Inventing Hydrogen Cars, Toyota Wants The World To Have Options Other Than Electric Cars In The Future

Toyota modified the Yaris model by using hydrogen power. (photo: doc. unsplash)

JAKARTA - The chief executive of Toyota Motor, a few weeks ago, conducted a test drive of an experimental hydrogen car in Japan. This vehicle is said to be able to preserve the millions of automotive jobs that produce internal combustion engines.

The colorful Toyota Corolla Sport that Akio Toyoda drives around the Okayama International Circuit in western Japan, is powered by a GR Yaris engine converted to run on hydrogen. This type of car is claimed to be commercially viable and can keep internal combustion engines running in a carbon-free world.

“The enemy is carbon, not internal combustion engines. We should not just focus on one technology but take advantage of the technology we already have,” Toyoda said at the track. "Carbon neutrality is not about someone having one choice, it's about keeping options open."

Toyota's latest push into hydrogen technology comes as the world's largest automaker joins a rush to win a share of the growing market for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) as the world tightens emissions regulations to meet carbon-cutting promises.

While still only a fraction of vehicles are on the road, global electric car registrations in 2020 grew 41% even as the overall car market contracted by nearly a sixth, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

By 2025, Toyota plans to have 15 EV models available and invests $13.5 billion over a decade to expand battery production.

At a meeting in Glasgow on climate change at COP 26, six major automakers, including General Motors, Ford Motor, Sweden's Volvo, and Mercedes-Benz Daimler AG signed a declaration to end the use of fossil fuels for cars by 2040.

Toyota refused to join the group, arguing that much of the world wasn't ready to make the switch to EVs yet. Another notable absence is the German Volkswagen.

"We don't want to be seen as an EV maker, but as a carbon-neutral company," Toyota vice chairman Shigeru Hayakawa told Reuters in an interview.

Hayakawa likened the technological choices facing the automotive industry to a late 19th-century contest that pitted direct current versus alternating current electricity transmission. The stakes are high.

"If adoption of carbon-free fuels happens quickly, it could end the explosion of battery-first EVs," said Takeshi Miyao, an analyst at auto industry research firm Carnorama.

In Japan, where mass layoffs are politically difficult, the allure of hydrogen is that it will cause less disruption than a full switch to EVs. The Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association estimates the auto industry employs 5.5 million people.

Although Toyota and other automakers are putting resources into building hydrogen fuel cell (FCV) vehicles, nothing shows Toyota's appetite for hydrogen engine technology.

Challenging Technology

One problem is that hydrogen engines are not completely carbon-free and therefore cannot be classed as zero emissions.

Although the byproduct of burning hydrogen and oxygen is water, small amounts of engine metal are also burned, resulting in about 2% of gasoline engine emissions. The exhaust also contains traces of nitrogen oxides.

Meanwhile, there is a carbon cost to building an electric car battery, but EVs don't pollute when operated.

Hydrogen cars also require large pressurized tanks for fuel. Most of the rear seats and trunks in Toyota's hydrogen cars are filled by the fuel tank blocking the rear window.

This safety issue meant that Toyota engineers had to refuel vehicles far from the pits where other teams were working on their cars.

Those concerns have also slowed the construction of hydrogen fueling stations in Japan, despite the Japanese government's support for the fuel, which it sees as a key component in the country's future carbon-neutral energy mix.

By the end of August, there were 154 hydrogen stations in Japan - six less than the government wanted at the end of March.

"Hydrogen has long been recognized as a potential low-carbon transport fuel, but getting it into transport fuel mixes is difficult," the IEA said in a report this month.

Even with an adequate fuel infrastructure, Toyota still has to build vehicles that can compete in price, range, and operating costs with conventional gasoline and EV cars.

In Okayama, Toyoda declined to say when Toyota would launch a hydrogen-engined commercial car.

"It's nice to have so many options. If it's all EV then most of that industry is in China," said Eiji Terasaki, 57, who had traveled to the Okayama circuit from nearby Kagawa prefecture to watch the race.

However, if Toyota does not immediately implement hydrogen cars, it is certain that they will be further and further behind electric cars. In the future, they will find it difficult to compete with electric car infrastructure which is now increasingly spread evenly in various parts of the world.