Zero Emissions Vehicles At Scale: Steps To Replace Fossil Fuel Vehicles With Battery-Electric, Part 2

To transition America’s passenger car and commercial vehicle fleets to anywhere near 100 percent Zero Emissions Vehicles (ZEV) by 2050, is the answer for America a complete conversion to battery-electric vehicles? Or a portfolio approach that includes vehicles powered by internal combustion (ICE), gas-electric hybrid, battery-electric (BEV) and hydrogen fuel cell? And are there significant societal benefits beyond lowering carbon production if Diesel fuel is eliminated from commercial fleets?

“As you pointed out, if you convert gasoline to electricity, look at all the gigawatts,” says Bob Wimmer, Director of the Energy Environmental Research Group at Toyota North America. “Scale of the challenge is one of the drivers to this thought process that you really need a portfolio approach.”

“Everyone is talking about electrifying everything: our homes, our vehicles, eliminate natural gas usage in industrial processes and use electricity,” says Wimmer. “Recent numbers indicate that, for California to achieve all its 2050 climate goals, they will have to generate three times as much low-carbon electricity as they do today…and oh by the way it all needs to be renewable.” And bear in mind California “imports” energy from neighboring states, including the Palo Verde nuclear plant mentioned above.

“It’s one thing to switch to renewables with our current demand, but if you increase the demand for electricity two or three times, the scale of the electrical generation problem is that much more challenging,” says Wimmer. Some argue the scale-up can be dealt with gradually: as market demand-pull incrementally increases the number of plug-in hybrids and battery-electrics sold, the U.S. can gradually scale-up electricity generation capacity. The investment can be absorbed over 10-20 years.

“You can produce hydrogen from wind or solar. Or renewable natural gas, like captured methane from farms, agricultural processes,” says Wimmer. “And with sequestration you can produce it from natural gas…sequestering the CO2. Depending on the part of the country and the resources available, stakeholders can choose from a variety of options to produce hydrogen, just like they do with electricity.” The United States is rightfully called the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, and this bounty may be required in coming decades. Maybe not the ideal answer for hydrogen production, but a process that offers dramatic improvement.

“There is also a supply chain issue,” says Wimmer. “If you think about the 17 million new vehicles sold each year in this country, if you transition all that to batteries, you are really stretching a supply chain that flows all the way through to recycling. If you have a second technology, like hydrogen and fuel cells, that spreads out your supply chain. You’re not relying on all the same chemicals, minerals and production processes for a plug-in vehicle. You then have a second supply chain that can produce and support another type of zero emission vehicle.”

“We are looking at a portfolio and that’s a combination of hydrogen for both light- and heavy-duty,” says Wimmer. It’s important to note that Toyota, like Mercedes/Daimler and the VW Group, has the financial and engineering depth to pursue multiple paths of development for future powertrains. Most car companies are “fast followers” who will be forced to adopt what the leading companies develop.

“There is a big push for heavy-duty today. We think hydrogen is the way to go for heavy-duty [meaning Class 8 ‘big rigs’]. But we also see an opportunity in light-duty applications in areas where it’s just not convenient for folks—whether it’s where they live or how they use their vehicle—for plugging-in on a regular basis.”

This complication is well defined by Dr. Miller of UC Davis: “If you live in a multi-dwelling facility, meaning an apartment complex, it’s likely you do not have easy access to recharging. You must go to public charging, which is expensive and can be a pain. A significant number of people will not have that access, at least near-term, and they will want fuel cell vehicles.” I spent more than a week driving a first-gen 4-door Toyota Mirai fuel cell car, and it can ably serve the needs of most Americans. Easy to drive, comfortable, roomy, and refueling takes little longer than topping off an internal combustion vehicle at a gasoline station.

“We will give customers a wide variety of technologies,” says Wimmer. “We have our hybrid vehicles—by 2030 more than 70 percent of our vehicles will be hybrids. The remaining percentage will be plug-in hybrid and pure BEV, as well as fuel cell. We see ourselves moving to a variety of technologies to be ready to go with whatever structures are available and to satisfy our customers. Not all customers are early adopters who are willing to jump right to a plug-in or zero emission vehicle. It may take time for them to decide that’s the type of vehicle they want.”

And contrary to the more hysterical arguments of climate alarmists like Greta Thunberg or the most radical U.S. politicians whose stock in trade is fear, gasoline will remain part of the mix for decades to come. “If you’re a rancher and need a pickup truck that has long off-road range and may not be returning to a place that has electricity on a regular basis, it would be hard to replace that with a plug-in vehicle,” says Wimmer. This also applies to those living in cold northern climes. Yes, battery-electrics have achieved widespread adoption in chilly Norway, but gasoline will be an unavoidable energy source in less hospitable climates. The entire world does not have the fine conditions of coastal California where I live, and power outages in the upper Midwest and Northeast are not uncommon in winter months. Police vehicles and ambulances may transition to gas-electric hybrid powertrains, but it’s difficult to imagine these vehicles, which must operate under extreme conditions, going battery-electric. Fire-fighting equipment, which operates in extremely dangerous conditions, will likely remain Diesel-powered for the foreseeable future.

