Toyota, along with Subaru, Suzuki, and Daihatsu, have partnered with ENEOS Corporation and Toyota Tsusho Corporation to launch the Research Association of Biomass Innovation for Next Generation Automobile Fuels (RABI), and as the name implies, the automakers believe that fuel-powered vehicles have a future in the next generation.
Their goal is to investigate the process of fuel production and ways to optimize it in order to find more efficient and environmentally friendly solutions than ever before.
More importantly, as the deadline for electrification approaches, Japanese automakers may lobby to allow ICE (internal combustion engine) cars to run on cleaner fuels as well.
This announcement does not guarantee a commercial production solution, but it does indicate that the ICE as we know it may not be as hopeless as we have come to expect, and that top-tier Japanese automakers will be researching greener fuels and their viability.
Keep in mind that a coalition of five Japanese companies called Team Japan was formed last year in an attempt to save combustion engines.
As the deadline for electrification approaches, manufacturers are beginning to express concerns about a lack of raw materials and production capacity to meet the demand for the millions of new electric vehicles that will enter the market by that time.
Expanding on the RABI collaboration, the companies will promote technological research on the use of biomass and will oversee the establishment of bio-ethanol production facilities if the research is successful.
This will include the efficient production of bio-ethanol fuel through the use of hydrogen, CO2, and oxygen circulation.
The full-spectrum research association will learn not only about the viability of the fuels, but also about the realistic carbon footprint offset of the project from the raw material phase to the final point of production.
Automobiles have become more efficient than ever before in recent years, and initiatives like researching greener fuels suggest that alternatively powered ICEs may become another solution to greener mobility.
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