The Japanese brand Toyota What it did was announce the prototype of a portable container for hydrogen at the Japan Mobility Show’s famous Bizweek 2024, with a prototype for charging fuel cells for cars and machines.
These hydrogen containers can be used to refuel fuel cell vehicles at home, extending the range and providing greater comfort of use.
These containers can be supplied through the home delivery service and can be loaded by one person, as a series of problems still need to be resolved.
Vehicles equipped with hydrogen fuel cells are a good option
This type of car offers the possibility of avoiding polluting emissions and avoiding hours of recharging a battery. This solution, however, implies a high price when we talk about practicality, since the stations for the hydrogen refueling They are reduced in many countries and hydrogen will not come out of the taps.
What would happen if hydrogen could reach you? Toyota is working on it and has revealed a prototype with a hydrogen tank compact enough for people to carry in a special backpack.
Toyota stated that it used FCEV technology for the reduction of weight and the same size of tanks containing hydrogen, which were previously large and complicated to transport, and it is now possible to transport them by hand.
The brand claims that this energy can be very safe and familiar, so it can be used in many everyday situations.
The fact is that Toyota has not said where they will be able to buy this type of tanks to refuel the vehicle at home or how much would be needed to refuel a Mirai.
There are also safety concerns, since the hydrogen contained in FCEVs will be stored following a series of requirements that will make transport more expensive.
You have to remember that the hydrogen that powers the Mirai stores seven hundred bars in a pair of compact and lightweight high-pressure tanks. They have been working on it since 2000 and are sure of its resistance.
These issues in the field of security were taken into account when creating new portable containers, but we must not forget that the volume of these that can be accommodated is different.
What we need to be clear is that these cylinders can solve the problem of running out of hydrogen at home or in the middle of nowhere, to avoid the hassle of the crane.
For all these reasons, it is possible that you can travel with some of these containers to extend the autonomy of the vehicle, or at least in a world where the transport of hazardous materials is not regulated.
The one who can buy refillable hydrogen bottles for the car, as if they were butane bottles, it is possible that this will make the experience of living with an electric car much easier.
Cars with hydrogen fuel cells are also electric
Let’s think that basically, vehicles equipped with a hydrogen fuel cell are also electric.
The truth is that bringing hydrogen tanks home while driving a car can conflict with the large amount of electricity available.
The problem that the carbon footprint which leaves the production and also the same shipments of said hydrogen.
Hydrogen has to be produced somewhere and also be delivered safely to homes, which is akin to the operation of sending fuel oil to homes, which would likely have an obvious impact on the price.
Several manufacturers, such as the German BMW, are committed to making hydrogen a zero-emission propulsion system, even if they are at the same time improving the electrified model rangeswhich means Toyota is not alone in the fight, even when large-scale implementation becomes complicated for infrastructure reasons.
It will be time for the Toyota brand to make these portable hydrogen cartridges a standard, but the manufacturer has not abandoned the idea of the vehicle running on fuel cells, we will see how the Japanese firm will act in this regard.
