On December 2nd, 2002, Toyota’s first hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (FCHVs) were delivered to researchers at the University of California at Irvine and the University of California at Davis. Unlike Toyota’s previous clean energy project, the gas-electric hybrid known as the Prius, FCHVs use a hydrogen fuel-cell system that generates electricity by combining hydrogen with oxygen. In turn, that electricity powers the car’s motor and charges its batteries. As a result, the vehicle creates no environmentally unfriendly byproducts: its only emission is water vapor.
