Toyota Hydrogen Fuel Cell breakthrough to be announced at Frankfurt Motor Show

Toyota is set to reveal a breakthrough in hydrogen fuel cell technology at the Frankfurt Motor Show ahead of a new FCHV at Tokyo Motor Show.

Regardless of whether you think the electric car is potentially a planet saviour or not, the idea of powering cars with hydrogen is a powerful one; the holy grail of automotive powertrains.

Technically, ICE cars can be built to run using hydrogen (and a retro-fit allowing that to be achieved economically would be a huge breakthrough) but car makers are heading down the road of electric cars being powered by a hydrogen fuel cell at the moment.

In Toyota’s case, that means a setup similar to their hybrid cars, with a hydrogen fuel cell replacing the petrol engine. And Toyota is set to reveal a real fuel cell breakthrough at the Frankfurt Motor Show next week.

Toyota has now managed to yield a range of 420 miles from their FCV-R Concept – producing no CO2, NOx or particulates in the process – and have managed to reduce the size of the fuel cell stack – which now yields a power density of 3.0kW per litre – meaning smaller fuel tanks and lower production costs.

This will all be incorporated in Toyota’s new hydrogen fuel cell concept which will debut at the Tokyo Motor Show in November, ahead of a new FCHV launching in 2015.

Currently, Toyota see the real cost of the car at around £70k, one tenth of the cost of the FCHV-adv, but expect to be able to reduce that by a further 50 per cent.

There may be further revelation on Toyota’s hydrogen fuel cell technology and plans at Frankfurt and Tokyo, and it’s clear they see a proper commercial market for fuel cell cars developing in the next few years, with FCEVs becoming mainstream in the 2020s.