What's up with Toyota? They had a head start on everybody for a long time with their hybrids and now it's one weird scheme after another. It reminds me of Sony and the VCR wars (or the minidisc, for that matter). I really don't get it, they seem to be completely willing to cede the market, every other brand can't seem to retool fast enough to get to zero emissions line-ups as soon as they can design them and here is Toyota going against the flow with not just one but two exotic designs for which there is at present absolutely no infrastructure and no viable pathway to get there based on a single manufacturer's blessing, as well as the requirement to now keep five lines of motive power in play (gasoline, hybrid, electric, hydrogen and now ammonia). The only reason Tesla got to where it is today is because we already had a power grid. Absent a distribution network and a viable means of large scale production this just isn't going to happen. Besides the safety issues. If you think hydrogen is bad wait until you see what your average ammonia leak looks like. HazMat suits won't be optional.
Pushing for more EVs means increase in electricity demand in Japan, when they are already struggling as they had to shut down part of their old plants, and would need a political and technical miracle to justify building new ones that the public would acknowledge as safe enough.
Betting the farm on electricity is not viable in the current Japanese situation, so Japanese maker looking long and hard at alternatives shouldn't be a surprise.
Other countries have the same issue in variant degrees, so Toyota forsaw they could make a full EV turn later if the alternatives don't pan out.
The hybrids were - and still are - a smart move because they can be sold to just about everybody and they offer a sliding scale by dropping in a larger battery from 'mostly ICE' to 'mostly BEV'. Of course you still have a more complex setup but it solves the range issue and allows the vehicles to operate in areas where there isn't a whole lot of power available. Those I get. But Hydrogen and Ammonia make zero sense to me, both from a safety aspect as well as distribution.
Thinking that EVs are a fad is very much behind the times, BEVs have a lot of momentum now and grid operators the world over are planning for wholesale electrification of transportation, with the exception of long haul trucks - for now - this is something that is on course for large scale adaptation. It will still need infrastructure upgrades and obviously more generating power but that can be done incrementally.
If not BEVs then we have serious problems because right now there are no viable contenders other than to burn more fossil fuels and given the amount of legislation in place right now that's simply going to stop. If you're lucky you might be able to drive your classic car or maybe there will be conversion kits for those as well (there are already some of those on the market today, but for now it doesn't look like there will be a mandatory retirement of all ICEs on the horizon).
It probably made a lot of sense when your wife bought it, but the Prius Prime is now more expensive than the Model 3 SR, and more expensive than the Model 3 LR after rebate.
I think that competing with BEV's will be difficult for PHEV's unless they are cheaper. They're both going after the "can plug in at home" market.
And for those who can't plug in at home, most people probably prefer cheaper non-plugin hybrids and ICE's to the more expensive PHEV's.
I really want a quadricycle citroen ami for where I live. I have a 15km commute max. And when I can't WFH I usually drive with my wife. But I'd rather a small zippy little EV that I can park on a postage stamp.
Sadly, quadricycle aren't legal in Australia, because everyone's become addicted to F150's.
Hybrids are horrible, and basically a plot by automakers to keep selling ICE cars. Take a small/primitive ICE engine plus an unuseable small/cheap EV kit (ask someone with a true EV, 30 miles is when they start to look for a charger). Twice the engines, twice the possible maintenance problems, and since both are cramped, almost none of the advantages.
The way I’ve seen it explained is that Toyota is very good at developing and building combustion engines, which has given them a competitive edge for a very long time, and they don’t want to give up that edge. There’s no guarantee that they’ll be good enough at building EVs to be among the top ranks of EV makers and that frightens them.
I think that's an oversimplification of auto engineering, and more-so Toyota's strategy (whatever that is)
Toyota offered quality that is unheard of at that economic point across the board; it isn't simply quality drivetrains, it's quality everything that leads to a reliable and trustworthy vehicle that has a high resale value.
