This could be the best of both worlds (BEV/FCEV) to satify EV and FC fans?

I predict that autonomous driving combined with low cost energy, whether its via BEV or FCEV or ICE will significantly increase the volume of traffic on the roads because it will simply make mobility much easier as long as they are not stuck in traffic. The extent to which increased mobility will improve quality of life is uncertain.

Any given road can handle a lot more traffic if it is autonomous rather than human controlled, with much closer spacing etc.

But there is a limit, and in cities in much of the world including my own town the roads are near saturation.

So IMO public on demand transport, point to point, with shuttle robot taxis coming at a phone call and taking you only as far as the main routes, where you change to larger vehicles, is likely to be the only way to keep things moving.

Cars like other technologies before them are likely to be perfected only when they are already pretty well obsolete.

Everywhere that cities are being designed more or less from scratch have only a tiny place for private cars.

Calgarygary agree that autonomous BEVs will lead to more traffic because more people can use them and lower transportation costs. However, not so sure about more congestion. Autonomous taxi's will be cloud controlled and can be routed to avoid congested roads. Also if the entire middle class skips private ownership of cars because autonomous taxis are easier and more affordable we will only need 20% of the number of cars that we have today with private ownership. In many case that means roads with parking on both sides will not need that parking space so you can convert them and have another lane or two for traffic. Also autonomous cars can go much faster safely than humans because computers act faster. We may be able to double the speed at the highway and also drive cars at speed much closer to each other. So in the end I am convinced that congestion will be a thing of the past when autonomous cars rule the roads.

And so the "advanced alien civilization" Jimmy Neutron sought became a metaphor for our own modern world. We are devolving into 'amebic blobs' so we can live 24/7 inside our mobility devices.

@Henrik,
I am not sure people would want to travel in tiny narrow vehicles, but you never know.
In general, if it looks weird, people won't buy it.
"Autonomous taxi's will be cloud controlled and can be routed to avoid congested roads."
But so will everyone else with a GPS or phone, and also, there are often no alternates, so I wouldn't put too much on that.

I don't see why you can't put a gasoline or diesel range extender into a vehicle like this, you have loads of space.
It could be 60 or 100 KW, i.e quite a brute, compared to the crappy thing in the I3. All it has to do is charge the battery so the rpm range can be quite narrow - maybe you could connect it straight to the wheels, I don't know.

Secondly, recharging 120+ KW battery packs still take about 8 to 10 times longer than refilling your FCEV with (equivalent range) compressed H2.

Thirdly, your FCEV can generate enough free heat to keep the cabin comfortable during cold winter days during extended periods.

Mercedes-Benz F125
"The front motors provide 67 bhp (50 kW; 68 PS) and the rear 134 bhp (100 kW; 136 PS) with a total peak of 308 bhp (230 kW; 312 PS) electric motor, powered by a 10-kWh capacity lithium-sulfur battery located in a vertical position behind the rear seats. The batteries are provided energy by a hydrogen fuel cell located between the front wheels."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_F125

@mahonj
Self-driving cars could be made as gassers but the fuel expense and shorter durability make them uneconomical compared to self-driving BEVs that are operated as taxi's doing over 100,000 miles per year. The gasser will cost 3 times more in fuel per mile or about 7 cents and the BEV will cost 2 cents per mile in a normal sized car or 1 cent per mile if using a narrow 2 seater. Electric drive-trains and batteries are not difficult to make to last a 1,000,000 miles. Fuel cells and gassers can last 200,000 miles and diesels can do 400,000 miles.

Hydrogen is an extremely expensive fuel it cost about 22 cents per mile because it uses 4 times as much energy per mile as a BEV and it needs a lot of very expensive and non-durable equipment for its production and handling like electrolysers, compressors and compression tanks (that need replacement after 600 decompression cycles). That means very high capital cost as well so the end result is ten times as expensive fuel for FCV compared to BEVs. Over time the capital cost will come down for hydrogen but not the energy cost. Hydrogen even in the most optimistic scenario will always cost about 6 times as much as electricity for BEVs. Harvey does not get that but I would have expected more from Toyota's engineers (actually the engineers get it but they do as they are told. It is Toyota's management that does not get it).

Sure the narrow 2 seater look weird but people are not supposed to buy them. They are owned by fleet taxi operators. I expect 2 seaters to be 50% of all taxi's costing 15 cents per mile. 4 seaters cost 25 cents and 6 seaters cost 35 per mile. Most people just need transportation for one or two so the 2 seaters will dominate.

mahonj initially they will cost a lot more. You need redundancy of braking, steering and the autonomous system. You also need much more powerful processors than we have today for cell phones. We need GPS that is ultra accurate and updates 50 times per second. They cost 5000 UDS a piece currently. We need 4k stereo video cameras with auto cleaning of lenses 360 degrees. That could be as many as 2sterio*2*redundancy*12for_every_angle=48 4k cameras in a gigabit or 10 gigabit Ethernet.

Expect over 10k USD extra for the first fully autonomous cars in 2020 to 2025. For 2030 that may have dropped to 5000 USD per car. This extra expense is not a problem for luxury cars or autonomous taxis that can share the capital cost over many users. It will be a problem for economy boxes.

"No Fault" Insurance, i.e. every vehicle owner with (compulsory no fault insurance) is responsible for and pays for all damages. No lawyers are involved and it works very well.

The same would apply with autonomous drive vehicles. Insurance rates should (eventually) be much lower because the majority of the current accidents (85+%) are caused by bad drivers and could be avoided with automated drive systems.