A Ride in Toyota’s Fuel Cell Hydrogen Vehicle

Ok, I’ll admit, the video above is not the most exciting 5+-minute video you have ever watched (if you watched all 5:35 minutes of it). But the point of the video is not to wow with light and sound effects, but to draw attention to the technology being tested - fuel-cell hydrogen power.

Two days ago, I blogged about the Aptera, which by energy performance standards, is off the charts. But the Aptera is an hybrid electric vehicle. The Toyota vehicle in the video was powered by hydrogen, via a process called fuel-cell conversion. In fuel-cell conversion, the hydrogen is reacted with oxygen to produce water and electricity. Hence the only by-product of fuel-cell conversion is water.

The nature of the by-product aside, its the state of the technology that is of primary interest to me, and I hope it is to you, too. My 1999-model car gives me about 500 miles on a full tank, and mine is a full-sized car. The vehicle in the video is obviously not a full-sized car, but it still managed a little more than 300 miles to a full tank of hydrogen. That mileage seems to be the norm for hydrogen-powered vehicles: The Sequel, a Cadillac-sized vehicle by GM, gives about the same mileage. It is safe to assume then that a mid- or full-sized hydrogen-powered car will give a better mileage.

I think the technology is ready for prime time. The only problem, and I do not think it’s not a small one, is building out the infrastructure to support it. Current gas (petrol) stations could be retrofitted to also serve as hydrogen stations, but I think tiime is still decades away.

The video used in this post was originally featured in the Toyota Open Road Blog.

Comments

One Response to “A Ride in Toyota’s Fuel Cell Hydrogen Vehicle”

Xabey on November 21st, 2007 1:09 pm

Thanks budy, I love this guy. I presume that the full-sized hydrogen-powered car will give a better efficiency if more research is carried out in the management of the infrastructure to making sure the products is evenly available to the public just gas(petrol).