Comment by CamperBob2
3 years ago
Toyota in particular has wasted a ridiculous amount of time and money on consumer-level hydrogen tech. As a result competitors that focused on battery EVs over the last few years have a decent head start.
3 years ago
Toyota in particular has wasted a ridiculous amount of time and money on consumer-level hydrogen tech. As a result competitors that focused on battery EVs over the last few years have a decent head start.
The other companies are wasting their time. Battery EVs are a dead end and they will all have to move to hydrogen tech eventually. It is the other companies that are way behind.
In EE terms, betting against batteries is like betting against CMOS. Progress will go where the industry's money goes, not where any one company's money goes. If I could say just one thing to Toyota's management, it would be, "Stop trying to make hydrogen happen. It's not going to happen. There are just too many technical and economic drawbacks."
But any of their engineers could tell them the same thing, so what'd be the point?
The most prominent alternative (fuel cell EV) are also EVs. There are no fundamental downsides in comparison either. To continue your EE analogy, you're betting against another kind of CMOS which also happens to be made of far cheaper materials. Like your CMOS is made of germanium but the competition is made of silicon.