Toyota CEO: "This new engine will destroy the entire EV industry !

[GroveHillWanderer]

On 6/17/2023 at 12:50 PM, OneMoreFarang said:

If you think charging 21 hours is a reasonable alternative compared to stopping 10 min on a gasoline station, then please think again.

Or if you like it, just do it.

I certainly won't.

Not sure if you're being deliberately disingenuous there but I'm sure you know fine well that charging for 21 hours is not the alternative to stopping 10 mins in a gasoline station.

 

About the only time it would ever take 21 hours to charge an EV would be if doing an overnight trickle charge on a 110V power supply. Even on a normal household 220/240V supply it will only take around 6-12 hours (depending on battery size).

 

With a dedicated EV wall charger (which a large proportion, if not a majority of EV owners have) the recharge time is normally 4-8 hours.

 

But once again, even that's not the equivalent of gasoline station refuelling. The equivalent to that would be a service area charging station, where the charging time with current batteries and CS charging speeds is more like 20 minutes to an hour depending on the various charging parameters (battery size, CS power output, starting percentage, desired ending percentage etc).

 

And, as mentioned in another post, we are already at the stage where within a year, batteries may well be available that can charge to 100% in only 6 minutes.

 

You're also ignoring the fact that rather than being some kind of impediment, the overnight charging scenario actually provides a benefit to EV's that ICE vehicle owners just don't have - the possibility of arriving home (or at some other destination) with your vehicle almost out of juice and leaving the next morning with it 100% refueled, without needing to go anywhere in the meantime.

[Bassosa]

It's beyond me that people living in Thailand of all places are against EVs. Here comes an opportunity to clean up this country, well at least the big cities (less emissions) yet yall are too attached to your noisy, smokey petrol/diesel engines. Just weird. 

Can you imagine how much more liveable Bangkok would be if it was just EVs on the roads? I might go and live there!

[KhaoYai]

5 hours ago, sirineou said:

Developing a Hydrogen infustracture, unless it is done at the goverment level . would need enough hydrogen cars on the road  to make the investment profitable, and to sell enough hydrogen cars you would need a hydrogen infustracture. You see the problem.

So let's see how it plays out, but very exciting nonetheless. 

I think you're over-simplyfying the electricty supply matter.  At the moment it seems to be working but there are only a small amount of EV's on the road in most countries.  The additional supply they will require will mean; first of all, additional power stations, then digging up all the roads to bring the supply to charging points.  In addition, the average home doesn't have enough current for a fast charger so those that want that capability will have to have their supply upgraded = more supply so more cabling and more disruption. In the UK we don't really notice these problems at the moment but they will come as EV sales increase. I can only comment on the situation in the UK - I have no knowledge of other countries but:

 

There are varying opinions on supply - some say infrastructure is already in place, others say its not.  Last year I talked with some guys from the National Grid who were repairing an underground cable outside my home. They told me that the grid itself won't cope as some nuclear power stations are being decommissioned shortly and a lack of planning means that their replacements won't come on stream for several years after they close. They also confirmed that there will be major disruption as many areas don't have cabling that will cope with additional supply.  I tend to believe these guys as they work in the real world, they don't have any commercial or political interest in the matter. 

 

I also asked them about some claims that the UK already has the cabling infrastructure to cope with the expected demand.  They said that (discounting the closing power station matter above) the total capacity available in the UK is enough to more than cope with EV requirements - on paper.  But they said, the figures for estimated supply/available supply are simply numbers. True numbers but those numbers include supplies to redundant former industrial areas/sites.  In short, there is capacity but its in the wrong places.  Hence there will be major disruption and cost whilst new cabling is installed.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm neither for or against EV's, I just think we need to get it right.  The Chinese idea of having battery swap stations seems far better - less supplies in fewer areas.  The hydrogen combustion engine, if it can be made safe, seems a much better solution to me - for one thing, we already have the servicing and repair availability for such vehicles as in essence, they don't seem much different to petrol/diesel engines. It would, I believe, not be too difficult to convert many existing petrol stations to hydrogen and there would be much less need for new cabling and the disruption it causes.

 

I have also talked to a few EV owners who tell me that whilst they are generally happy with their cars, the manufacturers claims on mileage between charges are vastly over-estimated.  Apparently if you drive at night and use the heater, those figures drop dramatically.

 

Human activity has caused massive damage to this planet and it seems we have learned nothing from past mistakes.  People may be interested to see exactly how the metals required for EV battery production are mined, who is mining them and what environmental impacts there are. You might find these articles interesting:

 

https://earth.org/environmental-impact-of-battery-production/

 

https://unctad.org/news/developing-countries-pay-environmental-cost-electric-car-batteries

 

I am very sceptical of claims made regarding anything environmental these days.  I've seen several programmes that expose what's really going on and its worrying. Remember, we are supposed to be urgently trying to avoid a climate crisis - not create other problems.

