Something truly amazing comes from Turkey: some students from Sakarya University just released a prototype of what seems to be a car… but a car that consumes no more than a liter of hydrogen in a range of 568km (355 miles)!

Their new hydrogen car, called SAHIMO, weighs 110kg and was voted as the third-most fuel-efficient vehicle in the 26th Shell Eco Marathon contest last year. The student team behind the project is now looking at how to almost double the distance on the same 1 liter of hydrogen: 1000km.

SAHIMO’s prototype wasn’t cheap to build: it costed about $170,000, but I think a production version would be much cheaper. If they made it for two persons, it was great, even if it consumed 2 liters per 568km! Wow.

Toyota’s vice president Matasami Takimoto, asked about the company’s plans on releasing new zero-emission technologies at a recent shareholders’ meeting in Aichi Japan, said that they have plans to release a fuel cell-based car in 2015, not disclosing further details.

It seems like Toyota is touting with fuel cell technology since 2002, when they released a limited version of the hybrid Prius powered by a fuel cell. Storage technologies have not been encouraging the development of fuel cell technology, because of their inability to store hydrogen at the desired pressures and in the desired quantities, and because of their prohibitive price. Still, recent discoveries found that carbonized chicken feathers are a good starting point for making hydrogen storage much more viable, lowering the price of a tank to an incredible value of only $200. Carbon nanotube or metal hydride-based storages are ranging from $50,000 to $5.5 million. So, Toyota might just have a point this time.

This car’s figures are impressive: it can travel 200 miles, consuming the equivalent gasoline energy of 300mpg in hydrogen. The most interesting fact is that the power comes from a 6kW hydrogen fuel cell. For a comparison, Honda Clarity, has a 100kW fuel cell onboard – anyway, the size is not to be compared. What’s not so impressive is the maximum speed – 50mph, but considering you’ll use this car to get around your town, 50mph is more than enough.

The car’s body is made from a composite material and has four small electric motors embedded in each wheel, that also act as regenerative brakes.

The cars will be leased over 20 years, with fueling included in the cost, and the materials will be recycled at the end of each year’s lifespan. Hugo Spowers, head of Riversimple, said: “Cars evolved under very different constraints to those of today, so we must move on. The sale of cars still rewards the maximization of resource use – whereas we now accept that we must minimize resource use.” Sebastian Piech, grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, along with other members of the Piech family, have backed the project so far.

It’s an interesting idea to lease cars, but this also has a few drawbacks: you won’t own your car, but instead lose money on someone else’s, and you won’t be able to sell it to recover part of your money, like you do with your old Ford, for example. In some situations, still, this is the best method to adopt.

They are realistic and know that fuel cells are a solution for the future, even if they are not affordable any time soon. Honda, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW all follow the electric and hybrid car trend before switching to fuel cells, so by the time they will hit the market seriously, we’ll have a pretty advanced fuel cell technology – not just dreams.

It’s good to know the big players are online this time – let’s hope their hydrogen dream doesn’t fade away with time. Of course, that would be justifiable only if a better and cleaner solution would have been found.