August 20, 2013
YOUR NEXT CAR WILL BE A VOLT:
Has the fuel cell car's time finally come? (Brian Dumaine, 8/15/13, FortuneMagazine)Virtually every major carmaker is preparing to launch hydrogen-powered models in the next few years. Toyota (TM), which has been working on fuel-cell technology with BMW, will unveil a new hydrogen fuel-cell car at the Tokyo auto show in November. The as-yet-unnamed vehicle will go on sale in 2015 and is expected to have a sticker price that's less than a Tesla S (TSLA), which costs about $70,000. Hyundai will lease 1,000 hydrogen cars based on its Tucson crossover in the U.S. starting in 2015. Renault and Nissan have announced a partnership with Daimler and Ford (F, Fortune 500) to share the cost of developing fuel-cell vehicles that could be on the market as soon as 2017. And GM (GM, Fortune 500) and Honda announced in July that they were forming a technology joint venture to produce hydrogen cars by 2020. Honda (HMC) will also launch a new generation of its fuel-cell-powered Clarity, which it has been leasing in limited numbers in California, by 2015.
What's behind all the activity? The cynical view is that the auto industry is simply scrambling to meet California's strict air regulations: By 2025 more than 22% of new sales for the major automakers must be zero-emission or plug-in hybrids. "With electric car sales not living up to expectations, the carmakers are looking for a hedge to meet the standards in California, and hydrogen provides that," says Kevin See, a senior analyst at Lux research.
Posted by Orrin Judd at August 20, 2013 1:46 PM
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