Toyota and Hyundai join forces to accelerate hydrogen cars

Toyota Australia, Hyundai Australia, Ampol and Pacific Energy have signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly develop hydrogen vehicle refuelling infrastructure in Australia.

There is no timeline and no financial commitment, but the two energy companies and two rival auto brands say they will work together to expand the number of hydrogen refuelling stations in Australia.

Currently they number just a handful – including one each at Toyota’s (Melbourne) and Hyundai’s (Sydney) head offices and one each in Brisbane, Canberra and Geelong – but they remain off-limits to the public, with the exception of Viva Energy’s heavy-vehicle hydrogen refuelling station in Geelong.

And while hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles and H2 refuellers are available in limited numbers in Europe, Japan and the US, FCEVs including the Toyota Mirai and Hyundai NEXO remain unavailable to the public in Australia, where hydrogen is already produced for industry but made only in limited quantities for transport.

About 50 examples of both FCEVs are currently being subjected to fleet trials in Australia, where they’re so far available only to business and government customers via a lease program.

However, Hyundai says the NEXO will be offered to the public on a subscription basis and Toyota plans to sell its second-generation Mirai to private buyers from around 2025.

Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Hyundai and Toyota are at the forefront of FCEV technology. The latter is developing H2-powered light trucks with Isuzu, revealed a hydrogen-fuelled HiLux concept in the UK in September and has said it is studying battery-electric, plug-in hybrid and FCEV versions of its LandCruiser.

And while Volkswagen has ruled out a hydrogen-powered model this decade, other German car-makers like BMW have dabbled with both internal-combustion hydrogen power and fuel-cell tech, in the form of the BMW iX5 Hydrogen.

Meantime, INEOS is planning to eventually produce an FCEV version of its new Grenadier off-roader and the Australian-developed, Ford Ranger-based H2X Warrego FCEV ute is already available to fleets.

Of course, public FCEV availability is dependant on a broader hydrogen refuelling network locally, which is the issue this week’s MoU aims to address.

“Since 2018, Toyota has been expanding our hydrogen capability here in Australia, first with local trials of our Mirai FCEV sedan and then with the establishment of Victoria’s first hydrogen production, storage and refuelling facility,” said Toyota Australia president and CEO, Matthew Callachor.

“This month, we announced plans to locally assemble and distribute the EODev GEH2 fuel cell generator in Australia and this joint collaboration announced today provides further opportunities to explore and grow this vital technology.”

Hyundai Australia CEO Ted Lee said: “In 2021, Hyundai deployed 23 NEXO Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles into Canberra as a partner in the ACT Government’s hydrogen station project – the first hydrogen refueller of its kind in Australia.

“Our consortium partners have a great track record of deploying energy and refuelling infrastructure, along with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Hyundai looks forward to working with our experienced partner companies and the broader government and business community in the ACT to help the transition to a cleaner and greener transport future.”

For their part, energy companies Ampol and Pacific says they will support the rollout of hydrogen-fuelled vehicles from the Japanese giant – Australia’s number on auto brand – and the Korean car-maker, Australia’s fourth most popular car-maker behind Toyota, Mazda and sister brand Kia.

“Hydrogen can play an important role in delivering decarbonisation benefits for transport and developing the right infrastructure to support a successful rollout is key,” said Ampol managing director and CEO, Matthew Halliday.

“The MoU establishes a collaborative working relationship between the parties, who are all required to develop the necessary hydrogen ecosystem to make hydrogen use as a transport fuel feasible.”

Pacific Energy CEO Jamie Cullen said: “Our purpose at Pacific Energy is to transition the world to a clean energy future. To be successful, we know we must collectively lean into bold opportunities that help accelerate our journey towards net zero, and we know hydrogen and zero emissions vehicles play an important role in this approach.”

Toyota Australia vice-president sales, marketing and franchise operations Sean Hanley said: “This partnership agreement brings together four like-minded companies that are all leading proponents of Australia’s growing hydrogen economy.

“Both Toyota and Hyundai have fuel-cell electric vehicles in customer programs while Ampol and Pacific Energy are heavily invested in growing sustainable energy development and distribution.

“This is a vital development because hydrogen ecosystems must involve sectors uniting so they can bring together their skills, technologies and applications.

“It’s an agreement that demonstrates a commitment to work together on further opportunities to explore and grow this vital technology… which will play a role in the transition to more renewable energy sources [for vehicles].

“This is yet another important chapter in our multi-pathway approach to decarbonisation.”

Speaking to journalists after the announcement, Hanley said hydrogen-powered cars could become widespread in Australia if drivers could refuel them conveniently.

“The cars are here. We just need to get an infrastructure to support them. But… in fairness to energy companies, they need a commitment to vehicles coming to this country to sustain their investment.

“At Toyota we believe hydrogen has a role to play, particularly in heavy vehicles.

“When you look at what we use vehicles for in Australia… hydrogen is an outstandingly good fuel source and a solution for a carbon-neutral commercial vehicle that has to tow, has to have range and doesn’t take a long time to fill.

“Hydrogen works in that regard so once we can establish an infrastructure it’s got an incredibly good future.”

Hanley said Toyota remained committed to selling its Mirai to private Aussie customers within a few years.

“We haven’t determined that [exactly when] yet… but as soon as we have an expansion of the infrastructure that can support an expansion of Mirai sales we’ll be doing it,” he said.

“We said around 2025 would be an ambitious horizon and depending on infrastructure whether we can realise that or not, but hopefully this announcement will help accelerate that.

“We’ve always said that to build a hydrogen infrastructure you need to bring government, energy, car companies all together, so this is a really positive step towards that and there’s a long way to go.

“The cars are fine, we just need the infrastructure to support them.”

The senior Toyota executive said FCEVs would be no different to other powertrain technologies when it came to assuring the public of their safety.

“The hydrogen fuel-cell is a safe car. Our job is, like any technology we bring to market, to dispel the myths and one of those myths will be around the safety of hydrogen,” he said.

Hanley said that no matter how rapid the adoption of FCEVs in Australia, new internal combustion engine-powered vehicles will continue to remain available well into the future.

“I think ICE engines will be around for a long time,” he said. “I don’t see oil and petrol ending any time soon.

“These things [FCEVs] take five minutes to fill and they have a good range. If you had the refuelling infrastructure it’s really no different to what people do today.

“The only the barrier for hydrogen right now is how you make it and that will rely on fossil fuels for a period of time until we get more renewable energy into the grid, and secondly the infrastructure.

“There’s no barrier with the car. It drives like any other car and I’m sure the Hyundai car drives like any other car and is a great car too. The only thing stopping both of them is somewhere to fill it.”

Asked what price the Mirai would be sold at, Hanley said: “They are just EVs with a fuel-cell. They’re not cheap but over time as you get infrastructure, scale and volume…

“It’s a bit like the hybrid story. They weren’t cheap back in 2011 and today they have price parity within between about $2500 and $4000 of an ICE engine.”

Speaking to Autocar at last week’s Japan Mobility Show, Toyota’s chief technology officer Hiroki Nakajima said the Mirai had “not been successful” because widespread hydrogen refuelling stations has been “difficult to realise”.

There are reportedly only 57 hydrogen refuelling locations in the US – all of them in California – and Toyota has sold about 2600 Mirais in the US so far this year – up 80 per cent on the same period in 2022 and more than the entire first-generation model.

For everything you auto know about EVs, listen to carsales' Watts Under the Bonnet: the electric car podcast

Join the conversation at 

our Facebook page

Or email us at 

editor@carsales.com.au