# Toyota shooting for a hydrogen powered car by 2015:  Realistic?  Will it help?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toyota-shooting-for-a-hydrogen-powered-car-by-2015-realistic-will-it-help/308750>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [June 17, 2005, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toyota-shooting-for-a-hydrogen-powered-car-by-2015-realistic-will-it-help/308750 "2005-06-17T20:28:25Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toyota-shooting-for-a-hydrogen-powered-car-by-2015-realistic-will-it-help/308750/1 "2005-06-17T20:28:25Z")

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[Link](http://www.cnn.com/2005/AUTOS/06/17/toyota_fuel_cell.reut/index.html)

> [@Reuters](#):
>
> TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp. aims to cut the cost of hydrogen-powered fuel-cell cars to $50,000 from more than $1 million by 2015, when it hopes to start selling the environmentally friendly vehicles, the Financial Times reported on Friday.

In addition, appearently GM is also shooting for hydrogen power

> [@Reuters](#):
>
> Its plans are more conservative than those of General Motors Corp., which aims to have a production-ready hydrogen vehicle by 2010 with a fuel cell that costs $5,000, it said.

So, just how feasible is this plan? How obtainable is this goal? If Toyota and GM actually bring such a car to market, will it sell? Will it spell the end of traditional gasoline/diesel powered cars? How long would such a transition take to convert from traditional fuels to hydrogen powered vehicles? And most importantly…IF we were to go to hydrogen powered vehicles, will this help to control the green house/global warming/climate change effect? If so, how much/little?

One possible problem pointed out in the article (I’m sure there are others):

> [@Reuters](#):
>
> Toyota, the world’s second-biggest car maker, believes launching hydrogen cars earlier than 2015 would be difficult due to a lack of filling stations, the paper said.

I remember reading that Shell and GM were doing some trials in DC with hydrogen powered vehicles/filling stations but don’t know if they every got off the ground.

My other question is…if the US doesn’t start building up its nuclear power capability, where will all the hydrogen come from assuming hydrogen powered vehicles ever come to market?

-XT

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**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/toyota-shooting-for-a-hydrogen-powered-car-by-2015-realistic-will-it-help/308750/2 "2005-06-17T20:57:16Z")

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Seems viable… I just wonder if they are going to sell enough of them to make it feasible economically.

> [@xtisme](#):
>
> My other question is…if the US doesn’t start building up its nuclear power capability, where will all the hydrogen come from assuming hydrogen powered vehicles ever come to market?

The US has a lot of untapped hydroeletric potential no ? Besides petroleum will still be necessary for all sorts of stuff, from plastic to aircraft fuel… so the cars might be clean… but the source of the energy might still be “dirty”. Good for the cities… but not much change overall.