Toyota is expanding their fuel cell vehicle development tests out of their own facilities into the real world. They have built some fuel cell-powered vehicles based on the previous generation Highlander and they are loaning one out to a Nagoya transport company. The FCHV uses a Toyota-built fuel cell stack and stores enough hydrogen compressed at 5,000 psi to go about 200 miles.
Toyota has tried to optimize the range by tweaking the aerodynamics to get a 0.326 coefficient of drag and reducing weight with changes like an aluminum hood and roof. The FCHV has been fully crash tested with emphasis on the the high voltage electrical system and hydrogen storage system. Toyota is using this program to collect real world performance data on the FCHV which will be fed into future fuel cell vehicle designs. One of the main areas of development besides improvements to the stack are the hydrogen storage system. Toyota is evaluating liquid hydrogen, solid state storage and 10,000 psi gaseous storage.
[Source: WorldCarFans]
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