Hydrogen technology - will it ever be feasible?

[vztrt]

Seems that Toyota think its feasible.

http://theage.drive.com.au/motor-new...0507-uhsr.html

Hydrogen vehicle on sale by 2015
RICHARD BLACKBURN
May 7, 2010 - 10:14AM

Toyota says it could be selling a fuel-cell hydrogen vehicle in the United States by 2015.

Toyota could have an affordable hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle on the market in the United States by 2015.

The car maker has told Bloomberg news service in the US that it has drastically reduced the cost of producing fuel-cell vehicles in the past few years and may be able to sell a hydrogen model for about $US50,000 ($55,600).

That would bring it roughly into line with electric vehicles being developed by competitors including General Motors, which will begin selling the Volt plug-in hybrid later this year.

Toyota's managing director for advanced autos, Yoshihiko Masuda, told Bloomberg the car would have a range equal to a petrol-powered car, giving it an advantage over current electric cars, most of which have a range of less than 200km.

He said the company had managed to reduce the cost of producing a fuel-cell vehicle from about $1 million a car some years ago to roughly $100,000. It needed to cut that by half before retail sales were viable.

"Our target is, we don't lose money with introduction of the vehicle," Masuda told Bloomberg. "Production cost should be covered within the price of the vehicle."

Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles have been pushed into the background as the industry searches for an answer to dwindling oil resources, with many dismissing the technology as too expensive.

After initially supporting the technology, the US Government has effectively abandoned it in favour of plug-in electric vehicles. Last year, the US Energy Department handed out $10 billion in financial support to electric vehicle research and development, while cutting fuel-cell funding to $68 million. It was later increased to about $190 million.

Despite the lack of government support, some of the world's biggest car makers – including Toyota, General Motors, Daimler AG, Honda and Hyundai – are pressing ahead with plans to have fuel-cell vehicles on sale by 2015.

Honda and Toyota both have fuel cell trials going in the United States, but a lack of refuelling infrastructure is hampering the commercialisation of fuel cell vehicles. Unlike plug-in electric vehicles, which can be hooked up to a domestic power point, fuel-cell vehicles need an extensive network of fuelling stations.

But advocates argue that once that network is in place – modifying the existing fuel station network is an obvious solution - fuel-cells have significant advantages over electric cars. They can be refuelled quickly, they have much longer range and they are not hooked up to an electricity grid that uses brown coal.

Toyota says it has been able to cut costs by reducing the use of platinum in its fuel cells. Platinum plays a vital role in the chemical process that occurs when hydrogen and oxygen are mixed in a fuel cell to produce electricity.

The company says further cost benefits will come when it begins mass production of fuel-cell vehicles.