Tag Archives: Fuel Cell

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Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga supports the move to ban the sale of non-electric new vehicles staring in 2035.

Despite strong pushback from the country’s largest automaker, Japan has announced plans to halt the sale of vehicles relying solely on internal combustion engines after 2035.

The move means the Asian nation will join a growing list of countries planning to phase out vehicles powered by gas or diesel, including both the United Kingdom and Norway. A number of other countries, including France and Germany, are considering similar bans.

Vehicles with internal combustion engines won’t be banned entirely. Automakers will still be able to market hybrids in Japan, regulators ruled. Even so, the plan released on Christmas Day was a significant victory for Japanese environmentalists considering it was strongly opposed by key industry leaders, including Toyota President Akio Toyoda who warned earlier this month that a broad shift to electric vehicles could cause the auto industry’s traditional business model “to collapse.”

(Toyota boss Akio Toyoda remains EV skeptic.)

Akio Toyoda, Toyota’s top officer, is against the ban.

As the head of Japan’s largest and most powerful company – and in his role as the head of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association – Toyoda hoped to convince regulators to back off on the proposed ban. But it had widespread backing from other quarters, including Japan’s new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

In October, shortly after assuming his post, Suga had pledged to cut Japan’s carbon dioxide emissions to net zero by 2050 while indicating he supported a shift to battery-powered vehicles.

Global sales of electrified vehicles remain modest, running in single digits in all but a handful of markets, even when including hybrids, PHEVs and fuel-cell vehicles, as well as pure battery-electric vehicles. But demand is expected to increase sharply as key obstacles, such as range, cost and public charging, are addressed. It also will help that scores of new BEVs are scheduled to go into production in the coming years, proponents say.

While Japanese automakers were pioneers with their early push to bring hybrids to market, “Japan is very far behind” in terms of developing more advanced products relying solely on battery power, Masayoshi Arai, an official with the country’s

Nissan is one of a few Japanese automakers dedicating resources to a move to EVs.

Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, said last week.

Toyota only recently introduced a BEV model in Europe, though it has announced plans to add two more – one through the flagship Toyota division, a second under the Lexus badge. It also this month revealed an all-electric microcar targeting the Japanese home market. Only the Nissan and Mitsubishi brands, among Japanese automakers, have committed significant resources to the development of pure battery-electric vehicles and, even then, they have fallen behind key foreign rivals in terms of bringing new products to market.

(Toyota hopes to boost interest in hydrogen tech with second-generation Mirai.)

Toyota officials have, throughout the years, pointed to numerous concerns about BEVs, including their cost, limited range and other obstacles to widespread consumer acceptance. For his part, company chief Toyoda said this month that he feared a switch to all-electric models would seriously disrupt the classic automotive industry business model. He also raised questions about whether Japan’s electric grid could supply the needed energy — and, if it did add the generating capacity, he warned, that could actually increase the country’s reliance on fossil fuels.

With the debut of the 2021 Mirai fuel-cell vehicle, Toyota’s hoping to spur interest in the tech again.

For his part, Japan’s new prime minister is downplaying such concerns and said that efforts to address greenhouse gas production “should be tackled as a strategy for growth, not as a limitation on growth.”

Downplaying the need for new coal or natural gas plants, the plan released by the Japanese government would add up to 45 gigawatts of new offshore wind generating capacity by 2040.

With the Christmas Day announcement, Japan becomes the second member of the Group of Seven, or G7, to lay out specific plans to ban non-electrified vehicles.

The UK originally had planned to do so by 2040 but now has pushed that target date up to 2030. Like Japan, its ban will continue to permit the sale of hybrids – but only through 2035, at which point only pure, zero-emissions vehicles will be able to be sold in Great Britain. That will include both BEVs and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.

Despite its reticence about EVs, Toyota rolled out a new battery-electric car Dec. 25: the C+pod.

A handful of other countries, including Norway, have also laid out ZEV transition plans. So have some states and regions – including California and the Canadian province of British Columbia. A number of cities, such as London, Paris, Berlin and Mexico City, plan to bar vehicles not running in zero-emissions mode, meanwhile. China, meanwhile, has laid out plans to have “New Energy Vehicles,” plug-based models, reach 20% of the market by 2025. It is considering a total ban at a later date.

(Britain to ban sale of all new gas and diesel cars by 2030.)

With most of the country’s automakers reluctant to bring plug-based models to market, demand has grown far more slowly than in many other major regions. The Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade noted that consumers purchased only 6,000 PHEVs and BEVs during the third quarter of 2020. By comparison, demand tripled in Europe to 270,000 – all-electric models accounting for roughly three-quarters of Norwegian sales. China, meanwhile, is expected to again top 1 million plug-based models for all of 2020.

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GM’s Chief Sustainability Officer Dane Parker outline the company’s plans for not just transforming vehicles, but also the facilities where they’re designed and built.

