The results were averaged for an estimated range of 431 miles, with an average fuel economy of 68.3 miles/kg.

For comparison, the 2009 Toyota Highland Hybrid achieves an EPA-estimated rating of 26 mpg combined fuel economy and has a full-tank range of approximately 450 miles. With premium grade gasoline currently priced at about $3.25, the gasoline-powered V6 Highlander hybrid is estimated to travel approximately 26 miles at a cost of about $3.25. Currently, hydrogen gas pricing is not fixed, but DOE targets future pricing at $2 to $3 per kilogram. Therefore, the FCHV-adv is estimated to travel approximately 68 miles at a projected cost of about $2.50 - more than double the range of the Highlander Hybrid, at equal or lesser cost, while producing zero emissions...

Cool! And here I thought Honda was just dreaming with the FCX and/or trying to show everybody they could do it.

Strangely enough this kind of legitimizes hydrogen and fuel cell technology for me.

Did you guys know hydrogen boils at -423.18°F? In liquid form hydrogen is about 1/14th the density of the gas form. If only we could "cool" it!

Premium fuel right now is 15-20% more expensive than regular. The Highlander's 26mpg is equivalent cost-wise to 21-22 mpg with a regular fuel car. Premium fuel does not fit with the times, and should be phased out. There is no reason why all cars should not be able to run on regular fuel. Let's go, Washington.

Freedom... That's why we still have higher octane fuels and engines that can only run on them without being damaged. Because people will say they feel they should have the freedom to choose a high performance set up if that's what they want and frankly I agree. Why the Highlander was made that way..... I admit it seems a little wierd but I don't want to get too far off topic.

In Japan they have gas with octanes of way over 100, which is why cars like Honda Type-R editions, for example, have considerably higher horsepower due to the engines with more intense tuning.

It seems fair enough to compare the apples to oranges in this way to me though because it's just a start and we need some kind of comparison. Efficient hydrogen storage is still in it's infancy and not practical from how I understand it anyway.

I wouldn't be surprised if 2015 Prius would use hydrogen instead of gasoline. It is Prius after all... TO GO BEFORE.

First; SHAME on you Toyota ~ You'll loose credibility if you continue down this path.
With all due respect ... you will NEVER see hydrogen cars mass produced. Am I the only one who's ever heard of the FIVE MIRACLES It'd take to actually make hydrogen practical? ... or the only one to have ever read, "The Hydrogen Hoax" ?!?

The New Atlantis » The Hydrogen Hoax

Yes, just a few minor glitches to work out. Oh, wait! That's what hydrogen proponents said in the 1970's!! ... that it'd be ready in 10 years. When the 1980's came along? Oh! In just 10 more years. Then the 90's ?? You guessed it. Now, a decade farther down the hoax, there's been no silver bullet to bring hydrogen to practicality.

The complexity of the vehicles are such that they'd cost HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of dollars. Infrastructure would be in the trillions. Oh! and lest I forget, the article fails to mention how there's at LEAST a 20% energy loss, just compressing the hydrogen up to FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS PRESSURE. Do you REALLY want a car with 20 or 30 gallons of FIVE THOUSAND PSI fuel to get around in?

Do you KNOW how many times farther you can go in an EV, if you simply used the electricity to power the EV, rather than separating hydrogen with it? Do you know how many times farther you can go in a compressed natural gas car, if you simply used CNG as fuel rather than stripping hydrogen from it?

There was big money doled out to research hydrogen, but there's been virtually nothing to show for it, when you consider what our tax dollars paid for. Now, Politicians LOVE hydrogen! Why? They don't have to DO anything ... "hey, I gave away your tax dollars for research ... see? I'm doing something for energy independence and the environment". No, they're NOT. EVEN the OIL companies refused to get involved in attempting to build a hydrogen infrastructure, after tax dollars were waived at 'em. I've already written an epistle with more detail on some other thread, so I'll just leave it at that. Nah, I gotta throw out a few more links:

http://www.efcf.com/reports/E21.pdf
The Hydra Headed Hydrogen Hoax on "Freedom" Cars
NOVA | Car of the Future Open Content | Romm 15 | PBS
Hydrogen Damage of Metallic Materials - a knol by Prof.T.K.Govindan Namboodhiri
Mark Vaughn: AutoWeek Magazine

The REAL crime of hydrogen is it takes valuable dollars that'd best be spent on battery development.
Anyway ... you can find good reads on this all day long. C'mon people.

.

Tideland, RON (Research Octane Number) is normally about three or four points above AKI (anti-knock index), the ratings on gas pumps in North America. It does depend on the formulation. Anyway, 95 RON is roughly equivalent to your 91-92. An equivalent of 87 is not available in the UK or (I think) in Japan.

Perhaps you were thinking of the other value in the AKI calculation, the Motor Octane Number. MON is commonly 8-10 points below RON. AKI is the average of MON and RON.

