Toyota’s first consumer fuel cell car for the United States will be a sedan, a top executive has said.
But Toyota Motor Sales USA president and CEO Jim Lentz did not tell Reuters how big the car would be or whether it would be a lease-only model like rival Honda’s FCX Clarity, already being driven by a small group of US lessees in California.
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Toyota announced two years ago that it would have a fuel cell vehicle for the US market in 2015. It began leasing its then-latest fuel cell hybrid vehicle model, the FCHV-adv, to Japan’s Ministry of the Environment in September 2008
The 2015 timing would put Toyota seven years behind American Honda which, three years ago, began leasing five FCX Clarity fuel cell electric vehicles to film producer Ron Yerxa, author and actress Jamie Lee Curtis and her filmmaker husband Christopher Guest; business owner and car enthusiast Jim Salomon; actress Laura Harris; and Jon Spallino.
In May last year, Honda and Toyota’s US units, which are close to each other in the city of Torrance, south of Los Angeles, collaborated on the development of a new Shell hydrogen refuelling station with Air Products, South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) and the Department of Energy (DOE). The station is located adjacent to the TMS sales and marketing headquarters and Toyota leases the land to Shell for a nominal fee.
Lentz told Reuters during an auto industry conference in Traverse City, Michigan, he had been driving a fuel cell Highlander [Kluger] SUV that was produced as a test vehicle, and has been getting 300 to 320 miles per refueling of hydrogen. It takes four to five minutes to refuel the vehicle, he said.
“The big question with regard to fuel cells is going to be infrastructure,” said Lentz. He would not say how many fuel cell vehicles would be available in 2015.
He also told Reuters Toyota has not decided if it would roll out the fuel cell sedan in limited markets in the United States.