 

For example, the UK's local authorities have been directed to recycle XX% ? of its rubbish.  To achieve those targets, many local authorities have paid private companies to take their rubbish and recycle it.  A recent BBC investigation found rubbish from the UK dumped in Turkey.  On a BBC radio programme the former manager of a recycling plant told investigators that much of what was taken to the plant he worked at was not recycled at all - it wasn't profitable to do so.  What really happened was that the figures were falsified.  The local authority used the figures for the tonnage taken to the plant by them and totally ignored the fact that much of that tonnage was actually being dumped at landfill/burned.

 

As I say, I'm not for against any of the current solutions, what I want to see is the truth - not the 'truth' that is told by those with commercial/political interests.  The fact of the matter I believe, is that if we could achieve (pie in the sky) a serious reduction in the world's population, that would do far more to solve climate change than anything because it affects so many things - not just what type of vehicle we drive. Is that likely to happen? Not a hope in hell.

[KhaoYai]

When I wrote the above post I couldn't find the article I was looking for - a report into the use of Ammonium Sulphate to mine Rare Earth Metals in Congo.  Apparently this chemical is injected into mountain sides at high pressure in some form of leach mining. I can't find that report at the moment but as a result, I found that even more environmental damage is being caused by the same process in Myanmar. 

 

If you care about the planet and the health of the people that are mining these metals you might find this website very interesting.  It will probably prevent me from ever buying an EV:

 

https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/natural-resource-governance/myanmars-poisoned-mountains/

 

Sorry to repeat myself but I am even more convinced now that the solutions to climate change are far more likely to be found in population reduction than any other measure.

 

 

 

 

[eisfeld]

1 hour ago, KhaoYai said:

Sorry to repeat myself but I am even more convinced now that the solutions to climate change are far more likely to be found in population reduction than any other measure.

This is getting offtopic but that's completely unrealistic unless you want to suggest killing billions of people Thanos style. A reduction in births means huge issues for an economy because young people are productive while old retired people are a net negative. What China did was a human disaster. The best we can do is keep it more or less stable or shrink very slowly which is what is already happening in a lot of developed countries.

 

Fossil fuels aren't any better. They pollute when we use them and they pollute during extraction. Heck we've even seen wars being fought because of oil.

 

I'd prefer upgrading a few cables and making sure our batteries are produced in an environmentally friendly manner instead. I don't know why you'd need to break up roads. You can funnel a cable as replacement for another cable through existing cable runs. But existing cables should be fine for charging at home over night. And for centralized charging stations it shouldn't be an issue either. There are plenty of new factories being built somewhere and they can have machinery that needs MWs of power. They don't seem to have an issue getting supply. Go to PEA and tell them you need 5MW and they'll say sure, when do you want it. If some place needs an upgrade to the grid then let's just get it over with, that's really the smallest of the problems.

[KhaoYai]

2 hours ago, eisfeld said:

This is getting offtopic but that's completely unrealistic unless you want to suggest killing billions of people Thanos style.

Well its not really off topic as the whole point in Toyota producing the new engine is to meet emmissions standards that we are told are required to combat Climate Change.

 

Of course I'm not suggesting any culling or any 'one child' policy as China did.  What I am saying is that there probably isn't a solution and I'm not alone in believing that we have both left it too late to tackle climate change and that the environmental consequences of changing to battery powered EV's seem to be being ignored. On the face of it, it would appear that hydrogen power may be a better solution but that may also have consequences, I haven't looked into to that.

 

If I am wrong and its not too late then we are at the very least on our last chance - and that's why we must get this right.

 

Your comments on cabling are totally without understanding of the mechanics involved and do you not think that if batteries could be produced in an environmentally friendly manner, they would be?  Today's batteries are the result of many years of experimentation with different materials. Did you bother to read the links I posted regarding the environmental and social issues that are taking place as a result of mining for rare earth metals in Africa as we write?

 

There were scientists and scholars around 250 years ago - maybe they didn't fully understand the consequences of the smoke that was belching out of the chimneys of the rapidly springing up factories in the North of England where the Industrial Revolution began.  However, I don't think anyone needed to be particularly intelligent to know that no good could come of it.  Gouging out vast swathes of virgin jungle, pumping toxic chemicals into the mountains of Africa, caring little for the health of the people working in the mines - doesn't sound an awful lot different to what went on in the UK 250 years ago.

 

You don't solve one problem by creating another and as I say, this time we must get it right.I firmly believe that its too late for that but even if that view is wrong, some of the world's leading scientists agree that the measures being taken to tackle Climate Change fall woefully short of what's required. Why? Because to do what's necessary would mean a complete sea change in our attitudes to both production and and consumption and there's no will to do that - just as there's no will to reduce the world's population. The economy rather than the environment will always come first to the majority of people and their governments.

