Lexus exec confirms future hydrogen plans
According to one of the most senior executives at Lexus, Mark Templin, the luxury automaker is planning to sell hydrogen vehicles in the long-term. "I can't tell you when it will happen, but it's not a matter of if, it's when," he declared. "What's better than taking the most abundant element on Earth, sticking it in a tank, converting it to electricity on board and have water vapour come out the tailpipe?... It'll take time for people to catch up but we believe that's the technology of the future."

It might not happen this year, next year, or even in five years' time, but Lexus will sell hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (FCV) to customers. That's the word from one of the Japanese luxury car-maker's most senior executives, Mark Templin.

During a round-table interview after the reveal of the Lexus LF-FC, which is propelled via a trio of hydrogen-fuelled electric motors, Templin said the technology hidden under the concept car's shiny sheet metal would be offered in car showrooms.

"I can't tell you when it will happen, but it's not a matter of if, it's when," he declared.

"What's better than taking the most abundant element on Earth, sticking it in a tank, converting it to electricity on board and have water vapour come out the tailpipe?"

Lexus' parent company Toyota already lays claim to the world's first production FCV, the Mirai, which costs around $80,000 in Japan.

It's not clear if Lexus plans to premiere its first hydrogen powertrain in a flagship vehicle, akin to the LF-FC or something smaller, or if it will be a smaller vehicle based on the Mirai. Either way, Templin agrees that hydrogen will take decades to become a mainstream fuel.

"Right now there's limited [hydrogen] infrastructure. If you're not in California, the Eastern Seaboard [USA], or Germany, UK, Korea or in Japan, where we're building a hydrogen society, there's not a lot of opportunity to refuel.

"But that will change over time," he contended. "It'll take time for people to catch up but we believe that's the technology of the future."

There's currently only one hydrogen fuelling station in Australia and it's owned by Korean car-maker Hyundai.

Like Hyundai, Toyota plans to maintain a plentiful (and cheap) supply of hydrogen via coal. However, this generates CO2 (which is then sequestrated underground in an allegedly carbon-neutral process) in a method that may do hydrogen's image no favours.

Zero-emissions or not, Templin says the path to hydrogen-powered cars "will go from hybrid, to plug-in [hybrid], to battery-electric cars to [hydrogen] fuel cells."

However, he wouldn't say if Lexus will take all four of those steps — in particular the third step — into the EV future.

"We'll tell you about that as the stages come along. I'm pushing my team hard to think about the future. I don't want to talk about next week or next year or even the next three years. Let's talk about the next 10 years, 20 years, or 30 years. What is the marketplace going to be then?

"You can't ask consumers what they want, because they don't know what they want. They only want what they can see in front of them. So we have to think about what they will want in the future. That's what this car is all about," he said, pointing the hydrogen-powered LF-FC concept.