Toyota says it has cut the cost of building fuel-cell vehicles by 90 percent and could sell its first hydrogen vehicle for $50,000 by 2015.

That's still a big chunk of change, but a bargain compared to the six- or seven-figure price tags the cars are generally thought to cost now. The exorbitant cost has been among the technology's greatest hurdles and one reason Honda, General Motors and others lease or loan – rather than sell – the few hydrogen-fuel-cell cars they have on the road.

But Toyota says it has cut the cost of building such cars by 90 percent in recent years. It hopes to cut that by another 50 percent in coming years, so it can can sell an "affordable" mid-sized hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicle. Such a car would offer the same range as a conventional auto "with some extra cost," says Yoshihiko Masuda, Toyota's managing director of advanced vehicles.

“Our target is, we don’t lose money with introduction of the vehicle,” Masuda told Bloomberg. “Production cost should be covered within the price of the vehicle.”

Toyota has slashed costs by using one-third the amount of platinum typically found in a fuel cell, Masuda said at a conference in Long Beach, California. It also has reduced the cost of the polymer-electrolyte membrane used in the cell. Both Toyota and GM use about 30 grams of platinum and are cutting that to 10. They also say scaling up to large-scale production would cut costs further.

Toyota, Honda, General Motors, Daimler and Hyundai are among the automakers who hope to have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road by 2015.

Beyond their sky-high price, hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles are hampered by the lack of a fueling infrastructure. That is one reason battery electric vehicles have proven more appealing, at least in the short-term, to automakers and policymakers. But that could change if hydrogen's hurdles are cleared.

“On a cost basis per car, range and performance, fuel-cell vehicles can have an advantage over battery vehicles,” said Jay Whitacre, a professor of materials science and engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “On a system basis, infrastructure, battery cars win.”

Photo: The 2007 Toyota FCHV cruises around Portland, Oregon, in 2008.

Courtesy Toyota

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