Toyota has joined the London Hydrogen Partnership, making it the network’s first major automaker member.
According to London deputy mayor Kit Malthouse, Toyota will work with the LHP to develop a roadmap for fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen refueling stations. The public-private partnership aims to promote hydrogen and fuel cell technology in the city.
Toyota says it will be among the first manufacturers to bring hydrogen-powered vehicles to the European market in 2015. The company has also said it will start selling fuel cell vehicles in the US in 2015, first in California.
Over the last few years the LHP has initiated more than £50 million ($75.8 million) worth of hydrogen projects, rolling-out new hydrogen buses, taxis, scooters, refueling stations, materials handling vehicles and fuel cell combined heat and power units, the organization says.
While fuel cell vehicles remain limited today, with no passenger cars on sale and primarily demonstration-driven roll-outs of buses, fuel cell vehicles should grow to a $1.8 billion market by 2030 at a CAGR of 22 percent, according to a Lux Research report published earlier this year.
In January, Toyota and BMW signed agreements aimed at long-term collaboration for the joint development of a fuel cell system, along with architecture and components for a sports vehicle, lightweight technologies and a “post-lithium” lithium-air battery. Those companies say they are convinced that fuel cell technology is one of the solutions necessary to achieve zero emissions.
Last summer, a seven-year US Department of Energy demonstration project to evaluate hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, which GM, Daimler, Hyundai-Kia, Ford, Shell, BP, Chevron, Air Products and Chemicals Inc. participated in, found rapid progress in driving ranges and durability of fuel cell stacks.
The DOE in 2003 established interim, high-level technical targets for FCEVs to be reached by 2009, which included a 250-mile driving range, 2,000-hour fuel cell durability and $3 per gallon gasoline equivalent for hydrogen production cost.