.
Notwithstanding, even in California, hydrogen's future is murky. In 2015, when Toyota debuted the Mirai hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered sedan in the U.s., the automaker took to calling customers trailblazers. The trouble with blazing a trail, notwithstanding, is that you don't always know what you're getting into. Deals and incentives abound, but if you're driving any of the 9000-plus fuel-jail cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) that call California domicile, y'all ameliorate be expert with logistics. In a state that covers more than than 163,000 square miles, at that place are currently only 45 hydrogen stations, and they don't always have plenty fuel for everyone who needs it.
Nearly 17 years later Newsom took a sip of tomorrow, FCEV customers are finding it difficult to make full and almost impossible to offload their cars when reality sets in. "The excitement of being a trailblazer rubbed off long ago," says Patrick Perez, a Mirai driver in the Los Angeles area. On Facebook, a Mirai grouping that Perez is role of whiplashes between ecstatic and despondent. Some members extol the almost holy virtues of driving an emissions-gratis vehicle and saving the earth; others count the minutes until their Mirai leases end. "The car does what information technology's supposed to," Perez says. "It's just the hydrogen infrastructure that is causing the bug."
Past far the most pressing problem is fuel availability, every bit FCEV owners can't count on stations to really have hydrogen. To mitigate the issue, Mirai possessor Doug Dumitru started H2-CA.com, a website where people can easily "tell whether a station is likely to have hydrogen when they get there," he says. The site, which pulls info from the California Fuel Cell Partnership every threescore seconds, gets around 2000 visits per day when hydrogen is deficient.
This problem began in June 2019, when a hydrogen product facility in Santa Clara caught fire, disrupting supply in the Bay Expanse and Southern California. More than recently, the big freeze in Texas, where much hydrogen comes from, left many California stations bereft. FirstElement has 23 of them on the West Coast. With route closures keeping trucks in Texas, on the morning time of Feb 23, merely vi of its stations showed more 25 percentage capacity, which probable dwindled every bit hydrogen-starved vehicles descended on them.
The fuel is pricey too: A report from the California Air Resources Lath and the CEC showed that in 2019, the boilerplate price per kilogram of hydrogen was $16.51. According to the few stations we chosen, the rate hasn't changed much. To put that in perspective, consider the base-model Hyundai Nexo. It can hold 6.3 kilograms of hydrogen and, by the EPA'due south methodology, sees 60 miles per kilogram. That ways a Nexo possessor can get about 380 miles before needing to refill the tank, which costs about $100.
Given that a Hyundai Tucson (which starts at $24,885) volition go even farther for less than one-half as much, y'all may wonder why anyone would opt for an FCEV. Simply the bulk of fuel-cell owners don't pay for gas, with Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai all handing out a $fifteen,000 fuel card good for 36 months with each buy or lease.
That'southward just one of the things manufacturers are doing to attract buyers. With its $sixty,120 Nexo, Hyundai is besides throwing in maintenance for 3 years or 36,000 miles, a 10-year/100,000-mile warranty on the battery, and a free rental car one calendar week per year, in case you actually need to go somewhere outside a hydrogen-filling-station expanse or you just feel like polluting a petty. On acme of that, FCEV buyers can drive solo in HOV lanes, receive $4500 (or $7000 if they're in a low-income subclass) from the California Clean Vehicle Rebate Project, and take reward of a federal tax credit of upward to $8000. But given the scarcity of fuel, prudent shoppers will base of operations their decision to purchase an FCEV on whether they live in the vicinity of multiple reliable filling stations, which pretty much limits them to L.A. or the Bay Area. However, non everyone thinks about that before signing the paperwork.
That's where Kirk Nason made his mistake. In 2018, the retired Microsoft engineer took delivery of a Mirai for his daughter, whose commute took her up and down Interstate 605. There aren't any hydrogen stations off that regularly congested pike, but several were due to open; until they did, Nason figured she could refill the Mirai somewhere nearby. At least one time she had to have information technology towed afterward running out of fuel while looking for more. There are no bombardment jumps, no v-gallon gas cans delivered past AAA. When you're out, you're out.
It became too much, Nason says, and his daughter bought a gasoline-powered SUV. Her Mirai took upwards residence in his garage, awaiting the end of its $543-per-calendar month lease in June then he can render information technology to Toyota. "I can't wait to become out of this nightmare," Nason says. He has tried to give it dorsum early, and neither Toyota nor his dealership is interested.
That's not surprising. A used Mirai is abominably cheap—a car that was close to $sixty,000 new in 2018 (the 2021 starts at $50,495) now sells for maybe $15,000, with enough available for less. Nosotros establish a decent 2017 Mirai for $8500. Certified Pre-Owned cars at Toyota dealerships cost a little more than, just there'south a reason: Purchase ane and y'all'll get that $fifteen,000 fuel card. If y'all have a Mirai and try to sell it on your own, that's what you are up confronting. Even if you lot have coin and time left on your fuel carte, too bad. "Information technology is not transferable, so any unused portion would not go to a new owner," says Paul Hogard, a Toyota senior analyst.
Hogard acknowledges the hydrogen shortage in California, maxim that Toyota is monitoring the situation simply doesn't brand or distribute the fuel. He says the company is working on "a case-by-case basis" to proceed customers "mobile" while also trying to improve infrastructure.
Jack Brouwer, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering science and acquaintance manager of the National Fuel Cell Inquiry Eye at the University of California, Irvine, says it's "very unfortunate that the infrastructure has not been sufficient for quite a few people" who drive hydrogen-powered vehicles. Certainly, he says, information technology hasn't grown as quickly as EV-charging infrastructure, with "many more millions spent" on those stations. In Dec, California pledged $115 million to add upwards to 111 more hydrogen-fueling stations by 2027. "I'd propose it's besides tedious, but it is coming along," Brouwer says.
At present, Brouwer gives the nod to plug-in electrical vehicles, citing the scope of the recharging infrastructure and improvements in bombardment technology. But he submits that whatever hydrocarbon-free future must include hydrogen. One reason: It works much better than battery power for heavy-duty vehicles because hydrogen'due south free energy density is much higher than a battery'southward, plus refueling is significantly quicker than charging a battery. Brouwer is also looking ahead to the 24-hour interval when California is saturated with zilch-pollution vehicles. Imagine, he says, a high-ascension where almost every resident has an EV; charging would have to be extended to each parking space, and the electrical filigree would take to be retooled to handle the bleed.
"But if there were a hydrogen station on the corner," he says, it could essentially reduce area electrical consumption and the demand to dramatically update electrical infrastructure. Brouwer predicts that one way or another, the future of the auto manufacture will include far more FCEVs than are currently on California roads (or sitting in California garages). But for now, he drives a Tesla.
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How Many Fuel Cell Cars Are Registered In California,
Source: https://www.caranddriver.com/features/a36003212/hydrogen-mirai-california-shortage/
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