Yamaha Made a 450hp V8 Engine for Toyota that Runs on Hydrogen

The lab coats at Yamaha have been hard at work, this time doing some engineering for their long-time partner, Toyota Motor Corporation.

Though not destined for two-wheels, Yamaha’s creation today is still pretty cool addition to our pages, as the work centers around a 5.0L V8 engine that is fueled entirely by hydrogen. The motor puts out 450hp and 400 lbs•ft of torque.

“We are working toward achieving carbon neutrality by 2050,” explained Yamaha Motor president Yoshihiro Hidaka. “At the same time, ‘Motor’ is in our company name and we accordingly have a strong passion for and level of commitment to the internal combustion engine.”

As you can guess from that statement then, Yamaha’s project with Toyota reflects two realities that are facing the automotive world, especially outside of the United States.

First, the adoption of hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cells is most prevalently seen in the Japanese market as a viable path to cleaner energy and propulsion, with Yamaha and other brands like Honda and Kawasaki exploring alternatives to gasoline that aren’t necessarily electric.

In November of last year, the five companies of Kawasaki, Subaru, Toyota, Mazda, and Yamaha announced that they would begin discussions for conducting collaborative research into possible avenues for expanding the range of fuel options for internal combustion engines. Hydrogen has been heading that charge.

Today’s engine debut is the first fruits of that collaboration, though we can expect more announcements regarding power plants, distributions, and finished consumer vehciles, all in the coming months and years.

The second factor pushing this agenda is one that is larger in the enthusiast motoring space, which sees a public and corporate environment that is resistant to losing internal combustion engines, and the romance that surrounds this form of transportation.

We have seen European brands hopping on the bandwagon of the poorly named “e-fuels” which are essentially synthetic fuels that don’t come from fossil fuel sources.

Synthetic fuels still have undesirable tailpipe emissions, but because they are formed by combining either carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide with hydrogen, these “e-fuels” are billed as having a net-zero effect on the environment.

Will the future of internal combustion move to hydrogen or synthetic fuels? Or will electric mark the end of internal combustion engines altogether?

The future might not be a binary and clear-cut choice between the two. As I’m fond of saying, time will tell. But, giant blue flames firing out the back of an eight-to-one header is a pretty cool alternative future.