As an alternative to battery-electric vehicle drivetrains, Toyota is pursuing development of hydrogen–oxygen fuel cells to power cars, trucks and even entire cities. Toyota Research Institute of North America (TRINA) has developed a simulation-driven methodology for accelerating the R&D process for fuel cell flow field plates.
"Electrify everything." Among those seeking to reduce the world's reliance on fossil fuels, this phrase has become a rallying cry. We can see the electrification imperative in action all around us, as hybrid gas–electric vehicles (HEVs) and battery–electric vehicles (BEVs) are now familiar sights on the highway. But even as many automakers ramp up HEV and BEV production, one company is dedicated to developing electric cars that do not rely primarily on batteries for energy storage. Instead, these cars carry hydrogen, which provides electricity when combined with oxygen from the air inside a fuel cell.
The company pursuing this alternate route is Toyota. The commercialization of hydrogen-fueled vehicles faces many obstacles, but if anybody can put the world on fuel cell-powered wheels, it could be the world's largest automaker (Ref. 1). Toyota is directing great financial, physical, and human resources toward automotive fuel cell research, but it sees vehicle development as only the beginning of a long journey. The company's vision leads far beyond cars; it foresees the emergence of a global "hydrogen society". In this proposed society, fossil fuel-burning engines, heating systems, and generators would be replaced by fuel cells that extract electric current from hydrogen. Toyota's efforts to reach this destination are as far-sighted as its adoption of the Japanese city of Susono as a hydrogen-tech test bed, and as focused as its refinement of a generative design methodology for optimizing fuel cell performance.
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