Japan’s Toyota showcases an ‘engine born’ with green fuel

TOKYO (AP) — “An engine reborn.”

This is how Japanese automaker Toyota presented plans to take a futuristic look at the traditional internal combustion engine.

During a three-hour presentation at a Tokyo auditorium on Tuesday, the auto giant announced that it will introduce smaller-sized engines that also run on so-called green fuels such as… hydrogen and bioethanol, or they can be paired with zero-emission electric motors in hybrid cars.

This comes at a time when many competitors in the auto industry are moving towards fully electric vehicles. China is accelerating its efforts for battery-powered electric vehiclesand its own BYD threatens to overtake Tesla in this push.

Toyota CEO Koji Sato “The engine is optimized for the era of electrification,” he said, hoping to help move the world to “carbon neutrality.”

Toyota already has a popular hybrid car – the Prius – With gas engine and electric motor. It switches between the two to provide a cleaner engine.

In future hybrid cars, the electric motor is set to become the main driving force, and the new engine will be designed to take on a lower role and assist it, according to Toyota.

Local allies Subaru and Mazda Motor CompanyBoth have joined forces to prepare eco-engines designed to meet upcoming stringent emissions standards Toyota The presentation was described as a “multi-track workshop.”

“Every company wants to win, but we can be faster if we work together,” Sato said.

However, details regarding when the engines will be released on the market have not been revealed.

The legacy of the car’s engine can be felt everywhere.

Mazda said its valuable rotary engine, which it introduced more than 50 years ago, is being adapted for electric cars.

At the same time, Subaru offered its brand with a smaller, horizontally opposed engine. While chief technology officer Tetsuro Fujinoki confirmed that the company was working on a cool, “Subaru-like” electric vehicle, he said the company was not about to get rid of the engine completely.

Toyota as well Working on stylish BEVs.

Energy supply conditions vary globally, executives said on Tuesday, adding that products must meet different customer needs and that the investments needed to mass produce BEVS were enormous.

Toyota officials also repeatedly pointed out that 5.5 million jobs were at stake in Japan’s overall auto production supply chain at present, so a sudden switch to electric vehicles was neither economically feasible nor socially responsible.

Takahiro Fujimoto, a professor of business administration at Waseda University, believes that electric cars are the main solution to reducing emissions. But they still have weaknesses, such as the large amounts of emissions produced during the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries, a key component.

In Japan, for example, commuters use trains, so this may be a better environmental option for transportation, Fujimoto said.

“At the very least, I think there is definitely a need for the proliferation of battery electric vehicles and innovations in them. But that argument is logically different from saying that all we need are battery electric vehicles.

Fujimoto said uncertainty remains, extending to research and development, as well as social, political and market conditions.

“The carbon neutrality to which the world aspires is unlikely to be achieved for decades to come. It will be a long marathon,” he said.

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Yuri Kageyama on X: https://twitter.com/yurikageyama