Toyota’s going all in for fuel cells (which Elon Musk of Tesla calls “fool cells,” but then Teslas are battery-driven).
The man behind Toyota’s move is CEO Akio Toyoda, one of the family, who sees fuel cells as the wave of the future.
Toyota can afford it; they make a profit of about $18 billion a year, more than Ford, GM, and Honda combined.
Toyota’s Mirai fuel cell car can be refueled in less than 5 minutes with supercooled hydrogen for $45 (if you can find a filling station! — currently 13 research stations, 9 public stations, and 18 in the works in CA), versus hours to recharge a battery car. The fuel tank can withstand a bullet fired at it.
That is after the taxpayer subsidies. How much in real cost?
supercooled hydrogen
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The Mirai runs on compressed hydrogen, not liquefied hydrogen.
The cool thing is that the consumer in ten years is going to be treated to a real horse race between different power trains which will bring down costs all around.
How about a Ford Cobalt going 70?