Toyota and Hino to Develop Heavy-Duty Fuel Cell Truck

A hydrogen society is closer each year.

Toyota Motor Corporation and Hino Motors, Ltd. have agreed to jointly develop a heavy-duty 25-ton fuel cell truck, and to proceed with initiatives toward its practical use through verification tests. Cruising range will be set at approximately 600 km.

Toyota and Hino are “determined to take proactive action toward resolving global environmental issues as one of the most important corporate tasks.” The two companies have declared large-scale goals to reduce CO2 emissions by 2050 and are developing electric vehicle technologies for widespread use in society. 

In order to achieve further reductions in CO2 emissions, major improvements will be required in the environmental performance of heavy-duty trucks, which account for about 60% percent of the total CO2 emissions from commercial vehicles in Japan.

For the electrification of commercial vehicles, the optimum powertrain must be adopted to ensure outstanding environmental performance and practicality as a business vehicle in terms of cruising range, load capacity, and other aspects depending on the usage.

Heavy-duty trucks are typically used for highway transportation; therefore, they are required to have sufficient cruising range and load capacity as well as fast refueling capability. For this reason, fuel cell vehicles that run on hydrogen with its higher energy density are considered effective.

The heavy-duty fuel cell truck in this joint development project is based on Hino Profia and is being developed with technologies both Toyota and Hino have supported over the years.

The chassis is specially designed with the optimum packaging for a fuel cell vehicle, and steps are being taken through comprehensive weight reduction to ensure a sufficient load capacity.

The powertrain is equipped with two Toyota fuel cell stacks that have been newly developed for Toyota’s next Mirai and includes vehicle driving control that applies heavy-duty hybrid vehicle technologies developed by Hino. Also, cruising range will be set at approximately 600 km to meet high standards in both environmental performance and practicality as a commercial vehicle.

Toyota and Hino think hydrogen is an important energy source for the future and have worked together on developing technologies for fuel cell vehicles for more than fifteen years since a joint demonstration trials of the fuel cell bus in 2003.