Toyota final week unveiled its third-generation hydrogen fuel-cell stack, demonstrating continued dedication to gas cells alongside battery-electric autos.
In a press launch, the automaker promised improved sturdiness and effectivity, in addition to decrease manufacturing prices for the brand new stack, which Toyota plans to debut in passenger autos and heavy-duty industrial vans in North America, Europe, China, and Japan by 2026.
Toyota claims the third-generation fuel-cell stack is 1.2 instances extra fuel-efficient than the earlier technology, permitting for a 20% enchancment in vary between fueling stops. And it claims sturdiness akin to diesel engines—the powertrain tech that Toyota sees gas cells changing in industrial semi vans.
Toyota third-generation hydrogen gas cell stack
Different enhancements embrace extra compact {hardware} that may make packaging into totally different sorts of autos simpler, and “important value discount by means of improvements in cell design and manufacturing processes,” based on Toyota.
Regardless of issues with hydrogen fueling infrastructure, Toyota has endured with the gas and the electrified imaginative and prescient round it. Final 12 months it teased the thought of making use of a big-battery plus fuel-cell powertrain to heavy-duty pickups along with semis, and opened a California “hydrogen headquarters” targeted round hydrogen merchandise.
2024 Toyota Mirai
Toyota has additionally achieved some fairly creative issues—like (with companions) take its largest U.S. port off the grid and make it a high-efficiency energy plant—that might be utilized to business and elsewhere across the globe. It is also dabbled with autos that burn hydrogen, though it is unclear to what stage it sees that a part of the long run on a quantity manufacturing stage.
On the passenger-car aspect, it is clear Toyota is placing effort into the product. Even with the bZ4X round, the best-driving electrical Toyota is, to today, the Mirai—though the Mirai will get its electrical energy from a gas cell. As a actuality verify, by 2030 Toyota nonetheless seems to see extra hydrogen autos than EVs powered by the solid-state batteries it is also growing.