 

Of course vehicles that run on fuels that are not damaging to the environment will go some way towards tackling the issues the world faces and on the face of it, it seems that Hydrogen power is far less damaging.  However, as Isaac Newton said 'for every action in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction'. Translated into environmental terms - that would be 'for every action, there are environmental consequences'.  Its our duty to take the path that creates the least damage.  If Toyota's engine makes a contribution towards the environmental defecit we face then it can only be good news.

 

One of the most difficult issues to tackle in human transport is the pollution created by aircraft - I'm no expert but it seems to me that the technology being employed by Toyota in their new engine would be far easier to adapt for air transport than batteries could ever be.

[Yellowtail]

 

10 hours ago, Bassosa said:

It's beyond me that people living in Thailand of all places are against EVs. Here comes an opportunity to clean up this country, well at least the big cities (less emissions) yet yall are too attached to your noisy, smokey petrol/diesel engines. Just weird. 

It's beyond my that people always claim people that do not agree that EVs are the be-all and end-all that will save the planet are somehow against them, how weird is that?

 

I am not against EVs, I think they're great, and I think people that want them should buy them. 

 

I don't want one, and I am against having to subsidize the people that do want one, and I am against the government mandating that I get one. 

 

10 hours ago, Bassosa said:

 

Can you imagine how much more liveable Bangkok would be if it was just EVs on the roads? I might go and live there!

Can you imagine how long the lines would be at charge stations? 

[motdaeng]

1 hour ago, Yellowtail said:

11 hours ago, Bassosa said:

Can you imagine how much more liveable Bangkok would be if it was just EVs on the roads? I might go and live there!

Can you imagine how long the lines would be at charge stations? 

if you are unable to charge at home, it is advisable not to purchase an electric vehicle (EV).

in general, EV car owners living in bangkok may not need to rely on charging stations within the city.

 

typically, you will only need to charge your car at a charging station during long road trips.

eg. in my case, a couple of times a year for extended journeys. therefore, i am using a charging

station only a few times throughout the year.

 

if you frequently go for long road trips and prefer not to take a 30-minute break after every

two hours of driving, there is a simple solution: do not buy an EV car.

 

[Yellowtail]

2 hours ago, motdaeng said:

if you are unable to charge at home, it is advisable not to purchase an electric vehicle (EV).

in general, EV car owners living in bangkok may not need to rely on charging stations within the city.

 

typically, you will only need to charge your car at a charging station during long road trips.

eg. in my case, a couple of times a year for extended journeys. therefore, i am using a charging

station only a few times throughout the year.

 

if you frequently go for long road trips and prefer not to take a 30-minute break after every

two hours of driving, there is a simple solution: do not buy an EV car.

 

Everyone living in a Bangkok condo or apartment that does not have a dedicated parking spot will be dependent on charge stations. 

 

Even the people living in a Bangkok condo or apartment that do have a dedicated parking spot will likely be dependent on charge stations, as they have no power at their parking spots. 

 

 

[Plern]

19 hours ago, JBChiangRai said:

Even on the cloudiest day, I still get about 35 KwHr from my PV

How about between 7pm and 6am?

[Plern]

22 hours ago, KhunLA said:

The redundancy of using energy, to produce hydrogen, for fuel cells, to produce energy.

Same with EV cars yes? Burn coal for ev - or just put fuel in the tank. It's not magic.

[Plern]

53 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

Even the people living in a Bangkok condo or apartment that do have a dedicated parking spot will likely be dependent on charge stations, as they have no power at their parking spots. 

Some stupid person in my condo literally ran a power cord out their window. They were told sorry, NO lol.

 

Oops... That car was purchased. ????????

[JBChiangRai]

5 minutes ago, Plern said:

How about between 7pm and 6am?

Oodles!

[KhunLA]

3 minutes ago, Plern said:

Same with EV cars yes? Burn coal for ev - or just put fuel in the tank. It's not magic.

NO ... EV owners have choices, solar at home.

 

Have a nice day ... BYE

[Plern]

4 hours ago, KhunLA said:

NO ... EV owners have choices, solar at home.

 

Have a nice day ... BYE

Riiiiiiight solar....

[KhunLA]

4 minutes ago, Plern said:

Riiiiiiight solar....

I charge my MG ZS with excess solar at home.  46.3 usable kWh bank of 50,3kWh.  Never needed the grid, and the solar system was NOT planned to accommodate an EV, as we had just bought an ICE car.

 

Drove around yesterday & today, using 10%, and took 2 ish hours to top back up at around noon.

 

Your post makes no sense, considerating of different solar panel sizes, 300+ to 600+w panels.  To many variables to be credible.

