Toyota plans fuel-cell car by 2015
Toyota Motor, the world’s top automaker, plans to roll out a fuel-cell car by 2015 in its push to stay ahead in the global race for green autos, vice president Masatami Takimoto said.
His comments came at a shareholders’ meeting at Toyota headquarters in Aichi prefecture in response to an investor’s question about the company’s outlook on zero-emissions technology, but he declined to elaborate.
Fuel-cell technology is considered a cutting-edge solution to reducing carbon dioxide emissions as it generates electricity by combining a fuel — usually hydrogen — with oxygen, and therefore only emits water.
Toyota began limited sales of a fuel-cell hybrid vehicle in 2002 in the United States and Japan, using technology from its best-selling Prius hybrids.
But carmakers have generally concentrated on implementing the more affordable technology used for hybrids or battery-powered vehicles.
Fuel-cell systems remain costly due to the technology involved and the fact that it is difficult to store enough hydrogen in a vehicle to allow it to travel as far as a conventional car.
Toyota is banking on greener cars to help it out of its current slump.
It fell into the red for the first time in nearly 70 years last fiscal year when it logged an annual net loss of 436.9 billion yen (4.4 billion dollars).
It expects an even worse performance in the current business year to March — a net loss of 550 billion yen and an operating loss of 850 billion yen.
Vehicle sales are expected to fall to 6.5 million.
The company plans to expand its line of fuel-sipping hybrids and cut costs as part of efforts to return to profit. In May it launched its latest Prius, which was also the best-selling car in Japan that month.
Also at the shareholders’ meeting, Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the group’s founder, officially replaced Katsuaki Watanabe as president.
– Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this report –
Edward Greenlee CPA
June 23, 2009 | 4:26 PMGM claimed by 2010. It’s hard to stay excited about this technology with no firm commitments. So if the DOE has ceased funding and infrastructure does not exist, I’d be interested to understand why 2015. Or, is this just in Japan?
Mary
June 23, 2009 | 7:09 PMPretty cool post. I just came across your site and wanted to say
that I’ve really liked browsing your posts. In any case
I’ll be subscribing to your blog and I hope you write again soon!
eddy
June 23, 2009 | 9:26 PMinfrastructure exists, you can use normal gas stations, platinum is also not the problem, they use it now for exhaust instead of fuelcells. It’s all a matter of interest, as long as they make big money with Oil they will keep you believing it is not viable, just like sun and wind, actually sun, wind, wave stored as hydrogen is the ONLY viable way to keep things going in the near (within 30y) future.
Edward Greenlee CPA
June 24, 2009 | 10:35 AMEddy,
Okay I’m interested lead me to a source where I can research.
Mike
June 25, 2009 | 12:07 PMInfrastructure CAN exist, but it does not yet. Expensive but not insane. Think of modifying half of U.S. Gas Stations with a $200 to 500K upgrade.
Fuel Cells are expensive but at volume they are maybe off by 20 to 30%. Similar to what a Prius premium is today.
The main issues slowing a launch are meeting the full set of operating parameters that an ICE car does today… start at -40C? run through Death Valley? Climb the Rocky Mountains…. that takes time. Combine that with the need for the Infrastructure to be built. Again Expensive but not insane…. But Shell isnt going to do it unless the cars are there, and not unless the government somehow mandates it.
Finally, i think Toyota will be the first player to launch. Whether it is 2015 or not, i dunno. But the Japanese firmly believe FC cars are a part of their long term future… They understand better than most that a Battery car will only ever go far, before requiring a 6 hour recharge. And wrt a Hybrid, they want to get off of oil and get onto NG in mid term and on to Nuke/Electrolyzer in the long term.