An ice cream freezer is mounted on the front wheel of a Toyota Motor Corp. fuel cell bicycle.
17:48 JST, July 26, 2024
Toyota Motor Corp. will distribute hydrogen-cooled ice cream to spectators at the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games, the company announced Thursday.
Toyota will demonstrate at several locations for the Games: a fuel cell bike that generates electricity using hydrogen will be on display with a freezer full of ice attached to the front wheel. With this experiment, the company will show its decarbonization technology to the world.
Filling containers with hydrogen at high pressure requires special qualifications, which is one of the obstacles to the widespread deployment of this technology. Toyota has made it easy to fill the bike’s fuel cell by packing the hydrogen into a portable, 58-centimetre-long cylinder-shaped cartridge. The energy generated by the hydrogen will power both the bike and the freezer. Toyota plans to continue the experiment until early September, when the Paralympic Games in Paris conclude.
In addition, Toyota is also providing 500 of its Mirai fuel cell vehicles and 1,000 electric vehicles to the Games’ organizers and staff. After the Games, the fuel cell vehicles will be used as taxis there, the automaker said.
