Toyota New Zealand is expanding its business activities to explore and support the advancement of hydrogen technology and development here.
The company’s move was covered by EVs and Beyond in December.
“As we continue to focus on increasing our electrification in our light vehicle fleet, we are looking to explore the applications of hydrogen technology outside of the automotive industry,” Toyota New Zealand chief executive Neeraj Lala says.
“This is not a distraction from BEV (battery electric vehicle) application in our light vehicle fleet, it is to ensure our ongoing business resiliency beyond just mobility through alternative business opportunities.”
Toyota Motor Corporation has developed a fuel cell module to help realise a hydrogen society through widespread use across a variety of applications including trucks, buses, trains, ships and stationary generators.
“We have strong support from Toyota Motor Corporation to explore a variety of commercial partnerships to advance hydrogen technology in New Zealand,” Lala says.
“Toyota is committed to providing a diversified range of carbon-neutral technologies to meet the needs of every country and region,” he explains.
“New Zealand is an ideal place, with our renewable energy and resourceful culture, to test new ideas and innovate for a better future.”
Toyota New Zealand is supporting long-term partners Emirates Team New Zealand (ETNZ) by supplying it with a hydrogen fuel cell system to investigate the different applications of this carbon neutral technology, Lala adds.
“We have secured from Toyota Motor Corporation two prototype units for the ETNZ trial that are still in their preproduction phase.
“We will also continue to explore other corporate partnerships to further popularise this technology beyond the automotive light vehicle industry in New Zealand.”
Lala says Toyota aims to explore a number of hydrogen projects in their early phases in New Zealand as an active member of the New Zealand Hydrogen Council.
“As New Zealand looks to be a major player in green hydrogen, we are keen to work with the New Zealand Hydrogen Council, our other partners such as Mitsui, and energy supply partners, Hiringa and Obayashi Corporation to continue the advancement of hydrogen technology.”
Developing the fuel cell technology for more than 20 years, Toyota includes commercialisation of the Mirai and fuel cell buses, and forklifts for practical use.
“Toyota has set challenging targets for CO2 reduction globally, and we are taking proactive measures to promote the development and sale of electrified light vehicles,” Lala says.
“We are striving to share technologies and systems as it is our belief that environmental technologies should not be monopolised, while helping to contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions through becoming a technology systems supplier.”
The compact fuel cell module includes the fuel cell stack and related components that handle air supply, hydrogen supply, cooling, and power control. Packaging these components into a single module integrates and decreases the number of locations that need to be connected to the device.
Toyota’s fuel cell module uses a high-voltage system initially developed as part of the world’s first mass-production HEV in 1997 and has since been commercialised and improved.
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