Toshiba hints at sooner-rather-than-later fuel-cell debut

Toshiba has hinted that it may introduce fuel cell-based products on a commercial scale within the next few months.

In an interview with Register Hardware, Thomas Teckentrup, Toshiba's European General Manager for Computer Systems Marketing and Business Development, said that, although the company still has some issues to iron out, he expected it to only be “a few more months before everything comes together”.

“It’s very complicated and there are still problems to sort out,” Teckentrup said. For example, government regulation and fuel distribution methods are still causing Toshiba some problems, he admitted.

But the possibility of fuel cell-based and commercially available gadgets, such as laptops, arriving this side of Christmas is nonetheless exciting.

It would also mean that the firm’s ahead of its own self-imposed deadline – re-iterated earlier this month – to introduce fuel cells for portable devices commercially by the end of March 2009.

Teckentrup kept mum about which products Toshiba might introduce fuel cell power for first, but the firm’s already shown off a UMPC fitted with a fuel cell power source.