06/06/08

Toyota: a full tank of hydrogen enables the FCHV to run 830 km

Toyota is going ahead in the research and testing of hydrogen technology. The latest development, called FCHV-adv, an acronym standing for Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle, is a crossover equipped with a new stack of fuel cells. Thanks to its features the car has achieved a very important goal: the acquisition of the vehicle-type certification from the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

In a few days at the Hokkaido G8 summit there will be a test-drive for the press, an opportunity for journalists to test the high level of zero emission technologies developed by the Japanese automaker. When they started to design the new fuel cell module, Toyota engineers referred to the studies of international projects being carried on in Japan with the Economics Ministry, in California and in Canada. Using the results and the problems highlighted in these studies, Toyota has managed to improve range and low-temperature starts, weak points for hydrogen-fuelled cars. Then inside the fuel cell stack the engineers have also solved the problem of water production interfering with electrical generation within the Membrane Electrode Assembly at low temperatures.

So now the TOYOTA FCHV-adv is capable of starting and operating in areas where the temperature drops to -30 degrees.
Actually the changes introduced by Toyota have enabled the car to enhance its energy efficiency by 25%, for example by adopting a regenerative breaking system: that means running 830 km with a full tank of hydrogen, a performance twice higher than the previous version. At this stage in order to reduce production costs Toyota aims at establishing agreements with energy utilities and government agencies by supplying them with fuel cell fleets.