“We do feel that hydrogen is needed as well to really go beyond the 25 or even 50 percent electric-drive vehicles and to hit the 80, 90 or 100 percent like we are targeting. That goal is going to take multiple approaches. We believe hydrogen will be part of that,” says Wimmer. Daimler Truck’s work in hydrogen supports Toyota’s argument that a portfolio of powertrain technologies is the best way forward. Many fuel cell buses have operated in the U.S. for years, proving reliable. The EU and particularly German interest in Russian natural gas pipelines just might relate to production of hydrogen using natural gas as feedstock.

“Our assumption in our model is that by 2050 well over 90 percent of long-haul trucks would be sold as fuel cells and under 10 percent would be battery-electric,” says Dr. Marshall Miller of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis. “Other people think that long-haul trucking is going to change. We will have battery-electric trucks that have a range of about 250 miles. Truckers will take a break to recharge, get back in the vehicle and drive another 200+ miles. Or it’s like the pony express. You drive, change the cargo to another truck and someone else picks up your truck after it has recharged. That is a significant change in how long-haul trucking operates.” Hydrogen allows relatively quick refueling stops, eliminating this “pony express” concept.

“There are a couple of hydrogen stations in California for heavy trucks. One is completed in the Port of Long Beach that we are using to fuel our ten PACCAR Toyota fuel cell-powered trucks. It’s a demonstration program with the vehicles used on a day-to-day basis. There is a second station that’s part of that program. There is a lot of engineering going into these heavy-duty stations with fill rates that are significantly faster,” says Wimmer.

Keep in mind that a hydrogen pipeline runs through Southern California and passes within a few hundred yards of Toyota’s former national headquarters in Torrance, California, which is why there is a hydrogen filling station across the street from those former Toyota buildings. I have used that refueling station. That pipeline can feed the combined ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach. A hydrogen pipeline running from production points in Houston across to San Diego and up to Seattle, with eventual spurs towards the Rocky Mountains, could change heavy transport in the western U.S. All these heavy-duty trucks would be producing nothing beyond water. The CO2 would be captured at the production point at an Air Liquide or Air Products facility.

Compared to hydrogen refueling equipment for passenger vehicles, the “nozzles and other components need to be increased in size to be able to fill 20 or 30 kilograms or more in 10 minutes versus 5 kilograms in 5 minutes. It’s a scale up,” says Wimmer. “We know how to do it. It’s just a matter of getting the vendors to supply the parts and standardizing. Whether it’s a Hyundai, Toyota, Nikola or Daimler truck, they will all use the same [fueling] system. We don’t want to get into a bad situation where some parts of the country use unique fueling systems. For over-the-road trucks, you don’t want different systems across the country.”

“We are hesitant to say there is just one right answer,” says Wimmer. “You have to look at each application and choose the approach. We think that with Class 8, with its longer range and heavier loads, that fuel cell is the right answer for the foreseeable future. If you have a breakthrough in battery technology, that can change. But there might also be breakthroughs with fuel cells.” It’s important to note that using the Toyota fuel cell system, Class 8 big rigs lose none of the typical 45,000-lb. payload.

“I believe that fuel cells will play a very significant role,” says Dr. Miller. “Others think they will not. One issue with fuel cells is that to make fuel cells economically viable, you need hydrogen to be a green hydrogen, and inexpensive. Five dollars a kilogram. A kilogram of hydrogen is equivalent to a gallon of gas—the energy content is the same. Something like 5 dollars a kilogram or less. To do that, you need electrolysis. You need electricity to run the electrolyzers at 2 or maybe 3 cents a kilowatt hour.”

“We work with companies that produce hydrogen,” says Dr. Miller. “We ask for hydrogen at five dollars a kilogram, and they say ‘Oh, that’s too high. It will be lower.’ That’s a little hard to believe. This is especially a consideration for long-haul trucks. Fuel cell efficiencies are not that much better than Diesels driving on the highway. Hydrogen is still modestly more expensive than Diesel. Your cost to own and operate the vehicle will not be any better than Diesel.” But on the other hand, it really won’t be measurably worse, and the trucks will produce zero CO2, and no Diesel particulate matter. The complexity of servicing fuel cell vehicles, at least in early stages, might pose a threat to the economic viability of owner-operator long-haul trucking. Heavy-duty trucking might become the sole province of corporate entities.

Electrolysis is still in its formative stages. Toyota runs solar-powered electrolysis stations in Toyota City, each station producing enough to power a half-dozen or more fuel cell forklifts for an entire day’s work. Using fracked natural gas as a feedstock and sequestering the CO2 at the production point will bring fuel cells to commercial viability far sooner. Is using natural gas as a feedstock ideal? No, but we must start somewhere and the radical improvement to air quality in ports and in the corridors where Class 8 trucks operate delivering containers to railheads makes this technology appealing.

