The world’s first hydrogen canister exchange station for light electric vehicles (LEV’s) with fuel cells has been set up at the National Tsing-Hua University in Taiwan. In June 2010, I had talked about Asia Pacific fuel Cell Technologies, Ltd. (APFCT) taking a 620 mile test drive of their hydrogen-powered scooter around Taiwan.
Now, APFCT has set up the first part of the needed refueling infrastructure to support multiple hydrogen scooters and is using this technology. Yesterday I had talked about large islands (or officially an archipelago) such as Japan being a perfect fit for hydrogen cars since the majority of consumers are not used to long road trips as is common in the U. S.
But, what I had neglected to talk about is that hydrogen cars are not the only game in town when it comes to bringing zero emission hydrogen vehicles to other islands such as Taiwan. On smaller islands especially in the tourist trade where scooters are rented by the hour, electric LEV’s may be adequate because of relatively shorter distances traveled.
Then again tour operators would get more bang for their buck since electric scooters need to recharge overnight whereas with a hydrogen scooter, the canister simply needs to be swapped (in less than 1 minute) and another paying tourist can take the vehicle for a ride.
On larger islands (and other geographically isolated locations) hydrogen scooters could replace some cars if a small but adequate H2 canister swapping infrastructure were to be built.
APFCT has decided to pilot their hydrogen canister swapping station using a small fleet of two scooters and one microcar used by the security guards and patrol at the University.
Here is also some extra information and photos of a past event.