Earlier this year, General Motors drove their Sequel fuel cell vehicle across New York state to show the world that hydrogen-powered cars and SUVs can have a range of 300-miles. This week, the Toyota FCHV broke this mark by traveling 348 miles from Osaka to Tokyo on a single tank of hydrogen with 30-percent of the fuel still left in the tank.
Toyota engineers estimate the true range of the vehicle to be over 450 miles. This more than doubles the older model Toyota FCHV, which had a cruising range of about 180 miles. The older model had four hydrogen tanks at 5,000 psi and the newer generation FCHV uses tanks at 10,000 psi providing for the much greater range.
Two Toyota FCHV SUVs participated in the trial and corroborated each other’s results. The results from GM and Toyota break the myth that hydrogen vehicles don’t have enough range to compete with conventional vehicles. One myth at a time the barriers to hydrogen are coming down.