Toyota and Hydrogen

The global automotive industry has made a massive turnaround in the past few years, with an onslaught of EVs from every brand, and some like Jaguar who plan to ditch combustion engines altogether. It's safe to say that with EVs on the rise and e-fuel production still in its infancy, the future of the internal combustion engine has never been more uncertain. 

However, Toyota is adamant on finding alternate paths to vehicular propulsion. Their first attempt was the hydrogen fuel cell-powered Toyota Mirai, which barely dented EV demand due to the problems associated with hydrogen tanks and the rarity of fuel stations.

However, Toyota hasn't given up on hydrogen. They learned from the Mirai's shortcomings and took an all-new approach with how they use hydrogen as a fuel, eventually coming up with the hydrogen combustion engine. Unlike a fuel cell which acts as a battery and drives an electric motor, the hydrogen combustion engine does exactly what the name suggests. 

Toyota took a regular Corolla engine, modified its internals, and used liquid hydrogen instead of gasoline as the fuel. The results? Carbon-free emissions and performance that's on par with a gasoline engine. However, it's an oversimplification compared to the merits that hydrogen brings over EVs, ten of which will follow.

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With fossil fuels being a limited resource that's already depleting at a rapid rate, there's always the distant fear of what will happen once the oil reserves do run out. Synthetic fuels and e-fuels are clearly not widespread enough to help mitigate the problem. 

That's where hydrogen – being the most abundant element in the universe – comes in handy. The idea of hydrogen acting as a fuel that can not only power future ICE cars but also existing and older engines through a conversion, is truly exciting.  READ MORE...