Toyota shows off fuel cell car with 480-mile range
While we've yet to hear any more about Toyota's planned tests of its plug-in hybrid, the company has apparently made quite a bit of progress with its fuel cell vehicles, two of which recently made a non-stop 350 mile trip from Osaka to Tokyo (with the air conditioning on, no less). What's more, according to MSNBC, the vehicles still had 30 percent of their fuel remaining, giving them a total potential range of 480 miles. That's apparently more than double the range of Toyota's earlier fuel cell vehicles, a feat due in no small part to this model's ability to hold twice as much hydrogen as its predecessor (it's also 25% more efficient). While there's no word as to when any of this might actually make it into a commercially available vehicle, Toyota is apparently (slowly) headed in that direction, with it now working to boost the range even further, improve durability and, most importantly, get the cost down.
[Via Straightline, photo courtesy of Robert Gilhooly / EPA]
