FastMoney picks Toyota FCVs over Honda's
The new standard in fuel cell vehicles?A year ago or so I thought that GM was the leader in fuel cell technology. However, in the last year, Honda has really kicked it up a notch with the latest iteration of the Honda Clarity. Yet, on FastMoney last night, Pete Najarian claimed that, just as with hybrid cars, Toyota would surpass Honda and everyone else with its fuel cell hybrid vehicles.
Recently, Honda pinned its technological future to cheap hybrids and fuel cell vehicles, completely dismissing plug-in hybrids and EVs, at least for now. Has Honda lost its technological edge in some way?
Labels: fuel cells, Hybrid Vehicles
posted by Dahcredyns at
8:32 AM
4 Comments:
I don't know if Honda has lost it's technological edge, but it does sound like they are making a strategic decision to stay away from Lithium batteries. Both the plugin hybrids and EV's Honda is not pursuing use lithium batteries.
And I don't think it is necessarily a technology based decision. The capital investment and strategic sourcing partnerships required to support large scale use of lithium batteries may not have been possible for Honda, or they saw an opportunity to zig when Toyota and GM were zagging to lithium.
Toyota could be like Apple in 2004. Apple cornered the market in the 1 inch drives used by the iPod mini, which kept any competitors from even manufacturing the iPod mini competitors they had already designed. Apple owned that Christmas, their music player market share exploded, and the rest is history.
I'm not saying Toyota will be able to corner the market in Lithium batteries, but it does seem to me they will have a huge economies of scale advantage when procuring this key component. Thankfully GM is making their huge bet on lithium batteries, so the competition will be there. Honda may have decided to find a more wide open playing field. I hope it pans out for them.
As your other anonymous poster pointed out...I'm just speculating here! :)
and yet, the clarity fuel cell vehicle does use a lithium battery, so they have to be somewhat in the lithium game. of course, mass-produced fuel cell vehicles seem many years further away than both plug-in hybrids and evs.
likewise, cheap hybrids might offer much more sales potential than expensive plug-in hybrids for several more years, until economies of scale can bring down plug-in costs. that gives honda plenty of time to react.
i'm also glad that GM has become aggressive on lithium. in fact, when you add in their plans to make their mild hybrids lithium-powered mild hybrids, coupled with the Volt and Vue plug-in hybrid, gm might be the most aggressive automaker out there re: lithium.
Doh! there goes my theory regarding Honda and lithium.
Uninformed speculation, bad! but fun.
first, talking about the future is speculative by nature for the most part, and it is fun to speculate!
second, just because honda uses lithium in a few fuel cell vehicles doesn't mean that honda isn't very skeptical of lithium batteries, especially in the short term.
there are many in the automotive world, including toyota, whom believe that there is better battery technology than lithium, but that technology still needs a few years to develop.
ultimately, lithium is volatile and automakers don't have 100 percent control of manufacturing, as witnessed by gm's NiMH battery problems on their mild hybrids.
still, maybe lithium is feasible technologically, but is it cost-effectively?
until rubber hits the road, it's all speculation!
Post a Comment
<< Home