Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      The satellite broadband operators taking on Starlink

      9 July 2025

      Yaccarino out: Musk’s handpicked CEO quits X suddenly

      9 July 2025

      AI gold rush propels Nvidia to record $4-trillion market cap

      9 July 2025

      Price hike for .za domains

      9 July 2025

      China’s Temu ups ante with South African warehouse launch

      9 July 2025
    • World

      Cupertino vs Brussels: Apple challenges Big Tech crackdown

      7 July 2025

      Grammarly acquires e-mail start-up Superhuman

      1 July 2025

      Apple considers ditching its own AI in Siri overhaul

      1 July 2025

      Jony Ive’s first AI gadget could be … a pen

      30 June 2025

      Bumper orders for Xiaomi’s YU7 SUV heighten threat to Tesla

      27 June 2025
    • In-depth

      Siemens is battling Big Tech for AI supremacy in factories

      24 June 2025

      The algorithm will sing now: why musicians should be worried about AI

      20 June 2025

      Meta bets $72-billion on AI – and investors love it

      17 June 2025

      MultiChoice may unbundle SuperSport from DStv

      12 June 2025

      Grok promised bias-free chat. Then came the edits

      2 June 2025
    • TCS

      TCS | Connecting Saffas – Renier Lombard on The Lekker Network

      7 July 2025

      TechCentral Nexus S0E4: Takealot’s big Post Office jobs plan

      4 July 2025

      TCS | Tech, townships and tenacity: Spar’s plan to win with Spar2U

      3 July 2025

      TCS+ | First Distribution on the latest and greatest cloud technologies

      27 June 2025

      TCS+ | First Distribution on data governance in hybrid cloud environments

      27 June 2025
    • Opinion

      In defence of equity alternatives for BEE

      30 June 2025

      E-commerce in ICT distribution: enabler or disruptor?

      30 June 2025

      South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

      17 June 2025

      AI and the future of ICT distribution

      16 June 2025

      Singapore soared – why can’t we? Lessons South Africa refuses to learn

      13 June 2025
    • Company Hubs
      • Africa Data Centres
      • AfriGIS
      • Altron Digital Business
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Group
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • Braintree
      • CallMiner
      • CambriLearn
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • Domains.co.za
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • Iris Network Systems
      • LSD Open
      • NEC XON
      • Network Platforms
      • Next DLP
      • Ovations
      • Paracon
      • Paratus
      • Q-KON
      • SevenC
      • SkyWire
      • Solid8 Technologies
      • Telit Cinterion
      • Tenable
      • Vertiv
      • Videri Digital
      • Wipro
      • Workday
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud services
      • Contact centres and CX
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Electronics and hardware
      • Energy and sustainability
      • Enterprise software
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Lifestyle
      • Motoring
      • Public sector
      • Retail and e-commerce
      • Science
      • SMEs and start-ups
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » In-depth » Hydrogen cars take a back seat to electric vehicles

    Hydrogen cars take a back seat to electric vehicles

    By Agency Staff28 November 2017
    Twitter LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp Email Telegram Copy Link
    News Alerts
    WhatsApp
    The Toyota Mirai

    Toyota, which has made a big bet on hydrogen-powered cars, is looking more isolated as industry rivals double down on plug-in electric vehicles as the dominant technology in the emerging post-fossil fuel era.

    Three years ago, Toyota president Akio Toyoda, grandson of company founder Kiichiro Toyoda, unveiled the Mirai, a four-door family sedan powered by hydrogen tanks and fuel-cell technology that emits nothing but heat and water — and none of the gases that contribute to global warming.

    However, sales of the US$57 500 sedan — available in Japan, California and parts of Europe — have yet to break the 5 000 mark, compared to some 300 000 of Nissan’s battery-electric Leaf.

