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Toyota reveals secret project that has been under development.
US – If the recent tweet by Elon Musk about Tesla's intention to soon field an all-electric semi-truck caused disruption amongst the share prices of traditional HGV manufacturers, it has also apparently inspired one major potential rival to reveal their own experimental concept zero-emission truck.
Toyota’s American development division has just revealed that they have had a top secret development program – codename ‘Project Portal’ – underway examining combining their hydrogen fuel cell drive technology that has just gone on sale in their Mirai sedan with a semi-truck. In fact the concept vehicle combines two of the Mirai’s fuel cells with a more powerful electric motor and shoehorns it all into a Kenworth 660 chassis.
So secret has the project been that even the suppliers for the program were in the dark as to what was going on and the whole thing has been compared to a project by the legendary Lockheed Skunkworks, who develop cutting edge military aircraft in utter secrecy.
Hydrogen fuel cells work by taking compressed hydrogen as fuel and passing it over a catalyst that strips some of the electrons, which creates an electrical charge. This then powers batteries and an electrical drive system, similar to a convention hybrid drive vehicle. The difference is that the leftover hydrogen then combines with oxygen in the air to form water, the only emission from running the vehicle. Read more
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