Time To Look At Toyota? (TM)

Toyota Motors TM is going to move into hydrogen powered cars by 2015 or less, as it seeks to expand the alternative energy car market. Maybe it's time to start to looking at shares of the Japanese automaker on this news. The major issue has been cost to the consumer, according to Takeshi Uchiyamada, Toyota's executive vice president for research and product development. Toyota has currently cut the cost to less than $100,000, and expects to be able to cut it to less than half that when sales are ready to roll out. “I have high expectations for fuel-cell vehicles as a candidate for next-generation cars,” Uchiyamada said at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. “Over the past several years, we've seen many of the outstanding technical issues solved.” “When it comes to fuel-cell cars, the cruising distance is almost comparable to conventional gasoline-engine cars,” Uchiyamada said. Toyota will initially focus on selling the hydorgen-based cars in California, Japan and Germany, which have the most developed fueling infrastructure. “We'd like to gradually expand regionally to a global basis,” Uchiyamada said. If Toyota is successful in selling these cars, this could be a huge boon for Toyota's future growth. As the world moves off its dependence of gasoline, and alternative fuel-based vehicles overtake gas run cars, Toyota, with its Prius lineup and this new development of a hydrogen car, make Toyota an extremely attractive investment for the long run.