Toyota said Monday that a hydrogen-powered vehicle that emits only water vapor as consume will proceed on sale in the U.S. in 2015, a year previous than it promised just two months before.
The Japanese automaker made the broadcast Monday at the International CES, the expertise industry's annual gadget display. The shift came months after competitor automakers Hyundai and Honda both said they'd start trading vehicles with that technology in the U.S. in 2015.
The electric powered powered vehicle, which Toyota calls FCV for now, values hydrogen as fuel for a electric battery. Toyota says it will have a range of 300 miles, can accelerate from standstill to 60 miles per hour in 10 seconds, and can refuel its hydrogen container in three to five minutes.
Toyota says it will aim on selling vehicles in California at first. employed with investigators at the University of California, Irvine, Toyota said the first 10,000 vehicles can be supported with only 68 refueling stations from San Francisco to San Diego. It documented that California has approved $200 million to build about 20 fueling positions by 2015, 40 by 2016 and 100 by 2024.
"This infrastructure thing is going to happen," said Bob Carter, senior vice leader of automotive operations for Toyota engine Sales U.S.A. Inc.
Carter said all the vehicles in California could be assisted with just 15 percent of the 10,000 gas positions in the state now if they were spaced rightly. Researchers estimated where expected FCV buyers would need hydrogen stations and designed to put them within six minutes of their dwelling or work.
"We don't need a position on every corner," he said.
Carter supplemented that the U.S. agency of Toyota had recently increased its request for vehicles. He said that a 95 per hundred cut in production charges from the primary prototype would help it make fuel cell vehicles that are "a reasonable cost for a allotment of people."
Toyota Motor Corp. has pledged to sell its fuel cell vehicles for $50,000 to $100,000, aspiring for the smaller end of the variety.