Now, I don't know why they're doing what they're doing with the alternative engine designs; but I do know that their manufacturing capability and research prowess is top-notch, and that they could pretty smoothly dive straight into EV by pulling strings with long-term partners. Their journey to full EV won't be the same as ground-up groups like Tesla/Rivian/Whatever.
I don't think it should be viewed as a slip in expertise and capability -- I think it's more like a moon-shot.
I'm going to take a break from bashing Toyota to suggest that this might just be a special use car or for particular circumstances that are not related to EVs. (The EV slant seems to be mostly from the deranged writer on the website.)
The engine was shown by a Chinese partner of Toyota's (which is why the comments about Japan's geopolitical relations with China are extra ridiculous). It isn't going to kill EVs; China is all-in on EVs.
Instead of the conspiratorial, let me go to something more realistic. Toyota is a Japanese company and not everyone's skills are going to transition to electric vehicles. For those left behind, funding research projects seems to be a sensible way to reward their efforts from the past.
That's fair, the article seems to be low quality, but other news sources back this up to a large degree, what with Toyota being a 50% stakeholder in the engine project here that seems to be a pretty big move if it was done without their permission and cooperation, which they indicate they have engaged in.
Note that new engine projects, especially if they include non-standard fuels aren't exactly cheap.
Well, that may be so but what should frighten them more is to become utterly irrelevant. Drive trains always should have been a commodity. Toyota makes excellent cars and that's not just the engine, it's the whole package that makes them a brand worthy of some respect. Suggesting that an ammonia fueled vehicle is the solution for their insecurities is playing fast and loose with their perceived image as a safety and environmentally aware company. They couldn't have picked a worse fuel for a vehicle, even if you can make it work in the lab.
I mean, sure, I get that line of thinking, but it feels suicidal for them to be coming up with cockamamie ideas that nobody is asking for and have the potential to be significantly more dangerous than current offerings, rather than trying their best to move on with everyone else. That is to say, I'm not opposed to non-polluting alternatives to EVs, whatever that could look like, but... ammonia?
I feel like they risk being even further behind the curve if they're not actively working on an EV.
Some of it might just be a japanese economics/security/government thing. Energy independence is really big for the japanese, and battery supply might be looking like another foreign dependence (especially on the big bad Chinese).
Some of it may be the japanese corporate culture being ossified and difficult to make large adaptations, since seniority is so important, you can't dissent.
Some of it may be an attempt to chase sunk costs / leverage former investments and market leaderships (FCEV) before Tesla left those in the dust.
Some of it may be that Toyota knows they missed the boat and are hoping to keep as many irons hot for future flexibility. Honestly, they may not like China, but they can get in the EV game effortlessly with some rebadging of Chinese stuff or just hopping on the Chinese drivetrain and battery infrastructure in the short run.
For local energy usage, Japan relies 95% of oil on mideast. It's the primary reason of trade deficit. It's critical if they stopped export. It must be more vulnerable than electricity usage, since solar panels, wind turbines, dam, nuclear, and batteries will continue working even after China stopped all exports.
For local manufacturing, Japan relies rare metals on China. It's vulnerable for EV manufacturers.
> What's up with Toyota? They had a head start on everybody for a long time with their hybrids and now it's one weird scheme after another.
Contrary to the heavy-handed tone of this article, I don't think that's actually true; Toyota is invested in EVs -- BEVs as well as FCEVs -- as well as doing far-out (and almost certain to be commercially unviable) efforts like this.
And FCEVs, while perhaps also a dead end, weren't a weird scheme they got into after they had a lead with hybrids, they started FCEV work 5 years before the first Prius was introduced in Japan.
