Tokyo: Japan's Toyota Motor Corp unveiled a new fuel-cell vehicle yesterday that it said more than doubles the range of the company's existing model, in its latest bid to stay competitive in the race to develop environmentally-friendly cars.
Toyota's five-seater FCHV van was able to travel 780 kilometres (480 miles) on a single tank of liquefied hydrogen, more than double the 330 km (200 miles) achieved by its existing model, Toyota said in a statement.
Toyota said this may be the furthest a fuel-cell vehicle has travelled on a singe fuelling, a claim that could not be independently verified immediately.
Fuel-cell cars are widely viewed as the most promising pollution-free vehicles for the future because they are powered by electricity generated through the chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen and emit only water as a byproduct.
The FCHV differs from Toyota's Prius hybrid cars which use a combination of a standard gasoline-powered motor and an electric one.
The Prius is able to reduce emissions of environmentally harmful gases such as carbon dioxide, but can't eliminate them completely.
Big competition
Global auto makers such as General Motors Corp. are racing in the development of such non-gas-emission vehicles.
A major challenge in developing fuel-cell vehicles is the relatively limited driving distance.
Toyota said the new fuel-cell vehicle is 25 per cent more fuel efficient than the existing model partly due to the use of electronic components that use less electricity.
In a public road test Friday, two of the advanced fuel-cell vehicles ran about 560 kilometers (350 miles) from Osaka to Tokyo without refuelling, while keeping their air conditioning on, Toyota said.
About 30 per cent of the fuel was unused when they arrived in Tokyo. The original Toyota FCHV went on sale in December 2002 in Japan and the US, and was last upgraded in 2005.
