Yamaha Motor Co. is backing hydrogen as a clean and viable option for reaching carbon neutrality and will develop it as a source of fuel, President and Chief Executive Officer Yoshihiro Hidaka said.
“We would like to keep many possibilities — opportunities — to achieve carbon neutrality,” Hidaka said in an interview Thursday at Yamaha’s headquarters in Shizuoka, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) southwest of Tokyo.
Japan’s automotive industry, which employs 5.5 million people domestically, has long advocated a multi-strategy approach toward decarbonization. Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s biggest automaker, has been a member of that camp.
“In the Japanese auto industry, multipathway has been the basic thinking for a long time, but it drew criticism whenever it was talked about,” said Hidaka, who has headed the world’s second-largest motorcycle-maker since 2018.
At the G-7 summit in Hiroshima in May, Hidaka joined other industry leaders to push to “jointly appeal” their approach, which has come under fire as battery-based electric-vehicle makers like Tesla Inc. and China’s BYD Co. become increasingly dominant.
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“Among Japan’s two-wheeler manufacturers, there was hardly any testing hydrogen in addition to electric technology,” Hidaka said. “So we took the lead and built the facility to test battery technology, hydrogen, as well as carbon-neutral fuel,” he said, referring to Yamaha’s dedicated research facility.
Yamaha developed hydrogen-powered combustion engines for Toyota’s Corolla H2 Concept that became the world’s first liquid-hydrogen race car when it entered a 24-hour event at Fuji International Speedway in Shizuoka in May.
That same month, Yamaha and three other motorcycle makers — Honda Motor Co., Suzuki Motor Corp. and Kawasaki Motors Ltd. — were approved by the government to form a technological research association to jointly develop hydrogen-powered engines for smaller mobility vehicles. Toyota will share its knowledge about hydrogen with the association, Hidaka said.
Hydrogen has its drawbacks — it is combustible and not yet fuel efficient, meaning a vehicle powered with it would need to be charged more often. On the plus side, the tank can be filled much faster. Burning hydrogen in engines remains a niche technology — hydrogen fuel cells, which generate electricity and can be used to power electric motors, are more widely used.
“It is better to have the technology ready at first and archive it,” Hidaka said on the shift to hydrogen. “Once the world moves in that direction, we will bring the technology in the market and start mass development.”
Yamaha is also pushing for the development of “e-fuel” made by synthesizing hydrogen and carbon dioxide. As the design of engines running on gasoline, hydrogen or e-fuel can be similar, it would help many of the manufacturers and suppliers that are part of the industry in Japan stay in place.
“The task that lies ahead is to develop the technology and produce cheaply in large quantities,” Hidaka said.
