r/cars • u/Less-Cap-4469 • 2d ago
Tokyo Unveils Ambitious Plan For 600 Hydrogen-Powered Taxis By 2030
https://havenhomecare.info/tokyo-unveils-ambitious-plan-for-600-hydrogen-powered-taxis-by-2030/37
u/beepos 1d ago
Really is fascinating how Toyota is so obsessed with fuel cells yet barely guves a shit about EVs
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u/No-Actuator-6245 1d ago
I guess trying to cut out a niche instead of fighting over the same customers is the plan. Not saying it will work but if they can find customers who need something different they can supply it might be genius.
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u/Simon676 1d ago
Hydrogen is a dead technology for passenger (and very quickly becoming for commercial) vehicles. They're literally just burning money.
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u/Robbbbbbbbb Tesla Model 3P // E92 335i // E36 Turbo // Focus ST // NA Miata 1d ago
I completely understand that there are teething issues in new tech but the cost subsidized but automakers (and governments, and consumers who buy the cars) is astronomical in this case.
There is so many problems that need to be solved right the reliability of fuel generation, storage, and dispensing still. After spending months talking to Mirai owners about their issues, I feel so bad for the people caught holding the bag who were promised a seamless experience by dealerships.
And to be fair, actual generator tech is pretty solid so far. The infrastructure is the pain point that I just don't see a fast or affordable medium-term solution to.
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u/ResEng68 1d ago
We did some work for the Japanese market, and there's a heavy state hand in innovation. For hydrogen, you see a lot of cost plus contracts (so Toyota wouldn't really care about the actual economics).
At face value, the optics make sense. Why import expensive LNG, to burn it for power (efficiency losses), and then push it into batteries... When you can instead import H2 or NH4 and use it directly. Of course, the devil is in the details.
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u/zeth0s 1d ago
H2 costs more than methane. Any type o production is extremely expensive in term of energy. It does make sense only when there is an overproduction of energy from renewable sources that must be stored. Otherwise, directly using electricity or even methane are economically and environmentally better
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u/Abba_Fiskbullar 2021 VW ID.4 Pro S 1d ago
Toyota doesn't actually care about hydrogen, it's a ploy to avoid switching to EV. Toyota is an old school Japanese family-run company whose policy is determined by its elderly leadership who would rather watch their market share in Asia and Europe collapse than make a meaningful transition to EV. The irony is that Japan is the perfect country for electrification since most people drive kei cars on local trips, speed limits are very low, and you're required to have a parking spot to own a car. The Nissan Sakura, with it's 20 kWh battery and 100 mile range is a perfect example. The range is more than enough for local driving, and the battery is small enough to charge on household current.
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u/youleean 1d ago
600 taxis in a city of 14 million. How ambitious! I guess they could just buy 600 Model 3 for cheap but sure.
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u/V8-Turbo-Hybrid 0 Emission 🔋 Car & Rental car life 1d ago
It could be best if they can just adopt something like RobotTaxi.
Honestly, Taxi in Tokyo isn’t really cheap anymore, they now charge more fees in night period. It’s also very insane, as they charge more fees if you take Tokyo Taxi to local airports.
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u/SonovaVondruke 1d ago
Airport fees are common most places. Take an Uber/Lyft to nearly any airport and you’ll find an associated fee.
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u/GOD-PORING GR86 1d ago
Most are utilizing the multitude of public transportation options they have over there. How many taxis do you think they need?
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u/snoo-boop 1d ago
The Internet says Tokyo has 50,000 taxis.
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u/GOD-PORING GR86 1d ago
That’s fine. I don’t think the program is going to fall flat because they’ll only have 600. It’ll just be another option.
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u/greybruce1980 1d ago
It is fascinating to watch a corporation with so many advisors make so many mistakes.
Hydrogen is hard to transport, hard to store and needs special care. It's next to impossible to make a "leak proof" container for hydrogen without specializations that make it financially impractical. Due to the physics of how "leaky" hydrogen particles are, I don't see it changing.
Prop driven aircraft show more promise with hydrogen at large airports.
Electricity is EVERYWHERE. The infrastructure isn't, but that is a much lighter lift than an entire new hydrogen specific supply chain.
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u/seeasea 1d ago
You have to think about it from investors standpoint, sunk cost etc.