The auto industry is undergoing the most “significant transition” it has seen in a century, and General Motors doesn’t intend to be left behind, the automaker’s chief sustainability officer said during a media briefing ahead of the release of GM’s annual sustainability report today.

If anything, the company is accelerating plans to switch entirely to battery-electric vehicles, even as it continues to develop hydrogen fuel-cell technology. GM also is working to switch to zero-emissions sources to power its plants, said CSO Dane Parker.

“We’re very confident that … in a five- to 10-year timeframe, we’ll see a very different transportation industry,” Parker told reporters.

(GM reveals flexible EV platform, new “Ultium” batteries.)

The Chevrolet Bolt EV will be one of about 20 GM battery-cars on the market by 2023, the automaker says.

GM was one of the first carmakers to push seriously into electrification, its Chevrolet Volt becoming the first mass-market plug-in hybrid a decade ago. It is now focusing on pure battery-electric vehicles and Parker confirmed it will have “at least 20 by 2023,” about half of them having been previewed last March at one of two GM battery-car events in suburban Detroit.

That includes two versions of the all-electric GMC Hummer, a pickup and an SUV, coming next year, as well as an extended-length iteration of GM’s current long-range hatchback, the Chevy Bolt.

All told, the carmaker has now committed to “allocate more than $20 billion of capital and engineering resources to its electric and autonomous vehicle programs between 2020 and 2025,” according to a summary of GM’s 10th annual sustainability report.

As vehicle development work continues, the Detroit carmaker is also pushing ahead on construction of a new battery plant in Ohio that is part of its partnership with Korea’s LG Chem. The new Ultium batteries set to be produced there will have a higher energy density – meaning more power in a smaller pack – and lower cost, GM President Mark Reuss predicting the company could reach parity on the cost of an electric vehicle compared to a gas model by mid-decade.

GM just eliminated the Sonic so its Orion (MI) plant that now builds just the Bolt will get a second electric vehicle.

The Ultium batteries have other advantages, said Parker, noting they will use significant less cobalt than current lithium-ion cells. They will also be easier to replace than current batteries and will eventually be easier to recycle. One of the key goals outlined in the GM report is to either recycle or find post-life uses for Ultium batteries. There are numerous possibilities, Parker noted. That could include being used in grid backup systems that could help prevent blackouts and power surges.

“The vision we have for an all-electric future will result in the longer-term elimination of internal combustion engines,” said Parker, though he declined to lay out a specific timetable. One reason is that this could vary by market. Different countries, he added, “will have different timelines for us to get there.”

(GM transforming Poletown plant in primary EV production site.)

Europe, for example, is pushing aggressively to replace gas and diesel power, backing that with incentives and investments in a charging infrastructure. China is moving rapidly in that direction as well. But, at least under the Trump administration, the U.S. is moving more cautiously.

GM teased the GMC Hummer during the Super Bowl and has since confirmed there will be both pickup and SUV versions.

GM isn’t just looking at battery power. The automaker was an early proponent of hydrogen fuel-cell technology and two years ago launched a joint venture with Honda. The Japanese automaker, said Parker, is focusing on automotive applications for fuel cells. GM, on the other hand, is emphasizing stationary applications, such as back-up power for cellphone towers.

“When we look at what is the faster way to deployment (of zero-emissions vehicles), it’s battery electric,” Parker explained, noting that the big challenge for hydrogen is the lack of a refueling infrastructure. That’s one reason that automakers currently marketing fuel cell vehicles, such as the Honda Clarion, are largely limited to parts of California, where most U.S. hydrogen stations are located.

Parker did not rule out the possibility that GM could eventually use some of the fuel-cell stacks it plans to build at a new plant in Michigan for transportation applications. But “we do not plan to produce” those vehicles. Instead, he explained, “we are certainly ready to explore options to partner” with another company that might want to produce hydrogen trucks using GM stacks.

General Motors’ Arlington, Texas plant is using 100% wind-generated power.

Parker hinted the automaker will have news to make about its hydrogen program “in the coming months.”

GM has aggressively expanded its approach to clean technologies since Mary Barra became CEO in January 2014. That is not limited to its vehicles. The automaker also wants to switch from conventional to sustainable power sources for its factories. The goal was to get to 100% renewable sources by 2050, said Parker, but that recently was pushed ahead to 2050 worldwide. And the pace is going even more quickly in the U.S.

The big truck plant in Arlington, Texas is already using 100% wind-generated power and GM recently signed up with the TVA to deliver 100 megawatts of solar energy by 2023. That same year, it expects about 800 mW of clean electricity for its Michigan plants, with a goal of 60% renewable power for all operations in the U.S.

(GM increases uses of renewable energy.)

Noting the increased availability of green power, even as prices fall, Parker said “that gives us great confidence in (reaching) that number.”

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