Lexus HS Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Prototype Spotted!

Posted by Kevin on August 13th, 2012

A Lexus HS hydrogen fuel-cell prototype has been spotted in Death Valley by CAR Magazine spy photographers.

With the front grille being the only exterior difference compared to the standard HS, there’s only one way its secret could be revealed — here’s the HS on a fuel stop:

Lexus HS Fuel Cell Prototype Refuelled

This comes one week after Toyota USA president Jim Lentz announced that a hydrogen fuel-cell sedan would debut in 2015 — at the time, no further details were given, including what brand the vehicle would be released under.

Even with the HS test mule, there’s no concrete evidence that this fuel-cell sedan would be a Lexus — still, it makes for some interesting speculation. Would you be interested in a hydrogen-powered Lexus?

[Source: CAR Magazine via LexusForum.nl]

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Comments
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    Crux
  • August 13, 2012
Hmm interesting. The HS, needs to go away its the ugly duckling out of all the siblings. 
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    matisse
  • August 13, 2012
ofcourse, there is a place on a market for a brand for well educated wealthy people who take care about environment... mostly they'd rather prefer a comfy raliable car's better than bmw=troubles, they do enjoy the milage together with sporty feeling too.
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I could be wrong but unless the HS are packaged differently in the U.S. this looks like a Toyota Sai with HS rims. The grille isn't one from the HS and there is no lip spoiler. The rest is definitely HS though.
    Y
    Toyota SAI looks like this , http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Toyota_Sai_001.JPG 
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    Lexus LFA
  • August 13, 2012
Now that I look at it I see that the c pillars of the ES and the HS are very similar and I think the ES looks Absolutely gorgeous
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    Ochiko
  • August 14, 2012
Hey, Lexus HS! From now on you shall be called Lexus Hydrogen Sedan! :)
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    Erich Kerner
  • August 14, 2012
Bob Carter at the 2012 J.P. Morgan Auto Conference today: "For example, if you team a hybrid system with a fuel-cell, the vehicle will get better fuel economy than a standard fuel cell vehicle. And hybrids can be teamed with larger batteries to increase the range of plug-in models." Maybe Lexus is working on such a car......
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      LF_EH
    • August 15, 2012
    The great thing about Lexus Hybrid Drive, is that it can be combined with future technologies Hybrid + Fuel Cell As soon as the infrastructure is in place - you should expect to see a hydrogen model available
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    Ochiko
  • August 15, 2012
Guys, Does anyone know what is the practicality of this technology? Let's not introduce some hard to maintain/store fuel that is expensive to run. I am not an expert into technologies but does Hydrogen technology guarantees that there will be possibility for many companies to produce the fuel? Not just the current oil companies? Cheers!
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    Tech26
  • August 16, 2012
Hydrogen is a huge waste of time and energy. The energy it takes to get clean hydrogen through electrolysis would be more efficiently used by putting it dirrectly into a battery for a plug in battery electric vehicle. The only way to get cheap hydrogen is by separating it out of natural gas which creates CO2. Do some research, read some books on hydrogen, and you'll see it's a waste of time that the coal / oil / gas industry is pushing for so they can stay in business.

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