豐田大手筆押寶燃料電池汽車大綱
What's the future of the automobile? For all the attention Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk have received of late, the electric car is the logical guess.
汽車行業的未來在哪裏？最近，特斯拉（Tesla）及其CEO埃隆·穆斯克可謂賺足了眼球，所以，電動汽車是符合邏輯的猜測。
Not at Toyota.
但豐田汽車（Toyota）並不這樣認爲。
Hybrid or alternative fuel vehicles made up 16% of Toyota's (TM) total sales last year – 10% of that number was from electric vehicles. That sector "will grow over time, as we see improvement in batteries," Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota North America told the audience at Fortune's Brainstorm Green conference on Tuesday. "But we're really excited about this concept of fuel cell vehicles."
混合動力或替代燃料汽車佔豐田汽車去年總銷量的16%，其中，電動汽車佔比爲10%。在週二的《財富》（Fortune）綠色頭腦風暴大會（Brainstorm Green）上，豐田北美公司（Toyota North America）CEO吉姆o倫茨對觀衆表示：“隨着電池技術的改進，這個部門還會繼續增長。但真正令我們感到興奮的是燃料電池汽車的概念。”
Why? Because "it's an on-demand electric vehicle," Lentz said. "Rather than having a large heavy battery that takes a while to charge, you basically use hydrogen to produce electricity and water vapor." Another factor is that prices of batteries used in electric vehicles aren't dropping dramatically enough to offer consumers a long-range vehicle at a reasonable price. "It'll happen some day, but I can't tell you when that is," Lentz says. "The long term play is going to be fuel cell."
爲什麼？倫茨表示，因爲“這是一種基於需求的電動汽車。這種汽車沒有笨重的大號電池，不需要花很長時間充電，主要使用氫氣來產生電力和水蒸汽。”另外一個因素在於，電動汽車電池價格的下降幅度不足以爲消費者提供價格合理的遠程駕駛汽車。倫茨稱：“未來這種情況可能會有所改變，但我不知道會是什麼時候。從長期來看，燃料電池車型纔是最後的贏家。”
Lentz was quick to reel off the benefits of fuel cell vehicles: their carbon footprint is 50% better than gasoline, and their fuel costs will be low – about $30 for a 4-passenger sedan to travel 300 miles.
很快，倫茨就開始滔滔不絕地介紹燃料電池汽車的好處：它們的碳足跡比汽油改善了50%，燃料成本將降低——可乘坐4名乘客的轎車行駛300英里的費用約爲30美元。
But for all the pros there's a major con: there's no place to fill up a hydrogen car, and it's expensive to build hydrogen stations; they cost about $2 million a piece.
儘管有各種好處，但有一個重要的不利因素依然不容忽視：氫動力汽車沒有地方加註燃料，而修建氫氣站的費用又太過昂貴；每一個氫氣站的成本大約爲200萬美元。
"California has only nine or 10 [hydrogen] stations, and there are only 180 in the world," said moderator Brian Dumaine, senior editor at Fortune. "Where are you going to fill up a hydrogen car in California?"
大會主持人、《財富》雜誌資深編輯布萊恩o杜梅因說：“加利福尼亞州總共也只有9到10個（氫氣）站，全世界也僅有180個。在加州去哪兒爲氫動力汽車加註燃料？”
Lentz said that Toyota has been working with University of California at Irvine to determine the optimal location of stations and how many stations the state actually needs to satisfy about 10,000 fuel cell vehicles. "That number is 68," he said. Thanks to a $200 million investment by the state -- Toyota has invested $7 million of its own money was well -- California will have 30 stations by next year. "We're not that far away in California of having that initial hydrogen highway," Lentz said.
倫茨表示，豐田汽車正在與加州大學爾灣分校（University of California at Irvine）合作，確定氫氣站的最佳位置，以及加州滿足約10,000輛燃料電池汽車需要多少個氫氣站。他說：“我們得出的結果是68個。”憑藉加州的2億美元投資，以及豐田投入的700萬美元，加州到明年將擁有30個氫氣站。倫茨說：“加州距離實現初步氫氣高速公路的目標並不遙遠。”
And then there's the question of price? Toyota is known for its affordability. Will a fuel cell car fit into that mold?
接下來還有價格問題。豐田汽車以經濟適用性而著稱，燃料電池汽車是否也能做到這一點？
Lentz told the Brainstorm Green audience that Toyota has about 100 fuel cell vehicles on the road already – each worth about $1 million. When the company introduces its fuel cell car to the general public next year, the cost will be about 5% of that – or $50,000, according to Lentz.
倫茨對綠色頭腦風暴大會的觀衆們表示，豐田公司有約100輛燃料電池汽車已經上路——每一輛價值約100萬美元。他表示，明年公司向公衆推出燃料電池汽車時，價格將大幅下調，僅爲目前價格的5%，也就是50,000美元。
There's no doubt Lentz is enthusiastic about his company's fuel cell future, but he said he knows other people might not feel the same way – yet. "If you look at hybrids, it took 15 years from when we first introduced it to go to a marketplace of over 500,00," he said. "I think you can assume a similar acceptance rate of fuel cells down the road."
毫無疑問，倫茨對燃料電池的未來充滿熱情。但他表示，目前並不是所有人都像他一樣樂觀。他說：“以混合動力汽車爲例，從最初推出到銷量超過50,000輛，我們花了15年時間。我想大家可以做出這樣的假設：未來一段時間，燃料電池汽車會達到類似的接受度。”
