Toyota picked the right person to warm up a packed house at its press conference during the Consumer Electronics Show.

Charismatic futurist and theoretical physicist Michio Kaku worked the audience of tech journalists and bloggers in Las Vegas, eloquently espousing benefits of a so-called hydrogen society that Toyota hopes to spur with its Mirai fuel-cell vehicle, set to go on sale later this year.

"Historians have a word for it, when the old world order begins to break apart, when nations begin to collapse and there's a new world order emerging," Kaku said to the riveted audience. "Historians say that we are 'present at the creation.' And that's where we are today: present at the creation of a new age, the new age of hydrogen."

Lofty words, but ones Toyota believes in so passionately that the company announced that it is releasing 5,680 patents it holds on hydrogen fuel cell and related technology for royalty-free use, in hopes of kickstarting the development of fuel-cell vehicles among other automakers.

"We believe the next five years is critical," said Bob Carter, Toyota's senior vice president of automotive operations, in an impromptu interview following the press conference. "So we're offering all of our 20 years of development to our competition. We think it's the right thing to do."