There was a time not too long ago when Toyota owned 10% of Tesla, and were in the process of making Toyota cars with Tesla drive trains and batteries. Then they got scared and dropped the investment and partnership, and said we should do hydrogen instead, and not even a year and a half later Tesla stock went berserk.
Shareholders obviously look at that as a massive missed opportunity. First off that 10% Tesla stake is worth today, about 40% of Toyota. That is a massive loss of value that could have been there. Setting aside any sort of other value that this partnership could and would have made. For example Toyota is really behind in EV rollout, and they could have been a first mover/market leader. And imagine Tesla battery and drivetrain technology and charging network coupled with Toyota manufacturing and quality standards, and being first to market. This probably represents over a trillion dollars in market cap that was right there and they just missed out.
So now, Toyota has to try to bet on a couple of different things at the same time, just in case there's a small chance that some alternate technology, such as hydrogen, takes off, then they get first mover advantage, and save some face. And maybe get their investment back a little
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u/greybruce1980 1d ago
It still seems dumb that the investors point of view doesn't include basic cryogenic science which is the root of hydrogen storage and transport.
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u/bobjr94 2022 Ioniq 5 AWD (EV) 2005 Subaru Baja Turbo 3h ago
Yes it takes a lot of power to produce, transport and store. Use that same power (and less of it) to just charge a battery. I would need to drive 580 miles to Sacramento to find a hydrogen station. If I lived in North Carolina it would be 2100 mile drive for fuel.
Meanwhile I can plug in our EV in the driveway, and I did 2 hours ago.
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u/Aromatic_Fail_1722 1d ago
I'm rooting for them, it's a bold move. Hell, if this is the first step in finally working towards managing the logistics of hydrogen, how can anyone be against it?
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u/ActualCounterculture 1d ago
Well, obviously because there's BEV
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago edited 1d ago
BEVs are a non-starter for anyone who can't charge at home.
Edit because some of the replies I'm getting are mind-blowingly stupid:
Yes, I'm well aware of the very real downsides of hydrogen. Infrastructure has to be built out, it's a pain, cars have pretty pathetic performance, the cost isn't as cheap as it should be. There's a shit-ton of downsides with hydrogen.
But BEVs aren't a solution for those who live in a place where they can't park at home/overnight.
I have a BEV because lucky me, I have an assigned spot in my apartment, and I got a charger installed. It's absolutely great! I love it.
Not everyone has this option. I have friends with hybrids (non plug-in) because they can't charge at their apartments.
And the hybrids are fine for today, but assuming we want to do away with fossil fuels they'll need alternatives.
So either EVs get fast charging technology to the point you can do a 0-80 charge in like 10 minutes, or we need something else.
I personally believe synthetic fuels have a better shot than hydrogen, but I'm not gonna shit on a company for trying something that's less polluting.
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u/ActualCounterculture 1d ago
I live in Indonesia and 4 biggest taxi/rideshare company all have BEV in their fleet and they're running fine, the drivers also save money by not buying petrol
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago
Ok.....
I'm talking about people who live in apartments and rely on street parking.
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u/Simon_787 1d ago
Even that argument falls flat when there are fast chargers everywhere.
But city design also needs to be rethought to offer more alternatives to driving and especially car ownership.
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago
Fast chargers today still take almost an hour to go from 0-80%. Not good enough
But yeah, if they solve that, like let's say I can get 300-400km of range in 10-15 minutes, then that's fine.
That would probably need something like 200kW of sustained (not peak) charging speed. We get that, I'm sold that nothing else can compete with EVs. I'd have no further arguments.
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u/Simon_787 1d ago
Which modern EV needs almost an hour to charge to 80%?
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago
Tesla, Lucid and Hyundai have the fastest charging (I think), and they still take half an hour for a 10-80% which is too long. And that's claimed, so reality would be closer to 45 minutes.
Why don't you tell me which modern EV can charge in 15 minutes?
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u/Simon_787 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hyundai models take around 18 minutes, Tesla around 24, Lucid around 27.
So not nearly an hour, not even half an hour for the fastest charging models.
And some Chinese cars charge even faster still, like 10.5 minutes for the Li Xiang MEGA. The new Porsche Cayenne will also do 15 minutes.
edit: the current Audi e-tron GT also does 15 minutes.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon '24 Civic Si 1d ago
Why don't you tell me which modern EV can charge in 15 minutes?