Also don't jump to conclusions re premium fuel and vehicles that "want" it (most of the modern ones -can- run regular btw). You see, the anti-Prius (2001 Nissan Pathfinder LE - 3.5 L "VQ" engine, automatic) "wanted" premium (better than 92 octane rating). It ran on regular (87 octane rating) just fine, EXCEPT it got poorer mileage. So much so that it was less expensive per mile to run premium. So I fed it premium. Lots of it. It burned about three times as much fuel as Pearl per mile.

Maybe not in the US but it looks like it is going to happen in Japan. See this news from yesterday.

Green Car Congress: Japanese Companies Form Research Alliance for Hydrogen FCV Infrastructure; Targeting Commercializing Technologies by 2015

431 miles range is very impressive. For BEV to achieve it, it will cost about $100k - $200k. Nissan Leaf with 24kWh pack goes 100 miles. It will take 103kWh to get 431 miles range. Li-ion costs $1k/kWh to $2k/kWh for Li-ion.

Recently, Kia has been saying it would cost $50k for a mass produced fuel cell vehicle. Fuel cell doesn't seem to cost more than BEV now.

Remember, FCHV would need a small 50kW fuel cell stack since the HV battery would assist during peak acceleration. The range depends on the size of the hydrogen tank. For BEV, the size of the battery pack increases linear with the range. So for a long range vehicle, fuel cell should come out on top. For a short range BEV or plug-in hybrids, battery might make sense.

Whewwwww! Mighty balzie of 'em ... saying it'll / REALLY be for REAL this time (no, REALLY ... this time we REALLY REALLY mean it - honest! ) ... and to show we really reallyl mean it ... they're cutting the B.S. time line down to only 5 1/2 years (shaking head). Me thinks Charlie Brown is done trying to kick the football. No? C'mon ... who doesn't know that every researcher is required to forcast a delivery date WITH NO CONSEQUENCES. Again, the politician gave away the mony ... gets to wash his hands saying, "well, I tried ... I gave away your money".

Regarding Kia .... the newest whores, bellying up to the free research tax dollar waste ... don't forget to read the fine print:

"... When asked where the Korean automaker currently sits on a production-ready hydrogen vehicle (FOR ONLY $50,000), Ki-Ahn said, ".... (b)efore 2020, many people will be hearing about fuel cell vehicles made by Hyundai-Kia."

Sound familiar? Now how fast would Kia, et al, REFUSE to take part in this obscene money waste, if they had to repay even A THIRD of the wasted tax dollars, if they didn't deliver on their projection? Yep, another decade and we'll be there. So sad . . . history teaches us just ONE thing ... that we never learn anything from history.

In case anyone doubts why EV/battery technology languishes/isn't moving faster, it's because of under funding, in part due to hydrogen research waste, just like this. Sadly, us poor slob taxpayers will likely still be going through another decade of promises to deliver some 2 decades from now. Makes me wana just throw up my hands in exhasperation.

.

Your description of fuel cell history is accurate for the GM's program. What happened to it after all those promises? I haven't heard of any news on their progress lately.

I am sure you've been following Toyota FCHV. It is progressing quite nicely and I only see Kaizen! If they say they are shooting for mass production in 2015, I don't doubt them.

I think you're at least 50% too high. GM has said that their pack costs "hundreds less" than $1,000/kWh. The cost of the Tesla pack costs about the same using the retail replacement cost. The entire Engineer PHEV kit costs ~$1,000/kWh, so the batteries alone must be significantly cheaper. Just looking at EVcomponents, you can see that batteries are currently selling for around $500/kWh. In volume, pricing should be even cheaper.

But has anyone actually done it? No - because the infrastructure for a hydrogen economy will cost trillions of dollars to put into place. The cost to put in the infrastructure for BEVs will be much cheaper. Never mind that HVs will always be significantly less efficient than BEVs.

Yea I found the prices on EVcomponents after I posted that. However, I am not sure if those are not "automotive grade" cells. 103kWh pack may not fit in the floor space of the Nissan Leaf either. Even if it can be done for Highlander size SUV, you are right.. the cost should be $50k - $100k for 431 miles range BEV.

Fuel cell stack has to hit $1k per kW in order to compete with BEV. FCHV has 90kW stack with 21kW HV battery.

Sorry it took a while to get back to this ... my pet peeve
I don't doubt Toyota will TRY for 2015. But history always repeats itself. Every decade, the R&d teams say, they're getting closer. Hydrogen continually claims it is the "Fuel of the Futuree" ... and has ALWAYS remained the "Fuel of the Future"

To Quote darelldd:

"...Yes, I find that many folks prefer to ignore the energy it takes to stuff the H2 into a useful storage device. Everybody wants to account for charge losses for a BEV, while ignoring the energy that the compressor or freezer consumes to fuel a FCV.

But probably the most distressing issue that we've faced for so many years:
EVs can only run on electricity produced from dirty coal, while FCVs will only ever use "green" power that comes from rainbows and the laughter of children ..."

