Jim Lentz, the president and CEO of Toyota’s U.S. division, during auto industry conference at the Center for Automotive Research on August 7, 2012. in Traverse City, Michiganindicated that the Toyota is “….developing a lineup that includes a hydrogen fuel cell sedan in 2015.” Toyota spokeswoman Cindy Knight said that hydrogen fuel cells have recently become more attractive because of technological breakthroughs and a decline in the cost of producing hydrogen.

“Some momentum is coming around again for fuel cells,” she said. “We’ve always been working on them, but they seemed to have been eclipsed a little bit by EVs.” Forgetting about fuel cells was a somewhat natural reaction, she added, because unlike hydrogen cars, electric vehicles “are actually on the market now, and people are starting to buy them.”

“Fuel Cell vehicles have made tremendous strides,” said Catherine Dunwoody, executive director of the California Fuel Cell Partnership. Carmakers have told the partnership that they expect to put about 50,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road by 2017, though Dunwoody said the exact projections made by individual companies are secret. The state currently has eight public hydrogen fueling stations, but Dunwoody’s public-private coalition, which includes carmakers, government agencies and hydrogen suppliers, aims to get the market ready for 2015 by bringing that number to 68 at a cost of about $65 million..