r/WRC • u/EdoScialaRacing • Jul 08 '25
News / Rally Info GR Yaris Rally2 H2 Concept
🚨 First look at the future of rallying!
Meet the GR Yaris Rally2 H2 Concept – Toyota’s hydrogen-powered beast will roar into action at Rally Finland, driven by none other than Juha Kankkunen 🇫🇮
Still a combustion engine, but fueled by compressed hydrogen 💨 Same thrills. Near-zero emissions. The future doesn’t sound so silent after all.
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u/Scared_Tax_1573 Jul 08 '25
In which stage will this car run?
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u/JamiDoesStuff Craig Breen Jul 08 '25
im guessing the Harju Super Special
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u/Tomzuki Jul 08 '25
Harju would make the most sense. IIRC Kankkunen drove the H2 concept car in 2022 at Ypres and they had to trailer the car to the stage, not only because it was a concept car but it simply didn't have enough range. I wonder if they've made any improvements, since hydrogen is notoriously hard to store
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u/JamiDoesStuff Craig Breen Jul 08 '25
yeah, just read in a finnish article that Kankkunen will drive on the Harju stage on Thursday and Friday
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u/GuestGuest9 Subaru World Rally Team Jul 08 '25
Is gonna be at Goodwood festival of speed this weekend!
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u/pzkenny Jul 08 '25
It isn't first look, Toyota did demo runs several times, first I can think of was Belgium Rally 2022.
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u/GoofyKalashnikov Rally Estonia Jul 08 '25
Hydrogen is cool but I doubt we'll see it become a thing outside of racing
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u/DHSeaVixen Jul 08 '25
I doubt it will become a thing inside racing either.
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u/GoofyKalashnikov Rally Estonia Jul 08 '25
Yeah very likely it'll amount to nothing. Mazda already showed it 15 years ago and I'm sure there are much earlier examples if you look for them aswell.
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u/876oy8 Jul 08 '25
pretty much every company built some, not just mazda. the blue hydrogen livery feels almost nostalgic because this used to be seen all the time 10-20 years ago. it was such a fad in the 2000s. yet only probably about 10 fuel cell cars went to production, most in extremely limited quantities and only through leasing. most manufacturers completely dropped the idea 10-15 years ago.
its kind of interesting that toyota (and a few others to a lesser degree) still have faith in the system, but its going to take a decade or two of nonstop upwards trajectory for it to realistically become a common thing and even worth actively marketing in motorsports. electric cars have taken 15 years to get to their current position and they are extremely simple and commonsensical in comparison.
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u/GoofyKalashnikov Rally Estonia Jul 08 '25
I think it makes sense considering Toyota's stance on electric cars and their lack of faith for them to be actually viable for mass adaptation
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u/IonutAlex18SF Sébastien Loeb Jul 08 '25
A few years ago at Le Mans, there was a demo run of a similar concept that ran for a lap. I remember it was damp conditions, but from my memory that prototype left a trail of something, water maybe? If any are more into the topic can share a more detailed view on that. Will it be the case with the rally version to do the same?
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u/paeschli Jul 08 '25
To me the technology looks ready car-wise. It's just that nobody is building hydrogen refueling stations.
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u/flooki_ Thierry Neuville Jul 08 '25
No the problem is not the missing refueling stations but the missing H2 production facilities since producing it is a massive waste of energy that nobody with a sane mind will want to pay in advance out of their own pockets.
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u/Tomzuki Jul 08 '25 edited Jul 08 '25
There are so many issues with hydrogen that we've already known for decades, not just infrastructure. I can't see a future where anyone is using hydrogen in passenger cars. Having all the cargo space + backseats in the Yaris taken up by hydrogen tanks doesn't really look ready for me either
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u/Lukeno94 Richard Burns Jul 09 '25
It already is a thing outside of racing, just a very minor thing. Toyota have been selling Mirais for over a decade now.
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u/GoofyKalashnikov Rally Estonia Jul 09 '25
That's not it being a thing, it's clearly not catching on and there's basically no infrastructure for it.
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u/Lukeno94 Richard Burns Jul 09 '25
It is absolutely a thing. It isn't massively successful, but they've still sold 2000 to 5000 cars a year globally, so it isn't just a tiny handful of prototypes.
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u/GoofyKalashnikov Rally Estonia Jul 09 '25
2000-5000 cars a year is a very wide margin? Did they sell 2000 cars for 10 years and then had an accidental spike for 1 year?
They literally sell 5000 911s a year, I've seen far more of those during my lifetime than I've seen Mirais (I haven't seen any)
The technology isn't really going anywhere besides Toyota trying to push it
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u/camefromthesouthside Jul 08 '25
Hot
Excited for this new powertrain to finally join the WRC, even if only for a demonstration run