Toyota, Honda, Nissan To Support Hydrogen Fueling Sites In Japan

Hydrogen station in Amagasaki City, Japan

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Electric-car adoption is being helped by manufacturers spending money to build up charging infrastructure, taking it upon themselves to install charging stations for customers to use.

Given the scarcity of hydrogen fueling stations, a similar effort may be required for fuel-cell cars to carve out a permanent place in showrooms.

Such an effort will now be undertaken by Japan's three largest carmakers in their home country.

Honda, Nissan, and Toyota announced that they will work together to develop hydrogen-fueling infrastructure in Japan, but were light on details about how that would be accomplished.

Hydrogen station in Ebina City, Japan

A press release noted that "specific measures" to be undertaken by the three partners "will be determined at a later date."

Those measures could "underwriting a portion of the expenses in involved" in operating hydrogen fueling stations, the companies said.

This undertaking makes sense for two of the partners. The 2016 Toyota Mirai fuel-cell sedan is already on sale in Japan, and Honda plans to launch a production fuel-cell car based on the recent FCV and FCEV concepts next year.