Daimler, Toyota Reportedly Mulling Joint Development of Fuel Cells for Electric Cars
By Scott Doggett May 25, 2010
German luxury car maker Daimler and Toyota, the world's biggest automaker, are mulling joint development of fuel cells for electric vehicles, the Financial Times Deutschland reported today.
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Toyota has developed fuel-cell SUVs that can go 500 miles on a tank of hydrogen.
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"There is strong interest in sharing development costs" via a joint venture, the newspaper reported, citing a source close to Daimler.
It would be the first major cooperative project for the two automakers.
Daimler has already invested more than $1.23 billion dollars in fuel-cell technology since 1994, two years after Toyota began exploring it.
Toyota said last week that it expects its per-vehicle cost of a hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicle has dropped about 90 percent in the past five years and will fall another 50 percent or so when the automaker plans to make its first FCEVs available to the public in 2015.
The company, which in 2002 was the first automaker to lease out a fuel-cell vehicle, has Highlander SUV fuel-cell vehicles in development that can travel as many as 500 miles on a full tank of hydrogen.
Also last week, Toyota and Silicon Valley electric-car maker Tesla Motors announced that Toyota would join Daimler in investing in Tesla.
Fuel cells use a reaction of hydrogen and oxygen to produce electricity in a process that does not emit greenhouse gasses, which contribute to climate change.
Production of the hydrogen needed for the fuel cells can result in the production of such gasses however.
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