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Transportation

Toyota Unveils Project Portal 2.0 Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Semi Truck (cnet.com) 96

Toyota is actively working to make vehicles powered by alternative energy sources. Last year, the Japanese automaker unveiled Project Portal, a novel hydrogen fuel-cell system designed for heavy-duty truck use at the Port of Los Angeles. Today, Toyota announced that it built a second hydrogen fuel cell-powered heavy-duty truck with 50 percent more range. CNET reports: Project Portal gets its power from a pair of hydrogen fuel-cell stacks borrowed from the Mirai sedan. Combined with a 12-kWh battery, the truck put out an impressive 670-plus horsepower and 1,325 pound-feet of torque. Its total combined weight rating is a hefty 80,000 pounds. The first version's range was about 200 miles, but this second version pushes that range north of 300 miles. The new Project Portal also packs a sleeper cab and a revised powertrain that boosts cab space without requiring a longer wheelbase. Project Portal 2.0 will begin its drayage work this fall. The pioneering variant has already clocked more than 10,000 miles as it transported goods over short distances in and around the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. As with every other hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle, the only emissions byproduct is pure potable water, although I don't blame you if you're not comfortable enough to pour a glass and take a sip of tailpipe juice.
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Toyota Unveils Project Portal 2.0 Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Semi Truck

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    Let's just say it wouldn't be the first time.
  • by Rei ( 128717 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @08:05PM (#57045808) Homepage

    ... said someone from 1996, maybe.

    • by Registered Coward v2 ( 447531 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @08:51PM (#57045954)

      ... said someone from 1996, maybe.

      Truck emmisions are an issue for ports. A lot are older OO vehicles that aren’t clean idle ans aome ports offer incentives to get new tractors. If LA can get a significant numbers of the trucks to be H2 fueled it’s a win.

      • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

        Welcome to regulations of Obama. That was the shit that gutted the piss out of the referb industry for truck engines. Which mean O/O's held on for dear life to the engines that they had, even if they were pushing 800k mi or more. Meaning they forced trucks to buy 'new' engines that were less efficient(at 1/3 to 1/2 the cost of a new truck), instead of a rebuild with modern tech, giving them the same efficiency but burning cleaner.

        FYI It was Trump's EPA that revoked those regulations, and now referbs are

        • Welcome to regulations of Obama.

          How exactly did Obama force the EPA regulations of 2004, 2007, and 2010? Those were set and being worked on before anyone ever heard of him.

          Source: Diesel engine engineer that worked on all of the above emissions milestones before Obama was ever president.

          • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

            You mean the part where they banned the refurbishment of older engines in 2009, then further restricted them in 2011? Gee, you'd think that someone who claims to be a diesel engine engineer would know this, instead of us lowly grease monkeys who do the hard work.

          • Thanks a lot, Obama!

  • by Rei ( 128717 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @08:22PM (#57045858) Homepage

    I'm making a note here: "Huge Success".

    • by glitch! ( 57276 )

      To me, a Triumph is a car that is almost certainly a sports car that failed in some way. Firstly, the "TR" references the fact that Triumph started out using tractor engines. The TR120 and TR140 were interesting, for those who like different designs or imported cars. The Spitfire was... I don't know. I think it competed with the MGB, but both were low in horsepower. The TR6 might be the best of the line. It had a great look, and apparently it did not fall apart like the offerings from Fiat. I have to admit

      • I know a guy who used to own a 1964 TR4 with a slightly hopped-up 350 chevy and a 10-bolt rear end. It was fast like a Shelby Cobra, but a hell of a lot cheaper even with the custom work done. It's unclear why anyone would drive an unmodified Triumph, or even if anyone could get one to go down the road reliably...

      • I always understood that "TR" means Triumph Roadster
      • Triumph made a lot of saloon cars too, mostly sporty up-market ones. I had a Triumph 2000, which had basically the same engine, transmission and suspension as the TR6. Nicest car I ever had. Then they stopped making Triumphs in the early 80's and put the name on some crappy little Honda to most people's disgust, and shortly after that the name died.

