Featured 2 Toyota Hybrids win at Le Mans

Production announcement: Toyota Announces 986-HP Hypercar From GR Racing Team

. . . Toyota has confirmed plans to put the 986-horsepower GR Super Sport Concept into production. The Toyota Gazoo Racing squad will handle the vehicle's development and will use their expertise in endurance racing to build what will essentially be a road-going Le Mans competition machine.


The GR Super Sport will use tech derived from the TS050 hybrid race car. Power will come from a 2.4-liter biturbo V6 in addition to what the firm calls the Toyota Hybrid System – Racing. In total this setup will be good for 986 hp (735 kilowatts).​

Probably not a plug-in hybrid. Now if we could just get a Gen-2 shell for it . . .

Bob Wilson

 

Welcome to hybrid racing, Toyota - but, Porsche & Mercedes hybrids have dominated Formula 1 for YEARS. So where've you guys been? I hope Toyota, after getting shut out of F1, can now get back in the game!

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Just wasn't the same without Porsche and Audi.

 

Toyota tested super capacitors ... and got better. They finally figured out LiON technology and that is a blessing. It means their road legal and weekend cars can potentially become useful plug-in hybrids and Tesla challengers.

Bob Wilson

 

List of FIA World Endurance champions - Wikipedia
2014 FIA World Endurance Championship - Wikipedia

We should remember Toyota won both team and driver that year championships.

The most iconic race, Le Mans, was still to win. Congrats Toyota!

By the way, Porsche engines in F1 were last seen in 1991.

 

true, but even last year they took the 2017 FIA world endurance championship, so don't count 'em out just yet.

 

Well, in 2012, Toyota ran the first WEC hybrid petrol prototype.
Toyota TS030 Hybrid - Wikipedia

Before Porsche and Audi, so I can't agree on your "welcome to the hybrid racing"

 

Mercedes denies CEO said it will turn away from hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (updated)

"The planned GLC F-Cell plug-in fuel-cell crossover will go ahead, Zetsche suggested, but be reserved to fleet operators only—those who had centralized hydrogen fueling capabilities themselves.

While fuel-cell vehicles remain "technically interesting," Zetsche continued, they will not be practical for consumer sale until the price of hydrogen fuel falls considerably after widespread and cheap renewable energy becomes available.

Production of the GLC F-Cell is expected to be around 1,000 units in 2018, its first year."

 

Which gives more time for the public to become familiar and comfortable with plug in cars. So they are more likely to opt for going farther on the same amount of energy than having a shorter refuel time that is always away from home.

 

racing rules have changed with the technology. For f1 there was 60 kw for 6.7 seconds which was fairly neutral between a supercap and a battery. Now the rules are 150 kw for 30 seconds/lap at which is more favorable to todays lithium batteries. IIRC LMP can be up to 2.2 kwh and can even provide more power. This has gotten to the point of very high power density limh batteries for racing, which makes supercaps a poor technological choice. I believe toyota switched over to limh in 2016 with rule changes and runs a 8 MJ (2.2 kwh) battery.

These batteries cost more than supercaps, but they are lighter and take up less room and don't need as complicated electronics. The first use of this f1 battery technology in a production vehicle is the mercedes project one, which will be a 4kwh phev that can provide 300 kw to the electric motors and probably charge to 80% on a 100 kw charger in a few minutes. This is limited production and very expensive. I can see it doing great in small batteried phevs like the prime when costs come down.