Liquid Hydrogen Will not Save Toyota’s Combustion Engines

Lately, Toyota entered a hydrogen-powered GR Corolla within the 24-hour race at Fuji. However it wasn’t powered by a hydrogen gas cell such as you see in the Toyota Mirai that makes use of hydrogen to generate the electrical energy that really powers the automobile. As a substitute, it used a liquid hydrogen combustion engine. In concept, it provides you the sound and driving traits that fans love about inside combustion engine automobiles however doesn’t launch any dangerous emissions.

So a liquid hydrogen combustion engine is mainly the very best of each worlds, proper? All Toyota must do is spend a number of extra years perfecting the know-how, and the racing world can be saved from the scourge of electrical automobiles which can be too heavy and too quiet. Then, after constructing out the hydrogen fueling infrastructure, it’s solely a matter of time earlier than passenger automobiles are additionally free of their want for large, heavy, costly batteries. Take that, Tesla!

Not essentially. Barring some main and sure miraculous technological breakthroughs, it’s unlikely that liquid hydrogen combustion engines will ever take over racing, a lot much less find yourself on the streets promoting like Camrys and Corollas. And that’s not merely the opinion of some fool Jalopnik author. It’s additionally the opinion of the web’s favourite automobile nerd, Jason Fenske of Engineering Defined fame.

Engineering Defined’s newest video takes a deep dive into the mathematics and science behind Toyota’s liquid hydrogen combustion engine and (spoiler alert!) involves the conclusion that it’s extra of a enjoyable engineering train than one thing that can go mainstream any time quickly, even within the racing world. For instance, as a result of how chilly liquid hydrogen is, engineering a sturdy gas pump is extremely troublesome. In reality, in the course of the Fuji race, Toyota’s staff needed to exchange the gas pump twice, and every change took about three and a half hours.

Even in the event you’re not a racing skilled, you’ll be able to in all probability perceive that spending seven hours of a 24-hour race changing components is lower than splendid, and if each staff had to do this, it could make for a a lot much less attention-grabbing race. However that’s an enormous drawback, it’s additionally not the one motive to be skeptical of liquid hydrogen combustion engines in racing. For that, you’re going to have to observe the video under if you wish to discover out.