And from another author who articulated the hydrogen issues quite well:

1) Fuel cell vehicles cost an order of magnitude more than EVs to purchase. Not only are fuel cell stacks obscenely expensive, but FCVs still require a li-ion battery pack (for buffering), an inverter, and electric motor, just like an EV or PHEV. Plus a hydrogen tank.
2) Hydrogen from natural gas costs 3-6 times as much as electricity per mile traveled. Hydrogen from electrolysis, 15-25 times as much.
3) Hydrogen fuel cell stacks have half the longevity of modern automotive-style li-ion packs.
4) Hydrogen destroys ozone
5) Hydrogen leaks through almost anything with incredible ease
6) Hydrogen embrittles metals
7) Leaked hydrogen pools in explosive mixtures under overhangs
8) Hydrogen burns rapidly in almost any fuel-air mixture -- 4% to 94% by volume (unlike gasoline vapors, which have a narrow range of 1.4% to 7.6%)
9) Hydrogen readily undergoes deflagration to detonation transitions under atmospheric pressure, something very hard to achieve with most hydrocarbons. And it can do so in a wide range of mixtures -- 18.3% to 59% by volume.
10) Hydrogen ignites with 1/10th the ignition energy of gasoline and is much harder to see, despite burning hotter.
11) The electrolysis/fuel cell cycle takes 2-4 times as much energy per mile as EVs do. Even if the electricity is renewable, that's 2-4 times as many wind turbines, 2-4 times as much desert covered by solar panels, 2-4 times as many dammed rivers, etc.
12) Hydrogen hardly competes on fill time any more. Modern H2 vehicles, such as the Fuel Cell Equinox, take about 25 minutes to fill; EV rapid charging can charge batteries in under 10, and battery swapping in 2-3 minutes. There are rapid fill H2 stations that can fill a tank in 2-3 minutes, but they're not only ridiculously expensive, but since they involve storing large amounts of of hydrogen at ridiculously high pressures, they're extremely dangerous. A failure would mean leveling dozens of city blocks. By contrast, a short on a high power EV charger means you blow a fuse or breaker.
13) Liquid hydrogen, one of the techniques to get hydrogen to have even remotely reasonable density, makes the problems worse; for example, any air accidentally mixed in with liquid hydrogen liquifies/solidifies and can explode with similar properties to TNT.
14) Another technique, extreme pressure gasseous H2, involves pressures of up to 700 atmospheres, an amount that would be extremely dangerous if we were merely talking about air, let alone hydrogen. Naturally, FCV manufacturers boast about how their tanks are rupture proof or rupture-safe. Real-world usage of pressures that high in lightweight tanks thusfar says otherwise, especially in the case of manufacturing defects.
15) A final technique, combining pressure with a storage medium, makes the efficiency and fill time problems even worse.
16) Hydrogen barely wins on range any more (when you compare apples to apples -- rather than, say, a $8,000 per month lease FCHV-adv with a Nissan Leaf, or the other ridiculous comparisons H2 advocates like to make)
17) Hydrogen fundamentally *requires* new infrastructure. For EVs, new infrastructure can benefit them (public charging stations, rapid charging stations, battery swap stations, etc), but they're not a fundamental requirement for EVs to be very useful. And the EV infrastructure is cheaper.

Lastly, the Hindenburg. In case any one can't grasp how much worse (compared to gasoline) a compressed gas fire is, when it has to be compressed to thousands & thousands of pounds (just to go a much shorter distance) ... & here's a few pic's of a CNG car (which often use the came carbon fiber technology storage tanks as hydrogen) on clean MPG.com that endured arson. They don't just blow, like gas, they REALLY blow:

CNG Honda Civic: Car Fire/Explosion - Dialup Warning, many photos - CleanMPG Forums

Yet still, hydrogen R&D continues to rear it's money sucking head.

I don't think they are shooting for mass production. I think they are shooting for a low-production or fleet vehicle. Auto magazines rumored a PHEV Prius in 2010, and look at it; it's still a fleet vehicle.

And, let us all keep in mind that things might change quite a bit in the auto market over the next five years. Five years ago, would anyone have thought that the Prius would be the number one selling vehicle in Japan? Would anyone have thought gasoline was going to hit $4.50 in Summer 2008? Five years ago, did anyone think Ford would be selling hybrid Fusions? Did anyone think a car would have a solar panel on it's roof (GenIII Prius) ? Did anyone think Nissan would actually be putting an electric car into production?
I think that five years from now, battery production will be significantly greater, and having invested $$$ into battery production operations, automakers will be treating batteries like petroleum companies currently treat gasoline. Battery companies will be lobbying Congress. Maybe. Who knows? It's the future.
There could be some completely unexpected breakthrough in fuel cell technology that no one ever saw coming. A LOT is going to change over the next five years. PHEVs will be on the market, EVs will be on the market. Five years from now, PHEVs and EVs will be on their second (or possibly third) generation.

Thanks guys. That's a lot of informative and thoughtful posts.

There are many knocks on H2 fuel cells. I only want to raise one point:

The only clean hydrogen source is electricity from renewables. With battery and ultracap tech improving all the time, hydrogen will never be able "to compete with it's own energy source" - renewable electricty.

Using that electricity to drive the wheels is always going to be easier, and cheaper than using H2 in a fuel cell.

The doped fabric covering the Hindenberg burned when struck by static electricity. The hydrogen did not ignite as the ship can be seen gently settling to the ground. The History Channel aired a program on this.