    Even hydrogen-car backers such as Honda, Hyundai  and Volkswagen’s Audi have refocused their zero-emissions car strategies on EVs

    Toyota isn’t the only player in fuel-cell vehicle development. However, even hydrogen-car backers such as Honda, Hyundai  and Volkswagen’s Audi have refocused their zero-emissions car strategies on EVs. Investment in hydrogen power stations has been glacial and technology advances have lowered the cost of batteries and extended driving ranges.

    China, the world’s biggest car market, nearly doubled the number of charging points last year to 215 000, while the number of hydrogen stations was all of five. It plans to introduce a cap-and-trade emissions policy from 2019, and has joined a growing list of countries seeking deadlines to phase out fossil fuel-powered vehicles.

    Tesla this month unveiled a new Roadster with a 1 000km driving range, twice that of Toyota’s Mirai. The electric car maker’s CEO, Elon Musk, has long disparaged fuel cells because of the cost and difficulty of creating, storing and transporting hydrogen.

    New entrants

    By contrast, the relative simplicity of EV powertrains has helped open the door to a host of new entrants, including vacuum-cleaner billionaire James Dyson. Bloomberg New Energy Finance sees electric cars reaching price parity with their petrol-burning cousins as early as 2025, following a 73% plunge in lithium-ion battery prices between 2010 and 2016.

    “It’s easier for companies to make a profit with EV, and it’s easier for governments to prepare the infrastructure,” said Richard Kaye, a portfolio manager at Nippon Comgest. “For the past few years, it’s been EV that’s been gaining traction. Because of that, it’s EV that’s much closer to becoming reality.”

    As such, fuel-cell technology is increasingly being put on the back burner. Honda CEO Takahiro Hachigo said last month he thinks EVs will proliferate faster in the near term, and Hyundai executive vice president Lee Kwang-guk said in August that EVs will now be the “mainstay” of the Korean automaker’s eco-car line-up.

    Tesla’s new $200 000 Roadster EV

    Fuel cells were barely a footnote when VW CEO Matthias Mueller announced the group’s aggressive electrification strategy in September.

    By contrast, Toyota says its fervour for the technology it began developing in the early 1990s remains undiminished. Fuel-cell and battery-electric vehicles must be developed “at the same speed” because different parts of the world will favour different energy sources based on their specific needs, executive vice president Didier Leroy said in an interview at last month’s Tokyo Motor Show, where Toyota was the only Japanese car maker to display hydrogen-powered vehicles.

    “We know, for example, that the fuel cells in the Japanese society will be much more than just cars,” Leroy said. “In many other places in the world, it will be the same.”

    Japan has 91 hydrogen stations and is aiming for 160 by 2020 and 320 by 2025. But that’s against more than 28 000 charging points at the end of last year

    California is currently the main market for fuel-cell vehicles outside Japan, but has just 30 hydrogen stations. Efforts by Toyota and its partners to set up infrastructure on America’s east coast have been plagued by delays. By contrast, BNEF counted more than 44 000 charging points nationwide in 2016.

    Japan has 91 hydrogen stations and is aiming for 160 by 2020 and 320 by 2025. But that’s against more than 2  000 charging points at the end of last year, according to BNEF, whose analysts forecast the high costs and strict regulations governing hydrogen stations will mean the government can only meet 75% of its 2020 goal, and an even smaller proportion of its 2025 target.

    “Unlike lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, there is no existing parallel industry for fuel cells that accelerates the speed of cost reduction,” said BNEF analyst Ali Izadi-Najafabadi. “Fuel-cell vehicles will not achieve the same level of market penetration.”

    The gap is widening even as Toyota forges partnerships aimed at promoting fuel cells. One such global entity established at the start of this year, the Hydrogen Council, said this month that the lightest element could supply a fifth of worldwide energy needs by 2025.

    Fuel-cell proponents face a chicken-and-egg dilemma: increased infrastructure requires additional vehicles to support it, and vice versa.

