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Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) has been developing fuel cell (FC) system technology since 1992. In 2008 the Toyota "FCHV-adv" was released as part of a demonstration program. It established major improvements in key performance areas such as cold start/drive capability, efficiency, driving range, and durability. However, in order to facilitate the commercial widespread adoption of fuel cell vehicles (FCVs), improvements in performance and further reductions in size and cost were required.In December 2014, Toyota launched the world’s first commercially available fuel cell vehicle (FCV) the "Mirai" powered by the Toyota Fuel Cell System (TFCS). Simplicity, reliability and efficiency have been significantly improved within the Toyota TFCS. As a result, the Mirai has become an attractive vehicle which could lead the way towards full-scale popularization of FCVs.

For energy saving and global warming prevention, Toyota has developed Toyota Hybrid System (THS) for mass-produced passenger cars, which achieves drastic improvement in fuel efficiency and reduction in exhaust emissions compared to conventional gasoline engine cars. The THS has two motive power sources which engage depending on driving conditions. It's power is supplied either from an engine (controlled by the engine ECU) or an electric motor (controlled by the motor ECU) which is powered by a high-voltage battery (monitored by the battery ECU). These ECUs are controlled by a hybrid ECU. Each ECU has been developed with a fail-safe system in mind, to ensure driver safety in case of vehicle breakdowns. Among these ECUs, this paper reports particularly on the newly introduced ECUs: hybrid ECU and battery ECU. In the development of these ECUs, special attention was focused on fail-safe performance.