> every other brand can't seem to retool fast enough to get to zero emissions line-ups as soon as they can design them and here is Toyota going against the flow with not just one but two exotic designs for which there is at present absolutely no infrastructure and no viable pathway to get there based on a single manufacturer's blessing
I assume you mean hydrogen FCEVs and Ammonia; the latter isn't in production and is not even at a concept-demo level, just an engine demo, the former...isn't a single manufacturer thing (Honda actually introduced FCEVs first, and is still selling them as well; they've been clear they see BEVs as definitely more dominant in the near term, but FCEVs as a potential longer-term play and they are keeping their oar in that market.)
Toyota (and Honda, and others -- e.g., Nissan and its "bio-ethanol" fueled fuel cell work) are just not putting all their eggs in one basket.
A huge portion of the Japanese economy is based on the auto industry (something like 2.5% of GDP). EVs are much simpler than ICE vehicles. Additionally, Japan doesn't have expertise or the raw materials to be competitive in batteries, which is one of the main components of an EV.
So, from the perspective of Toyota, and from the Japanese economy as a whole, there is little reason to think that there is much value in manufacturing EVs. Sure, Toyota might be able to slap their brand on an EV and get a few out the door, but they're not going to dominate the market like they do today.
> Japan doesn't have expertise or the raw materials to be competitive in batteries
Japan is notoriously good at fundamental material science, and Panasonic is a battery giant. Sure there's tough competition, but they never shied away from fighting these kind of battles.
Relying on mainly China for the rare earth/metals could be an aspect of it though.
Panasonic a Japanese company is already one of the major producers of batteries in the world and they produce a good number of those in Japan. They supply Tesla Model S and X batteries from their Japanese factories for example.
Most Japanese manufacturers are small and many parts of battery and battery cell supply depends on China. Japan lost the battery battle so want to use something else. Tesla’s largest battery supplier is Chinese CATL[0].
So in EV Japan is a minor player, if not for US sanctions Chinese EV makers would have overtaken Tesla as well, but which they will give them some time.
This is also my conclusion, in the same way that if you get into a fender-bender there, you junk the car because it's dishonorable to drive the car after you got into a [minor] accident.
Really? Wow! So different. Although with repair cost and complexity increasing, many more cars are totaled / written off than used to be here in the US. Particularly EV’s.
I heard houses were a depreciating asset in Japan too.
The reason houses in Japan are such a depreciating asset is due to the population collapse. It's estimated there is a surplus of about 10 million houses.
I think it's a stretch to believe that ego is controlling a 300b company. It's an easy 'spectator' guesss, but more realistically whatever their strategy is is likely just being misinterpreted.
I mean, with that kind of cash and establishment you can do some real wacky things publicly that turn profit. A company the size of Toyota could influence public trends enough to make money on the side via profits from share-held groups.
Maybe they have a larger hand in refinery/opec/whatever markets than one would first imagine -- if that was the case then there is plenty of valid 'business reasoning' that would end in the publishing/advertisement of weird products.
Asian firms like Toyota are huge on face - and doing a switch back to batteries would make it very obvious that they (really one specific senior controlling exec, most likely!) lost (tens? hundreds?) of billions of dollars on a bad bet. And even more in lost time and market position.
Never underestimate ego in a situation like this. Hell, just look at what Elon is doing.
Why admit you screwed up (likely costing you your very lucrative position and bringing shame and dishonor to your family) when you can double down and try to reality distort your way out of failure? Sometimes it works!
When it doesn’t, it can bankrupt huge multinationals (or historically even nations occasionally!), but at that point it’s almost
always the type of problem that someone else needs to help you solve anyway. Often ones you can even scapegoat foreign powers or domestic enemies with. Win/win.
If ships do embrace ammonia technology, it may make sense to use it to power cars. If you are a big corp you have to hedge your bets. This seems a more realistic strategy for the world largest car company than to bet every thing on EVs.
Toyota makes mass produced cars. It makes more cars in a month than Tesla does all year. Sure Tesla has done quite well, but EVs aren't really mainstream. When its mainstream and the technology settles down Toyota will be there.