      • The Spitfire was... I don't know. I think it competed with the MGB, but both were low in horsepower.

        No, it competed with the MG Midget. You could get an MGB with a 3.5 litre V8 engine.

        The TR6 might be the best of the line.

        The top of the range Triumph sports car around that time was the Stag (with that same V8 engine as the MGB). Best looking car ever made IMHO :-)

  • by Anonymous Coward

    They should channel that water into the window washers or something.

  • If you're working port drayage, you don't need a sleeper cab. If you're going far enough to need a sleeper cab, you need more than 300 miles range.

    Footnote: Why in hell is drayage not in the Firefox dictionary? Too busy making new icon sets?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      It's about the same range as the Tesla truck [tesla.com], but given it's an H2 truck, if there are fuel stations, you can refill in about 10-15 minutes, which means long-haul is a potential. The rumored Tesla semi truck will have somewhere around 600 kWh of battery, meaning it would take a supercharger around 5 hours to recharge. That's a big advantage of liquid or gas fuels - near-instant refills. Range on a tank is really much less important when you have to stop every 4-5 hours to refill for 15 minutes, versus st
      • by Rei ( 128717 )

        The Tesla truck comes in two versions, 300 and 500 miles. They charge to 80% in in half an hour at a megacharger station, aka during a US trucker's mandatory rest break (we have much more frequent rest requirements here).

        Battery speculation runs between 600 and 1000 kWh.

        • So, the non-existent truck using non-existent chargers, still takes more refuel-to-road time as compared to the existing hydrogen-powered truck and the existing hydrogen stations?
          • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

            Pretty much. Which means the only places these things really exist is at depots where trucks sit, or in locations where the trucks are used to shunt from a depot to another, or a short distance to a factory/dock of some kind.

          • by Rei ( 128717 )

            1) Multiple trucks exist. You're confusing "existing" with "being in mass production"

            2) There is no nationwide network of either. The difference is that fuel for the electric truck costs an order of magnitude less than for the hydrogen truck, which is the most important factor for fleet operators.

            3) As a general rule, EV batteries are cheaper and longer lifespan than fuel cells, too. FCVs having to also have a battery pack, just a smaller one.

            • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

              1) Multiple trucks exist. You're confusing "existing" with "being in mass production"

              If a truck isn't rolling it's costing you money. Trucking is the replacement of hundreds of giant warehouses full of people. It takes around 11 minutes to fill both tanks of a truck. Around 4 minutes at a self-serve depot that's card-locked, a shunt/local haul truck might need to be filled once per-day.

              2) There is no nationwide network of either. The difference is that fuel for the electric truck costs an order of magnitude less than for the hydrogen truck, which is the most important factor for fleet operators.

              Quite true. There's also not a network for trucks either, it's all for cars pretty much. And trucks have a very hard time fitting into tiny areas for cars. Trucks stops aren't adverse to charging statio

              • by Rei ( 128717 )

                If a truck isn't rolling it's costing you money.

                And if a truck is rolling without spending the mandatory half hour break (much more in the EU - 45 minutes every 4 1/2 hours), it's costing a heck of a lot more money.

                500 mi + 80% * 500mi = 900mi, divided by 55mph = 16 hours = much more than you can legally drive in a day. About 65-70mph you start approaching breakeven, where the increased energy consumption and reduced-time-to-travel starts bumping up against your daily limits, and over that, the electric tr

                • PG&E electricity rates in Socal are well above $0.13/kWh [pge.com] - about double that to start, and more than triple as usage climbs. Making it more than price-competitive with diesel. By your own numbers.
                  • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

                    Those are general residential rates. Superchargers get power at commercial rates, not residential. It costs about 26 cents per kWh in California at a supercharger, which is *much* cheaper than normal residential power rates. That said, it is much more *expensive* than the best-case cost on an EV-A or EV-B plan. At last check, those plans charged less than 13 cents per kWh for off-peak charging.

                • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

                  FYI in most states, the posted limit for trucks is 60mph, some are 55 but not many. 16hrs is allowed, if your company has paid the fines a head of time for it. But you're allowed 12hrs off automatically at the end of the driving period.

                  Depending on the truck, most are averaging around $0.15/mile for fuel. Mountains aside of course.

                  Yeah, but we're talking about equipment that's already being used. SOFC really don't "exist" outside of trial or development phases, but companies are willing to put their name

    • My thoughts exactly. 300 miles is what, 15% of the range of a diesel semi?

      What driver is going to want to waste precious time by stopping for fuel every 300 miles? The only reason they stop at all is that the law limits how long they can go before taking a nap. Plus, how likely are they to find a refueling station that can pump hydrogen?

      Toyota knows that though, so I figure this is more a demonstration than something they expect to sell.

      • by necro81 ( 917438 )
        While I agree that the sleeper cab is a bit of a weird addition to this vehicle, the fact that its range is only about 300 mi does not make it worthless.

        As the article stated, this truck's intended purpose is short-haul, drayage work at the port. That is: getting containers from boats at the dock to distribution centers at some distance away. That kind of work is a lot of start-stop moving around the port, idling in queues, waiting at stoplights. Diesel semis are terrible at that, from the standpoin
        • The sleeper cab is the one part I'm questioning. It just doesn't make sense when you only have the fuel storage for short hauls, which is why I figure it's more for show than for sell with that cell.
  • I don't think any of those hydrogen car manufacturers pursue profit.
    They only aim for government grants.
  • turned on? Last I checked EVs get better range without those, and I could see some truck drivers getting screwed by their driver managers into driving without heat or AC to push range...
  • Does it come with on-board GLaDOS?

  • by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Tuesday July 31, 2018 @11:18PM (#57046522) Journal

    https://www.hybridcars.com/fue... [hybridcars.com]

    Hydrogen is just fossil fuel in disguise.

    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Water. Hydrogen economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
      • by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @12:52AM (#57046890) Journal

        Read all the statements about how the target prices for electrolysis have not been met. Look up the efficiency of turning water into compressed H2. It's much more efficient to use that electricity to charge a battery. Then you have all the distribution and storage costs (before the H2 actually gets into a vehicle). Then you have got the fact that hydrogen vehicles still need significant batteries because it's not practical to regenerate energy back into hydrogen in a vehicle.

        Then you have the need for a massive infrastructure build-out, that isn't needed for BEVs.

        Today, and for the next few years, hydrogen will be produced from fossil fuels.

        The concept of the "hydrogen economy" is a con put out by the fossil fuel industry to delay the renewable fuel industry from taking over transportation.

    • If these trucks use hydrogen from electrolysis, in California (the planned location for most of these trucks), and California continues with their plans to drive nuclear power out of the state, then these are natural gas powered trucks.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      Kenworth has been making natural gas trucks for years.
      https://www.kenworth.com/news/... [kenworth.com]

      There appears to be plenty of natural gas filling stations in California.
      https://maps.cngnow.com/search... [cngnow.com]

      Hydrogen fueled trucks are a stupid idea.

  • by ukoda ( 537183 ) on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @02:50AM (#57047202) Homepage
    When are people going to realise that hydrogen based vehicle are never going to amount to anything. I have been reading about them since the 1980s and it has gone nowhere in all that time. I can't help but wonder how many hydrogen vehicles were bank rolled by big oil to muddy the waters around EV development. News flash, EVs are here now and for most people practical (but still over priced) and hydrogen solutions will not be able to catch up with EVs.
    • Re:Give me a break (Score:4, Informative)

      by blindseer ( 891256 ) <blindseerNO@SPAMearthlink.net> on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @05:42AM (#57047688)

      When are people going to realise that hydrogen based vehicle are never going to amount to anything. I have been reading about them since the 1980s and it has gone nowhere in all that time.

      That will probably happen about the time public schools teach real math and science.

      I can't help but wonder how many hydrogen vehicles were bank rolled by big oil to muddy the waters around EV development.

