Toyota Motor opens its first commercial hydrogen fuel pump site in the Australian state of Victoria

Toyota Motor Corp yesterday opened its first commercial hydrogen fuel pump site in the Australian state of Victoria, asking the government to promote the rollout of more sites to support the take-up of cleaner cars. Toyota today opened its Hydrogen Centre in Altona, Melbourne, close to the site that once produced Australian-made vehicles, including the Camry Hybrid.

The site west of Melbourne is additionally its biggest all around the world regarding producing, storing, and dispensing hydrogen.

It incorporates the country’s biggest hydrogen refueling station – a single bowser with two pumps – to fuel a fleet of 20 Mirai fuel cell electric vehicles that are essential for a preliminary to decide the viability of hydrogen as a fuel for vehicles in Australia.

Toyota is acquiring 20 of its Mirai hydrogen fuel cell cars to Australia in April, putting them in fleets to acquire feedback on how they run.

It is the second such fuel station in Australia after ActewAGL a week ago started selling hydrogen produced by France’s Neoen SAS in a preliminary for 20 Hyundai Nexo sport utility vehicles possessed by the Australian Capital Territory government.

Fuel-cell vehicles stay a niche segment all around the world in the midst of worries about an absence of fuelling stations, resale values, and the risk of hydrogen explosions.

Toyota has sold approximately 10,000 Mirai vehicles, generally in Japan and the United States.

The mid-sized Mirai can travel about 650km from 5kg of hydrogen stored in three carbon fiber tanks.

While Toyota has been delayed with EVs – rather focusing on hybrids – the organization considers hydrogen to be essential for its future.

“By promoting and developing fuel cell technology, Toyota believes hydrogen can play a central role in reducing emissions,” said Toyota Australia president and CEO Matthew Callachor.

“Here in Australia, refueling infrastructure has been the biggest challenge and still is, to introducing pioneering vehicles like the Mirai. So this is an important step forward to rectifying that,” said Matthew MacLeod, Toyota Australia’s manager of future technologies and mobility.

Australia is viewed as a laggard in the global drive to cut carbon emissions from the transport sector, without any objectives or subsidies for cleaner vehicles – in any event, for hybrid or battery electric vehicles, as a stark difference to most other rich countries.

The government, notwithstanding, projects that 26% of new vehicle sales will be electric vehicles in 2030, up from 1% in 2020.

At the site, Toyota is using rooftop solar to power an electrolyzer to split water, producing 80 kilograms per day of hydrogen for the fuel pump.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency gave almost 50% of the funds for the A$7.4 million (US$5.7 million) project.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles supplant the huge, substantial, and costly battery pack in EVs with hydrogen tanks.

That hydrogen is fed to a fuel cell, which joins hydrogen with oxygen to make electricity, the only emission being water. It at that point drives an electric motor.

They can be refueled in around five minutes and normally have a more prominent range than EVs, something that holds offer with those stopped by ordinarily long charging times of electric vehicles.

“Hydrogen as an energy-storing medium and fuel for transportation has enormous potential,” says Toyota Australia manager of future technologies and mobility Matt Macleod.

The Altona-based refilling station – which likewise consolidates a hydrogen education centre – is behind locked gates, however, Toyota says it is accessible to the public and that it will even permit the opponent Hyundai Nexo FCEV to fill from it.

The Nexo was the first FCEV to be certified for sale here and 20 will be positioned in Canberra using the lone other public hydrogen refueling station, not a long way from Parliament House.

The hydrogen at Toyota’s plant is produced on-site from water utilizing electrolysis with electricity sourced from solar arrays and the electricity grid.

FCEVs are viewed as valuable technology for heavy vehicles like trucks and buses as well as vehicles utilized for long-distance touring and towing, like four-wheel drives and utes.

Toyota has the top-selling ute in the country in the HiLux and sells more off-road SUVs than some other brand.

The organization hasn’t nominated hydrogen fuel cell tech as the system that will power future LandCruisers, other than to say it “potentially” could make sense.

All things considered, Toyota says FCEV applications will probably suit greater vehicles that frequently carry heavy loads and travel huge distances. Like LandCruisers …

Macleod says the EV/FCEV delineation relies upon the application of the vehicle.

“If it’s a smaller vehicle with not a lot of range then battery electric is suited,” he says. “As soon as you get larger and start traveling further then things like hybrid and fuel cell start to get more interesting because you actually leverage more of the battery capacity you have.”

There’s presently one significant issue with hydrogen: there’s no place to refuel.

While petrol can be purchased at approximately 7000 stations around the country, hydrogen is presently restricted to a single station in Canberra and Toyota’s simply opened facility in Melbourne.

More are planned, yet they’re a drop in the ocean of petrol stations that have been worked over a century of motoring.

Be that as it may, Callachor believes hydrogen will not need the same broad spread of outlets, particularly as numerous EVs in the future will be recharged from home.

“I don’t know whether we need as many petrol stations on every corner,” he said.