348 mile range??? Wow..that's good. That is getting swiftly in the ball-park of regular ICE range.

Japan would be another great location, (besides China) to start a hydrogen fuel station infrastructure. It can be done in the U.S. too, although we have those long expanse of highway through the midwest where stations would need to be aplenty to keep cross country drivers supplied.

Until the H2 production problem is solved, as Lad points out, this is nothing more than a perfect example of the observation all programmer know all too well: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.

I'm not saying Toyota faked this 348-mile drive or cooked the books. But doing this with one vehicle says virtually nothing about how well it scales up mainstream proportions.

@ Neil -

how many arms and legs do you have?

Roger,

You are comparing the costs of the batteries versus the cost of producing hydrogen????

You seem to fail to include the cost of "gazillion of kwh" of fuel cells as well.

Don't forget: This toyota has a battery pack in it as well! Maybe this battery pack is 1/10th the cost of a PHEV/EV pack but the fuel cell & high pressure tanks are likely to be greater than twice the cost of an advanced Li-ion battery pack.

I realize that fuelcell technology is becoming mature
and can be mass produced. As for the prodution of h2 fuel they can use the on-board h2 production from water as invented by stan mayer. It's way better then h2 fuel
tank and an h2 fuel infrastructure. But if car manufacturers stick with plain h2 tank then hydrogen
production and commercialisation at the re-fueling station is possible with all the latest discoveries for h2 production like ammonia to h2, electrolysis of water with the method of stan mayer that need few electricity,
sunlight electrolysis with silicate something, h2 from natural gas, etc.

Roger,

One thing about math: it does not apply in a straight forward manner for businesses as you suggest.

I cannot take a Li-ion battery pack and say, "The best W-hr/L + W-hr/kg + W/kg + lowest cost/kW-hr = a better source than a fuel cell" in the same manner that you cannot say, "Take company/university A's best developments for fuel cells + company/university B's best developments for hydrogen storage + company/university C's best developments for the motors" and then add it up to say it is a better solution. You will likely NEVER EVER see such a combination.

BTW - what is the cost of the fuel cell that uses 1/100th of the platinum? What is it's efficiency level, size, and weight when capable of a 90kW output?

@ Roger,

I can understand the technical fervor in favor of a FCEV. But the economics are forbidding. So is the process for producing lots of H2. You either lots of fossil to make it, or you try to do it via electrolysis. This coming Generation of Nukes don't produce high enough temperatures to materially change the low electrolysis efficiency by preheating H20 steam, hot enough. I'm not sure that you really want to develop Gen IV breeders at all: and even if you did they won't be there until post 2020. What do you do in the meantime?

When you get done you have the same dependency on fossil, just a much greater total inefficiency. More opportunities for oil dictators and war. Sorry it just does not compute.

As regards on board water electrolysis suggestion, I would urge you to get that perpetual motion idea patented as quickly as possible. You can't deoxidize hydrogen dioxide with less energy that you get when you reoxidize it. Sorry. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says so, unfortunately.
@Rafael,

I agree.

There will be specialized applications for Fuel Cells but ground autos are probably not high in the choices. Perhaps they will lend thmselves to aeronautical applicatiosn if a cheap light storage medium is found. Or if they decide that alcohol and reforming will work for the aero apps. But even in that case, you are not comparing to a relqtively inefficient ICE prime mover but to a turbine, which is much more efficient.

The maths, the maths. How about a 90kw fuel cell at $3000 per kw = $270,000. How about 600,000,000 fuel cell cars with 100gms platinum = 60,000 tonnes with world production around 200 tonnes. Reduce platinum content 100 fold and there's still not enough on the planet. I kinda like the idea of a fiercely hot little solid oxide fuel cell with its reforming capability, coupled with a mini steam turbine producing combined cycle electricity for a decent sized battery pack. 70% efficient and the small size plus large battery will reduce start-up and shut-down losses of energy and time. I think fuel cells will replace the ICE but are further off than batteries. Can't see the sense in using H2 in ICE's either.

Resources link is broken...

i am neither a proponent or oponetn of an H2 economy.. and I am sorry, but i never appologize....

one of the main concerns about the H2 economy is the cost of building a distributon system. pipelines, tanks, etc etc. wouldn't it be simpler and much more cost efective to simply electolize the H2 on site. i.e at each filling station? sure, each station would cost a bit more, but it would be a heck of alot cheaper than building a full distribution infrastructure i bet... and easier to maintain. and alot more secure in terms of redundancy.

aussie paul,

"GM claims to have achieved the
fuel cell stacks with $ 50/kW and is working to further
reduce the cost to $ 20/kW. In a recent technical cost
analysis for PEFCs (Bar-On et al 2002), it is surmised
that this target cost can only be achieved with design
changes that would substantially reduce the quantity of
materials used. This obviously calls for more research
and development on advanced and cost-effective fuel cell
materials."
This is a direct quote from:

http://www.ias.ac.in/matersci/bmsfeb2003/207.pdf

on page 6/8, upper right column.

This is by no means the only reference on this subject, but one that I can readily refer to you at the moment. I've seen other similar reports to the same effect. These are plausible since most auto mfg's are investing significantly on FCV technologies, and are announcing near-future release of future models. Auto mfg's are profit-driven commercial entities and won't waste their precious capital on something that has no promise of near-term commercial viability.

Earlier in GCC, we've seen report about the possiblity of reducing the platinum content of PEM FC to 1/100 the current requirement, down to the same level of the catalytic converter exhaust treatment of current cars.

Of course, not all cars should be FCV's. Many can be H2-ICE-HEV fueled on the same H2 infrastructure, while there will be a substantial number of BEV's and PHEV's, no doubt.

It really is a battle of technologies.

Mitsubishi (who some may argue has CEOs that are math deficient) and Nissan are throwing their hats into the BEV corner. Toyota and Ford may hedge their bets and go PHEV as well as FCEV.

In the short term PHEV is probably more affordable than FCEV and easier to fuel. In the long term??? Don't know, otherwise I'd be investing money right now.