      I doubt "big oil" is behind funding hydrogen. They have nothing to gain from this. There's certainly a lot of hydrogen produced from natural gas right now but the oil companies have to know that if someone makes a working hydrogen vehicle that the next step is someone finding a means to improve electrolysis of water for hydrogen.

      I'm guessing it's the car and truck manufacturers funding this. They are the primary target of "greenies" because of the petroleum they burn. Car makers have a lot to gain on hydrogen because the "greenies" are doing all they can to make car ownership unattractive. If cars can be proven to be able to run on hydrogen then nearly all the complaints on environmental impact go away.

      News flash, EVs are here now and for most people practical (but still over priced) and hydrogen solutions will not be able to catch up with EVs.

      News flash, no long haul truck is going to run on batteries.

      Batteries just do not have the energy density required to keep a truck moving long distances. Trains might solve some of the long haul transport needed, and they can be electrified, but trucks still need reasonable range to do multiple short hauls in a day to compete with diesel. Even these short haul trucks can't be electric. This hydrogen fuel cell truck that Toyota is showcasing has a range of 300 miles or so on a tank, which is barely enough for running a day driving loops around a dockyard.

      I worked in a metalwork shop and they had two forklifts for moving parts inside the shop. The "small" one (small in quotes because it's relative) was electric. The big forklift was propane. No one liked to drive the electric forklift because it was underpowered, and once the battery ran down it was done for the day and needed overnight to charge. In a forklift the weight of the battery wasn't much of an issue because it served nicely as a counterweight against what was being lifted, the propane forklift had steel counterweights. On even a short haul truck the battery weight counts against it as that reduces the cargo it can carry. On a long haul truck the batteries would have to weigh more than the cargo to get a reasonable range.

      Battery-electric passenger cars are fine for a daily driver. Even then most owners of a BEV have a second gasoline vehicle for longer drives, such as taking the kids to visit Grandma once per month. The practicality of BEVs to be a true replacement for gasoline and diesel fuel vehicles is still questionable. Plug-in hybrids are a nice compromise but they are still burning hydrocarbons. Compressed natural gas vehicles seem like a more viable compromise over BEVs and gasoline. CNG vehicles cut CO2 emissions by half, can fill up at home like an electric (since many homes have natural gas service already), and can tank up in minutes at a station equipped with a CNG filling point.

      I've seen hydrogen mixed with natural gas as a compromise, it reduces CO2 emissions further than natural gas alone but does away with many problems of hydrogen storage as the hydrogen is "dissolved" in the natural gas and doesn't attack seals and metals (and therefore creating dangerous leaks) like pure hydrogen. If we see hydrogen make it to the transportation market then it's likely to be as a mix with methane and other hydrocarbon gasses. This methane doesn't have to be from fracking out of the ground, it can be synthesized or from biomass processing.

  • by blindseer ( 891256 ) <blindseerNO@SPAMearthlink.net> on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @02:54AM (#57047218)

    There are no mines or wells to bring up hydrogen from the earth. Given current sources of electricity for electrolysis and how hydrogen is predominately formed this is a truck that burns natural gas. There are already natural gas trucks on the market, Kenworth announced they'd have some in 2104.
    https://www.kenworth.com/news/... [kenworth.com]

    Given that T. Boone Pickens has been talking about his "Pickens Plan" on energy policy for 10 years now moving transportation fuel to natural gas is far from new.
    https://www.ted.com/talks/t_bo... [ted.com]

    Cut out the middle man from natural gas to moving cargo and just use natural gas in the trucks. What hydrogen does is add the costs and losses in running power plants on natural gas for water electrolysis, or using that natural gas in steam reformers. Natural gas trucks exist now, they have better range than these hydrogen trucks, and I'm guessing that they cost less to make and maintain. Natural gas reduces particulate emissions, NOx emissions, CO2 emission, and other air quality problems.

