Toyota Motor Corp’s vision of a hydrogen future will begin with a US$69,000 (RM221.720) car. That’s the price of Toyota’s new fuel-cell vehicle, the world’s largest carmaker said in a statement today.
The Camry- sized car will go on sale to Japanese consumers with a sticker price of about ¥7 million (RM220,625) before April 2015, followed months later in the US and Europe, it said.
The car represents the path Toyota will take toward zero emission, choosing fuel cells over the plug-in electric technologies embraced by the likes of Tesla Motors Inc.
The maker of the Prius will join Hyundai Motor Co in facing the challenge of making these vehicles affordable and easier to use given the lack of refueling infrastructure.
Hyundai began offering its hydrogen-powered Tucson crossover via US$499-a-month leases this month in California.
Still, Toyota began developing fuel-cell cars in 1996, and used the hybrid technology in the Prius by swapping the gasoline engine with a fuel-cell stack.
While fuel-cell cars are propelled entirely by electric motors, like those in Tesla’s US$71,000 Model S, they don’t need to be plugged into power outlets to store energy.
Instead, hydrogen gas passes through a stack of plastic membranes and platinum-dusted plates to produce electricity, though the stacks remain expensive because of the precious metals needed, as do the high-pressure tanks.
Tesla chairman Elon Musk, 42, has been vocal in his criticism of fuel-cell vehicles as being inferior to electric vehicles, even though Tesla partnered with the Japanese company as a supplier for Toyota’s electric-powered RAV4.
“As people probably know, I’m not the biggest fan of fuel cells – I usually call them ‘fool cells’,” Musk said this month at Palo Alto, California-based Tesla’s annual meeting.
During a speech to employees and enthusiasts at a service centre in Germany last year, he called fuel cells “a load of rubbish.”
Behind the push to lower emissions are stricter regulations. In the US, greenhouse-gas limits will step up in 2017 and will require automakers to double the average fuel- efficiency of their fleets to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.
That has led to production of dozens of new hybrids, plug-ins, electric vehicles and models powered by fuel-saving gasoline engines.
In Japan this month, the government unveiled a road map for supporting the spread of fuel-cell vehicles and cultivate an industry able to generate ¥1 trillion in revenue by 2030.
The government is seeking to bring prices of fuel-cell cars down to about ¥2 million by 2025 after subsidies.
Consumer adoption of fuel-cell vehicles may also hinge on the infrastructure. California plans to provide about US$47 million for 28 new stations selling hydrogen for fuel-cell cars.
Those stations combined with 16 in development and 10 already in operation will be enough to support at least 10,000 vehicles, Jim Lentz, Toyota’s North American chief, said last month in an interview.
Toyota, which also is providing at least US$7.2 million to a California startup to operate hydrogen stations, has said fuel-cell autos will be an easier zero-emissions option for many consumers than battery-only vehicles because their range, performance and refueling time are competitive with gasoline cars.
