They could maybe make the battery the same form factor as the other one already in production so it wouldn’t be an issue. The battery tech may not allow that… but it’s possible.

The rest of the vehicle just cares about the voltage coming from the battery.

Yes this. If those years were realistic there would be a car we’d be looking at in prototype form.

It’s cool tech but it’s expensive. Per mile, it can’t compete on price with gas let alone battery EVs.

Hydrogen isn’t working out for them so now they’re just delaying as much as possible.

And how do you produce hydrogen? Either with methane (producing tons of co2) or by wasting tons of electricity with hydrolysis. BEV is the superior technology in all aspects but one: recharge time.

Hydrogen is not going to happen. It’s wildly impractical and there is no infrastructure for it. EV is the way of the future, but Toyota’s strategy is to bring customers along with hybrids first. Most of their lineup has a hybrid powertrain, and in most cases it is the same 2.5L HEV engine, just retuned for more HP on larger vehicles. The Camry up to the Grand Highlander and their Lexus counterparts use it. Meanwhile, if they are successful with solid state battery technology, it’ll make the rest of the market obsolete. Their strategy is to make incremental steps toward EV vs trying to force the market into an EV.

Hydrogen cannot compete with BEVs for passenger cars. This will never ever change, because the problem isn’t even current technology, the problem is physics.

Even putting that aside for a moment, there’s a reason why VW and Mercedes cancelled hydrogen R&D the second batteries became dense enough for usable car range.

There’s a reason BMW, once extremely anti-EV and pro-hydrogen has now switched. There’s a reason why Toyota’s new CEO is distancing the company from the absolute failures their hydrogen projects have been and have said they’re getting into EVs.

BMW and Toyota were the two big pro-hydrogen carmakers, and they’re abandoning it.

I don’t want my reply to be a massive wall of text, so my issues with the physics of hydrogen cars will be in another comment.

Hydrogen cars cannot be better than battery electric cars, because the laws of physics doesn’t allow them to be.

A HFCEV is just a BEV with extra steps and efficiency losses. Reverse hydrolysis is used to generate electricity (with losses) that in turn charges a small battery that drives the car.

Smaller batteries can’t provide the same amount of power as larger batteries (that’s why the fastest EVs always have large batteries and why performance drops as the battery gets close to empty).

Already it’s a loss for HFCEVs, but the bad news doesn’t end there - that ultra-pressurised hydrogen doesn’t just magically appear in your tank. So we need to look into that. In fact, let’s look at the whole process.

I’m going to be very generous here and assume that all hydrogen is produced with green energy - this obviously isn’t the case. Hydrogen production is far more carbon-intensive than almost all national electricity grids are.

BEV:

Electricity is generated, and sent over power lines until it makes its way to a charger. This charger directly charges the battery of the car (whole process, typically over 90% efficient). The battery drives the electric motor. The car moves (electric motors, 90-97% efficient).

HFCEV:

First water must be collected and purified. I don’t know how energy intensive that is, but it could be a lot. Then it needs to undergo hydrolysis, which is extremely energy intensive. The hydrogen needs to be pumped out and compressed, which requires yet more energy. From there, the hydrogen needs to be loaded onto transport, be it shipping tankers, trucks, trains. It needs to be physically transported, which is more energy. Then if it was on a tanker or train it needs to be put into smaller distribution vehicles. Then transported to a fueling station. The pumps and station needs a lot of energy to run. People fill their cars up. The car runs an (again quite energy intensive) reverse hydrolysis, which charges the battery and powers the electric motor.

There’s a lot more “work” being done than sending electrons down wires.

And this is before we even get into things like infrastructure or safety. A typical hydrogen fueling station costs over $5m to build, in part due to the safety regs of pressurised hydrogen being a very explosive substance (and fueling stations have blow up before, despite them virtually not existing).

Chargers range from $600 to $10k each. Say a location has 20 of them. That’s still pennies compared to a hydrogen fueling station. Petrol stations cannot be used for hydrogen. They look the same but they are not the same, even ignoring all the additional safety requirements.

Electricity on the other hand has infrastructure everywhere, even wired directly to our homes. Electricians exist everywhere, it’s a widely understood technology and pretty much any electrician is capable of installing at least a home charger.

Sorry for the rant, but no, HFCEVs will not take off. They’re vastly more complex. More expensive. Less safe. Less performant. Nowhere near as energy efficient. There’s not really any angle you can look at where they make sense even if we assume battery tech completely stagnates.

Those capabilities don’t even make sense.

— Do ICE cars have 750 mile range? No. If you could really charge a battery that quickly, there’s no real reason to have more range than a typical ICE car, and you could follow ICE car habits. The incentive would be to make the car cheaper at that point.

— will that change charging at home? Also, no. I have a 50a charging circuit, similar to my 50a stove circuit. Many houses have wiring that can support that, or it’s not too big a change to support that. That’s sufficient for a full charge on pretty much any EV (except maybe that horrible excuse for excessive consumption that is the Hummer), but I’m usually just topping off from whatever I used during the day. If anything, EVs should get more efficient, so my overnight charge will support more range. A homeowner will never be able to afford the infrastructure to support that ten minute charge time. Even, say doubling the charge: a 100a charging circuit likely means upgrading your electrical service for most people, so now it’s expensive, and most of the time that’s wasted.

— will that change supercharging? Also, no. Think of how expensive superchargers already are: you already meet or exceed the cost of fuel for ICE cars. Now imagine the cost of the infrastructure to double or triple that charging rate. Are you really going to pay that premium?

