Toyota Motors recently announced that it will temporarily supply hydrogen stations to California dealers that sell its Mirai sedan. The car manufacturer said that it will continue to supply hydrogen stations until a stable refueling infrastructure is created.
Toyota is tapping the services of Air Products & Chemicals Incorporated in supplying mobile hydrogen trailers. These trailers will serve as a stopgap until the state of California opens more stations.
Cars that use hydrogen fuel cells emit only water, making them very environment friendly. Toyota is working with the state of California in order to establish a hydrogen fueling infrastructure that will serve not only the residents of the state but also drivers who are passing by. As of November, only four hydrogen fueling stations were opened for retail use.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Toyota marketing manager for fuel cell vehicles Doug Coleman said, "Did we expect more stations to be available by the end of 2015? Absolutely. We felt like this was a sensible interim step to help supply hydrogen fuel to Mirai customers that are out there on the roads right now."
Toyota is aiming to sell 1,000 units of the 2016 Mirai sedan. The California Fuel Cell Partnership claims that 43 hydrogen fueling stations are being built or in the process of acquiring permit to operate. Another six are already open but are used for demonstration purposes only.
It appears that California is not the only one that did not hit its target regarding hydrogen fueling infrastructure. Japan initially aimed to create about 100 fully-operation stations by March only managed to open 81 stations as of October. According to Japan Times, bureaucratic red tape is one of the biggest roadblocks to this cleaner fuel initiative.