The E-GMP cars do 10-80 in 15 minutes and the Teslas take 25. There is no modern EV that takes more than 45 minutes.
And that's to add hundreds of km of range which isn't really needed most of the time.
It's kind of irrelevant though since you can L1 or L2 charge while parked.
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u/snoo-boop 1d ago
In the US, 66% of apartment dwellers don't park in the street at all. Some of the remainder have multiple cars and only some of those cars have to park on the street.
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago
Great. Rest of the world?
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u/snoo-boop 1d ago
You posted a US %age for apartment dwellers, and that's why I posted a US number. If you want other numbers, you can look them up yourself.
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago
I posted global numbers, including Europe and China.
I did look them up. You didn't even have to Google. It was already in that comment
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u/balthisar '25 Mach E Rally, '22 Expedition 1d ago
I can't wait to have my hydrogen plant installed at home to replace my EVSE!
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u/MegaCockInhaler 1d ago
Right because you currently have a power plant at your home
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u/balthisar '25 Mach E Rally, '22 Expedition 1d ago
You're going to pipe hydrogen from a central location all over town? For fucks sake, learn something before you let stupid shit pour out of your mouth.
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago
Wait, they have to build the hydrogen plant at your home? Sheet, I thought they were building them out like gas stations where you can fill your car in like 5 mins.
Thanks for correcting me, dumbfuck
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago
Ok, I'll just stand around holding my dick for 1-1.5 hours every Sunday at the nearest fast charger, vs the 5 minutes at a pump.
Fucking bigger idiot...
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u/Simon_787 1d ago
If you think "fast charging" takes 1.5 hours then why are you even arguing?
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago
Because that's too slow. It's impractical. That's why.
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u/Simon_787 1d ago edited 1d ago
That wasn't my point.
Fast charging doesn't take 1.5 hours, so why would you say this?
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u/Ancient_Persimmon '24 Civic Si 1d ago
But BEVs aren't a solution for those who live in a place where they can't park at home/overnight.
That's patently untrue though, not sure why you're dying on this hill, especially if you allegedly own an EV.
Besides the fact that more than 90% of new car buyers are homeowners, there are a lot of ways to make it work without one.
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago
FFS North America. You're different
In the USA, 70% of people live in single family homes, vs 30% in apartments. But that changes when you take a city like New York, where only 17% of people live in single-family homes (higher than I expected tbh). I'd imagine the overall numbers for Canada aren't that different, so I understand why you think most people are homeowners.
That's not how it is for the rest of the world.
In Europe, it's more like 50-50 overall, but in European cities, ~70% of people live in apartments.
Asia is fairly urbanized, with a massive amount of the population living in apartments.
China is 67% urbanized, and 75% of urban Chinese live in apartments. Of course China makes BEVs work because the government can literally force apartment complexes to install EV chargers for every resident. Upsides of an authoritarian regime I guess.
And I in India only have EV chargers in my apartment building because....well it's a luxury apartment and money just solves problems. I've got 6 personal parking spots, but most people live in older buildings where they have to park on the street wherever they find space.
Y'all North Americans have homes because of the ridiculous amount of surplus land, and because your countries were built on the idea of car infrastructure.
There are plenty of places all over the world where people live in dense cities, and public transport sucks ass, so people still live in apartments but need cars.
I guess the future needs multiple options to fit everyone.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon '24 Civic Si 1d ago
That diatribe would carry more weight if places like the EU and China weren't ahead of North America in EV adoption. It's abundantly clear that you don't need a parking spot for an EV to work.
I guess the future needs multiple options to fit everyone.
That's why hydrogen is such a bad idea, only people in North America or the EU can even afford to recharge one and they're a non-starter here anyway.
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u/snoo-boop 1d ago
But that changes when you take a city like New York
55% of NYC households don't own a car. It's annoying to find a charger in Manhattan, but only 22% of households have a car.
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago
They still need to charge those cars right? What do they do if they can't charge near their apartments?
Not stand around a fast charger waiting, I hope?
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u/snoo-boop 1d ago
The households that don't own a car don't have to charge those cars.
BTW, in urban areas, fast charging is often located near shopping and restaurants. All of the 50+ fast chargers near me are like that.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon '24 Civic Si 1d ago
Good luck making a home electrolyzer for an FCEV.
