Toyota Plans Summer Roll-Out of Fuel-Cell Test Car

Reuters reports that Toyota said it aims to roll out for a test drive this summer a prototype of a new zero-emission vehicle powered by a fuel cell and a battery. The latest version of Toyota's fuel cell hybrid car will be based on a five-passenger Highlander sport-utility vehicle and run primarily on a fuel cell producing 90 kilowatts of power, up from 25 kilowatts in the previous version unveiled in 1997.

They went on to report that despite a slew of unresolved technical problems, Japan's largest automaker was upbeat on the outlook for fuel cell cars, which use hydrogen as fuel to produce electricity and are widely considered the most promising low- or no-pollution replacement for the internal combustion engine. "We might be able to get fuel-cell cars sooner than many are expecting," Toyota Managing Director Hiroyuki Watanabe told a briefing for reporters. He noted, however, that a number of issues, including cost, safety and reliability, need to be addressed before fuel cell vehicles become a common sight on the world's roads -- considered unlikely until 2010 or later. For the complete story go to www.auto.com/reuters1.htm.