In the meantime the waiting lists for Toyota Hybrids are some of the longest in the industry - they're what people really want.
I wasn't comparing to Tesla per se but to the market in general and the fact that Toyota has some BEVs out but not in quantity (~2% of their sales) compared to other operators (for instance, VW: 7%) that sell both ICE and BEVs. Tesla and VW BEVs are a dime a dozen around here, I've seen a handful of Toyota's (mostly delivery vans).
They also seem to have been stuck for a long time on the 'hydrogen is the future' bandwagon.
Ammonia fuel pumps will not be a fun place to hang out:
"Anhydrous ammonia is stored as a liquid under pressure. When released to the environment, though, it becomes a toxic gas. Liquid anhydrous ammonia expands 850 times when released to ambient air and can form large vapor clouds. It may aerosolize and behave as a dense gas, even though it is normally lighter than air. Anhydrous ammonia may also cause water vapor to condense in the air forming a visible white cloud. Therefore, when anhydrous ammonia is released to the air, it may travel along the ground in a cloud instead of immediately rising into the air and dispensing." https://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/index.cfm/43,320,230,349,html
Imagine a gas station that's perpetually covered in a blanket of toxic fog that drifts to nearby homes and fills in their basements.
Exactly. It's enough to have to use it in very much diluted form to clean surfaces prior to painting to give you a very healthy respect for the kind of accident that can result from having a concentrated amount in an enclosed space or a newly formed cloud of gas resulting from a leak.
On the flip side the smell and eye watering and lung burning is so strong that even the smallest leak cannot go undetected for a second. There can never be any such cloud except in the case of an accident. At all other times the tiniest leak anywhere will make everyone scramble and shut valves off.
I do believe this. I don't know what their plans are for making the mass almost uncontrollable distribution and handling infrastructure safe, but I can't believe it can ever be as safe as gas or diesel. I mean you can carry enough energy to move tons of weight for dozens of miles at high speed and up hills, in a plain open pail like water, or a milk jug, and drop it, spill it all over yourself, throw a lit cigarette right into it... And it doesn't explode or anything.
I can imagine ways to make the car tank reasonably safe in car crashes, just by making the tank good and strong and protecting it along with the passengers such that anything bad enough to hurt the tank already killed everyone anyway, and anything short of that, there could be a pretty simple mechanical auto shutoff inside the tank that seals up all the pipes from the inside and the only thing to escape will be the contents of the lines, and the lines can be thin. So I'm actually not that worried about car crashes.
But the number of infrastructure bits that all need to be mechanically sound and properly maintained and not old, bent, chewed up or worn seals, corroded, abraded, rusted, dirty with sand, ice, hit with a back hoe, ruptured from ice or tree roots, etc etc...
If it's a calm humid day, the ammonia will combine with moisture to form a vapor that's heavier than air, so it will settle to the ground instead of dissipating. That means if you have even a tiny leak from the pump nozzle, over time it would accumulate in low-lying areas like basements.
It baffles me that major automakers continue investing in alternate engines that are dramatically worse than EVs in almost every metric, while still neglecting to invest in their own EV programs sufficiently to compete with Tesla.
I love that Toyota is forward thinking, but where does the ammonia come from? The most common way to make it is via the Haber-Bosch process, which, as I recall, consumes 1% of global energy product as of today. I wonder what that number would look like if we manufactured fuel that way?
Pretty sure this is best read as an alternative to Hydrogen for the "future renewable energy will be plentiful, but sometimes we still need higher energy density".
It clearly wins by one measure (it's easier to make it a liquid, which is easier to handle than a gas), but I'm not enough of a chemist to really understand the table in the link downthread for how it compares by other measures.
Well the website is "enginelabs" and there ain't no engine in an EV.
And MAN look at that "ammonia engine". All I have to do to judge the viability of the ammonia engine is look at that, it's simply too complex.
