Toyota plans to build 100 fuel-cell buses in time for the 2020 Olympics

By Stephen Edelstein Published October 25, 2016

Toyota isn’t just developing hydrogen fuel-cell passenger cars.

Alongside its Mirai sedan, Toyota will begin selling fuel-cell buses in Japan next year. It already has an agreement with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to supply two buses for transit service, and hopes to have a fleet of 100 buses in operation in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Deliveries will ramp up in 2018 to meet that goal, Toyota said in a statement.

Recommended Videos

Known simply as the Toyota FC Bus, the vehicle is the result of development work conducted by the carmaker and its truck division, Hino. Each bus can hold 76 passengers, including 26 seated and 50 standing. Power comes courtesy of a pair of 114-kilowatt (152-horsepower) electric motors. In addition to the onboard fuel-cell stack, the bus has a nickel-metal hydride battery pack to provide supplemental power.

Read more: Chevy built a fuel-cell pickup truck for the U.S. army

The bus also has the ability to discharge electricity into the grid, meaning it can be used as a source of emergency power during outages. Japanese automakers and regulators have been emphasizing this ability in the wake of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which led to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Provided it has a full tank of hydrogen, Toyota says the bus can be used to power emergency evacuation sites like school gymnasiums, or home appliances.

Enthusiasm for hydrogen is fairly widespread in Japan. Prime Minister has discussed a “hydrogen society,” where fuel cells power buildings and infrastructure as well as vehicles. Toyota also helps to develop “stationary fuel cells for use in homes,” which could compete with the standalone lithium-ion battery packs produced by Tesla and others for home energy storage.

Fuel-cell technology will probably have a big presence at the 2020 Olympics, as both the Japanese government and corporations try to promote it. Given the small number of operating hydrogen stations, though, it may be a while before fuel-cell buses become a practical option for world cities.

Topics

Stephen Edelstein

Contributing Editor

Stephen is a freelance automotive journalist covering all things cars. He likes anything with four wheels, from classic cars…

Cars

Waymo and Toyota explore personally owned self-driving cars

Front three quarter view of the 2023 Toyota bZ4X.

Waymo and Toyota have announced they’re exploring a strategic collaboration—and one of the most exciting possibilities on the table is bringing fully-automated driving technology to personally owned vehicles.
Alphabet-owned Waymo has made its name with its robotaxi service, the only one currently operating in the U.S. Its vehicles, including Jaguars and Hyundai Ioniq 5s, have logged tens of millions of autonomous miles on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin.
But shifting to personally owned self-driving cars is a much more complex challenge.
While safety regulations are expected to loosen under the Trump administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has so far taken a cautious approach to the deployment of fully autonomous vehicles. General Motors-backed Cruise robotaxi was forced to suspend operations in 2023 following a fatal collision.
While the partnership with Toyota is still in the early stages, Waymo says it will initially study how to merge its autonomous systems with the Japanese automaker’s consumer vehicle platforms.
In a recent call with analysts, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai signaled that Waymo is seriously considering expanding beyond ride-hailing fleets and into personal ownership. While nothing is confirmed, the partnership with Toyota adds credibility—and manufacturing muscle—to that vision.
Toyota brings decades of safety innovation to the table, including its widely adopted Toyota Safety Sense technology. Through its software division, Woven by Toyota, the company is also pushing into next-generation vehicle platforms. With Waymo, Toyota is now also looking at how automation can evolve beyond assisted driving and into full autonomy for individual drivers.
This move also turns up the heat on Tesla, which has long promised fully self-driving vehicles for consumers. While Tesla continues to refine its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, it remains supervised and hasn’t yet delivered on full autonomy. CEO Elon Musk is promising to launch some of its first robotaxis in Austin in June.
When it comes to self-driving cars, Waymo and Tesla are taking very different roads. Tesla aims to deliver affordability and scale with its camera, AI-based software. Waymo, by contrast, uses a more expensive technology relying on pre-mapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar and lidar (a laser-light radar), that regulators have been quicker to trust.

Cars

Aston Martin DBX S is the world’s most powerful SUV, if you ignore electric

Aston Martin DBX S

British brand Aston Martin has unveiled what it is the most powerful non-electrified SUV on the market in the DBX S. The new flagship SUV blends the dynamism of the DBX 707 with engine enhancements derived from the Valhalla supercar, to deliver what the company is promising to be a more engaging drive through increased power, reduced weight, and a more assertive design.

The DBX S continues Aston Martin’s tradition of using the ‘S’ suffix to denote higher-performance versions of existing models – something it first did back in 2004 with the Vanquish S.

Cars

I drove 500 miles with Android Automotive, here’s why every car needs it

Google News on Android Automotive on the Chevy Equinox 2025

The worlds of smartphones and cars have long been colliding, as Google and Apple have prioritized building new experiences with CarPlay and Android Auto, respectively, even as carmakers have continued to develop their own infotainment experiences.

Despite the success of Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, both platforms have key issues, namely that they run on top of the car’s operating system, which means they lack the tight integration that yields the best experience and rely on your phone for certain functions. To address these issues, both companies have also been developing operating systems that can power cars.