Even though there aren’t many of them left, there are car manufacturers that still intend to focus on alternative fuels such as hydrogen. Among these there is certainly Toyotawhich it says it believes it can “rebuild the history” of hydrogen as a viable fuel for vehicles in the future, thanks to developments in both heavy industry and other sectors. It is no coincidence that the Japanese company has long continued to invest in this solution, working on the development of fuel cell versions of its vehicles.
Toyota focuses on hydrogen
“For heavy transport, we will need other solutions besides battery-electric vehicles and hydrogen could be the right solution – commented Thiebault Paquet, Toyota’s hydrogen manager in Europe, to Autocar microphones – We need to develop the infrastructure and the product at the same time, which is what is happening now. What we need to avoid and what we may have done wrong before is not taking into account the supply and demand. We have learned from this and I think that we can reconstruct the story“.
Charging infrastructure lacking
As Paquet himself acknowledged, the lack of a capillary refueling infrastructure of hydrogen has affected Toyota’s growth plans: after all, this was one of the factors that prevented the Mirai FCEV from achieving the success that was expected on the market. But it was not the only one, since there were also criticisms on the suitability of hydrogen as a “green” fueldue to the environmental impact of its production compared to that of electricity.
Between heavy vehicles and cars
Toyota’s focus now appears to have shifted to the heavy-duty vehicle sector, where hydrogen could have a wide scope for action. “Heavy industry will create a lot of volume for hydrogenwhich can then contribute to the use for other applications, such as commercial vehicles and cars. In Europe we will always have to import hydrogen, but there are regions in the world that can generate green and renewable hydrogen in abundance, and we can easily transport it to areas that cannot fully sustain themselves – concluded Paquet – Hydrogen companies don’t distinguish between hydrogen for transportation and hydrogen for industry, it’s all part of their story of scale. So hydrogen will come, this is something we are convinced of“.
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