Honda Motor aims to cut the cost of hydrogen-powered fuel-cell cars to a hundredth of the present level to make them competitive with conventional cars, its engineer in charge of developing them told Reuters.
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Yozo Kami, chief engineer in Honda’s research and development operation, told the news agency its fuel cell cars cost about 100 times that of typical petrol models to manufacture and it needs to slash that by a tenth to the level of high-end cars and eventually to a hundredth to make it more competitive against conventional alternatives.
Kami reportedly said fuel cell cars could have a market share of 5% by 2020.
A Toyota spokesman told Reuters that the introduction of the environmentally friendly cars to the mass market is unlikely until 2010 at the earliest due to high costs and the need to improve fuel cell storing technology to allow long travel.
