Toyota, Mazda, Subaru betting big on greener combustion fuels

Japanese auto giants are betting big on the alternative fuels for the future of transportation, and are pressing ahead with the development of cars that run on cleaner fuels. Even though the world is moving towards electric vehicles, companies like Toyota, Subaru and Mazda want to explore the potential of other alternatives.

Subaru is looking at exploring cars powered by carbon-neutral fuels in order to lower fleet emissions. Along with Toyota Motor and Mazda Motor, Subaru entered vehicles that are equipped with engines that burn hydrogen and different carbon-neutral fuels in a road race in Japan’s Mie Prefecture over the weekend.

The chiefs of all three Japanese auto companies believe that a variety of technologies, in addition to EVs, will contribute to cleaner transport over the coming decades. However, their approach of maintaining a broad range of options has drawn criticism from those who believe that they will be left behind in the race to battery-powered cars.

Meanwhile, offering a mix of traditional and new technologies is a practical way of meeting the challenge of a business that has been built on decades of burning hydrocarbons. Even though EVs have take off globally, the technology still faces a number of challenges including high end-costs to procurement of raw materials needed to make batteries.

Toyota is investing significantly in its build-out of EVs but it also continues to spread its bets as it plans to spend half of 8 trillion yen ($67 billion) on EVs and the rest on building out hybrid and hydrogen technologies. Subaru is aiming carbon neutrality with hybrid and battery-electric cars set to make up around 40% of its global sales in 2030.

(with inputs from Bloomberg)