FUEL-CELL CLASS 8-take 2.0

With a longer-range and more-refined fuel cell-powered heavy-duty truck, Toyota aims to eventually eliminate emissions from trucks serving increasingly congested California ports.

At a late-July auto-industry conference in Michigan, Toyota revealed the second generation of its Project Portal prototype Class 8 heavy-duty truck driven electrically from fuel-cell power. The Project Portal 2.0 maintains the burly power and hauling capacity of the first Project Portal truck, but adds 50% more driving range, said Andrew Lund, chief engineer for Toyota Motor North America Research & Development.

As the new truck glided up noiselessly behind him, Lund said this “Beta” version of the original Project Portal “Alpha” fuel-cell truck-powered by the pirated fuel-cell stack and related components of two Mirai fuel-cell sedans-maintains its 670-hp (500-kW) and 1325 lb·ft (1796 N·m) output and 80,000-lb (36,288-kg) gross combined weight (GCW) ratings while now expanding total driving range to 300 mi (483 km).