After the excellent GR Yaris, which is surely Toyota at its best in the hatchback segment, thought turns to how you might improve on that formula.
In the current climate, the model serves well as a marketing tool to show off another of Toyota’s pursuits – hydrogen. Because what could be better than a GR Yaris with a climate-conscious drivetrain?
Until recently, before the bZ4x arrived with its unwieldy name, Toyota was betting on hybrid tech and hydrogen as well.
As classic EVs with Duracell power take off in popularity and improve in performance and lower in cost, hydrogen with its well-reported downsides sometimes seems like a lost cause.
But not quite, and Toyota has shown off this, the Toyota GR Yaris Hydrogen concept car.
The Toyota GR Yaris Hydrogen Shows A Different Path
As we’re all aware, the Yaris GR is a performance-oriented version of the sharp new Yaris and uses a 260hp/270lb-ft motor, turbocharging a 1.6-liter engine like the engine we had in the Peugeot RCZ from 2009, but this is a 3-cylinder, which is somehow even more impressive.
The 4-wheel-drive system in the standard GR Yaris helps the little car reach 60mph in as little as 5.2 seconds and eventually, the hatchback will reach more than 142mph. Figures from Toyota Europe.
One of the things about hydrogen is that it doesn’t have to be used in a fuel-cell configuration powering an electric motor – it can be burnt in a normal engine, offering internal combustion thrills including noise and gearshifts without burning fossil fuels – not directly, at least.
Apparently, the engine is just an updated version of the same GR Yaris one with modifications to allow for the use of hydrogen.
According to the Toyota press article: “Concept shares the same powertrain as experimental hydrogen-powered Corolla Sport, currently racing in Super Taikyu race series in Japan”.
The Future Is Bright For Toyota and Hydrogen
So, while hydrogen is less efficient than gasoline, it releases no direct harmful emissions and as we suggested already; despite its challenges and shortcomings, it could be the way forward when it comes to keeping hold of our internal combustion engines into the new age.
Toyota’s own Mirai is a great sedan with hydrogen as a power source but works using an electric motor instead of a normal engine.
It’s obviously good for the cause of the sports car that hydrogen is being proven, especially in a machine like the GR Yaris and that it’s been raced in one form, or another is further proof of concept, surely.
For now, the GR Yaris is an experiment, it’s a concept only and there is currently very little in the way of infrastructure for hydrogen fuel, so it's unlikely we’ll see a Hydrogen GR Yaris ever for sale but its more the impact that R+D has on the future combined with publicity like this.
Talking of (reasonably) fast hydrogen-powered cars, BMW toyed briefly with a 7-Series powered by hydrogen, that one used a 250hp/300lb-ft motor from the BMW 760i model, modified again with parts to make it burn hydrogen happily - it was called the Hydrogen 7.
It shows how far the 3-cylinder 1.6-liter engine is ahead of the 6-liter V12 in the BMW from 2005, that the Yaris produces more power even without hydrogen under its hood.