Filed under: Hydrogen, Toyota, USA



Toyota has an undeniable vested interest in seeing its hydrogen sedan succeed when it goes on sale in the US next year, so it's no surprise that the company's North American CEO, Jim Lentz, says that he's got more hope for the car now than ever before. And if we remember ways that others in the company, like Bob Carter, have loudly sung hydrogen's praises, we have to assume that positivity is running awful high in Torrance. In fact, Lentz said that the US side of the company is far more excited by the H2 car than colleagues in Japan.

Speaking at The Wall Street Journal's ECO:nomics conference in Santa Barbara, CA this week, Lentz said:Well, we've driven this car, and we still feel that Toyota is placing a big bet on the technology. One important issue is cost, but Lentz would not say exactly how much the car costs to make or what it will be priced at. He did say, though, that the production cost has dropped by 95 percent from the $1 million price tag the car wore ten years ago. That hints at a production cost of around $50,000. Lentz also said he thinks it will take at least a decade for hydrogen vehicles to hit sales of 500,000 per year in the US. Speaking to Bloomberg, he said:Toyota NA CEO says his excitement for hydrogen sedan is rising originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Fri, 04 Apr 2014 17:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



Permalink | Email this | Comments

More...

 

Thats cool but wheres the hydrogen infrastructure thats going to support it? Last I knew, hydrogen was far too expensive and there werent enough places to fill it up.