Personally I’m really liking changing my habits to treat fueling my car like my phone: plug it in at night and it’s just always ready.

Toyota, who has been putting some of the most reliable and fuel efficient vehicles on the road for decades

That’s kind of my point - they want to keep doing that and they can see the market rapidly moving away from them, so they’re trying to make it stop.

Solid state battery tech is indeed a worthy endeavor, I just don’t believe the company to actually deliver it will be Toyota. Judging from the woeful efficiency of their BZ4x they’d need advanced battery tech to get similar range as other EVs.

I mean, nobody actually needs that big of a battery. The vast majority drive less than what EV batteries provide.

If they can introduce a car that weighs 2,000lbs less and have a battery replacement half that of the competitors, while providing the same range, that’s a huge win.

How is it fooling you to set a timeline, post updated that adhere to that timeline, then state your breakthrough 4 years before that timeline ends?

I doubt it: BEV technology is already past phev for most people. Some of the advantages of BEV are based on simplifying, never needing the thousands of parts and hundreds of pounds that is an engine and transmission. Never needing the maintenance or fluids to support all that. They’ll eventually be cheaper by having a shorter supply chain and faster manufacturing. They don’t need the complexity.

Ok, currently rural areas need the complexity of phev. But even the most rural house already has electricity that can support a charger, and supercharging networks are rapidly expanding, so even this is only true for the next few years

Some people prefer to piss in a bottle and drink 2 day old coffee kept in thermos.

Yes but that’s 10s of thousand volts AC power at a reasonable current. We’re talking DC at a couple hundred volts and an extremely high current.

“Where are the missing 55%?”

Diesel? Stat specifically says gas combustion. But that doesn’t make ANY sense unless they ran the poll somewhere outside the US.

Oho… I think I have it figured out…

Follow the logic:

“Among those who purchased a car or truck in the last 12 months…”

3.71% - New Electric
27.32% - Gas Combustion
13.53% - New Hybrid

So of the people buying a car or truck in the past 12 months, 44.56% bought NEW vehicles. The remaining 55.44% bought USED.

The failing is excluding the word “new” from the gas purchases while it’s included in the other two.

Then they relay the used statistics.

41.91% - Used ICE
9.02% - Used Hybrid
4.51% - Used Electric

55.44%

Do you know what a gigawatt of electron flow does to a human body?

Its because the flesh is weak. We must replace it with the strength and certainty of steal, praise the Omnisiah!

.

Other car makers have adopted that charger, I’m sure they would grab those up.

Strong disagree. Let’s say Tesla stock collapses. They are still a very profitable company with a product that sells well. So unless they’re finances are structured in such a way that makes a stock price collapse catastrophic, they would continue to sell cars. They’re charging network is actually one of the most valuable things they have. It’s taken them a decade plus to get that infrastructure installed, there are more stations and stalls than all other charging networks combined in the US. That’s why just about every automaker has pledged to adopt the Tesla charging connector. They recognize that pinning their EV future to Electrify America’s shitty unreliable network is not a success strategy, and part of the reason their EVs aren’t selling is because public charging on road trips is a nightmare.

So no, those stations aren’t scrap. They’re insanely valuable. Even if you assume something horrible happens to Tesla and everybody decides not to adopt that connector, the stations can be easily retrofit to use the CCS connector that other automakers use currently.

Honest question, what about the buzz-e?

Alternatively, you could go the hybrid route as those are arguably better for most people. Plus their batteries are often large enough you can get 20-40 miles of all electric driving. That alone covers over 95% of all people’s trips.
There are a few options in that category. I believe Toyota’s Highlander is a 3 row hybrid. I think Hyundai’s new Santa Fe also has a hybrid power train with 3 rows. The Mazda CX-90 is another viable hybrid. Though Idk if that officially released yet.

But yeah, in terms of pure 3 row EV’s, we’re lacking.

Wait list for the EV9 is already over a year and it just became “available” in Canada.

“Simple criteria.” Dude, you live in the north pole and have enough kids to field a MOBA team, you need Santa to make you clown car.

You’re not wrong. A model X would also fit your bill, but last summer they were stupid expensive. Prices have come down a bit. I would suggest buying any car consider the total cost of ownership, not just ‘stretch a bit to avoid gas’. Gas cars need oil changes, tune-ups, belt replacements, and various other maintenance. EVs require very little. Also, if you need more than 5 seats, don’t shun the ‘humongous’ SUV. You’re literally in that market.

But for someone in the market last year, you were pretty fucked even I will admit.

I do wish somebody was making an electric minivan. Closest I’m aware of is Chrysler has a Pacifica plug in hybrid. And now there’s the ID.Buzz coming out soon.

Oh for sure. There’s a whole industry of them, and they all milk Uncle Sam for everything the taxpayers worth with little need to produce real result. Look at SpaceX versus SLS. Well it’s true that SLS design was handicapped by Congress requirement to use old shuttle parts, the result is still a giant boondoggle that is very late, tens of billions over budget, and best case is going to cost $2 billion for each launch (which can only happen once every year or so). Meanwhile, all SpaceX expenditures to date including development of Falcon 1, Falcon 9, Starship, Super Heavy, Merlin, Raptor, and construction of an entire spaceport in Texas, have cost them by most estimates less than Boeing took to design one rocket. SpaceX is launching Falcon 9 twice a week. And to compete with SLS, once Starship is online it could theoretically launch once a day for $20 million rather than once a year for $2 billion.

Private sector can be efficient, but only when their own bottom line depends on efficiency. When there’s cost plus contracts involved, it really doesn’t.