Yamaha Wants Hydrogen Power, Will Use It to Power Manufacturing Facilities

It’s all part of Team Blue’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

By: Enrico Punsalang

Jul 25, 2024 at 7:16am ET

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We’re all familiar with Yamaha’s hefty goals of achieving carbon neutrality by the year 2050. Obviously, in order to do this, the Japanese manufacturer is going to have to make some big changes.

We know it’s working hard towards the development of electric and synthetic fuel-powered vehicles, but if it wants to really go carbon-neutral, it’s going to have to make some really big changes to its operations.

And one clear step it’s planning to take is to make use of hydrogen gas at its Morimachi Factory. More specifically, a hydrogen-powered melting furnace and heat treatment furnace for casting aluminum alloy components for its motorcycles. Pretty cool, right?

Traditionally, manufacturers use either gas-fired or electric resistance crucible furnaces. These are either powered using fossil fuels or electricity from the power grid. And depending on where you source your power, it might not exactly be carbon-neutral, either. In such a case, hydrogen simply makes sense.

As for Yamaha, it admits to currently making use of natural gas-powered furnaces and explains that electric-powered furnaces aren’t efficient as they obviously require tons of heat to operate.

According to Yamaha, the company will begin the development of technology and techniques for melting aluminum alloys using hydrogen gas as early as 2025. And by the end of 2026, it hopes to start rolling out this technology to its manufacturing facilities. Ultimately, Yamaha’s eyeing full adoption of this manufacturing process across all its facilities—both in Japan and across the world—from 2027.

The implementation of these new manufacturing techniques tackles Yamaha’s first stage of achieving carbon neutrality, which focuses on eliminating emissions produced as a direct result of business activities. Soon, Yamaha will roll out initiatives that focus on the company’s value chain, such as product use, deliveries, and transportation—quite a hefty goal, as these are heavily dependent on third-party suppliers from all over the world.

What do you think?

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Indeed, if you put things into perspective, Yamaha’s sales volumes are nothing short of immense. In 2023 alone, the company sold more than 4.8 million two-wheelers all over the world. If at present, all these machines are manufactured with the use of fossil fuels, imagine how much less emissions there would be if even just a fraction of them were manufactured using hydrogen power.

Clearly, Yamaha’s taking its environmental impact extremely seriously, perhaps even more seriously than most other manufacturers out there. With these advancements in manufacturing technology, it’s just a matter of time until other companies follow suit. Hopefully, in the long run, this will result in more sustainable and more affordable products for both enthusiasts and commuters alike.