The City of Irvine’s current and planned initiative is to lead the country as a model urban and environmentally friendly city. Irvine has long been recognized as a premier master-planned community supporting both business and residential needs, including multicultural lifestyles, family values and healthy living. The acceptance of Toyota’s FCHV reinforces the City’s pledge to address environmental concerns as well as the community’s changing and future needs.

In support of Irvine’s ongoing model urban city initiative, the City is one of only a few nationwide to adopt a “shared vehicle” public program. The ZEV•NET (Zero Emission Vehicle • Network Enabled Transportation) program, which is operated by the NFCRC and utilises Toyota vehicles, combines mass transit with zero-emission, shared use vehicles to provide a cleaner alternative to single car commuting. In particular, the electric powered ZEV•NET vehicles address two major problems in Southern California – traffic congestion and poor air quality. Furthermore, Irvine is at the forefront of meeting federal and state clean air standards through a City fleet of vehicles, which use low-emission fuels. More than 10 percent of the City’s vehicle fleet operate on Compressed Natural Gas with more running on other alternative fuels and hybrid technologies.

The National Fuel Cell Research Center was the first university fuel cell research center established in the United States. It has been in the forefront of the emerging hydrogen economy, working closely with Toyota on its fuel cell research by evaluating vehicle performance, reliability and usability.

The NFCRC is subleasing the FCHV to the City under a program begun in December 2002, at which time the NFCRC in partnership with Toyota introduced the nation's first highway-ready vehicle powered by a hybrid electric fuel-cell engine. Under its agreement with Toyota, the NFCRC will oversee the City’s daily use of the vehicle and City officials’ introduction to the hydrogen-refueling infrastructure. The NFCRC has existing subleases with two Irvine-based companies, Orthodyne Electronics and Horiba Instruments, whose top executives are the first in the nation to drive fuel cell vehicles on a daily basis.