Mazda Motor Corporation announced the start of a monitoring test of its hydrogen-fueled vehicle by Nippon Steel Corporation Hirohata Works located in Hyogo prefecture, Japan.

Mazda's hydrogen-fueled vehicle will be used on Nippon Steel Corp. Hirohata Work's premises for everyday work situations. With the monitoring test, conducted by a third party, and feedback from test results, Mazda will evaluate the progress of ongoing research. It will also study the feasibility of hydrogen-fueled vehicles, taking various factors into consideration, including the refueling process.

Since January, Mazda has broken in the Hydrogen-fueled vehicle at Nippon Steel Corp. Hirohata works and perfected the new refueling station there. The actual monitoring test by Nippon Steel Corp. Hirohata works is scheduled to end next January.

Nippon Steel Corp. in Hirohata produces hydrogen for use in steel sheet manufacturing. Since the end of 1992, it has provided Mazda with hydrogen fuel and a test site to conduct durability tests on hydrogen-rotary engines.

The base model of the hydrogen-fueled vehicle for the monitoring test is the Mazda Capella Cargo (626 station wagon). The current 13B-type, gasoline-rotary engine, with modifications on the fuel-injection system and the air intake system, is used in the hydrogen vehicle. The Capella Cargo-based hydrogen vehicle can generate 135 horsepower and maximum torque of 18 kg-m. Hydrogen is stored in 20 of the cell-type metal-hydride tanks, each of which can hold 2.1 Nm3 hydrogen quite safely.

Mazda exhibited a hydrogen-fueled concept car powered by a rotary engine -- the HR-X -- for the first time at the 29th Tokyo Motor Show in October of 1991. Mazda unveiled a second generation hydrogen-fueled concept car -- the HR-X2 -- at the 30th Tokyo Motor Show in October of 1993.

Mazda believes that hydrogen is promising as a clean and renewable energy, and it will continue research and development of hydrogen-fueled vehicles for practical use in the 21st century.