OYAMA, Japan — It’s a acquainted racetrack scene. However this time, Toyota has a brand new twist.

The automaker’s petrol- head president, Akio Toyoda, is barreling down the straight at Fuji Speedway in a souped-up Toyota racer, clocking 140 mph with thunderous engine growls and bone-rattling vibrations earlier than slamming on the brakes to tuck into the nook.

His tire-smoking No. 32 race-spec Corolla seems to be, sounds and drives like another automotive within the discipline. However there’s one necessary, invisible distinction. Whereas the rival racers are all burning gasoline, Toyoda’s engine is powered by hydrogen — and it’s churning out just about no carbon dioxide.

Word the excellence: It isn’t a silent hydrogen “gasoline cell” beneath the hood, however a freshly minted “hydrogen-burning” three- banger.

The engine continues to be only a prototype, however Toyoda believes it holds massive promise for his firm, for the trade and for carbon neutrality in a world seemingly gone gaga over full-electric autos.

His message right here was as loud because the engine’s redline wail: Policymakers ought to butt out of dictating battery-electric autos, as a result of myriad different applied sciences — together with combustion — may be inexperienced and clear.

“The last word aim is carbon neutrality,” Toyoda mentioned after finishing the Fuji Tremendous Tec 24-hour endurance race, the place he rotated behind the wheel with 5 different drivers. “It should not be about rejecting hybrids and gasoline automobiles and solely promoting gasoline cells and battery-electric automobiles. We wish to increase the alternatives accessible within the path to carbon neutrality. This is step one.”

To skeptics, Toyoda’s Might 22-23 run within the foothills of Mount Fuji might look like a determined final stand for a know-how on deathwatch. Or a fig leaf for Toyota’s gradual, seemingly reluctant shift into battery-electrics, as rivals at residence and overseas make investments billions into EV-only futures.

However seen one other manner, Toyota Motor Corp. is opening a brand new entrance within the conflict on greenhouse fuel emissions. Toyota believes technological breakthroughs, equivalent to this one, may give inside combustion a brand new lease on life — saving jobs in addition to the setting. It’s a debate over the perfect street to net-zero carbon, with a pushback in opposition to authorities mandates that reflexively part out inside combustion in favor of EVs.

“Toyota is not doing this as a result of it is behind in EVs,” mentioned Takaki Nakanishi, head auto analyst on the Nakanishi Analysis Institute. “Toyota’s doing this to avoid wasting Japan’s auto trade and its home provide chain. This can be a efficiency by Toyoda to affect coverage in a greater path.”

Improvement of the brand new Toyota engine started in secret in 2016, and it was first proven to Toyoda in December. It’s nonetheless a great distance from mass manufacturing; the automaker has no concrete timeline.

One rationale behind debuting the engine within the Corolla H2 idea at Fuji was showmanship — Toyoda is so assured within the new path that the 65-year-old president determined to unveil the engine by driving it himself in a 24-hour, all-night race, declaring its viability in a high-speed endurance setting.

“Undoubtedly, bringing the automotive into this extreme setting will velocity up growth,” mentioned Koji Sato, president of Toyota’s Gazoo Racing Co. and world head of Lexus.

Merely finishing the grueling race was deemed a victory, although the automotive spent 12 of the 24 hours within the pits, together with 4 hours refueling. It completed forty ninth within the 51-car mixed-class discipline, although it entered in a particular class for developmental automobiles and profitable wasn’t the target.

Japanese journalists billed it as a “historic” run and cheered Toyoda and his staff with rousing applause at a post-race press convention in pit row.

However commercialization of hydrogen engines faces lots of the similar roadblocks as hydrogen gasoline cells. Pressurized hydrogen fuel is dear and the refueling infrastructure scant. And its carbon-fiber on-board gasoline tanks are heavy and expensive.

However Toyota is taking part in the lengthy recreation, eyeing the Japanese authorities’s aim of nationwide carbon neutrality in 2050.

“We nonetheless have 30 years,” Toyoda mentioned. “Thirty years in the past, we did not even have hybrids or gasoline cell autos. … It isn’t a good suggestion to slender down our choices now.”