For an earlier look at the Toyota Class 8 fuel cell project, see my story posted in 2017. I visited Toyota’s Arizona proving ground and spent a day with the engineer and scientist who developed the prototype fuel cell-powered Kenworth that led to the program operating at the Port of Long Beach. For this story I interviewed Marshall Miller’s predecessor at UC Davis, Joan Ogden. For those who do not understand hydrogen, this contains excellent information.

THE DEVICE WORKS, BUT AT WHAT COST?

Porsche’s Taycan Turbo S 4-door was the first battery-electric car I’ve driven that performed in a range of measurables, no excuses, as well or nearly as well as an equivalent internal combustion vehicle. Taycan is a breakthrough engineering accomplishment, built on the current consensus among OEMs of 800-Volt vehicle architecture. That driving experience, nearly two years ago, sparked my early investigations into the industrial infrastructure needed to support such vehicles as anything other than ego extensions for the well-off. The Taycan Turbo S is an exhilarating vehicle, though in this top configuration it is clearly nothing more than a toy for the well-off. The lesser versions of Taycan serve as basis of the newly offered Audi e-trons and other vehicles to be produced by the VW Group. All Taycans are also built to Porsche’s typically impeccable standards, another breakthrough in battery-electric vehicles.

The VW ID4 CUV and similar vehicles that will arrive in 2022-23 promise the potential for wider adoption of battery-electric simply because the vehicles will be good enough, practical enough, to create demand-pull, at least in urban/suburban areas of the west coast. They will merit consumer attention in the wilds of the free market, which is the only way any transition will begin. The VW ID4’s range is comparable to internal combustion CUVs, and if charged overnight should be functional in daily commuting, though it will not prove ideal for longer-range travel, like vacation trips. It is important to understand that the cost of a VW ID4 is significantly higher than a comparably equipped Honda CR-V or Toyota RAV4, the twin gold standards of compact CUVs. Before generous government tax credits, a VW ID4 MSRP is roughly equivalent to a Lexus RX350, the most popular luxury mid-size CUV. Battery-electric vehicles are not price-competitive, yet.

“Battery costs have come down enormously,” says Dr. Miller. “If you talk to the battery manufacturers, they say that energy densities will go up by a factor of three, cost will continue to come down significantly, and yeah, I don’t disagree that it’s possible, but we don’t know the timeframe.” In other words, battery-electric passenger vehicles may develop rapidly in the coming decade. And, possibly, battery technology will make BEV heavy-duty trucks viable in some applications, probably short-range duties around ports, or “last mile” deliveries.

“I ran a battery lab,” says Dr. Miller. “Lithium-ion batteries are superior to every other commercial technology, in just about every way. With projected changes in the lithium technology, it’s hard for me to see change in that direction in 20 years.”

To use a favorite term of automotive engineers, how can we “chunk” the job when no one can agree on the best way forward? In the vast stretch of America between New York City and D.C. on the east coast and Sacramento in California, interest in battery-electric and zero emissions is at best lukewarm, tepid. If politics is the art of persuasion, then perhaps these regions should be allowed to follow-on later. They’re not eager, so don’t force them.

We may be facing a rare instance when California should be afforded its long-established special privileges, initiated in the 1960s, to lead the way under a federal umbrella. Coastal California is the world’s best open-air lab to experiment with battery-electric and fuel cell vehicles and is home to several of the world’s largest seaports, which directly relates to adoption of fuel cell commercial vehicles. Simple truth is, this process is well underway here in California. When I visit golf clubs here in Los Angeles and note that a significant portion of the vehicles in the lot are Teslas, Taycans, and Jaguar I-PACEs, with Audi e-trons beginning to appear as well, it’s obvious a transition is underway. Pre-COVID at Pebble Beach, in 2018 and ‘19, I listened to German car designers, engineers and executives speak to their loss of California and national market share to Tesla, hanging their heads in shame.

Energy companies committing to construction of hydrogen pipelines should be granted generous tax abatements and credits, which will help pull one or more energy companies on-board. A significant hydrogen pipeline from Air Liquide and Air Products facilities should run from San Diego to Seattle. Transition will not be accomplished Soviet style. Toyota is the definition of cautious and thorough, but perhaps they and Daimler can accelerate adoption of fuel cells in Class 6, 7 and 8 commercial vehicles.

Relevant to the first part of this story, California should be mandated to produce its own power, and not rely on coal-fired plants in neighboring states, thus removing the smug hypocrisy of so many BEV owners in my home state, who sneer at the mention they are driving coal-burning . California should be forced to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. By so doing, the state can lead the way, and also be free to fail, which would prove that continuing to improve internal combustion is the best way forward.