Wednesday, October 15, 2014

No. 856: You can drive a Toyota’s fuel cell vehicle on the road in December (October 16, 2014)

Technology:
Toyota will put its fuel cell vehicles on the consumer market in this December earlier than scheduled because the production system is ready now. The company will start the production in December. Named Mirai (the future), it is a four-seater sedan and capable of  traveling about 650 km with a tankful liquefied hydrogen. It takes only three minutes to fill it up. Mirais will mostly go to public offices in the initial stage, but about 20 units will be set aside for the consumer market every month. It is priced at 7 million yen, but a shopper can buy one for 5 million yen because he can get a subsidiary from the government.

The annual production is set at 700 units at this moment, but the company plans to increase the production in light of the spread of hydrogen station. Currently, Japan has about 30 hydrogen stations mainly in the four metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Fukuoka, but the government plan to increase the number of hydrogen stations to 100 in 2015. The company has reportedly received an order for nearly 1,000 units as against the annual production of 700 units. It plans to introduce the fuel cell vehicle in Europe and the United States in the summer of 2015. 

 Toyota's Mirai is coming soon.

Introducton to Toyot's fuel cell vehicle