Toyota will enter the Dakar Rally in January (held in Saudi Arabia, in spite of keeping part of the old Paris-Dakar name) with a hydrogen-powered buggy racer called the HySE-X2, designed and built by a consortium of Japanese companies.
Experimental racer
HySE stands for Hydrogen Small mobility & Engine technology Association, and will compete in the Dakar’s experimental racer category, Mission 1000 ACT2.
The team actually ran a prototype HySE-X1 buggy in the Dakar this year, back in January, and it finished the event, coming fourth in its category. For January 2025, and the next Dakar, the X2 version takes the basic structure and powertrain of the HySE-X1 and improves upon it.
Supercharged hydrogen engine
Power comes from a 1.0-litre four-cylinder supercharged 16-valve combustion engine, which is fuelled by four hydrogen tanks storing 7.2kg of H2 between them at 70MPa pressure. That’s an extra tank compared to the X1 version. The engine and chassis have been jointly developed by Toyota, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Honda, and Yamaha.
The team says that the objective for the upcoming 2025 running of the Dakar rally is to: “tackle new technical challenges like increasing output at the high revolution range, improving fuel consumption at the middle range and increasing capacity of the hydrogen tank. HySE will continuously work to build a global and cross-industry network for the realisation of compact hydrogen mobility, by promoting HySE's presence and initiatives through the participation in the world-renowned Dakar Rally.”
On display in Brussels
The HySE-X2 will also be on display at European Hydrogen Week, which will be held in Brussels between the 18 and 22 November.
Daichi Kai, the HySE-X2 team manager, said: "We have decided to participate in the Dakar Rally with HySE-X2 which has the engine and the chassis that are progressed from those of HySE-X1. We would like to contribute to the establishment of technologies for the small hydrogen mobility engine, by verifying the effects of the countermeasures for technical issues found with HySE-X1 this year and by challenging more severe performance area of the engine. The details of our activities will be shown through Instagram and we would appreciate your support."