> the place hydrogen might work is airplanes where the energy density of batteries doesn't work.

How is that going to work? Cryogenic liquid hydrogen? High pressure tanks? Those don't seem practical for an airplane.

What does work for airplanes is to use carbon atoms that hydrogen atoms can attach to. Then, it becomes a liquid that can easily be stored at room temperature in lightweight tanks. Very high energy density, and energy per weight!

(I think it's called kerosene.)

WTF , you are commenting about FCEV - these things dont have engines!

The strategy clearly stated by Akio Toyoda is multiple power train technology. You can listen to his interviews on the subject, some are in Japanese, but as you have stated a clear and unambiguous interpretation of Toyota's policy I will assume you have that fluency.

(Automotive OEMs are assemblers, the parts come from the supply chain starting with Tier 1 suppliers. In that sense TMC does not do "making engines", but possibly the nuance and consequences here of whether not it "wraps it's head" to "makes things", vs if it has the capability to specify, manufacture distribute something at scale with a globally localized supply chain AND adjust to consumer demand/resource availability changes 5 years after the design start - in this context i ask you, can you "wrap your head" around the latest models that are coming out in every power train technology fcev, (p)hev to bev)

Has the hydrogen storage problem been solved yet?

Last time I checked it needs to be stored in cryo / pressure vessel and it also leaks through steel and ruins its structural properties in the process.

> It's coming from Toyota because Toyota can't wrap its head around not making engines.

Of course they can. Toyota sells BEVs. As time goes on BEVs will become a greater percentage of their sales.

We're actually not that far off.

Right now, liquid fuels have about 10x the energy density of batteries. Which absolutely kills it for anything outside of extreme short hop flights. But electric engines are about 3x more efficient than liquid fuel engines. So now we're only 3x-4x of a direct replacement.

That means we are not hugely far off. Boeing's next major plane won't run on batteries, but the one afterwards definitely will.

The energy density doesn't work for now. Everybody hoping for that breakthrough, and battery aircraft are moving into certain sectors (drone delivery, air taxis etc).

What does this mean? They have electric vehicles too.

Biofuel makes more sense for airplanes. No conversion even necessary. You could fuel up a 737 with properly formulated biofuel and fly it now, though a lot of validation would be needed to be generally allowed especially for passenger flights.

If we want easier to produce biofuels then LNG aviation makes sense. We are flying LNG rockets already. You could go ahead and design LNG planes now and they’d emit less carbon even on fossil natural gas. Existing turbofan jet engines could be retrofitted to burn methane.

Biogas is incredibly easy to make to the point that there are pretty easy designs online for off grid biogas digesters you can use to run a generator. You can literally just turn a barrel upside down in a slightly larger barrel full of water, shit, and food waste, attach a hose to it, and as the inner barrel floats up it fills with biogas under mild pressure that you can plug right into things. May need to dry it for some applications since it might contain some water vapor but that’s not hard.

Industrial scale biogas is basically the same principle. Just large scale, usually using sewage and farm waste.

LNG rockets also mean “green” space launch is entirely possible.

It might also be because the Japanese government works very hard to have full employment and EVs require less labor.

The Mirai is a fuel cell EV. There is no engine. Not sure what your point is regarding engines?

They are just too much in bed with big oil to want to switch, instead they spend rnd on hydrogen in order to mess up with renewables on purpose.