Toyota Motor Corp., 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.<\/p>\n
Three years ago, Toyota President Akio Toyoda, grandson of company founder Kiichiro Toyoda,\u00a0unveiled 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.<\/p>\n
However sales of the $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 Motor Co.\u2019s battery-electric Leaf.<\/p>\n
Toyota isn\u2019t the only player in fuel-cell vehicle development. However, even hydrogen-car backers such as Honda Motor Co., Hyundai Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
China, the world\u2019s biggest car market, nearly\u00a0doubled\u00a0the number of charging points last year to 215,000, while the number of hydrogen stations was all of five. It plans to introduce a\u00a0cap-and-trade\u00a0emissions policy from 2019, and has joined a growing list of countries seeking\u00a0deadlines\u00a0to phase out fossil fuel-powered vehicles.<\/p>\n
Tesla Inc.\u00a0this month\u00a0unveiled\u00a0a new Roadster with a 620-mile (998-kilometer) driving range, twice that of Toyota\u2019s Mirai. The electric carmaker\u2019s CEO,\u00a0Elon Musk, has long\u00a0disparaged\u00a0fuel cells because of the cost and difficulty of creating, storing and transporting hydrogen.<\/p>\n
By contrast, the relative simplicity of EV powertrains has helped open the door to a host of new entrants, including vacuum-cleaner billionaire\u00a0James Dyson. Bloomberg New Energy Finance sees electric cars reaching\u00a0price parity\u00a0with their gasoline-burning cousins as early as 2025, following a 73 percent plunge in lithium-ion battery prices between 2010 and 2016.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s easier for companies to make a profit with EV, and it\u2019s easier for governments to prepare the infrastructure,\u201d said Richard Kaye, a portfolio manager at Nippon Comgest Inc. \u201cFor the past few years, it\u2019s been EV that\u2019s been gaining traction. Because of that, it\u2019s EV that\u2019s much closer to becoming reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u00a0said\u00a0in August that EVs will now be the \u201cmainstay\u201d of the Korean automaker\u2019s eco-car lineup.<\/p>\n
Fuel cells were barely a footnote when VW CEO Matthias Mueller announced the group\u2019s aggressive electrification\u00a0strategy\u00a0in September.<\/p>\n
By contrast, Toyota says its fervor for the technology it began developing in the early 1990s remains undiminished.\u00a0Fuel-cell and battery-electric vehicles must be developed \u201cat the same speed\u201d because different parts of the world will favor different energy sources based on their specific needs, Executive Vice President Didier Leroy said in an\u00a0interview\u00a0at last month\u2019s Tokyo Motor Show, where Toyota was the only Japanese automaker to display hydrogen-powered vehicles.<\/p>\n
Read more: Why EVs are the future — a QuickTake explainer<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know, for example, that the fuel cells in the Japanese society will be much more than just cars,\u201d Leroy said. \u201cIn many other places in the world, it will be the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shares of Toyota rose 0.3 percent to 7,046 yen as of 1:53 p.m. in Tokyo Tuesday. They have advanced 2.4 percent this year compared with a 17 percent gain in the Topix index.<\/p>\n
California is currently the main market for fuel-cell vehicles outside Japan, but has just 30 hydrogen stations.\u00a0Efforts by Toyota and its partners to set up infrastructure on America\u2019s East Coast have been plagued by\u00a0delays. By contrast,\u00a0BNEF counted more than\u00a044,000 charging points nationwide in 2016.<\/p>\n
Japan has 91 hydrogen stations and is aiming for 160 by 2020 and 320 by 2025. But that\u2019s against\u00a0more than 28,000 charging points at the end of last year, according to BNEF, whose analysts\u00a0forecast\u00a0the high costs and strict regulations governing hydrogen stations will mean the government can only meet 75 percent of its 2020 goal, and an even smaller proportion of its 2025 target.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnlike lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, there is no existing parallel industry for fuel cells that accelerates the speed of cost reduction,\u201d said BNEF analyst Ali Izadi-Najafabadi. \u201cFuel-cell vehicles will not achieve the same level of market penetration.\u201d<\/p>\n
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,\u00a0saidthis month that the lightest element could supply a fifth of worldwide energy needs by 2025.<\/p>\n
Fuel-cell proponents face a chicken-and-egg dilemma: increased infrastructure requires additional vehicles to support it, and vice versa.<\/p>\n
Toyota, which leads FCV sales globally with the\u00a0Mirai, has only shipped about 4,300 since its launch in late 2014.\u00a0By contrast,\u00a0Nissan 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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,\u00a0according to chief engineer Yoshikazu Tanaka. The list he gave echoed what Musk has done with his second-generation\u00a0Roadster, which on top of a 620-mile range can go 0-60 miles per hour in 1.9 seconds.<\/p>\n
First, the Mirai\u2019s range of about 312 miles under U.S. standards is \u201cnot nearly enough,\u201d Tanaka said on the sidelines of a conference in Tokyo last month. The other is more abstract. \u201cWe don\u2019t want people to buy the car just for its environmental credentials,\u00a0\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to make it cool.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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