Would You Drive A Fuel-Cell Tacoma?

Last Monday, Toyota and Shell Oil executives staged a very nice demonstration of one of their Highlander Fuel Cell vehicles filling up on hydrogen. At the subsequent press conference, Toyota V.P. Chris Hostetter said that “Fuel cell technology is viable and ready for the mass market…Toyota plans to bring a fuel cell vehicle to market in 2015.”

A cross-section view of the Toyota fuel cell system. Click for a larger view.

While the assumption is that Toyota’s first fuel cell vehicle will be a mid-sized sedan (or maybe even a Lexus sedan), an argument could be made that a fuel-cell powered pickup truck is just as viable, not to mention a heck of a lot more feasible than a battery-electric pickup. Here’s why:Fuel Cells Are Better For Pickups

Fuel Cells Are Better For Pickup Trucks

Fuel cells are to batteries like a high-paying job is to a big bank account. With a fuel cell (or high paying job), you can always get more power (money). With a big bank account (battery), eventually you run out.

That means that battery-electric vehicles aren’t good options for working vehicles. It’s hard to predict how a working vehicle will be used – how much it will pull, how much it will haul, etc. – so it’s hard to rely upon a battery pack. No one wants to get to the job site and find out the truck battery is just about dead. Therefore, it’s much more likely that we’ll see a fuel-cell powered pickup before we see a battery powered pickup.

In fact, if you’re a fan of military technology, you might have already seen a fuel-cell powered pickup. In 2005, GM supplied the U.S. Army with a new Silverado powered by two fuel cells. While definitely not ready for prime-time, the military definitely sees potential in fuel cells for fighting vehicles.

A Chevy Silverado with fuel cells, developed for the US Army in 2005

Fuel Cell Require Compromises

While fuel cells are better for trucks than battery packs, they’re not exactly better than gasoline or diesel engines. First of all, fuel cell powertrains are at least twice as expensive as gasoline engines – and that assumes that Toyota can cut the cost of a fuel cell powertrain dramatically. Secondly, there aren’t a lot of people who think fuel cells will last forever. Fuel cells are essentially a self-contained chemistry experiment, and over time the membrane that separates the reactants can break-down or corrode. This membrane isn’t something that can be replaced either: you just have to scrap the fuel cell and buy a new one.

Obviously, replacing a fuel cell every 100k miles isn’t cost effective compared to a gasoline or diesel engine.

The other big issues with fuel cells are:

• Cold weather performance is significantly degraded. This means that a fuel cell pickup would only be viable in southern states.
• They use pressurized hydrogen tanks, which could be dangerous in a collision. A lot of work has gone into making these tanks indestructible, but when push comes to shove a leaking hydrogen tank is significantly more dangerous than a leaking gas tank.
• They need hydrogen filling stations…and there aren’t too many of those. As of today, there are a grand total of seven hydrogen filling stations in Southern California, the most likely market for a fuel cell truck.

Bottom line: Fuel cell pickups are possibly in our future, but what’s more likely is that Toyota will make just barely enough fuel cell powered sedans to give this technology a chance. It’s hard to know the future, obviously, but it’s going to take a massive increase in gas prices or a great leap forward in technology to make a fuel cell powered Tacoma a mass-market reality.