Yamaha Motor Co. said Wednesday it has made advances in developing a fuel-cell motorcycle and hopes to have a product on the market soon.
Yamaha, based in Iwata, Shizuoka Prefecture, has developed a fuel-cell stack, the core component able to generate 500 watts of electricity per hour, company officials said.
With the help of the stack, the fuel-cell motorbike has a driving performance equal to that of a 50cc scooter, they said.
Fuel-cell vehicles are powered by electricity generated through a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, which occurs in the stack. They emit water vapor instead of harmful exhaust gases. This means there is no carbon dioxide, a major cause of global warming.
Yamaha uses a mixture of liquid methanol and water as fuel to create hydrogen inside the stack, making the stack design more compact.