Toyota's Hydrogen Semis Can Now Refuel in 8 Minutes for 450 Miles
Tests with a federal lab show diesel-like fill times, and Toyota is now fueling heavy trucks in Southern California ahead of its own powertrain's 2027 debut.
Toyota says its hydrogen fuel cell semis can now take on enough fuel for up to 450 miles in about eight minutes. That is roughly how long a diesel rig spends at the pump, and it is the strongest case yet that hydrogen can match diesel on downtime.
The result comes from testing with the Department of Energy's National Laboratory of the Rockies in Golden, Colorado, and it lands as Toyota starts fueling heavy trucks at its largest US parts warehouse. With Nikola gone, Hyundai's Xcient has been the only hydrogen semi with a real US dealer footprint. Toyota now says its own fuel cell trucks will enter commercial service in 2027.
Five times faster than a car pump
The key number is flow rate. Toyota and lab engineers ran multiple rounds of 70 MPa fills under the SAE J2601-5 high-flow standard, pushing hydrogen at up to 300 grams per second. Toyota says that is about five times the rate of a conventional passenger-car dispenser.
The automaker puts the energy transfer at the equivalent of a 20 MW charger. For scale, Tesla's Megacharger peaks at about 1.2 MW, and Tesla says it restores roughly 70% of a Semi's range in about 30 minutes.
It is also a big step from Toyota's own figures earlier this year. When it announced a deal with Hyroad Energy in May, the company quoted 15 to 20 minutes to refuel those trucks.
From mobile tanks to a public station
The first real-world fueling is far less exotic. Toyota has parked two mobile hydrogen refuelers at its North American Parts Center California in Ontario, its biggest parts distribution site in the country. Trucks fueled there will haul freight between the Port of Los Angeles and Ontario, and across the region.
Those first trucks come from Hyroad Energy, the former Nikola fueling spinoff that bought 117 Nikola fuel cell trucks out of bankruptcy in August 2025. Under the May agreement, the two companies are putting 40 Class 8 fuel cell trucks to work in Southern California. Trucks built around Toyota's own certified fuel cell powertrain will join later.
A permanent station is planned on the same site. Toyota says it will be open to the public and offer both conventional and high-flow fueling for heavy trucks, plus a separate area for passenger cars. Over the coming months, the company also plans to upgrade the private station at its Hydrogen Headquarters to the high-flow standard.
What Toyota hasn't said
Toyota hasn't named the truck that will carry its production powertrain, given an opening date for the public station, or said what hydrogen will cost per kilogram. That last number matters most. Battery-electric rivals such as the Tesla Semi and BYD's ETT 44 run on cheaper electricity, and fast fills only help fleets if the fuel itself pencils out.
