Toyota's Fine-N Hybrid/Fuel Cell Concept Car
by John Laumer, Philadelphia 
on 08.15.05
While every other car company is racing to match the Prius' ICE/battery hybrid design, Toyota has the next best thing in it's sights: a fuel cell/battery hybrid with drive-by-wire on all four wheels. Yes...we know its only a concept car. But it seems like only a few years ago that people said that very same thing about Prius. And, a TreeHugger can dream can't he? For some cool trade show jargon have look below the fold.
The Fine-N is a fuel cell hybrid concept vehicle designed to shape the future of motoring. Advances in fuel cell hybrid system technology promise to bring the future motorists more than just environmental benefits, a new freedom of vehicle form liberated from the usual power train layout ..
The Fine-N's overall package consist of a low-flat floor with the length of a Corolla, but with a cabin even more spacious than the luxurious sedan Lexus LS430. The vehicle employs four in-wheel motors in an innovative "cabin on wheels" configuration. Key to the fresh proportions of this ground-hugging, long-wheelbase-to-length design is Toyota's fuel cell hybrid technology, which allows freedom from conventional power train layout constraints so that individually electric-powered wheels can be positioned nearly at the vehicle's four corners. With a spacious interior cabin, a cockpit fit for your driving environment, interactive controls and gauges, and a large multi-information display, and a video camera, the Fine-N is truly designed with focus on driving requirements.
As a pioneer in making practical fuel cell hybrid vehicles (FCHV), Toyota now shows the way to an even more advanced fuel cell hybrid system... Electric power from the Toyota FC Stack and a lithium ion battery drives a motor to power the vehicle, delivering acceleration on a par with a gasoline engine vehicle.
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Is there a target year for this? We better get on the list now!
=====author's response follows=====
None yet seen. Probably will first go to California as it has a number of prototype hydrogen fill stations already. Fer the rest of us, it'll be a wait.
Well, I guess it's nice to see someone making use of GM's abandoned billion dollar Hy-wire concept.
It uses hydrogen? how many miles per... um, what do you measure hydrogen in anyway? Gallons? Pounds? Cubic centimeters? Basically I just wanna know how much it's gonna cost to travel a mile in this thing, that's all.
===author's response===
Fuel cell designers speak in terms of "gasoline mpg equivalents". Roughly, this means they calculate the amount of gasoline that would be needed to move the hydrogen car of same size and weight through exactly the same maneuvers, with a similar amount of "horsepower" (how ironic after all.) Naturally this is not an exact comparison. Given the transformational nature of propulsion tech these days, I have a hunch that a better way would be total cost of ownership per person-mile traveled.
This is what Toyota does while Detroit Auto Execs are out playing Golf !!! America is DOOMED !!!
While we are waiting for Toyota to produce their H car, what is the best car available now in terms of cost per mile and no/low gasoline?
whats better about the toyota hybrid? the one ford's got looks pretty good too. on top of that they have a calculator that tells you how much you would save by driving it. eg. i payed $3.09 for my last gallan of gas, i drive 150 miles a day, so i would save over $4,000 a year. get with it toyota