Toyota Names Upcoming Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car

An anonymous reader writes Toyota has announced the name of its new hydrogen-powered car: Mirai, which means "future" in Japanese. Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda said: "Today, we are at a turning point in automotive history. A turning point where a four-door sedan can travel 300 miles on a single tank of hydrogen, can be refueled in under five minutes and emit only water vapor."

Comments

Hydrogen is a nice alternative

[Trachman]

Toyota is currently considered as one of the best companies and great strategic planners. Pioneers too. I did follow the development of this innovation and it is worth saying that Toyota has invested billions of dollars into this project. The same way they have invested in gas-hybrid prototype currently known as Prius.

There will be Hydrogen energy skeptics, the same way there was a reasonable skepticism towards electric cars. Most of the skeptic comments coming from the opponents of electric cars are actually, valid. Such as electric cars are being charged with the coal burned electricity.

The key risk will be mentioned that Hydrogen is extremely volatile and combustive. BMW has developed hydrogen powered cars long time ago. Toyota has actually solved the issue by developing fuel cell. Fuel cell basically is a sponge of certain minerals which chemically absorbs hydrogen so that it is not that volatile.

I am taking a risk and predicting that in ten and fifteen years there will be marketed systems that will convert photovoltaic energy to hydrogen, which will be used to fill Hydrogen cars.

Do not listen too seriously to those who say that there will be no hydrogen refill stations. A decade ago there were not too many electricity recharge stations (though you could recharge your car home). I am sure Toyota has a plan in their sleeve to be in the hydrogen business.

While former criticism for current EV cars was valid, there will be valid complains for Hydrogen cars, let's not forget the key thing: competition is actually a good thing. Embrace it, because even if you are driving a gas car, hydrogen cars will keep the price of gas down due to lower oil demand. Win-win.

Re:How do I refill it?

[bobbied]

Hydrogen is still a stupid idea.

Look, either go full 100% electric and just put in chargers everywhere, or use CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) and just forget this nutty hydrogen idea. Hydrogen is hard to obtain and store and there is no existing distribution infrastructure to speak of.

Does anybody here know where we get most of our industrial hydrogen gas? From Natural Gas. Guess what? We already have a distribution infrastructure in most of the States for Natural Gas. We should just cut to the chase and go to CNG which burns very clean with a minimum of modifications to existing engines. All this hydrogen talk is just hype..