Toyota published a post on their Open Road Blog today officially supporting statements by GM Vice President Larry Burns. At the recent National Hydrogen Association conference in Sacramento, Burns called on the energy industry to invest more in developing a national hydrogen fueling infrastructure. Burns declared that vehicle fuel cell technology works and manufacturers are ready to move forward with commercialization. Unfortunately, they can't really do that without the ability for customers to fuel their vehicles. While many have focused on the cost of building out a network of hydrogen stations, only a small fraction of the current number of gas stations are needed to support widespread use of hydrogen vehicles. There are 170,000 gas stations in the U.S. right now, but only 12,000 stations would be needed to have a station within two miles of 70 percent of the population. Toyota called out the fact that the oil industry earned $123 billion in profits in 2007 alone. Even an estimate of $24 billion - which is at the high end of projections - would be well within the means of the energy industry to pay for a hydrogen infrastructure and it would still leave them $100 billion to play with before they even count up this year's profits. No doubt hydrogen is not the total solution, but it is one part of it.

[Source: Toyota Open Road Blog]