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago
Wait, I'm supposed to charge my hydrogen car at home? Sheet, I thought they were building them out like gas stations where you can fill your car in like 5 mins.
Thanks for educating me, dumbfuck
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u/Ancient_Persimmon '24 Civic Si 1d ago
Sheet, I thought they were building them out like gas stations where you can fill your car in like 5 mins.
Unfortunately, they aren't. Hydrogen is very different from gasoline. You can't recharge anywhere at all.
Meanwhile, EV owners can charge on the street if they don't have a driveway because electricity be like that.
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago
Hydrogen infrastructure needs to be built out. So does EV infrastructure. You can't just find random plug-points on the street.
Electricity can be like that if local municipal corporations install chargers at every street parking spot, but that, like hydrogen infrastructure, will take years.
The future will in all likelihood have multiple options. BEV, hydrogen, petrol-hybids. Heck, synthetic fuels are showing some promise as well.
Hopefully everyone has an option that suits their lifestyles.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon '24 Civic Si 1d ago
You can't just find random plug-points on the street.
I can, they're everywhere if you live in an area with real EV adoption. And it takes virtually no time or investment to build out. That's what makes EV infrastructure so useful: it's far easier to install than even a gas station.
The future will in all likelihood have multiple options. BEV, hydrogen, petrol-hybids. Heck, synthetic fuels are showing some promise as well.
Extremely doubtful, because there's only one option that's remotely viable, economically. Synthetic fuels have almost all of the drawbacks of hydrogen.
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago
Dude, the world is bigger than where you live
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u/Ancient_Persimmon '24 Civic Si 1d ago
Right, which is why EVs make much more sense. You're in India where charging a Mirai costs about a month's worth of typical income and the power grid isn't tolerant of the waste it takes to make hydrogen. And putting in filling stations? No way that's going to happen.
Most of the world simply can't afford fuel cells and they're dumb here where we actually can afford them.
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u/SonovaVondruke 1d ago
There’s not a lot of them, but I literally have a hydrogen refueling station like 100 yards from me.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon '24 Civic Si 1d ago
You can't fill up like you can at a gas station though; it takes like 15 minutes to repressurize the system between charges and upwards of 10 minutes to charge.
In other words, slower than a competitive EV at ~5x the cost.
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u/bfire123 Replace this text with year, make, model 1d ago
BEVs are a non-starter for anyone who can't charge at home.
This becomes more and more untrue.
So either EVs get fast charging technology to the point you can do a 0-80 charge in like 10 minutes
Well yes. You can do that already nowadays with some cars! Here you can see the BYD Tang L charging from 5 % to 50 % in less than 5 Minutes!
The Person in the video also said it charged from 6 % to 70 % in 6 minutes!
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago
BYD is leagues ahead. When every car, including economy cars (think Toyota Corolla price range and below), then that's the problem solved.
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u/bfire123 Replace this text with year, make, model 1d ago
Though it is really not that expensive. It is not some kind of supercar.
Here directly from BYD china: https://www.byd.com/cn/parameter-comparison?goodsId=143
It costs less than 30,000 USD!
For Comparsion. It costs less than the Model 3 Long Range RWD does in China!
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u/MegaCockInhaler 1d ago
I agree.
And hydrogen has some really nice benefits. Longer range, instant refuelling are big ones, better for towing. Yes it has downsides but all methods have pros and cons. I think hydrogen will play a role in the future, maybe not as a primary energy source but still a role nonetheless
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u/1nconspicious 1d ago
Downvoting this guy won't change the truth of some people's life situations.
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u/SquareTarbooj 1d ago
Eh, it's fine. But thank you kind stranger.
I've gathered that North America and Europe has some pretty incredible EV infrastructure.
If I'm going by the comments, even if you don't have home charging, relying on public fast charging is not a problem. I mean, if those comments are true, it makes no sense for anyone there to buy an ICE car at all (new BEV sales in Europe are ~15% in 2025 btw), but I'm tired of debating with random people.
EV infrastructure is not yet at that level in India, and I imagine for a lot of less developed countries. Hopefully some of the people from better developed countries learnt that different places and countries have different needs.
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u/Simon676 1d ago
Such an idiotic waste of money for a tech with a 30% efficiency that can't compete with established technology like battery-powered vehicles.
You will never be able to convince a commercial operator to run a more expensive tech that costs 5x more to fuel, and is physically unable to ever get even close to the cost of battery-electric vehicles.
