📍 ‘Toyota has officially entered its mad-scientist era.’
Toyota has done something delightfully unhinged: it built a superconducting, liquid-hydrogen racer and hurled it around Fuji Speedway.
Part science experiment, part motorsport theatre — and possibly a glimpse of hydrogen’s wild future.
Full story below.
◼︎ Two-and-a-half years after proposing the idea, Toyota has produced something genuinely astonishing: a hydrogen-fuelled GR Corolla using superconductive technology, then unleashed it in competition at the Super Taikyu finale at Fuji Speedway.
◼︎ From the outside, it resembles previous hydrogen prototypes. Underneath, it’s a clean-sheet rethink. Operating at –253°C, the system achieves superconductivity — meaning electrical resistance drops to zero and efficiency rises dramatically.
With less current needed, components become smaller, lighter and easier to package, which is engineering sorcery in motorsport terms.
◼︎ Then comes the audacious twist: putting the pump motor inside the hydrogen tank. It sounds like a suggestion made after a long lunch, yet it worked — doubling capacity from 150 to 300 litres and allowing meaningful racing stints.
◼︎ Kyoto University professor Taketsune Nakamura summed it up with academic understatement:
‘Superconducting motors are being researched worldwide, but there is still not a single practical application. Using one in a constantly vibrating racing car is totally insane.’
And he’s absolutely right — but that’s the point.
◼︎ Why it matters:
Motorsport has never been sensible; it’s where mad ideas grow up.
By stress-testing superconductivity and hydrogen on a racetrack rather than a whiteboard, Toyota is signalling a future that refuses to tiptoe.
📍 ‘The only car that requires both bravery and cryogenics.’