[eisfeld]

13 hours ago, KhaoYai said:

Your comments on cabling are totally without understanding of the mechanics involved and do you not think that if batteries could be produced in an environmentally friendly manner, they would be?  Today's batteries are the result of many years of experimentation with different materials. Did you bother to read the links I posted regarding the environmental and social issues that are taking place as a result of mining for rare earth metals in Africa as we write?

As I mentioned, I have worked in an energy company on projects where MWs were nothing special.. I've ordered cables by the km and some were thick like an arm. I have some understanding of the mechanics involved. Are there environmental problems with how batteries are produced right now? Yes absolutely. But it doesn't have to be. There's no physical reason for it. The reason is human greed. It is cheaper to do things in a dirty way rather than more complex but clean. That problem is not unique to batteries but exists in nearly every industry. The example of plastic waste disposal was mentioned already. Someone found it was cheaper to ship to Turkey and burn it rather than properly recycling it in the source country. There was a huge smoke problem in SEA due to massive amounts of jungle burning in Indonesia just a few years ago - that was due to the palm oil industry. How much recycling have you seen in Thailand? Nearly everything lands in either landfills or incinerators. There's no physical reason to do all this but it's just cheap and easy and makes money for greedy people.

 

You said you haven't looked into hydrogen but seem to like it. Well guess what, with hydrogen you also already start to see the same greed creating environmental issues. There are companies who produce hydrogen with dirty electricity or chemical reactions in one country and sell it to other countries with strong environmental regulations where it is then turned into "green" electricity. It's called greenwashing - dirty energy laundry.

 

BTW don't forget that the hydrogen combustion engines we've seen so far don't just create water as reaction output, there are still toxic emissions - just less than petrol and especially not those carbon ones.

 

Toyota is going all-in on battery EVs and not hydrogen. They've gone so far as changing their CEO who is part of the powerful Toyoda family which founded Toyota because of his push towards hydrogen and missing the battery train which has put the company behind their competitors. Now they are catching up.

[GroveHillWanderer]

Here's an article about that change of emphasis at Toyota. 

 

Toyota Wakes Up To Find That It’s 2023 & There’s An EV Revolution Going On

 

As it states:

 

Quote

Toyota is emerging from its slumber to the reality of electric cars. It announced a bold new plan this week for the future.

 

[KhaoYai]

22 hours ago, eisfeld said:

As I mentioned, I have worked in an energy company on projects where MWs were nothing special.. I've ordered cables by the km and some were thick like an arm. I have some understanding of the mechanics involved.........................................................................................................................................

Coming from both the automotive and construction industries, I have an understanding of vehicles and I've also been involved in the laying of electricity cables. Cables are mostly, as you will know, run in conduits.  Those conduits whilst being bigger than the cables themselves, are limited as to how big a cable they will accept.  On a drawing it all looks good, you drag one cable out and install another.

 

In practice that can't be done.  Main power cables have 'T's' off them that feed sub stations and then go down in size with 'T's' off to individual supplies.  The amount of additional power that will be required to supply EV charging systems will not only require upgrading of the T's to indivdual supplies, it is almost certain that in most locations, the main cable will have to be upgraded.  How do you drag a cable through a conduit when it has T's off it?  You don't is the answer, you have to dig it up.

 

On the other matters, I think you've hit the nail on the head - human greed. Maybe not so much human greed as human/commercial greed.  That's been the problem in the past and without fully investigating matters, will almost certainly have a bearing on what's going on now.

 

When we put profit over environmental cost, we will always receive a bill.  The bill for what we've done over the last 250 years is now overdue for payment and it seems, that our supposed quest for clean energy is also going to have a cost.

 

It beggars belief that, facing such a serious crisis as we do now, we appear to have learned nothing.  We are already causing massive damage to the jungles of Africa and Asia in order to provide the batteries for our 'clean vehicles'.  But, just as it is with rubbish from Europe being dumped in places like Turkey, the jungles of Africa and Asia are thousands of miles away and out of sight.

 

I wonder how many people would buy an EV if photos of the mining needed to make the batteries that run those EV's were stood next to the vehicle in the showroom?  How many would buy if they could see the children working in those mines and the names of the people that have died there?

 

The TV adverts that are used to sell EV's project happy families driving around in their 'clean vehicles' all smiling - maybe they should show chemicals being injected into mountain-sides as well as the thousands if not millions of trees that have been cut down to allow the mining to take place.

 

As an aside, when considering the amount of additional electricity required to power electric vehicles, we should also acknowledge that there are other new technologies that are creating massive demands on the power network.  The internet and in particular 'The Cloud', require huge amounts of power.  For years we've been seeing more efficient electrical appliances being introduced - I thought we would actually be using less electricty now.  The facts are that we are already using far more than we ever did - and that's without EV's.

[lopburi3]

This appears to be a good overview of the Hydrogen/EV pros and cons.