Toyoda has causes, each pragmatic and patriotic, for championing inside combustion.

As the top of Toyota, he can absolutely leverage the corporate’s large $10 billion R&D conflict chest to unfold bets throughout a variety of tomorrow’s tech. Toyoda additionally desires an extended life span for the hybrid techniques into which his firm has sunk billions of {dollars}.

In the meantime, as head of the Japan Car Producers Affiliation — a submit he has held since 2018 — Toyoda desires a clean transition into the electrification age for Japan’s automakers and suppliers which are nonetheless wrapped up in inside combustion.

Toyoda notes that some 10,000 elements go into an engine system — roughly a 3rd of all of a automobile’s components. EVs not solely have fewer components, they require fewer work hours to construct. The priority is {that a} wholesale shift to EVs might wipe out swaths of suppliers and their jobs. That, in flip, might undermine the nation’s complete provide chain.

The frenzy to BEVs is partly a response to authorities objectives for net-zero greenhouse fuel emissions. That’s an goal pursued by the European Union, China and South Korea amongst different nations. Japan pledged to grow to be a internet zero-emissions society by 2050 and plans to part out the sale of latest autos powered solely by gasoline by the mid-2030s.

Toyoda says knee-jerk reactions are shortsighted.

“What Japan ought to do first is add technological choices. I feel rules and laws come subsequent,” he mentioned at a current occasion, carrying his producers affiliation chairman hat.

“Engineers and employees concerned in engine manufacturing would lose their jobs. … We have to be sensible and sustainable.”

In danger are jobs tied to the whole lot from piston rings, ignition coils and spark plugs to gearboxes and turbochargers.

This month, Daimler CEO Ola Okayällenius joined the refrain of concern in regards to the change to EVs, telling Reuters, “Now we have to have an sincere dialog about jobs.”

Honda, Jaguar, Basic Motors, Ford, Mini and Volvo are amongst these making their portfolios closely, if not totally, EV-oriented. Honda plans to fully drop combustion engines from all new-vehicle gross sales by 2040.

Toyota, in contrast, is taking a diversified strategy. The automaker desires to promote 8 million electrified autos by 2030, however solely 2 million shall be full electrics or gasoline cells. Amongst different future applied sciences, Toyoda is also pitching electrofuels as a method to ship cleaner inside combustion.

Hydrogen-combustion engines might ease the transition by piggybacking on current know-how. For the race, Toyota engineers modified the 1.6-liter, three-cylinder turbocharged engine used within the GR Yaris. They added a high-pressure injection system from Denso Corp., adjusted the spark plugs, strapped on 4 hydrogen tanks and linked all of it with feeder strains.

Toyota says the system is an enchancment over earlier makes an attempt at hydrogen combustion, delivering output highly effective sufficient to compete in racing. Earlier trade makes an attempt at hydrogen engines usually fell quick on horsepower. Toyota’s race engine needed to have its output tuned down from the GR Yaris’ 268 hp, to deal with warmth administration points.

Bettering efficiency will hinge on higher warmth administration and injection applied sciences. Gas financial system might also be a difficulty. Toyota’s thirsty race automotive needed to pit 35 occasions, largely for gasoline. Nonetheless, Toyota’s effort might already be attracting converts.

Mazda developed hydrogen-burning variations of its trademark rotary engine within the Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s. It was utilized in restricted lease fleets of the Premacy multipurpose automobile and RX-8 sports activities automotive. However this system light away when Mazda shifted focus to its Skyactiv line of gasoline and diesel engines and electrification. Forward of the Fuji Speedway race, nevertheless, Mazda CEO Akira Marumoto signaled assist for presumably reviving the know-how.

“To scale back carbon dioxide emissions, it’s essential to have a multi-solution, utilizing every kind of electrification and carbon-neutral applied sciences,” Marumoto mentioned. “Now we have the hydrogen engine as one such answer. Now we have already verified that the rotary engine and hydrogen are extremely appropriate.

“As such,” he added, “we want to safe our hydrogen engine know-how as one answer.”

Naoto Okamura contributed to this report.