Toyota cuts cost of hydrogen-fuel cell cars

Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY | USATODAY

The cost of making a hydrogen fuel cell-powered car has fallen so dramatically that the same vehicle that cost about $1 million in past year can now be made for as little as $50,000 when it goes on sale in the U.S. in 2015, a top Toyota engineer says.

That means that customers probably will see sticker prices of up to $100,000 for cars so clean that they produce no more than water vapor from the tailpipe, Automotive News quotes Chris Hostetter, a group vice president for Toyota, as telling a conference.

The problem with hydrogen, of course, is that there are so few stations that sell it. Plus, most of it is made from natural gas, which begs the question, why not just make natural gas cars?

Currently, Toyota is testing a fleet of 100 fuel cell vehicles based on the Highlander crossover platform. The next generation will be shaped more like the Prius and will be for actual sale, Automotive News says.

Automakers have been showing a renewed interest in hydrogen, which was the subject of much interest a decade ago. In more recent years, most research had switched to batteries and electric cars. But now some automakers see reasons why hydrogen might be the fuel of the future.