    If we burn natural gas in trucks instead of for electricity then where do we get our electricity? Pickens endorses wind and nuclear, and I believe he's right about that. Pickens admits his plan is a "bridge", a plan that alone is not a permanent solution because the natural gas will run out at some point. Something will have to replace even natural gas at some point. How long can natural gas last? Decades at least, if not centuries, so it's not like investing in natural gas will be a loss for someone buying a fleet of trucks, the trucks will have plenty of natural gas for the life of the truck.

    What's one possible endpoint for the Pickens Plan "bridge"? Synthesized fuel. The US Navy has been researching how to turn electricity and seawater into jet fuel.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    This synthetic fuel process from the US Navy doesn't have to produce only jet fuel, it can produce hydrocarbons of any length on that carbon chain, from methane (the primary component of natural gas with one carbopn) to cetane (primary component of diesel fuel with 16 carbons).

    Synthetic fuels from this process the Navy is researching produces hydrogen as part of the process, they just take one more step of grabbing carbon (from CO2 dissolved in the water) and attach it to the hydrogen to make fuel. The Navy is intending this electricity to come from a nuclear power plant on a large warship but the electricity can come from anywhere, and the water can come from anywhere it is exposed to the air and dissolves the CO2 from the atmosphere. It closes the carbon cycle so this fuel is as "carbon free" as anything else.

    I expect any plans to use hydrogen as transportation fuel to fail, unless that means of transportation is a rocket. It's just far easier and cheaper to cut out the hydrogen middle man and burn natural gas for cleaner running trucks. If the concern is CO2 output even from the natural gas then produce "synthetic natural gas" (or rather "substitute natural gas" since synthetic and natural are opposing terms) and introduce that into the existing natural gas infrastructure.

    Hydrogen is a terrible fuel, especially since it's not really a "fuel" as most people understand it since it does not exist as something we can just dig up out of the ground. This Toyota truck burning hydrogen is a stupid idea and there are already existing solutions that are far easier and cheaper to implement.

    • I expect any plans to use hydrogen as transportation fuel to fail, unless that means of transportation is a rocket. It's just far easier and cheaper to cut out the hydrogen middle man and burn natural gas for cleaner running trucks.

      Amusingly, SpaceX has no interest in hydrogen either. The BFR is being designed around the Raptor [wikipedia.org] engine, which burns cryogenic methane.

      Toyota's truck doesn't burn the hydrogen though. It's a hydrogen fuel-cell. More efficient than burning, but absurdly expensive, and uses precious metals in the fuel cells. It will vanish into history as soon as Tesla Semis are available in fleet numbers, since they will be cheaper, probably permanently.

      • The Tesla semi is as range limited as the Toyota hydrogen semis, both about 300 miles. It's not unheard of for a diesel engine truck to get 2000 miles on one fill. If we assume a truck driver goes their daily limit of about 10 hours in a day, on an open road pace of 70 MPH, that's 700 miles in a day. If an alternative fuel truck can't do even a single day on one tank, and have some left over for an emergency reserve, then it's not going to replace diesel.

        Diesel trucks can allow for a 700 mile day drive o

  • Did you know that Toyota moved their North American HQ to Texas? Ask where that hydrogen comes from. It comes from hiding massive CO2 emissions at natural gas âoereformingâ facilities to generate that hydrogen. Itâ(TM)s all part of a strategy to greenwash the natural gas CO2 emissions in partnership with the Japanese who through industrial policy are trying to build a national moat around their high tech fuel cell business. This whole approach is more expensive than alternatives and of course
  • by pak9rabid ( 1011935 ) on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @12:48PM (#57050190)
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't water vapor (the emissions from fuel-cell-based engines) an even worse greenhouse gas than CO2?
    • Water vapor is a big greenhouse gas when releases in the stratosphere. Water vapor at the surface does not translate into water vapor at altitude. If it did, then Florida humidity would doom us all.

      Plus you need to consider that gasoline and diesel engines also produce a lot of water vapor.

  • Loser tech.
    Energy lost at every step in the process.
  • How did they address the problem of hydrogen making gas tank's steal brittle?

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