Toyota may produce commercial fuel cell vehicles

Japanese automaker Toyota plans to begin commercial production of fuel-cell vehicles in mid-December and launch the next-generation green car before the end of this year, ahead of its original target of 2015, sources familiar with the matter said.

Illustration photo. (Source: abc.net.au)

The world's largest automaker is considering producing dozens of the cars a month at its Motormachi plant in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, central Japan. The model is likely to be priced at around 8 million yen, but Toyota is planning to lower the price to between 3 million and 5 million yen in 2020 to boost sales and increase annual production capacity.

Fuel cell vehicles run on electricity generated from a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, but the development of hydrogen charging stations has yet to make significant progress, which is likely to be a barrier to commercialization.

While Toyota officials say the automaker has no plans to get directly involved in the hydrogen infrastructure business, it plans to cooperate in developing and managing hydrogen supply systems as soon as possible.

At the Tokyo Motor Show last November, Toyota unveiled its latest fuel cell vehicle prototype, the FCV concept, which can be fully charged with hydrogen in about three minutes and travel more than 500 km on a single charge, as well as providing a household with enough electricity for more than a week in an emergency.

Among other automakers, Honda is also planning to sell fuel cell vehicles in Japan and the US in 2015, while Hyundai is expected to do the same in the US in the same year./.

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