Toyota to bring hydrogen fuel-cell car to Australia

Automotive giant Toyota plans to introduce groundbreaking technology to the local market but there’s one problem.

The Toyota Mirai in Sydney. Pic: Supplied.

Toyota has confirmed it plans to offer a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle in the Australian market.

Kiyotake Ise, the company’s president of advanced research and development, told an international media conference in Tokyo that Australia was one of several markets earmarked for eventual sales of the Mirai fuel-cell vehicle.

The company wouldn’t commit to a timetable for the introduction but it is likely to wait until it introduces a smaller, cheaper version of the car rumoured to be due in 2019.

The Toyota Mirai in Sydney. Picture: Supplied.

To date, the vehicle has been sold in very small volumes in Japan, Europe and the United States, where it costs roughly $60,000. Production is capped at 3000 vehicles a year and so far only 4300 have been sold since its launch in 2015.

Both Toyota and Hyundai currently have fuel cell vehicles on Australian roads — Hyundai is testing prototypes of a next-generation fuel-cell SUV, while Toyota has a couple of Mirai demonstration vehicles touring the country to lobby governments to provide support for hydrogen refuelling infrastructure.

The Mirai Down Under. Picture: Supplied.

The lack of infrastructure remains the main hurdle to local acceptance. There is only one refuelling station in the country and that is at Hyundai’s head office in Sydney.

The ACT government has committed to take 20 Hyundai fuel-cell vehicles and will build a refuelling station for vehicles as part of its Hornsdale Windfarm project.

The cars are expected to be delivered late next year and will be supplied with green electricity from the wind farm. The ACT Government is also spending $55 million on a hydrogen electrolyser, which uses electricity to produce hydrogen.

The Mirai’s space-age interior. Pic: Supplied.

The car industry is divided about the future of fuel-cell vehicles. Tesla boss Elon Musk has called the technology “incredibly dumb” but others, including Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and BMW have formed a hydrogen council to lobby governments around the world.

Toyota President Akio Toyoda says fuel-cell vehicles have a place in the future of automotive development, alongside plug-in electric vehicles and hybrids.

At the moment, battery electric vehicles make up just one per cent of the global car market, while hybrids represent just 3 per cent.

The Mirai’s powerplant. Picture: Joshua Dowling.

“When people ask me about what they will be driving in 10, 20 or 30 years’ time I tell them I don’t think it will be just one thing,” he says.

In Japan, where natural resources are scarce and the government is committed to hydrogen, fuel-cell vehicles make sense, he says.

In the Middle East, where fossil fuels are cheap, hybrids make more sense, while in Norway, where it was easy to make electricity and there was strong government support EVs were the future.

“The consumer and the market will choose,” he says.

Toyota boss Akio Toyoda. Picture: Supplied.

Fuel-cell vehicles have a key advantage over the current crop of electric vehicles as they can be refuelled in minutes, as with a conventional car, while most EVs require several hours to recharge from a household power point. Fast-charging stations reduce the time but still take more than an hour for a full charge.

Hydrogen-fuelled cars also have greater range than plug-in EVs.

Toyota Australia sales and marketing boss, Sean Hanley, says the local operation will eventually be able to offer hybrids, plug-in hybrids with a small electric-only range, fully electric vehicles and fuel-cell vehicles.

In the interim, Toyota will add three new hybrid vehicles to its line-up within three years, despite dwindling sales for the five current models.

The hybrid Toyota Camry will be joined by three new models. Pic: Supplied.

Hanley says that eventually environmental regulations will dictate the adoption of all forms of electrification.

“We have to significantly improve our hybrid mix over the next five to seven years to meet CO2 regulations,” he says.

Hybrid versions of the Toyota Corolla and Camry make up only 5 per cent of the model mix. That compares with Japan where hybrids make up close to half the company’s sales in Japan and a third in Europe.

“Once we understand the CO2 regulatory environment in Australia we can respond,” he says.

“If we go down the hydrogen fuel-cell path we need assistance. You need three things when you’re talking fuel cell vehicles. You need government, you need automotive and you need energy. We single-handedly can’t create the infrastructure,” he says.

But he’s committed to bringing Mirai to Australia “at some time in the future”.

He says it is “a critical part” of the company’s future.

“It is our plan that we want to convert this to a car that we can bring to market,” he says.