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Major Japanese automakers and energy suppliers see 2015 as key year for fuel cell vehicle commercialisation

The key year for the commercialisation of FCVs will be 2015 according to individuals associated with the hydrogen-based fuel cell vehicle (FCV) business at Japanese automakers. All Six speakers representing METI, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Nippon Oil and Tokyo Gas talked in the discussion panel agreed on this point about the commercialisation of FCVs.

Opinions were undivided at a seminar on March 13, 2008, which was conducted as part of the Japan Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Demonstration Project (JHFC) promoted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). Speakers from automakers and professors from universities repeated similar comments on the stage.

Yasuhiro Daisho, a professor at Waseda University Graduate School belives that FCVs have a long way to before commercialisation when compared to green vehicles, such as electric and hybrid cars. "If I compare these vehicles to an airplane, I would say that hybrid cars are cruising and electric vehicles have taken off and are climbing, whereas FCVs are taxiing on the runway,"

According to Hisashi Ishitani, Chairman of JHFC Promotion Committee, the issues of poor durability, high costs and lack of hydrogen infrastructure will be solved by 2015. Then, the Japanese government and the industry will make a decision about the commercialisation of FCVs.

The automakers agreed with this scenario. Toyota believes that in order to spread FCVs, the production cost per unit must be reduced to about 1/100 of the existing level. If they succeed in reducing the cost to 1/10 through technology development, then the resultant cost can be further reduced to 1/10 by the benefits of economies of scale. Their target year for the 1/10 reduction through technology development would be 2015. And the further 1/10 reduction will be probably be achieved in the 2020s, once mass-production has commenced.

Nissan are of the opinion that a key point in future technology development will be how to facilitate the evaluation of catalysts and membrane materials. They hope to develop catalyst carrier materials that are resistant to corrosion in a high potential and catalyst materials that are less likely to be dissolved in a potential cycle while utilising, with cooperation from the government, the measurement techniques using neutron and X-rays.

Meanwhile, Nippon Oil Corp and Tokyo Gas Co Ltd, the companies involved in the establishment of hydrogen infrastructure, insisted that support from the government is necessary to promote FCVs, in addition to the technology development of individual devices in the hydrogen infrastructure.

During the initial adoption phase when FCVs are not widespread, the infrastructure should be well organised in advance. The two companies explained that supportive measures for hydrogen stations, which will be forced to operate in the red, are required under such circumstances.

The companies also expressed their requests to the government, noting that the regulations concerning hydrogen station sites should be relaxed and that the government should take the lead by drawing up a roadmap.




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