Hydrogen-powered Toyota FCV to arrive next year

Toyota has revealed the production form of its upcoming hydrogen-powered car. The FCV will go on sale in Japan next April and will arrive in Europe and the US in summer 2015. 

The guide price for the car in Japan is about £42,000 (Rs 41.62 lakh), although Toyota says the showroom price for Western markets has yet to be decided, partly because it does not know what, if any, government subsidies will be available for the FCV. 

Reports from Japan say the FCV has two hydrogen fuel tanks and a range of about 440 miles/704 kilometres. The FCV’s fuel cell stack develops the electrical equivalent of about 135bhp. 

In Japan, sales of the FCV will be restricted to Toyota dealers in the areas of Japan that already have a hydrogen refuelling infrastructure. 

Toyota says it has been working on hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles for “more than 20 years” and that the FCV “delivers a performance and cruising speed similar to that of a petrol-engined car and it can be refuelled in roughly three minutes”.

Toyota believes it can popularise hydrogen as a fuel just as it has pioneered hybrid technology in the past 16 years. However, there is a small but very vocal opposition in the US to the adoption of hydrogen as a fuel because much of today’s hydrogen is made by ‘steam reforming’ methane gas. Tesla boss Elon Musk has already called fuel cells “a load of rubbish”.