A number of trials of hydrogen-powered cars are underway around Australia, with proponents pushing them as a key to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions in the transport sector.
A council that wants to reduce its carbon emissions has agreed to take part in a three month trial where its staff will drive hydrogen electric vehicles.
Toyota Australia is supplying the three cars to Hobsons Bay City Council in Melbourne.
The Toyota Mirai uses hydrogen as its fuel source and is sold in Japan, California and some parts of the UK and Europe.
Toyota Australia hopes the trial will encourage government investment to help build the service stations that would be needed to sell hydrogen to motorists.
For the equivalent of $82,000 Australian, motorists in the state of California in the United States can get behind the wheel of a 2018 Toyota Mirai. A 2016 model retails for the equivalent of $30,000 Australian.
Known as a fuel-cell electric vehicle, the Mirai takes its name from the Japanese word for future.
Toyota Australia's Matthew MacLeod says the car is essentially an electric vehicle ((EV)) but without a battery.
"It's an electric vehicle, it's an EV. But instead of having a battery on board, a large battery on board, to hold that energy, it uses a hydrogen fuel-cell system, which consists of a fuel-cell device itself and then a storage tank to store the hydrogen. "
California offers various incentives to encourage people to use vehicles like the Toyota Mirai.
And it has put public money toward the creation of the first 100 new service stations where people can fill up with hydrogen.
Listen to SBS Italian interview with Chair Professor of Electrical Power Systems at the University of Melbourne Pierluigi Mancarella, discussing the future of hydrogen cars in Australia.
