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N0KFQ > TODAY 02.12.16 13:44l 51 Lines 2457 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 14836_N0KFQ
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Dec 2
Path: IW8PGT<CX2SA<N0KFQ
Sent: 161202/1137Z 14836@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ6.0.13
2002
Toyota's first hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles arrive in California
On this day in 2002, Toyota delivers its first two "market-ready"
hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (FCHVs, in the company's shorthand)
to researchers at the University of California at Irvine and the
University of California at Davis. Since 1997, Toyota had been
providing research money to UC scientists and engineers who
studied the problems associated with "advanced transportation
systems" like fuel-cell vehicles. With their new fleet of FCHVs,
the researchers finally had a chance to test out their theories.
Unlike the Toyota Prius, which has a gas-electric hybrid engine,
FCHVs use a hydrogen fuel-cell system that generates electricity
by combining hydrogen with oxygen. That electricity powers the
car's motor and charges its batteries. As a result, the vehicle
creates no environmentally unfriendly byproducts: its only
emission is water vapor.
The early FCHVs had a cruising range of 180 miles and a top speed
of 96 miles per hour. Toyota later revamped the vehicle somewhat,
improving its range and making it 25 percent more efficient. In
September 2007, company engineers in Japan drove an FCHV 347
miles from the Osaka Prefectural Government Office to the Mega
Web amusement center in Tokyo with the air-conditioner on and
without refueling. Later that year, they took the FCHV on an even
longer test drive, from Fairbanks, Alaska to Vancouver, British
Columbia-a distance of 2,300 miles. They chose that route for two
reasons: because it would demonstrate the FCHV's hardiness in the
face of cold weather and rough roads and because mobile refueling
of hydrogen-powered vehicles is allowed on Canadian highways but
not on American ones.
In January 2009, Toyota announced that its fuel-cell car would go
on the market in 2015. However, since it turns out that
California's influential Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) mandate
gives more credits to fuel-cell vehicles than to plug-in hybrid
vehicles, the company has since revised its timeline: In May
2009, a Toyota spokesman declared that people might be able to
buy the cars in 2014 or even sooner. Toyota and other FCHV
proponents then turned their energy to the next challenge:
providing fuel for the cars by creating a hydrogen-refueling
infrastructure in California and across the country.
73 - K.O., n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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E-Mail : kohiggs@gmail.com
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