Environmental Engineering Reference
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FCX fuel cell vehicle.
Toyota began to work with PEM cells in 1989 and produced a
methanol reformed car, the FCEV, in 1997. This car was based on Toyota's
electric RAV4.
Toyota has also worked on storing hydrogen in metal hydrides.
This technology has been tried by other companies and rejected because
the metals are too heavy. Toyota obtained a 155-mile range with metal
hydride storage. Toyota has also developed 35-MPa and 70-MPa high
pressure hydrogen tanks that have been certified by the High Pressure
Safety Institute of Japan.
Toyota is sharing some of its fuel cell research including vehicle
recycling and reduction of greenhouse gases with GM, its partner on a
number of projects. GM is also spending $44 million in a joint project with
the Department of Energy to put fuel cell demonstration fleets on the road
in Washington, D.C., New York, California and Michigan.
Toyota has been sharing technology with partner GM on electric,
hybrid, and fuel cell cars. In 1998, the research division was testing
methanol reformers and metal hydride hydrogen storage and had
prototypes of each.
In July 1998, Toyota said it would try to have a fuel cell automobile
ready by 2003, but later this target date was dropped. Toyota believed
that there are major cost problems for onboard reformers and saw direct
hydrogen as a big technical challenge. Still, it kept working in these areas
and its FCHV (fuel cell hybrid vehicle) became the first vehicle in Japan to
be certified under the Road Vehicle Act.
A later version of Toyota's FCHV fuel cell hybrid vehicle successfully
completed a long-distance road test by traveling from Osaka to Tokyo,
approximately 560 kilometers, on a single tank of hydrogen. This FCHV is
25% more fuel efficient than earlier versions, thanks to improvements in
the fuel cell stack and to improvements in the control system for managing
fuel cell output and battery charging/discharging. It also uses 70Mpa
high-pressure hydrogen tanks capable of storing approximately twice the
amount of hydrogen as previous tanks.
Fiat has been working on its Fuel Cell Pandas. Centro Ricerche Fiat
(CRF) delivered several Nuvera fuel cell powered Panda vehicles to the
municipality of Mantova, Italy, as part of the Zero Regio demonstration
project. The Pandas were presented alongside an ENI multi-fuel refilling
station, offering pressurized hydrogen at 350 bar.
General Motors introduced the HydroGen4, the European version
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