By the time any ammonia infrastructure and production ready ammonia engine came to market (which assumes VAST amounts of government investment that should instead go to alternative energy, storage, and battery production/research), EV drivetrains would be probably half the cost of a traditional ICE, much less some new fangled ammonia thing.
That's the reality that all the ICE makers are staring at: sure batteries and EV drivetrains are still a bit more expensive than a traditional ICE, but ... that's going to change, especially with 150 wh/kg sodium ion coming into mass production, which is a 300 mile car with potentially a $40/kw-hr bill of materials, and the sodium ion roadmap has 200+ wh/kg cells in a couple years. If that's not dense enough, there's 200+ wh/kg LFP now at about $60-70/kw-hr bill of materials, and 250 wh/kg on the roadmap.
And sulfur techs / aluminum air / solid state and a host of other approaches on the 5-10 year that should double or triple density.
There's simply going to be 20 years of cost reductions in EV drivetrains that ICE (and whatever that ammonia monstrosity is) simply cannot compete with.
And EV drivetrains are much more flexible for application. The motors are pretty compact, so they can fit in wide ranges of vehicles, and the battery pack is pretty easily adapted: you scale the number of cells to the area available.
For ICEs you usually have to stick to pretty standardized form factors or you have to design a transmission, driveshaft, engine, emissions, gas tank, etc to fit the application, and those usually won't have the cutting edge efficiency technology of the large market consumer vehicles.
> batteries and EV drivetrains are still a bit more expensive than a traditional ICE
We're really close to crossing that line, maybe we even have already done so. For someone shopping new sedans, it's hard to argue with ROI on the Model 3 RWD right now.
Tesla is almost certainly cheaper than an ICE, they are sitting on their profit margin to a large degree. Chinese makers are likely under it too.
All the incumbents are still way over it, I hear like $140/kw-hr for things like the electric ford F-150. I'm fairly confident Tesla and the chinese are under $100/kw-hr, and that's without the forthcoming high density sodium ion/LFP cells that will probably get into cars in 2024.
The Chinese EV makers are really the Sword of Damocles to Toyota and US/EU car makers. Tesla can already match them in costs, but if they gain access to the US market, the other car makers will have to eat a lot of losses to stay remotely price competitive with them.
The only hope for the incumbents against Chinese EVs right now is tariffs and infrastructure. It takes a fair investment to build a support network that can compete with all the existing dealers with their service departments. But that is definitely not an insurmountable advantage.
As always, look for the source of the stored energy. The Wikipedia article [1] is a good overview.
Also, CO2 is a major byproduct of industrial production. While that might be a good feedstock for carbon capture and storage were this approach to scale up, that just opens the whole system to CCS issues.
Did I miss where the article explains how ammonia can be used in a combustion engine? I read the whole article but it didn't seem to get into the techincals.
At this point the only reason to be interested in any non-BEV vehicle is because refueling on road trips is that important for your use case. Otherwise, the easy availability of electrons at home is such a huge fueling advantage that I'd be very reluctant to give it up. If I can't get a plentiful, safe source of ammonia at home, I'm sure as heck not interested in an ammonia engine.
If you've got renewables to do it with, that's not a problem. It's ok if the energy in becomes energy out. That's some big assumptions, but not unphysical.
It doesn't explain where they expect an ammonia infrastructure to appear from, especially since battery vehicles are already rolling and infrastructure is being built out.
Toyota's CEO is crazy if they think this development will have an impact on EVs. You know what people don't have at home? Ammonia for their new ammonia engine...
After reading this I'm thinking about shorting Toyota. They are totally sunk at this point. Between fuel cells and this nonsense they've sunk countless millions when they could have lead the EV market.
I don't have petrol at home to fill my car's tank either. Obviously if ammonia engines took off, it would be available for refueling.
That said, I have no problems with alternative fuels being researched. I am not even sure if EVs will ever be practical enough for widespread adoption. Many people don't live in single family homes with easy access to recharging.
