At the opening of the world’s largest trade show CES, the senior vice president of automotive operations for Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc Bob Carter said that they are not trying to re-invent the wheels but just everything that is necessary to make them turn. He further explained that our future will very soon experience fuel cell electric vehicles in such a greater numbers than expected. Two vehicles were presented at the Toyota press conference: The FCV concept to show what the four-door mid-size sedan will seem in Radiant Blue; and the camouflage-taped engineering prototype which, in North America, is used for extreme and extensive on-road testing. The prototype delivered a driving range of about 300 miles consistently, with no emissions other than water vapor and 0-60 acceleration in 10 seconds.

Investment in fuel cell R&D by the Toyota has been massive for the past 20 years. A major engineering achievement is represented by the FCV, where the weight and size of its Powertrain system was reduced significantly along with maintaining an outstanding total power output of more than 100kW. A variety of data, including R.L. Polk ownership of electric and hybrid vehicles, population density, traffic patterns, etc. are considered by the APEP spatial model. The assumption of the owners’ reach to a refueling station within 6-minutes bases the model. The model produced an initial cluster map requiring only 68 station sites in the Silicon Valley and San Francisco Bay area, as well as Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange counties.

While specific sales volumes are to be announced closer to launch, Carter said that the revision of initial market plans and request for additional vehicles has been made by the Toyota. More information is expected to be announced at the time ahead. This information would include U.S. sales volume targets, name of the vehicle and performance and comprehensive specification data. The Toyota Car of the Future’s interested consumers of can visit www.toyota.com/fuelcell.