What’s lighter then air and ends up in a puddle of water on your garage floor? Hydrogen. It’s the latest entry in alternative fuel for your car. And it’s just around the corner.
On this week’s "TechKnow," you’ll get a sneak peek at the Toyota hydrogen fuel cell car that will be available to consumers this summer. Toyota sees it as the car of the future. Rumor is, that’s exactly what they’re going to name it, “Mirai” which is Japanese for “The Future.”
In the automobile industry, getting a sneak peek entails a bunch of disappointing caveats. We weren’t allowed to get behind the wheel, but we got a really good look at the outside of the car. Also, the interior was off limits. And they mean it. The windows are so darkly tinted Dracula could safely drive around in the noonday sun. When I tried to peek my nose in an open window, our Toyota minder closed it faster than Usain Bolt crossing the finish line. But, I can tell you the officially unnamed vehicle is going to cost somewhere between a Prius ($24,000) and a Tesla ($95,000). That’s a little like the Grand Canyon of MSRP. The car gets the equivalent of 60MPH and about 300 miles per tank full. Although, right now finding a tank full outside of Southern California is a stretch. There are only a handful of hydrogen fuel stations nationwide.
Normally I’d be posting photos from the shoot, but security taped over our cell phone the camera lenses. It was killing me not to Tweet out photos of what I called the “Swirly Cars.” Those are the secret test models. The cars are covered with palm-sized white swirls over matte black paint to keep industrial spies from snapping accurate photos. I gotta remember to ask my friend, a former CIA agent if she owns anything from the Cloak-n-Dagger Swirls collection. Otherwise I’ve got an idea for Kickstarter.
The original impetus for the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (HFCV) was to cut down on toxic emissions. That was 20 years ago when gas was about $1.30 a gallon. Now these vehicles have the potential to solve 2 problems: car emissions and finding a sustainable energy source. Why? The only thing that comes out of the tailpipe is environmentally friendly water. And someday hydrogen could totally replace gasoline. Hydrogen is all over. But there’s one problem. The hydrogen atom doesn’t exist on it’s own. It’s always a part of another molecule. Like H2O, water or CH4, methane, which is the natural gas where most of hydrogen comes now. There are host of pollution issues with the production of hydrogen from natural gas. But, Toyota says it’s looking forward to using solar and wind power to create the hydrogen gas.
Now here’s the dummies version of the science of HFCV. There’s a tank of hydrogen in the car. In the middle of the car is a big block of fuel cells. They’re about the size and width of a license plate. Stacked together it’s conveniently called a fuel cell stack. When you step on the gas pedal, the hydrogen heads to the stack. Heading in from the opposite direction is oxygen from the air in the ventilation system. The hydrogen wants to hook up with the oxygen. But no! Between the two is a barrier. It won’t let hydrogen’s one electron pass through… so that electron has to zip the long way around the fuel cell to get to the other side. That zipping around makes the electricity that powers the car. Once that electron gets to the other side it hooks back up to the hydrogen atom and that hydrogen connects to the oxygen and you get – okay kids you know the answer – H2O - water. All right, it’s a little more complicated than that, but this will definitely get you through any dinner party conversation.
Hydrogen has been used for years, but on large scale stuff like NASA’s rockets. Toyota’s spent the last 2 decades perfecting viable consumer hydrogen fuel cell car by scaling down the fuel cell stack and making it affordable. And now they think they have.
Although we couldn’t drive the new car, our host, Phil Torres was allowed to drive an older demo hydrogen fuel cell SUV. What’s most remarkable about his drive was that it was unremarkable. It was quiet. What he talks about most is that we were getting paid for him to drive up the California coast on a picture perfect day.
While you’re driving, the emission water is slowly dripping out of a pipe that’s flush up against the body of the under-carriage. When you turn the car off, there’s a bunch of water still left inside. A purge button can release the rest of the water in one fell swoop. Phil grabbed a glass to collect the water. Of course he wanted to drink it. Of course we were told no. That job fell to Jackie Birdsall.
She’s not only the only woman on the engineering staff of the hydrogen fuel cell project at Toyota, but she’s a cool young scientist with a good sense of humor. Jackie has quaffed a few glasses of emissions water in her ten years at Toyota. A connoisseur of exhaust fluids, she said no. An answer that was tough for Phil to swallow. Turns out it’s pure distilled water coming from the fuel stack, but as it winds its way out of the exhaust pipe it’s picking up the debris from miles and miles of driving in Southern California. Lets just say it’s no Perrier.
But if the greatest disappointment is you can’t drink the exhaust – I might be game to upgrade from my 12-year-old dinged up Camry. As long as that price tag is closer to a Prius than a Tesla. Maybe they could make the car emit a milkshake instead of water… that would seal the deal.
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