丰田推出第一款燃料电池汽车，特斯拉埃隆•穆斯克接招吧

    笑料般的电池，迟迟不登场的电池，以及埃隆•穆斯克。

    周三，丰田汽车公司（Toyota Motor Co. ）发布了最新款汽车，希望在绿色汽车开发的下一个阶段,与特斯拉汽车公司的电池驱动汽车展开竞争。

    在东京举行的网络直播发布会上，丰田汽车研发部总裁兼董事会成员加藤光久表示，公司的氢燃料电池汽车将于明年四月份在日本上市，并于2015年夏登陆美国和欧洲市场。

    这款汽车的预售价为700万日元（约合69,000美元），续航里程为400公里，与特斯拉（Tesla）的Model S不相上下。丰田这款汽车的成本比它之前的估算降低了30%——加藤光久认为，这主要得益于丰田为普锐斯（Prius）开发的混合动力技术所带来的交叉改进。

    虽然最初发展较为缓慢，但现在，混合动力汽车已经占到丰田汽车全球销量的10%。

    氢燃料电池汽车通过氢氧化学反应发电，排出的燃烧产物只有水蒸气。特斯拉董事长埃隆•穆斯克因为对这项技术的评价出了名的粗鲁。他说氢燃料电池技术是“狗屎”，而体面一点的评价也不过是“一堆垃圾”。

    丰田汽车借助日本政府的补助计划，降低最终售价，使它适合在大众市场销售。日本国内没有石油储备，因此一直以来，这个国家都有巨大的动力来开发替代性的汽车燃料。日本希望，到2025年能燃料电池汽车的零售价降低到200万日元。

    但这项新技术最大的挑战在于，必须投入巨资兴建专用的基础设施。与插电式电池动力汽车不同，燃料电池需要像传统油箱一样加气，而这需要一个全新的氢气站网络。不过，燃料电池也存在有利的一面。加藤光久表示，燃料电池汽车只需要三分钟就可以完成燃料补给。

    丰田汽车发言人在英国承认，基础设施问题将是初始阶段的一个棘手问题。

    他说：“这其实是鸡与蛋的问题。你必须在你认为会有人使用这种汽车的地方兴建基础设施，”他还说。“燃料电池汽车的实用性将会发挥巨大的影响力。”这一点也会推进基础设施项目的建设。

    他表示，与其他国家一样，英国也在召集汽车制造商、燃气公司和零售商，共同研究兴建这类基础设施的国家战略。（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    Fool cells, schmool cells, Elon Musk.

    Toyota Motor Co. TM Wednesday unveiled the car that it expects to go toe-to-toe with Tesla Motors Inc.’s TSLA 1.89% battery-powered ones in the next stage of green vehicle development.

    At a presentation webcast from Tokyo, head of R&D and board member Mitsuhisa Kato said the company aims to launch the car, powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, in the Japanese market in by April next year, and in the U.S. and Europe by the summer of 2015.

    The initial price will be a chunky 7 million yen ($69,000) and will have a cruising range of 400 kilometers, more or less in line with Tesla’s Model S. It’s about 30% below what Toyota had previously estimated it would cost–something that Kato put down, in part, to cross-fertilisation from the hybrid-motor technology developed by Toyota for its Prius models.

    Slow to take off initially, hybrid cars now account for over 10% of Toyota’s global sales.

    Hydrogen fuel cells generate electricity from the chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, creating water vapor as their only exhaust product. Tesla chairman Elon Musk has been notoriously rude about the technology, calling it “bull****” and, more decently, “a load of rubbish”.

    Toyota is relying on a Japanese government subsidy scheme to bring the final price down to a level where it can sell in the mass market. Japan, with no oil reserves of its own, has traditionally had a huge incentive to develop alternative motor fuels and is aiming to bring the retail price for fuel cell vehicles down to 2 million yen by 2025.

    Arguably the biggest challenge for the new technology will be the need to invest massive sums in dedicated infrastructure. Unlike plug-in battery-powered cars, the fuel cells will need to be topped up like a traditional gas tank, only from a whole new network of hydrogen stations. On the plus side, Kato said the FCV could refuel in only three minutes.

    A spokesman for Toyota in the U.K. acknowledged that the infrastructure question makes the start-up phase a particularly thorny problem.

    “It’s a sort of chicken-and-egg situation. You have to put the infrastructure where you think the cars are going to be used,” he said. “But the availability of the car will make a big difference” in generating momentum for the project.

    The U.K., like other countries, has brought together carmakers, gas companies and retailers together to work on a national strategy for rolling out such infrastructure, he said.