TOKYO — On the skin, Toyota’s redesigned Mirai hydrogen gas cell sedan will get a glossy and attractive, top-to-bottom makeover. However the actual revolution is what occurred below the pores and skin.
The reengineered gas cell stack is extra refined, and it is going to be the constructing block for quite a lot of hydrogen-powered merchandise Toyota will roll out — past the brand new Mirai.
Toyota Motor Corp. is one in all only a handful of worldwide automakers now severely pursuing hydrogen gas cell know-how and desires its new stack to energy a variety of vehicles because the automaker expands gas cell use to trains, ships and stationary energy mills for industrial use.
Toyota debuted the brand new stack know-how this month within the second-generation Mirai. However the unveiling was a part of a flurry of bulletins that Toyota insiders known as “Gas Cell Week.” Among the many information was phrase that Toyota will use the Mirai’s gas cell system — with two stacks as a substitute of 1 — in a set of Class 8 heavy-duty semitrucks being ready for trial runs on the Ports of Los Angeles and Lengthy Seashore.
Toyota additionally stated trials will happen subsequent 12 months in Japan for light-duty vehicles.
The product plans got here to gentle after Toyota kicked off the creation of the Japan Hydrogen Affiliation, a brand new group that can promote the formation of a hydrogen provide chain. Different members embrace Toshiba Corp., banking large Sumitomo Mitsui Monetary Group, Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Japanese vitality firms Eneos, Iwatani and Kansai Electrical.
Toyota is so assured in future demand for the know-how that it ramped up gas cell manufacturing capability to 30,000 items a 12 months, a tenfold enhance over its previous-generation stack.
“With the primary era, we realized that there was extra want for industrial use than we thought,” Masahiko Maeda, president of Toyota’s Powertrain Co., stated at a Mirai check drive occasion right here. “Since there are such a lot of totally different wants — forklifts, buses, moon rovers, vehicles, trains, ships, mills — we have to have the capability to provide not simply stacks for Mirai, however sufficient capability to provide all of the others. It’s good to unfold hydrogen in numerous methods.”
The primary-generation Mirai, which debuted in Japan in 2014, notched simply 11,365 world gross sales in practically six years by October. Discovering new purposes and slicing prices is vital to constructing on this meager begin.
The brand new stack makes a number of enhancements over the previous one.
Not solely is the brand new stack smaller and lighter, it achieves an output density of 5.4 kilowatts per liter, in contrast with 3.5 kW per liter within the previous. And crucially, the brand new stack is way more cost effective.
Engineers slashed the price of producing the stack some 70 %, Deputy Chief Engineer Ryotaro Shimizu stated. This was accomplished by decreasing the variety of cells to 330 from 370 and slicing the quantity of valuable metals used. The quantity of platinum was lower 58 %.
Extra financial savings got here from a discount within the cycle time required to make the cells, and by shaving two-thirds off the time wanted to wrap the hydrogen gas tanks in expensive carbon fiber. Additional beneficial properties will come from spreading the usage of the stack to different autos.
Toyota is making the gas cell stacks at it Honsha plant in Toyota Metropolis, however the Mirai has been added to combined manufacturing on the identical line because the Crown sedan on the Motomachi plant, eking additional manufacturing synergies.
The Mirai’s driving vary additionally has elevated by about 30 %. That comes partly from including a 3rd hydrogen tank and partly by improved efficiencies within the new hydrogen gas cell system.
The battery was upgraded to lithium ion, from nickel-metal hydride, and whole output from the electrical motor elevated to 134 kilowatts (180 hp), from 113 kilowatts (152 hp).
However demand for gas cell autos continues to be constrained by a restricted refueling infrastructure. Toyota estimates there are solely about 160 hydrogen stations in Japan, 74 within the U.S. and 177 in Europe.
The general marketplace for passenger autos far outnumbers that of economic autos. However Toyota now sees vehicles as a key to jump-starting demand for gas cells and to scaling up the refueling community. A bigger community ought to assist stimulate demand for passenger vehicles.
“The actual fact is,” Maeda stated, “demand is generated extra by vehicles than by passenger vehicles due to fastened routes and subsequently fewer stations, and this may occasionally result in hydrogen acceleration.”