Toyota backs hydrogen network

Toyota Australia has signalled its willingness to become a co-investor in a network of hydrogen refuelling stations to boost the sale of fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) in Australia.

But despite its dominance of the Australian new vehicle sales market and its support for hydrogen and FCEVs, Toyota says it wouldn’t copy the Tesla model and set up its own refuelling network.

Toyota Australia launched the second-generation Mirai FCEV in Australia this week, but only 20 examples are being imported to be leased to businesses for three years.

The lack of a public hydrogen refuelling infrastructure means Mirai can’t be sold outright through Toyota dealers to private buyers. The new Hyundai Nexo FCEV is in a similar situation.

But Toyota hopes FCEV sales to the public by dealers could be achieved as quickly as two years and no more than a decade from now.

“It may very well be possible that some of our dealers will be selling these cars within two to three years, but that depends on the infrastructure,” Toyota Australia sales and marketing chief Sean Hanley told carsales at the Mirai launch.

“The only thing that is holding up the adoption of fuel-cell electric vehicles powered by hydrogen is infrastructure, but I don’t think it is going to take the 20 years that hybrid took to get adoption and engagement. Within the next decade.”

Faced with a lack of charging infrastructure when it was building up its battery-electric vehicle business, Tesla launched a supercharger network in the US in 2012.

That network now has thousands of chargers globally including Australia, and Tesla is the dominant player in the global electric car space.

Estimates of how many public hydrogen stations would be required to make FCEVs viable for private buyers in Australia vary enormously, but at the moment there are only a handful in operation, including Toyota’s new $7.4 million refueller at its Altona site in Melbourne.

Hanley said creating its own hydrogen refuelling network was not part of the Toyota’s business model.

“Refuelling is not our main game,” he said. “But we would never rule out the potential of partnerships going forward, if through a collaborative approach it speeds up the introduction of infrastructure.

“We are working actively right now with our own industry, we are working actively right now with energy companies, governments and consumers.

“We would never rule out the potential of partnerships going forward and that’s why we are strong on collaboration now through the hydrogen council.”

Toyota and Hyundai are both members of the Australian Hydrogen Council, along with the likes of Viva Energy, Ampol, BP, Woodside and many other significant players in this area.

“We firmly believe a collaborative approach will bring this infrastructure to market faster, than an individual approach,” Hanley said.

FCEV technology has retained a small but loyal band of automotive advocates that includes Honda, Renault as well as Toyota and Hyundai because they refuel as quickly as combustion-engined vehicles and have an equivalent range.

Electric cars, by contrast, take far longer to recharge, mostly have shorter ranges and incur the performance-deadening handicap of heavy battery packs.

Toyota Australia’s manager for future technologies and mobility Matt Macleod said establishing hydrogen refuelling stations was a “chicken-and-egg argument”.

He said energy suppliers won’t set up a hydrogen fuelling network while the FCEVs in Australia are sold (or leased, in fact) in such small numbers.

Likewise, car companies won’t bring in fuel-cell vehicles while there’s very little refuelling infrastructure to support the cars.

“One of the key things is ... if the infrastructure companies leave it to us, nothing will happen; if we wait for the infrastructure companies, nothing will happen. We need to work together to do that,” Macleod explained.

Hydrogen is altogether more expensive to produce and supply than electricity for battery-electric cars, so working out where prospective fuel-cell vehicle buyers will reside will be an important element of determining where to build these refuelling stations.

Unlike EVs, fuel-cell vehicles may find homes in rural areas, where the longer range to empty will appeal, whereas electric vehicles tend to sell in larger numbers to urban buyers.

So fuel-cell vehicles can travel further to refuel/recharge – and may be forced to do so, because the rollout will likely be much slower than it has been for the electricity distribution network for EVs, due to the higher cost to set up the infrastructure.

“I think that the key thing is that in order to place cars and bring more vehicles in, whether it’s Mirai or anything else that might happen in the future, is to understand where those locations would be, and to place them in those areas,” said Macleod.

“And that’s where potential partnerships or joint ventures or consortiums or those types of things could work, and that’s a similar model that’s worked overseas.”

Macleod predicted short- and long-range trucking could act as a driver for the development of a substantial hydrogen refuelling network.

“Regional refuelling would suit the trucking industry, particularly if they’re going … from Melbourne to Sydney. And depending on the pressures and the volume that could be stored, theoretically they could support passenger vehicles as well.

“There are distinct advantages using fuel-cell [technology] for heavier vehicles, but availability of those vehicles is the challenge. One of the things that I’ve spoken about for a number of years now is that the infrastructure is likely to come and be implemented for passenger vehicles because that’s what’s available, but it will stay for larger vehicles purely because of the volume that they use.

“This particular car [the new Mirai] holds 5.6kg of hydrogen, which will last you 650km. A bus or a truck or whatever will hold 25kg or 30kg of hydrogen and will need to replenish that every day.

“So ... those particular vehicles won’t come unless the infrastructure is there or unless [commercial vehicle builders and importers] partner the same we would potentially partner with someone to provide vehicles for their stations.”