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Comment by simondotau | Hacker News Reader

Toyota have a long and storied history of gratuitous PR-sourced puff pieces about future energy tech with a near-zero batting average for accuracy and plausibility. Their reputation for making proclamations about future technology is, in my personal opinion, about as trashed as they could ever make it.

"The end of EVs," really? This from the same company which sunk untold billions into convincing us that hydrogen would be the fuel of the future? This from the same company which just recently[0] lauded how they'd quickly leapfrog the EV competition with a magical solid state battery that definitely exists, pinkie promise? Did they think we'd forget how Toyota described this battery as being in the "production engineering" stage six years ago?[1]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36833836

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14853093

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In 2020 Tesla overtook Toyota as the most valuable car company, which is of course ludicrous and stupid. But Toyota probably took a note at that time about the importance of PR puff pieces.

But indulging in PR puff shouldn't be the reason for outright dismissal of the ammonia engine. One thing that's undeniable is that Toyota understands cars, and particularly what kind of cars we really want. It knew EV's short range would be a problem (hence the plug-in hybrids which I think are the real winners -- you can actually get by without ever going to the gas station if you're just commuting for work, but yet you can still go on long trips no problem... there you go, Toyota solved EVs).

Toyota has working prototypes of ammonia engines, they seem to work, they do not emit carbon-based emissions and are highly efficient. It's built a good product and it knows how to scale and I expect it will -- but it also needs a working infrastructure for ammonia supply and needs to do PR work to pave the way for that. Ammonia is a decidedly good and clean energy source compared to current generation of batteries that are made from relatively finite resources, source their electrical power from questionable places depending on where you are, and some small question marks still remain about the accumulation of battery waste as EVs gain popularity. I, for one, am excited to see ammonia-based technologies for energy store and fuel.

With the one wrinkle of ammonia being a poisonous gas. Making it significantly more dangerous than either gasoline or batteries.

Ammonia-based technologies for storage and fuel is going to result in unnecessary deaths.

Its more a question of how many deaths per year per unit of energy stored. Batteries are still capable of killing people but its rare, so looking at this number between the 3 storage types would describe the actual risk

> But indulging in PR puff shouldn't be the reason for outright dismissal of the ammonia engine.

I dismiss Toyota's claims because there's no damn evidence for them. It's vapourware, like Toyota's supposed solid state battery. They say they have working prototypes of these revolutionary products, and perhaps they do. I don't dismiss the possibility that they do. But Toyota need to actually show their work if they want to work past their trashed reputation.

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