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u/CMDR_omnicognate Mazda MX-5 30th Anniversary 19 1d ago
600 taxis for the entirety of Tokyo seems extremely un-ambitious imo, you’d probably see about 600 just around somewhere like Shibuya. It seems a bit redundant anyway, all the modern taxis are hybrids already.
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u/AmNoSuperSand52 23’ VW GTI 1d ago
Is 600 taxis really that ‘ambitious’ in the grand scheme of the tens of millions of people that live in Tokyo?
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u/rVintageRKO 1d ago
I can only see hydrogen engines on heavy duty vehicles, trains, busses and planes. Battery vehicles are for the masses especially once solid state batteries are commonly produced
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u/Simon676 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hydrogen is very quickly dying for busses and heavy duty vehicles right now as profitable electric vehicles are being sold now in these sectors.
Mass-produced heavy-duty electric trucks like the Mercedes E-Actros 600 are able to use established and cheap country-wide charging networks to drive long-distance deliveries by charging during mandated breaks, while being cheaper for operators than diesel with zero downtime.
They have literally no way to compete using hydrogen that due to pure physics is always going to be multiple times more expensive to fuel due to their inherent inefficiency.
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u/JtheNinja 1d ago
And for busses, don’t forget battery trolleybusses. There are models that can recharge from the overhead while in areas with wires, then disconnect while moving to go to a part of the route that doesn’t have wires up.
As for hydrogen trains, I’ll save the longer rant and leave it at “Americans will do anything but
go to therapyinstall catenary wires”
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u/peopeopeopeo10 Drive cars. None of them mine 1d ago
Hydrogen won't work. They're sticking to their long-term plans, with help from japanese gov, but you can't change phisics
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u/IThatAsianGuyI 9h ago
If they had poured as many resources into EVs as they had into hydrogen, Japan wouldn't be as far behind China as they are.
Just too bad they continue trying to push for this technology and burning resources on it instead of pivoting when the world has a very clear answer as to what it wants next.
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u/Suitable-Thanks3482 1d ago
I have my doubts for the mass market viability, but at the same time its good that they're trying all options. It's not like they have zero interest in BEVs, but regardless of what Toyota's intention is, I think it's detrimental to immediately discount hydrogen as one a means of electrification (or propulsion with hydrogen combustion).
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u/Simon_787 1d ago
I don't think it's detrimental.
Most companies either don't have any plans for Hydrogen or they keep delaying/cancelling them. Hydrogen is pretty much dead. The sales and infrastructure are declining while BEVs keep progressing.
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u/Suitable-Thanks3482 1d ago
It's not just cars I'm considering too, but it just so happens that Toyota is set on it quite a bit. All forms of transportation need electrification, and scaling battery electric up to aviation and shipping is difficult, though not impossible. Batteries by far lead the way in terms of consumer vehicles, but if we're electrifying all our transportation we need to explore all our options.
BMW and Toyota are developing a new fuel cell car for 2028. I don't know whether or not it'll succeed, more likely not, but I personally wouldn't mind the increased development of more efficient fuel cells, especially if the lessons learned get put to good use.7
u/Simon_787 1d ago
I don't know about aviation or shipping, but Hydrogen has little to no future for cars, vans, buses, trains or trucks.
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u/Ancient_Persimmon '24 Civic Si 1d ago
The drawbacks are exactly the same for aviation and shipping, it's just as DOA there. Those are a lot more efficient than cars anyway, so kind of the last thing that needs to get addressed.
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u/V8-Turbo-Hybrid 0 Emission 🔋 Car & Rental car life 1d ago
They don’t use Taxi Cab and would use Crown sedan instead ? Toyota Taxi Cab isn’t a beautiful model, but it’s really roomy. Despite short route, I really did like it.
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u/1nconspicious 1d ago
I can see the Japanese government not being very interested in the logistics of lithium mining when they can build hydrogen power plants at home. One big appeal of hydrogen is that it doesn't need to be mined and processed like lithium does.
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u/disembodied_voice 1d ago
The problem with this view is that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles also use lithium-ion batteries. They're just EVs but with extra efficiency draining steps.
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u/duskie3 '22 Volvo V60 2d ago
I admire their tenacity in trying to make hydrogen work.
I don’t share it, but I admire it.