INTERVIEW: THIEBAULT PAQUET 1 1. Toyota is looking to drive down the cost of its fuel cell modules joint venture with SinoHytec in China, all feed back into global development where appropriate. “We have to have discussions [between regions] to make sure we have a system that will fit – as much as possible – everybody,” Paquet continues. “We need to achieve quite a big production volume and drive down the cost. Some customers are really key, from a volume point of view. If our mother company cannot develop unique applications, then the regions will do it by themselves. ‘One system fits all’ is not always so easy.” Hydrogen Factory Europe functions as a commercial organization in its own right, not only manufacturing fuel cell modules on a pilot production line at the Toyota Technical Centre in Brussels but also capable of accepting RFIs, making supplier agreements and providing after-sales and technical support for installations. Customers include truck manufacturers Hyliko and VDL (which will soon supply vehicles to Toyota’s logistics fleet), coach builder Caetanobus and marine solution supplier Corvus, which is stacking four modules into a rack, then multiplying these to megawatt outputs. Toyota’s second-generation fuel cell system was designed with this flexibility in mind. It’s the same technology used in the Mirai and Crown sedans but repackaged as flat or box-shaped modules, in either 60kW or 80kW variants to suit different space and performance requirements. The module includes air and hydrogen supply, cooling and power control, reducing the installation complexity for end users. Each project is helping Toyota understand how fuel cell systems perform in a real-world use cases. Hydrogen economy There is growing support in Europe for the infrastructure needed for H 2 fuel Despite the momentum behind electric vehicles, Paquet says renewed support for hydrogen suggests it will have an important role in Europe’s future transportation system. The European Union’s REpowerEU plan is targeting 10,000,000 tons of hydrogen production by 2030, with an equal volume imported from other regions. This includes supplying industry, but member states will need to meet use targets for renewable fuels by the end of the decade – either by volume or as a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. There’s also support for fueling and infrastructure. The Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) was approved last July and will require 700-bar hydrogen stations – suited to cars and HGVs – at 200km intervals throughout the core TEN-T road network by 2031. By 2050, the EU believes hydrogen could meet 20-50% of energy demands from transportation. The UK government also has ambitions to create a domestic hydrogen sector. Its 2021 strategy set a 5GW low-carbon hydrogen production target by 2030, and £23m (US$29m) is available for infrastructure. However, funding is largely directed toward heavy-duty vehicles rather than cars and vans. 2. Toyota’s fuel cell efforts span applications from passenger cars through to HGVs 2 42 www.automotivepowertraintechnologyinternational.com / March 2024