Everyone knows that Toyota has done right with hybrids with its increasingly popular Toyota Prius. Even though Toyota is testing a plug-in Prius in the United Kingdom, the company is still working on other hybrid projects. One such project is the Toyota Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle (FCHV). According to a fact sheet published on the Toyota media site on September 11

“The FCHV’s fuel cell system features four hydrogen fuel tanks, an electric motor, a nickel-metal hydride battery, and a power control unit. The hydrogen gas is fed into the fuel cell stack where it is combined with oxygen. The electricity produced by this chemical reaction is used to power the electric motor and to charge the battery. The power control unit decides when to use the battery and when to use the fuel cell stack to power the vehicle, the same mechanism that manages the gasoline engine and battery in the Prius.”

There are currently 18 Toyota FCHVs in use in the United States and Japan. I hope that Toyota is gathering the information they need in order to mass-produce a fuel cell hybrid in the near future.