Toyota plans to develop light duty hydrogen fuel-cell trucks

A Toyota Mirai hydrogen gas cell car or truck photographed in Berlin, Germany, in August 2021. The Japanese automotive big started out doing work on the enhancement of fuel-cell motor vehicles back again in 1992.

Krisztian Bocsi | Bloomberg | Getty Illustrations or photos

Automotive large Toyota, along with three other partners, will get the job done on the advancement of mild-obligation gas mobile electric trucks with a perspective to rolling them out in Japan upcoming 12 months.

In a assertion Tuesday, Toyota stated it would collaborate with Isuzu, Hino Motors and Business Japan Partnership Systems Corporation on the venture. Both Isuzu and Hino carried the similar assertion as Toyota on their respective web-sites.

One particular opportunity use circumstance for the fuel cell automobiles could be in the grocery store and advantage store sector, where by Toyota reported light-responsibility vehicles were “expected to travel extended distances over extended several hours to perform multiple shipping operations in one working day.”

The enterprise also listed rapidly refueling as a requirement for autos working in this phase.

“The use of FC [fuel cell] know-how, which runs on superior strength density hydrogen and has zero CO2 emissions while driving, is deemed powerful underneath these kinds of operating conditions,” it extra.

According to the enterprise, an introduction to the sector is slated for following January 2023, with light obligation fuel-mobile vehicles employed at distribution web sites in Fukushima Prefecture and other jobs in Tokyo.

Hino Motors is component of the Toyota Group, though CJPT was founded by Isuzu, Toyota and Hino in 2021.

Toyota begun working on the advancement of fuel-cell motor vehicles — the place hydrogen from a tank mixes with oxygen, generating electrical energy — back again in 1992.

In 2014, it introduced the Mirai, a hydrogen gas cell sedan. The enterprise suggests its fuel cell cars emit “practically nothing but water from the tailpipe.”

Together with the Mirai, Toyota has experienced a hand in the enhancement of much larger hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. These include a bus referred to as the Sora and prototypes of significant-duty vehicles. Along with gasoline cells, Toyota is seeking at applying hydrogen in inside combustion engines.

Tuesday also saw Suzuki, Daihatsu, Toyota and CJPT announce options to introduce battery electric mini-business motor vehicles to the market in the 2023 fiscal year.

“The mini-professional van BEV [battery electric vehicle] formulated by these four businesses will be applied by partners in social implementation jobs in Fukushima Prefecture and Tokyo,” the announcement said.

Daihatsu is a subsidiary of Toyota. As of March 31, 2022, Toyota experienced a 4.9% shareholding in Suzuki.

Though Toyota is very well acknowledged for its hybrid and hydrogen gasoline mobile automobiles, it is also attempting to make headway in the significantly competitive battery-electric powered industry, the place corporations like Tesla and Volkswagen are jostling for position.

This has not been without the need of its challenges. In June 2022, Toyota issued a basic safety recall for more than 2,000 of its all-electric SUV, the bZ4X.