Details have been finalized on an agreement signed by Honda, Toyota, Nissan among other car companies for a Japanese Hydrogen charging station network.
Japan and its major automakers are still hellbent on making hydrogen cars and its charging infrastructure part of the future of transportation beyond traditional internal combustion engines. According to Carscoops on their update on the signed agreement from earlier yesterday (Dec. 13,2017) plans have been finalized and action presumably put into motion that would see Japan begin construction on 80 new hydrogen charging stations that would prime the market for Toyota, Nissan, and Honda to sell a combined 40,000 hydrogen vehicles by 2020. Check out what a hydrogen charging station in Japan would look like below.
In addition to the infrastructure, the partnership would facilitate new hydrogen technologies, research, and development into making charging more convenient and to standardize charging points for more than one vehicle make.
Currently, there are only 91 hydrogen refueling stations in Japan which services and fills hydrogen for just 2,200 hydrogen cars roaming around Japan’s roads. With this plan finalized, nine additional stations would be opened by March of 2018.
2020 also has importance for Japan as they’re currently slated to host the next summer Olympic games. Typically, this gives a chance for that nation to showcase the technologies they’ve been cultivating for the past four years since Brazil.
Priced at more than twice that of an equivalent electric car and with hydrogen stations costing millions to construct due to the high pressures needed to store hydrogen, sales of cars and construction of new stations has been slow goings.
While the popularity of hydrogen cars has remained pretty much a Japanese trend, support for hydrogen cars has slowly picked up in the United States.
In California, there are 31 Hydrogen refueling stations, as of this writing, which is operational as a retail site. In addition, Honda has picked up steam in advertising their Honda Clarity which comes in a plug-in hybrid, all-electric, and hydrogen platform.
It looks like Japan is committed to a feature that sees Hydrogen as one of the better alternatives to regular fossil fuels. With quick refuel times and less total waste when compared to electric cars, Japan is counting on the tangible benefits soon outweighing the costs to make the pressurized fuel.
