Images Courtesy Toyota Motor Corporation

Toyota is on the cutting edge of technology with their new Mirai hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, set to go on sale Fall 2015 as a 2016 model year vehicle in California. The Mirai (‘future’ in Japanese) represents 20-plus years of fuel cell development for Toyota.

According to the company, it takes only five minutes to fill the hydrogen tanks using a specially-designed pumping station. The hydrogen travels from the tanks to the fuel cell stack and subsequently goes through a chemical reaction with the existing oxygen in the incoming air, which creates electricity to power the vehicle. As the accelerator is depressed, electricity is sent from the fuel cell stack to the electric motor, resulting in forward propulsion. The end result? A true zero-emissions vehicle that creates only water as its single byproduct, sent out through the tailpipe. The fuel cell stack is based on existing technology that’s used in submarines and backup power generators, adapted to the automobile.

As hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, present in every breath you take and nearly everything else, there are virtually zero limitations to this technology. However, hydrogen also binds to just about everything it encounters, causing a need to separate it from the surrounding atoms to be used.

Gasification is a process that uses crops and organic waste, placed under high temperatures designed to release the hydrogen atoms. It can also be produced through a process called steam reforming, where methane is combined with high-pressure steam to trigger a reaction to separate the hydrogen. Simple electrolysis of water can also provide hydrogen by separating water into its two primary components, hydrogen and oxygen.

Currently there are very few hydrogen refueling stations in the US, but Toyota is working together with the state of California to provide up to 100 new hydrogen stations by 2020, including 20 new stations in both 2015 and 2016. The company is also working with Air Liquide to develop a network of 12 stations in the Northeast that will support the greater New York and Boston areas.

At its recent unveiling, Toyota Motor Corporation President and CEO Aiko Toyodo described the Mirai as “A turning point where a four-door sedan can travel 300 miles on a single tank of hydrogen, can be refueled in under five minutes and emit only water vapor. A turning point that represents many years and countless hours of work by our team to create a car that redefines the industry. Our fuel cell vehicle runs on hydrogen that can be made from virtually anything, even garbage! It has a fuel cell that creates enough electricity to power a house for about a week”.

We’re just wondering how you supercharge one.