Toyota FCV At CES 2014; Production To Begin In 2015

By Ganesh

Toyota Fuel Cell Vehicle (FCV) concept, a hydrogen prototype car made its debut at the Tokyo Motor Show last year. On Jan 6, Monday, the Japanese auto giant showcased the FCV concept for the first time in North America at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, with the announcement of bringing the first production vehicle in 2015.

Displayed at Toyota's CES booth is the oddly shaped, blue Corolla like four door concept sedan, along with a camouflaged model. The car is not the most appealing vehicle visually, but what matters is how the wheels are turned.

Also Read: Honda FCEV Hydrogen Powered Car

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You see, Toyota FCV is powered by hydrogen fuel cells, which generates electricity to run the motors by combining atmospheric oxygen with the hydrogen. The resulting byproduct is water vapour. Taking all things into consideration, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles such as the Toyota FCV are greener than pure electric vehicles like the Tesla Model S.

Toyota claims a range of up to 480 km for the FCV on a full tank of hydrogen and is said to be capable accelerating to 96 km/h in 10 seconds. A major advantage the FCV has over the Model S is that there's no ‘recharging' time. An empty tank can be filled with compressed hydrogen in about 3 to 5 minutes and the car is ready to go. As a bonus, the fuel cell in the car will also be capable of powering a house for a week during emergencies.

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Toyota, along with other manufacturers such as Honda, has been developing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for over 20 years and the first functional vehicle came out in 1996. But the FCV is the first model that can be considered the suitable enough to enter series production.

One main reason for this is the rapidly reduction production cost. Cost of fuel cell production technology has come down enough to offer the FCV for a ‘reasonable' price. Having said that, Toyota has not put a price tag on the FCV and neither has it given the car a name. No, the FCV will not be called the FCV when it goes into production in 2015.

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In the U.S., Toyota FCV will initially be launched in the state of California and eventually move to other regions. This is the same strategy that Tesla followed when it introduced the Model S. The reason for this is to build the required refueling infrastructure, which is at present, non existent.

Toyota is already working with the University of California, Irvine to decide upon locations to set up hydrogen fuel stations. The first batch of 10,000 FCVs will get 68 refuelling stations between San Francisco to San Diego. The state is also said to have approved $200 million in funding to construct fuel stations, of which the first 20 will come up by 2015 and will increase to 40 before the year end.

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Article Published On: Tuesday, January 7, 2014, 12:33 [IST]
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