Toyota quietly rolls 2015 fuel cell car into town

SAN FRANCISCO – One automaker's vision of the transportation future sat parked under a broiling sun not far from AT&T Park baseball stadium Tuesday. But the blackout tint on the sedan's windows wasn't to keep the interior cool, but hidden.

Toyota quietly rolled into town with the newest addition to its eco-conscious fleet, the 2015 FCV. That stands for Fuel Cell Vehicle and translates to hydrogen power. The car hits dealers in the middle of next year, but the company remains mum on pricing and what surrounds the passengers.

"We aren't quite ready to show off the interior yet, but it's safe to say that it'll be very spacious with ample trunk room," says Jana Hartline, the company's environmental communications manager. "The (electricity-generating) hydrogen fuel cell sits under the front seats, and the hydrogen gas tanks are under the back wheel well. It's been optimized for comfort."

The quick science low-down here: take hydrogen gas and mix it with oxygen in a fuel cell stack and you get electric current, heat and water.

In person, the FCV looks conventional enough, claiming midsize dimensions. Its front end boasts massive gills to help cool the suitcase-sized fuel cell, while its hind quarters feature a number of curves "that are meant to recall waves, hinting at the fact that the only thing coming out of the tailpipe is H20," says Hartline.

But the question that looms is whether this machine will make sales waves?

Toyota's first hydrogen-powered production car – the result of some seven years of refining the technology and reducing manufacturing costs – joins small lease-only runs of Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell and Honda FCX Clarity vehicles. Other automakers, including Mercedes-Benz and General Motors, also have small fleets of fuel-cell cars on the roads.

REFUELING EASE KEY TO SUCCESS

So the issue seems to be less about whether automakers will build the vehicles, but rather will the customers come. Hartline says the answer is linked to California rolling out hydrogen refueling stations. Some 48 stations, most in auto-dense Southern California, will be in place by 2016, she says.

"We are going to be working hard to make sure people can refuel," says Hartline, adding that the California Energy Commission has already pledged $200 million to get the process underway, with Toyota providing an undisclosed investment in hydrogen producers FirstElement Fuel.

Best estimates currently place the cost of refilling a car like the Toyota FCV, which has a 300-mile range, at around $50 to $60 dollars, with that price likely coming down significantly once refueling infrastructure expands.

That's not to say that Toyota is looking to ditch its wide array of hybrid and plug-in offerings in favor of hydrogen.

"We don't see this as a one-size-fits-all thing," says Hartline. "Rather, it's whatever really suits a person's driving needs. Electric cars are great, but that also doesn't scale well when it comes to large vehicles like buses, which do work on hydrogen fuel cells."

While the FCV on display wasn't available for a test drive, Toyota FCV engineer Jared Farnsworth did hand over the keys to an FCV "mule" bodied as a Lexus HS. A quick loop around the waterfront was utterly uneventful, in that the car provided reassuring handling, ample acceleration and a silent ride.

"In the real FCV, we actually have improved the acceleration and made it even quieter," says Farnsworth, who notes that he's taken the mule to climatic extremes (minus 30 degrees to 128 degree) "and it started for me every time, right away, which might not be the case with a battery-powered car."

THE POWER TO POWER YOUR HOUSE

Among the interesting features engineered into the FCV to make it a production vehicle were refinements to fuel-cell safety systems. If an accident creates cracks in the Toyota-made carbon fiber fuel tanks, their gases are instantly vented. Another feature allows the driver to elect to keep the water waste in a storage tank, "so you don't just dump water when you pull into your garage," says Hartline.

And an even greater bonus is a feature derived from the lessons of the catastrophic earthquake that struck Japan in 2011.

Says Farnsworth: "What first responders desperately couldn't find was power. So we (found) the FCV could be set up to double as a source of electricity to power your home in the even you lose power for some time. You never know when you may need that."

For that feature alone, Toyota's FCV just may be a hit with this town's quake-wary natives.