Toyota Introduces BioFuel Engine

Toyota announced it would offer lean compact engines that also run on so-called green fuels like hydrogen and bioethanol, or get paired with zero-emissions electric motors in hybrids.

Looks a bit weird.

 

https://apnews.com/article/toyota-e...-mazda-japan-997d6311ead7f9e41c11a2e47be6ad0e

I think this is the article you are referencing?

A bit light on technical details but Toyota has been quite outspoken about taking a more pragmatic approach to getting us to a low carbon economy... They have been very vocal on a push for more hybrids and not jumping straight to all EV before we know if we have enough infrastructure to build that many batteries. I think it makes a lot of sense.

Not sold on the hydrogen fuel concept however.. Still some really big, hard to solve problems transporting cryogenic hydrogen (do you want a space shuttle tank in your car?)... And the problem of making it - the environmentally friendly way via electrolysis is both really expensive and really just another way to use electricity. The cheap and easy way is to crack methane and that is just as carbon intense as burning fossil fuels.

Bioethanol has merit but we run into the tradeoff between food and fuel production as we scale it.



The two technologies I want to see a lot more development of:

#1- Synthetic crude oil made via algae (taking carbon out of the air to make carbon fuel)

#2 - Battery electrics powered by Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries (LiFePO4). None of the toxic cobalt, much safer, and vastly improved lifespan.