Toyota Touts Fuel-Cell Car as Key to Energy Diversity

Toyota Motor Corp. is positioning its new Mirai fuel-cell-powered sedan as a first step toward helping to restructure Japan's social structure and enhance its global competitiveness.

The $62,000 car will go on sale in December in Japan.

Toyota expects to build only 700 of the four-seaters next year, 400 of them for the Japanese market. But the company predicts annual output will jump to tens of thousands in the 2020s. Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada predicts hydrogen will replace gasoline as the world's primary transportation fuel in the next 100 years.

In Japan, Mirai customers will be eligible for as much as 3 million yen ($25,700) in government subsidies. The financial support is akin to what Japan did nearly 20 years ago to help create a market for hybrid vehicles such as Toyota's Prius.

The Mirai will be powered by a 113-kW electric motor that makes 247 lb-ft of torque. A Toyota-developed polymer electrolyte fuel cell generates 114 kW and is backed up by a nickel-metal hydride storage battery. The stack is fed by two high-pressure (700 bar) hydrogen tanks: a 60-liter unit in front and 62-liter unit in back. Toyota estimates a 435-mile range for the sedan.

The car weighs 4,100 lbs and is about 16 feet long, 6 feet wide and 5 feet tall.

Toyota notes that fuel cells are appealing because they emit only water vapor and burn hydrogen, which can be extracted from a wide variety of natural resources and manmade byproducts. In cars, fuel cells offer refueling time of a few minutes and driving ranges similar to those of gasoline-powered cars.

Fuel cells also can be used as sources of electricity during natural disasters, a feature highly prized in Japan. But skeptics say the severe lack of publicly accessible hydrogen fueling stations is bound to make the technology a difficult sell for consumers.