    Poor sales

    Toyota, which leads FCV sales globally with the Mirai, has only shipped about 4 300 since its launch in late 2014. By contrast, Nissan has sold about 300 000 of the Leaf since 2010 and Tesla has delivered more than 250 000 electric vehicles since the first Roadster rolled out in 2008.

    The figures at other FCV makers are even starker: Honda has shipped fewer than 700 of the Clarity Fuel Cell since its debut last year, while Hyundai has moved about 900 of its Tucson Fuel Cell since 2013.

    Toyota has set a lofty goal of selling 30 000 FCVs annually by around 2020. Achieving that will need not just more infrastructure, but improvements to the Mirai itself, according to chief engineer Yoshikazu Tanaka. The list he gave echoed what Musk has done with his second-generation Roadster, which on top of a 1 000km range can go 0-100km/h in 1.9 seconds.

    Mirai cutaway showing the power control unit and the electric traction motor in the front, the fuel-cell stack and hydrogen storage tank in the middle, and the nickel–metal hydride rechargeable battery above in the rear. Image by Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz (CC BY-SA 4.0)

    First, the Mirai’s range of about 500km under US standards is “not nearly enough”, Tanaka said on the sidelines of a conference in Tokyo last month. The other is more abstract. “We don’t want people to buy the car just for its environmental credentials,” he said. “We have to make it cool.”

    Toyota chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada told Der Spiegel in an interview this month that Tesla is not the Japanese company’s “role model”, and that battery-electric vehicles with long ranges are both heavy and too expensive to be mass produced. The new Roadster will be available from 2020 with a base price of $200 000. “Such cars do not fit in our programme,” Uchiyamada said.

    Toyota’s immediate priority is to step up development of hydrogen-powered commercial vehicles

    In a management reshuffle involving some three dozen people announced Tuesday, Kiyotaka Ise, who heads advanced R&D including FCV and EV development, will become chief executive of group company Aisin Seiki, which makes parts including transmissions and suspensions. His current role will be taken by Shigeki Terashi, an executive vice president and chairman of Toyota’s in-house powertrain company. The changes are aimed at strengthening cooperation among group companies and boosting innovation, according to a statement.

    Toyota’s immediate priority is to step up development of hydrogen-powered commercial vehicles, which the company sees as encouraging new filling stations to service them because their largely predetermined routes guarantee revenue. Toyota sold a pair of fuel-cell buses to the Tokyo government at the start of this year, and plans to have about 100 on the road by 2020. It’s also developing a delivery truck for trials with convenience store 7-Eleven Japan from 2019. In California, it’s testing a semi-trailer truck.

    “In order to promote our fuel-cell vehicles, we need to promote hydrogen infrastructure,” Toyota senior managing officer Shigeki Tomoyama told reporters at an event to launch a hydrogen project near Tokyo Bay in July. “Commercial vehicles are extremely effective in doing that, so that’s what we want to make.”  — Reported by Kevin Buckland and Nao Sano, with assistance from Dana Hull, (c) 2017 Bloomberg LP



    Audi Honda Nissan top Toyota Volkswagen
    Subscribe to TechCentral Subscribe to TechCentral
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email Copy Link
    Previous ArticleNaspers must commission MultiChoice probe
    Next Article ‘Not true’: Elon Musk denies he invented bitcoin

    Related Posts

    Why car companies like Toyota are turning to space

    14 February 2025

    Stalled: VW’s electric pivot falters

    15 January 2025

    All the electric cars for sale in South Africa in 2025 – with prices

    14 January 2025
    Company News

    Samsung unfolds the future with thinnest, lightest Galaxy Z Fold yet

    9 July 2025

    Huawei supercharges South African SMEs with over 20 new eKit products

    9 July 2025

    Webtonic cracks the talent code with AWS-powered TonicHub

    9 July 2025
    Opinion

    In defence of equity alternatives for BEE

    30 June 2025

    E-commerce in ICT distribution: enabler or disruptor?

    30 June 2025

    South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

    17 June 2025

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2025 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.