Why would Toyota be advertising the AE86 in 2007??

[Lipinhu]

Quote:maybe an alchohol powered AE would be a solution for the future

I say ELECTRIC. If an hybrid can have so much torque at low rpms, imagine an full electric. Just messin arround.

I´ve heard a few years ago that toyota, due to the popularity that the ae86 reached, they were considering a new production for it. I saw it somewhere in the web, and you know how the web is, everyone has it's two cents. From a commercial point of view, that would be the joke of the century, from mine... bring it on!

About the article, it´s just a flashback, it's always good to catch up old times. An online magazine called Winding Road (wich I highly recomend, it's free and the quality in their articles is the best you can find) often comes up with old cars in mint condition (celica supra, R5 turbo 2... etc) and test drives them too.

Check out for http://www.windingroad.com

[TRUENO><ONEURT]

I saw a car on Top Gear a while back that ran on water!

From my knowledge of engines i can see how electric and petrol/diesel engines work but... Water?

I think eco-friendly cars should be powered by the same method as the 2015 DeLorean in Back to the Future - Food waste
(reference: ending scene of BTTF1, all of BTTF2)

[Apolan]

its not water powered, more like hydrogen powered.

and alchohol is very enviromentally friendly, as it burns clean and it can be made of natural/food waste materials.. and on top, it has much more energy than fuel.. so i gues its a win win win situation

[banpei]

Hydrogen == fuelcell
They only use the hydrogen to "store" the energy, but that's a long story.

Here in Amsterdam we have three busses running on that and all it emits is water (apart from what it emits in the power plant ofcourse) and re-wins most energy used for breaking.

The bus itself is just as fast as it's diesel powered pre-decessors but many times more efficient, so it clearly is the future source of energy for cars.

So, naturally Toyota is probably going to aim for a small rwd coupe powered by the hydrogen to win the next D1

[Akis308]

There are two ways of moving a car whith Hydrogen.
The one, using Fuel Cells, requires one, or more, electric motor instead of a combustion engine.
Fuel cells transform the energy of hydrogen into energy, usually, electric, and some times thermal.
The other way is to burn Hydrogen into a internal combustion engine.
The second way takes place in Hydrogen powered Mazda RX8.
But....
The energy of Hydrogen is as ecological as the source of creating it...
Just thing the huge amounts of energy (electricity), that is required to produce it....
Hydrogen is not loose on the nature....
So, for the moment Hydrogen is not an ecological solution.
I know that I'm off topic, but i though that is was good to clear some thing up....
Many people confuse Hydrogen with gas... Maybe thats the problem...

[Mux213]

Indeed, creating hydrogen is the problem, but it is one that is easily fixed if it wasn't for politics.

The problem with electricity normally is that you can generate it fairly efficiently, just not in the right spot at the right time. Much efficiency is lost in the transportation of electricity. Also alot is waisted in power stations simply because you can't shut these things down when power demand is at a minimum. It gets worse with more enviromentally friendly power sources, wind generators only generate electricity when the wind blows, not on demand when the electricity is needed, solar power only works effectively in some parts of the world where there is sun, for hydrostations you can't simply stop the river from flowing, you use the amount you need, and waiste the amount you can't use.

Storing electricity in batteries is fairly inefficient aswell, however using electricity to convert water into hydrogen, then storing and transporting this hydrogen, and finally using this hydrogen to produce electricity when needed, is very efficient.

If we'd start using all surplus electricity that we have (for instance electricity generated by hydrostations at night when everyone is sleeping) to produce hydrogen, we'd be producing a valuable energy storage substance from a source that otherwise would be waisted. If we'd use solar parts in the deserts of the world to produce hydrogen (ineffective instead of having to put powerlines in place), etc.etc.etc. There are loads of ways to produce hydrogen in an environmentally friendly way.

But as I said the real problem is not realisation (the technology has been there for many years), the problem is politics.
All the people in the world that currently make money with the current power infrastructure will loose their empire while a new group will arise. Yes some will step over from one to the other, but even those fear the new.

Also you have to understand that dependencies shift. Countries that currently have an oil supply or other means of producing power, but who have poor abilities to produce their own energy (=hydrogen) will become dependend on countries that can supply this.

Interestingly enough we had this in Holland, for awhile we imported alot of environmentally friendly energy from abroad (norway I believe for instance has alot of surplus hydro power), this was made possible by some nice environmental subsidies. As a result Dutch based energy companies that were exploiting dirty fossel fuel based plants were starting to loose money and jobs were at risk... Result, subsidies were cancelled, and were back using dirty energy

[banpei]

Indeed. Also the chemical industry has a lot of hydrogen waste. Normally they let is react with oxygen and just throw it out in the river. They are planning in re-using the hydrogen for generating power (and storing it).

Biggest issue about hydrogen is that everybody remembers the Hindenburg. So everybody is very scared of it, especially if you think of you're driving a mobile bomb. Chances of something happening are ofcourse very slim, but if something happens it can get big.

[Apolan]

hehe hindenburg might be a good point.. besides there is another thing made of hydrogen that goes boom. the H-bomb no wonder hydrogen has a fearfull conotation

[banpei]

Yep, but people tend to forget that adding some orange juice to gasoline is the same as napalm, also some freightning stuff.

[Max Havelaar]

They write that the car is twenty years out of production, so my guessing is that they might be thinking of putting the car back in production. I do not think that they'll make any profit with this production but maybe the car will be brought as an exclusive oldtimer or so, like a morgan, well better engineered then

So strange this ad, but intresting, or it's only a ad from the company that imports toyota in the states, to make the car 'more' popular than it already is. And to increase the popularity of toyota, as it will be the largest manufacturer in the industry this year.