Asia Report

Japan continues to be bullish on hydrogen as a future automotive fuel, although there is considerable skepticism about government targets for introducing fuel cell vehicles to the marketplace.

In a national plan announced last December, the government set cumulative sales targets of 50,000 units by 2010 and 5 million by 2020. Even officials at the Ministry of Economy, Industry & Trade (METI), the main force behind hydrogen research, feel these targets are unrealistic.

“The arithmetic works against them,” says one official. “If sales in 2005 and 2006 (the first two years of the initiative) are in the several hundred range, that means demand would have to exceed 10,000 units annually from 2007 through 2010. It’s just not feasible.” The same basic arithmetic applies to the 5 million target, but by a factor of five to 10. Thus, average annual sales would have to approach 50,000 units. “Not likely,” declares the official.

Still, METI is bullish on hydrogen as reflected in this year’s ministerial budget in which outlays for hydrogen research were raised to $258 million, 41 percent more than in fiscal 2002. Spending covers seven projects.

These include:

• Polymer-electrolyte fuel cell technology, five years from fiscal 2000 to fiscal 2004. This year’s budget: $42.5 million.
  
• Basic technology for safe usage of hydrogen, five years from fiscal 2003 to fiscal 2007. This year’s budget: $37.5 million.
  
• A public road demonstration study of fuel cell vehicle and hydrogen fuel station operations, three years from fiscal 2002 to fiscal 2004. This year’s budget: $32.5 million.
  
• Establishment of codes, standards, regulations and testing methods (part of the socalled ‘Millennium Project’), four years from fiscal 2001 to fiscal 2004. This year’s budget: $32.5 million.
  
• Lithium-ion batteries as a supplemental power source for fuel cell vehicles, three years from fiscal 2002 to fiscal 2004. This year’s budget: $16.7 million.
  
• Small-capacity ‘direct methanol’ fuel cells for laptop computers and cellular phones, three years from fiscal 2003 to fiscal 2005. This year’s budget: $1.7 million.
  
• Large-scale ‘molten carbonate’ and ‘solid’ fuel cells for power generation, five years from fiscal 2000 to fiscal 2004. This year’s budget: $30 million.

The METI official says fiscal 2004 outlays will be roughly the same as this year’s, although a final decision will not be made until next spring.

With respect to the three-year Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Demonstration Project, which got underway last June, there are currently around 25 test vehicles in operation on public roads in the Tokyo-Yokohama metropolitan area. These include 11 Toyota FCHVs, six Honda FCXs, three Nissan X-Trail FCVs, four Hino FCHV-BUS2s, one Mercedes-Benz F-Cell and one Opel HydroGen3; the HydroGen3 is the only model to run on liquid hydrogen (see specifications below).

It is not clear whether Daihatsu’s Move FCV-K-2 has joined the test although the model, which employs a Toyota fuel cell system, received a license plate earlier this year from the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry.

Meanwhile, four hydrogen fueling stations have gone into operation since March with a fifth scheduled to come onstream in August. These include hydrogen made from desulfurized gasoline, naptha, liquid hydrogen, liquid petroleum gas and methanol.

FUEL CELL VEHICLE SPECIFICATIONS

	Toyota FCHV-BUS2	Toyota FCHV	Honda FCX	Nissan X-Trail FCV	Daihatsu Move FCV-K-2	Mercedes F-Cell	Opel HydroGen 3
Fuel cell stack	Toyota	Toyota	Ballard	UTC	Toyota	Ballard	General Motors
Fuel cell type	PEM	PEM	PEM	PEM	PEM	PEM	PEM
Fuel cell output	90 kW (x2)	90 kW	78 kW	N.A.	30 kW	68 kW	94 kW
Fuel type	compressed	compressed	compressed	compressed	compressed	compressed	liquid
Storage system	high-press. tank	high-press. tank	high-press. tank	high-press. tank	high-press. tank	high-press. tank	high-press. tank
Min. stor. pressure	34.5 MPa.	34.5 Mpa	34 MPa	34.5 Mpa	24.8 Mpa	34.5 Mpa	68 liters
Secondary battery	nickel metal hydride	nickel metal hydride	ultracapacitor	lithium-ion	nickel metal hydride	nickel metal hydride	nickel metal hydride
Motor type	permanent magnet	permanent magnet	permanent magnet	coaxial	permanent magnet	N.A.	N.A.
Maximum output	80 kW (x2)	80 kW	60 kW	58 kW	32 kW	65 kW	60 kW
Maximum torque	260 N-m (x2)	260 N-m	272 N-m	N.A.	65 N-m	210 N-m	215 N-m
Cruising range	250 miles	187.5 miles	222 miles	125 miles	75 miles	94 miles	250 miles
Maximum Speed	50 mph	97 mph	94 mph	78 mph	65.5 mph	87.5 mph	87.5 mph

This article was provided exclusively to Automotive Industries by J•REPORTS, a new information service offering in-depth coverage of automotive technology based in Tokyo. For additional information about this and other studies and prices, contact jreports@attglobal.net