By Rob Stapleton
Alaska Journal of Commerce

A trip from Fairbanks to Vancouver, British Columbia, using hydrogen fuel in a hybrid car proved so successful for Toyota that it resulted in car sales in Southern California.

Toyota Motors revealed the achievement of its ongoing hydrogen-hybrid fuel cell development program at a press conference, Nov. 14 at the Los Angeles Auto Show.

A recent 2,300-mile trek in a Toyota Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle from Fairbanks to Vancouver along the Alaska Highway confirmed substantial progress in reliability and durability, cold-weather operation and extended range capability of Toyota's hybrid fuel cell system.

“It was a grueling trip, but it proved to be just what we wanted,” said Craig Scott, manager of advanced technologies for Toyota Motor Co. in Los Angeles.

Scott says there were no issues at all on the trip. The August expedition from Fairbanks included nine vehicles and 18 people.

“The car was great. It was keeping the crew together that was the hardest part of the trip,” said Scott.

Besides the special car and its entourage, Scott said the scenery provided the most memorable part of the trip.

“The most vivid memory of the trip was how lush and green it was in Alaska and the Yukon. The closer we got to Vancouver, it was amazing how the topography changed and the climate became arid and desert-like,” Scott said.

According to Scott, the car was a prototype vehicle with new tanks and hybrid software. “Everything was built by hand, and then we didn't know what to expect on the Alaska Highway either,” Scott said.

Vehicle preparation consisted of adding tubular guards for the grille, rockers and rear-end, a roof rack and a few appropriate graphics to mark the occasion. Every mile of the journey was monitored in real-time by a dedicated laptop program that measured distance, time, speed, and hydrogen tank temperature and fuel-consumption.

The entire trip was shot in high-definition video. And to verify and chronicle the achievement, “Road and Track” magazine engineering editor Dennis Simanaitis was invited to come along as referee and co-driver. Scott said the magazine received an exclusive for their publication on this trip.

One of the key reasons engineers chose the route from Fairbanks to Vancouver was because Canada allows mobile re-fueling of high-pressure hydrogen vehicles along its public highways. Without a network of hydrogen fueling stations every 300 miles, mobile refueling was a necessity.

"Beyond the single-tank range capability, this new system was developed to deal with two major challenges to the refinement of fuel-cell power-trains. That is, starting and operating in cold temperatures and standing up to the vibration and harshness of rough road conditionsÉ over a long distanceÉ over a long time,” Scott said.

"Equally important was to show how the development of Toyota's hydrogen fuel cell powertrains continue to move forward and mature at an impressive pace, far in advance of an infrastructure that will be necessary to support them."

To add a sense of risk and adventure, Toyota engineers planned to accomplish the feat with no practice runs and no pre-trip evaluations. If they made it to Vancouver, great; if not, it would be chalked up to research and development.

Two companies were enlisted to assist with mobile refueling. Linde, a German company based in the U.S. provided the rolling supply of hydrogen, while Canadian-based Powertech Labs supplied a self-contained re-fueling station. Mounted on two separate flat-bed trucks, the refueling team moved in advance of the Highlander FCHV, setting up shop at pre-determined intervals. A RAV4 camera vehicle followed the FCHV from start to finish, while a pair of Toyota Tundra pickup trucks followed as support vehicles.

The first leg of the drive was the most suspenseful. The caravan needed to travel more than 316 miles from Fairbanks to Beaver Creek across the Canadian border in order to legally refuel. Not only did the vehicle make it, the onboard monitoring system confirmed that the vehicle could have covered nearly 400 miles before it needed to be re-fueled.

During the second and third days, the group covered the most remote sections of the Yukon Territory. The roughest patches of highway, the coldest weather and numerous encounters with herds of elk, goat and caribou often slowed the pace to a crawl.

Whether sharing the road with an unimpressed group of buffalo or sailing along a vast open stretch of tundra at 90 miles an hour, the Highlander FCHV performed without a glitch for seven days and 2,300 miles.

The test vehicle got between 40-50 miles per kilo of hydrogen, which equals 40-50 miles per gallon.

Toyota's Electric Powertrain division in Toyota City, Japan, developed all components including the next-generation fuel stack, battery and hybrid-electric powertrain.

Expensive and time-consuming research marked the beginning phases of the project, but it ensured a direct line to all phases of research and development. In the end, it produced a higher quality, more reliable and affordable product.

Toyota's comprehensive advanced vehicle development program continues to move forward with various promising technologies. On Nov. 10, Toyota delivered the first two Prius plug-in hybrid vehicles to the University of California Berkeley and the University of California Irvine. The universities will conduct both technical and market research on these vehicles in real world conditions, thus playing a major role in the eventual market preparedness of this emerging technology.

Rob Stapleton can be reached at rob.stapleton@alaskajournal.com.