No fuel cell Toyota for Oz

Toyota's strategy to launch a global sedan powered by a hydrogen fuel cell hybrid powertrain by 2015 is very much 'all systems go' but the chances of the high-tech car coming to Australia are slim at best.

That's the news delivered this week from Toyota Australia officials in a Paris-based briefing following the Le Mans 24-Hour.

Due to local infrastructure issues, in particular the availability of hydrogen fuel to everyday motorists, the yet-to-be named sedan (expected to be based on the FCV-R concept -- pictured) is not likely to be offered in Australia.

Toyota Australia's Product Planning Corporate Manager, Greg Gardner, said: "We don’t have zero chance, we have better than zero chance," of getting the vehicle.

"We've publicly said that from 2015 we'll offer a passenger car for sale, a world-wide car, it's a sedan. However we haven't necessarily had that model secured that car for Australia at this stage. It's pretty early days. We don’t have any firms plans except to dream."

Mr Gardner said the 2015 hydrogen fuel cell car will be offered for sale in global markets that have hydrogen infrastructure, such as Japan, Germany and USA, but that it won't be cheap.

"This car will be expensive [in global markets] but it will be on sale [and not for lease]."

Toyota has sold more than four million hybrids globally and expects to sell one million in 2012, the first time it will achieve seven figures in a single year. In contrast, the hydrogen-fuelled sedan will be a very low volume model for the foreseeable future with "production rising to tens-of-thousands per year in the 2020s," added Mr Gardner.

The new hydrogen sedan is expected to have a 700km range and will emit zero carbon dioxide, but like Toyota's current petrol-electric hybrid cars the emphasis is still very much on reducing the reliance on fuel -- in this case hydrogen.

"Integral to all that [hydrogen fuel cell research] is the hybrid technology where you have a battery, an electric motor and course of power -- whether that's hydrogen, diesel, petrol, LPG, compressed natural gas, whatever.  All that sort of technology that we use in terms of how to drive when you put the accelerator pedal down, how the electronics feed the signals to the electric motors, the battery technology, all that will feed into fuel cells or, whatever, the ultimate environmentally sensitive car uses."

It is plausible that hydrogen fuel cells could replace the combustion engine in the far future and when this happens Australia will need to adapt to this significant change at some point in the future. Gardner says that it will require a considerable infrastructural and social change.

"Of course a smooth shift to a hydrogen-based society will be a significant undertaking. Reaching a consensus on what method should be used to make hydrogen, how to deliver it and how to implement a fuelling infrastructure depends on the combined efforts of all sectors of society, including governments," he opined.

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