Japan in 2017: about 200,000 hydrogen cars by 2025. There were 8,506
Ministerial Council on Renewable Energy, Hydrogen and Related Issues (Japan)26 December 2017 · Japan's Basic Hydrogen Strategy
«the target for fuel-cell vehicles is about 40,000 by 2020, about 200,000 by 2025 and about 800,000 by 2030»
About 8,500 fuel-cell vehicles by end-2025, 4% of the target.
The interim goal of 40,000 by 2020 was missed too: there were 4,100. Since 2021 the fleet has grown by a few hundred cars a year.
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Japan was the first to adopt a national hydrogen strategy and bet on fuel cell cars: they run on hydrogen and emit only water. Here is how many such cars there were in the country.
First the words: who said it, when and where, verbatim (translations are ours). Answer Yes or No, or just open the answer: the stamp is the outcome, below it what came of it. On the chart the dark line is the fact year by year up to the deadline, the pale one after it; the blue dashed line is the promised number from the year of the words to the deadline, the light band the time the promise gave; the ring on the line is when it was said, the ring in the stamp’s colour the fact in the deadline year, beside it how far it landed from the goal. The numbers on the right are the scale.
- Ministerial Council on Renewable Energy, Hydrogen and Related Issues (Japan), Japan's Basic Hydrogen Strategy quote
«FCV については 2020 年までに４万台程度、2025 年までに 20万台程度、2030 年までに 80 万台程度の普及を…目標とし» — the target for fuel-cell vehicles is about 40,000 by 2020, about 200,000 by 2025 and about 800,000 by 2030
METI (Министерство экономики, торговли и промышленности Японии)
- What happened did not come true
About 8,500 fuel-cell vehicles by end-2025, 4% of the target.
Goal: Japan’s Basic Hydrogen Strategy, Ministerial Council on Renewable Energy, Hydrogen and Related Issues, 26 December 2017. Fact: International Energy Agency, Global EV Data Explorer (fuel cell vehicle stock, all modes). Outcome: «came true» — the promised number reached by the deadline («about» within 5%), an event happened before the end of the year promised; «exceeded» — with room to spare; «nearly» — short by no more than 10%; «late» — reached, but after the deadline; «did not come true» — not reached; «came true, then undone» — reached, then reversed. The deadline is the end of the year named.
The 2025 goal was repeated in the economy ministry’s 2019 roadmap. Hydrogen stations (a goal of 320 by fiscal 2025) are not assessed here: no open official series was found.
A question for this picture
A car needs a station, a station needs cars: where do you start?