Next Year on Sale “Toyota Car of the Future”

“We aren’t trying to re-invent the wheel: just everything necessary to make them turn,” said Bob Carter, senior vice president of automotive operations for Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), U.S.A. Inc. at the opening of CES, the world’s largest trade show. “Fuel cell electric vehicles will be in our future sooner than many people believe, and in much greater numbers than anyone expected.”

Check out Westboro Toyota Prius inventory.

There were two vehicles on the stage at the Toyota press conference: The FCV concept, displaying how a four-door mid-size sedan will look in Radiant Blue, and another one, the camouflage-taped engineering prototype used for comprehensive and extreme on-road testing in North America for more than a year. The prototype has constantly delivered zero-to-sixty acceleration of about 10 seconds, with no discharge other than water vapor, on a driving field of about 300 miles. It takes three to five minutes to refuel its hydrogen tanks.

 “Hydrogen works beautifully with oxygen to create water and electricity and nothing more,” said Carter. “Four years, the use of hydrogen gas to power an electric vehicle has been seen by many smart people as a foolish quest. Yes, there are significant challenges. The first is building the vehicle at a reasonable price for many people. The second is doing what WE can to help kick-start the construction of convenient hydrogen refueling infrastructure. We’re doing a good job with both and we will launch in 2015.”

There has been massive Toyota investment in fuel cell R&D, in the last 20 years, as well as, numerous testing and expanding a series of prototypes in North America, since 2002. For those 11 years, more than a million miles, the cost of building a fuel cell powertrain has been greatly reduced. In fact, Toyota measures a 95-percent cost reduction in the powertrain and fuel tanks of the vehicle which will be launched in 2015, in comparison to what it had cost to build the original prototype in 2002.

The FCV perform a considerable engineering achievement. A fully fueled vehicle will be able to deliver enough energy to power a house for a week in an emergency. Some consideration was given to developing an external power supply device that could be used in this manner.

 “There’s no doubt, that success of this technology will depend less on the genius of the car, than on the ownership experience,” said carter. “Cost is one thing, but convenience is another.”

Initially, the vehicle will be launched in California, therefore, Toyota has partnered with the University of California, Irvine’s Advanced Power and Energy Program (APEP), to determine the potential location for new hydrogen fueling stations. This mapped system, if achieved, could handle a fuel cell population confidently predicted by APEP at about 10,000 vehicles.

California already has authorized more than $200 million in funding to build about 20 new stations by 2015, a total of 40 by 2016, and as many as 100 by 2024.

“Stay tuned,” added Carter, “because this infrastructure thing is going to happen.”