Hydrogen car owners sue Toyota for billions. Could this happen with EV cars too?

Photo above - where are the hydrogen cars? In fact, where are the hydrogen fueling stations? Do we need to throw more taxpayer money into incentives?

The gist of the new billion-dollar hydrogen car lawsuit: “promoting and selling vehicles that depended on a fragile and inadequate” fuel supply. (see link below)

Okay, I don’t live in California, where most of those Hindenburg powered cars were sold, so I’ve never actually seen a hydrogen gas pump. And I can’t personally say whether they are fragile and inadequate or not. My mom’s next-door neighbor (in Pennsylvania) had a hydrogen Toyota Mirai a, and bragged that he was saving the planet. Then he sold it a couple of years ago. I don’t have his email, or I’d reach out and ask what his own refueling experience was like.

I’m willing to take it on faith that there couldn’t possibly be enough pop-up sites of compressed hydrogen in California to satisfy commuters. Look at all we went through to install those roadside EV rechargers. People were bitching – for years – that there weren’t enough. And there still aren’t enough if you’re taking a cross-country road trip, or live in a center city apartment with street parking and no shopping malls nearby.

And now people are also bitching about how those newly built EV charging stations cost 3X as much to top-off your battery as a home charger, per KwH. Plugging in at the supermarket approximately erases the monthly fuel savings between EVs and ICE. All you’re left with is the higher EV purchase price. Unless you truly believe that what comes out of the outlet is mostly generated by solar panels and windmills and glaciers will stop melting. Like any religion, it’s essential to have faith in that which you cannot see.

Back to hydrogen, nature’s cleanest fuel, and the most abundant element in the universe. Unfortunately, hydrogen is NOT the most abundant element on planet Dirt. Hydrogen is only a paltry 1% of the earth’s mass. And most of that is part of water molecules in the ocean. It takes VAST amounts of electricity to persuade those hydrogen and oxygen to let go of their bonds. There is “some” hydrogen gas underground, here and there. But it’s elusive, hard to get at, and tricky to store. Don't let it get near lightning, open flames, or anything that might crack open that pressure tank! Why do you think your furnace runs on natural gas, rather than compressed hydrogen?

As part of the hilariously named “Inflation Reduction Act” signed by President Biden in 2022, the federal government launched generous tax incentives for energy companies to drill for, purify, and store American hydrogen. The "if you build it they will come” mantra. But Toyota’s hydrogen cars were already on their deathbed by 2022. Exxon, Chevron, and Gulf Oil didn’t take the handout bait to drill for hydrogen. The story isn’t any better in Europe.

So why am I ranting that EV drivers could be the next to sue someone for billions? Because electricity is now ALSO a “fragile and inadequate” energy source. Cloud servers, data centers, and AI farms the size of the pentagon are springing up everywhere, and they’re draining the grid of electrons.

In a bidding war to get those electrons, who do you think is going to win? Ordinary folks like you and me, or Jeff Bezos, Google, and Microsoft? We can't even keep the food stamps flowing!

I’m just askin’ . . .

Toyota Sued for $5.7 Billion Over Mirai Hydrogen Cars

Roadsterrider · 56-60, M

Eventually something will replace the internal combustion engine, I believe that is many years in the future. As the economy gets better, as ridiculously priced cars and trucks normalize at a reasonable price, and technology improves so that the job an internal combustion engine does can be done by an EV or Hydrogen engine, people will switch. It will never be 100%, I mean there are still people out there driving cars from the 50s. Personally I don't really think there should be a subsidy for any business, they should rise or fall on their own merit, not the backs of the taxpayer.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@Roadsterrider despite my incessant digs at the poor economics of electric vehicle ownership today, I do believe they are the car of the future (not natural gas, hydrogen, steam, or unobtanium)

all we need is to reduce the price of batteries by 90%, and double the range.

it's an engineering problem.

Roadsterrider · 56-60, M

@SusanInFlorida I think making them more affordable is key to their success, but before all that happens, there main problem is infrastructure. Plentiful and reliable charging stations and I think the biggest hurdle will be disposal of the batteries, there are 300 million registered vehicles in the US, when those vehicles are replaced by EVs. The batteries need to be recycled, dangerous compounds, health hazards. I think the engineering problem is going to be fireproofing the batteries, design of a battery cut-off for EMS providers, refitting fire departments with gear to combat lithium battery fires. The tail end of it is weight, the biggest movers of cargo electrically is probably trains, diesel electric trains use a diesel generator to provide power for electric motors to drive the trains. There are problems to be worked out for sure. The idea has too much traction to go away easily.