Toyota Fuel Cell System Will Go On Sale This Spring

Toyota has announced that it has developed a product packaging a fuel-cell (FC) system into a compact module and that it intends to begin selling the product in the spring of 2021 or later. The new FC module will be utilizable by companies developing and manufacturing fuel-cell products for a wide variety of applications. Those applications include mobility for trucks, buses, trains, ships, and stationary power generators.Toyota says its efforts to bring fuel-cell electric vehicles into the mainstream will be in addition to continuing to strengthened initiatives as a fuel-cell system supplier to promote hydrogen utilization. Toyota's goal is to reduce CO2 emissions to help fight global warming and achieve carbon neutrality.

Toyota currently sells the Mirai fuel-cell electric vehicle and the SORA fuel-cell electric bus. Highlighting the automaker's commitment to fuel cells and reducing CO2 emissions is the fact that Toyota is selling fuel cell systems to fuel-cell product companies and allowing royalty-free use of its fuel-cell electric vehicle-related patents. Toyota says it learned along the way that companies involved with fuel-cell products in a variety of industries are looking for fuel-cell systems that can be easily adapted to their products.

Toyota designed its product to package individual fuel-cell system-related components from the second-generation Toyota Mirai into a single compact module. The single module includes the fuel-cell stack and components handling air supply, hydrogen supply, cooling, and power control.

Toyota offers four models, including a Type I that is vertical and a horizontal Type II in either 60 kW or 80 kW versions. Type I fuel cells weigh approximately 250 kilograms, while Type II weighs about 240 kilograms. Both produce a voltage of 400 to 750 volts.