-Nearly 20 years ago,
Toyota came out
with its highly
successful Prius,
the world's first mass-produced
hybrid vehicle.
Now, along with Honda
and Hyundai,
Toyota's backing
a different fuel technology,
the hydrogen fuel cell.
But with nearly every
other car maker
chasing Tesla and battery
electric vehicles,
why is Toyota
pursuing hydrogen?
-At Toyota, we have
what's called
Environmental Challenge 2050,
which means a 90% reduction
in carbon emissions
from our vehicle fleet by 2050.
And the only way to get there
is electrification,
and to get to
that electrification
requires a portfolio approach
of battery
electric,
plug-in hybrid electric,
hybrid electric,
and fuel cell electric.
-Fuel-cell cars are
basically electric vehicles
powered by hydrogen
and oxygen.
The gases combine
inside the cell
to create electricity
and water.
EVs like the Tesla or Chevy Bolt
can be recharged
almost anywhere
there's electricity --
in your driveway
or a public charging station,
though a full charge
can take hours.
Refilling a hydrogen vehicle
only takes a matter of minutes,
but as of January,
you can only fill your tank
in one of 45 hydrogen stations
in the US,
most of them surrounding
San Francisco and Los Angeles.
-Hydrogen is actually already
mass produced in the US.
It's a domestic fuel already,
but it's used industrial
and different processes,
so we already have
hydrogen pipelines,
hydrogen trucks,
hydrogen plants.
We just need the dispensers
that physically get the fuel
into the vehicle,
and we need to place
those at locations
where Mirai owners
want to drive.
-Early customers of hydrogen
vehicles have hit some bumps.
In June of 2019,
a hydrogen processing plant
explosion in Santa Clara
nearly choked off
the hydrogen supply.
Drivers faced long lines
at the pump,
and many were stranded without
fuel or forced to rent a car.
After six months of shortages,
some drivers returned
their leased vehicles
early out of frustration.
-It was a really unfortunate
experience,
and we hope it doesn't deter
our Mirai customers
from purchasing
the next generation.
That said, what we did was we
tried to alleviate the pain.
We did offer some
payment forgiveness.
We also offered rental vehicles
to help our customers
still have transportation
while there was, you know,
a supply shortage.
-We did our best to work
with our supplier
to use a limited supply
that we did have to serve
kind of the busiest areas,
you know, knowing
that it wasn't ideal
because we were still leaving
a lot of customers unserved.
-So we were balancing the market
on a small amount
of hydrogen, right?
But going forward,
we're seeing a dedicated supply
for transportation.
-I will say, right now,
our customers in California
are already hitting the limits
of the hydrogen infrastructure
in California.
We do need more dispensers
and we need larger stations
with higher throughput.
-The Post spoke with
many drivers
of hydrogen
fuel cell vehicles.
While not all were
completely unhappy,
each of them had experienced
some degree of inconvenience.
-There's been many times
that I've tried
to fill up in San Jose.
The latches are broken
or they need repair,
or again, there's
a fuel shortage,
there isn't anything
available.
You know, what am I supposed
to do, 'cause I'm stuck.
There isn't anywhere
for me to go,
and they don't know
what they can do
other than send a tow truck out,
but sending a tow truck out
would mean
there's nobody to pick up
my kids from school.
-Honda was good.
They gave you
a three-week rental,
and after that, you had to call
them, get pre-authorization.
So, I rented for a total
of nine weeks,
but that was getting
inconvenient, as well,
so I just kept driving less
and going to either
San Ramon or Oakland,
sometimes to Mountain View
for fuel.
-This is something that has
been happening
really since the first six
months of owning the vehicle.
Once that was through
and more vehicles
were out being driven
from the various manufacturers,
but no new infrastructure
went in place,
then it continues to be less
and less and less available.
-So why are auto makers spending
so much to make hydrogen happen?
One explanation might be
that California law requires
auto makers to reduce
the average carbon footprint
of all cars
they sell in the state.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars
are one way they're trying
to meet that standard,
but Toyota and Honda insist
they're fully committed
and say they see hydrogen
as a way
to electrify
their future fleets.
Honda says hydrogen fuel cells
are one part of its strategy
to cut the company's
global carbon emissions
by 50% from
2000 levels by 2050.
Toyota says it will launch
a sportier new 2021 Mirai,
and is even significantly
increasing production.
-We've increased
our facilities in Japan
to make about
30,000 vehicles a year.
That said, we are driven by
where those vehicles go based
on hydrogen
dispenser availability.
Again, we do not want to have
a situation
in which people
are buying the vehicle
and there's not enough fuel or
there's not enough dispensers.
-Since 2010, the California
Energy Commission
says it's invested
nearly $120 million
to build 64 hydrogen
refueling stations
with the goal of opening
100 stations by 2024.
Hydrogen retailer
True Zero says
about 60% of its funding
comes from tax dollars,
with the rest coming from auto
makers and energy companies.
-Conventional fuels like
the gasoline infrastructure,
these have evolved over
100 years to be very robust.
We don't have kind of
the redundancy that, you know,
other supply chains have that
have been around longer.
-Toyota's responsibility
is to ensure
that when the stations
are placed,
that they have
a high reliability,
that our customers
have sufficient fuel,
that they have a good
fueling experience,
which is difficult
because that's
not actually
what Toyota does.
We don't do infrastructure.
-But drivers like Erin Fogarty
say paying
for a few months
of their lease
doesn't resolve the impact
it's had on their family.
-Money for the vehicle
is one thing,
but money for the extra
childcare expenses
or the missed activities
or the airline tickets
and all that other stuff,
that's not covered.
We've missed dance classes
and personal-training classes
and stuff that really
costs a lot of money
and truly impacts
our quality of life
and how we choose
to live our life.
-California's a very unique
use case in that
we have the highest number
of fuel-cell vehicles
for the lowest amount
of hydrogen dispensers.
If you look at Japan
and you look at Europe,
they have more supply
than they do demand,
so we're really stretching
the capabilities
of the hydrogen infrastructure,
and the entire world
is watching California.
