XeroK00L

Yep they won it!

Hybrid Toyota Supra Wins Tokachi 24-Hour race

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/07/16/h...okachi-24-hrs/
http://www.sard.co.jp/race_r/r2007/news/20070715.html





Toyota Team SARD's specially-prepared Supra HV-R hybrid GT racer has won the Tokachi 24-hour endurance race in Japan. The converted Super GT-spec racing car did so convincingly, too. As the only GT-class car in the field, the Denso SARD Supra HV-R maintained a steady lead of several laps throughout the course of the race, and in the later hours, it essentially dialed things up a notch and ran away from the rest of the field. After starting from the pole position, the Supra completed 616 laps in the ensuing 24 hours -- 19 more than the second-place finisher. The victory marks the first of its type for a hybrid-powered vehicle. The Supra HV-R began life as a retired 480-horsepower Super GT racing car, which then had regenerative braking technology and a trio of hybrid motors added to it for this event. What bearing, if any, the success of the Supra HV-R has on Toyota's plans for production sports hybrid vehicles is unknown. With reports that the FT-HS concept is on its way to production, however, we'll likely be seeing how well a production-spec hybrid sports car fares soon enough.

UberNoob

+1

this race is definitely a marketing preparation to the introduction of production version of FT-HS

last i heard, toyota was at 80% ready with making FT-HS into a production car


im too curious what type of battery they used on the supra
lithium-ion or Ni-Mh?
also would hybrids be qualified for Le-Mans?

ElitistK

iTrader: (4)

toyota gt-1 hybrid vs audi r10 tdi

this would be very interesting, if toyota doesn't hit bad luck again.

XeroK00L

Ahh that would be most interesting to watch! Hopefully Toyota gets the idea too!

UberNoob

lol
GT class include F430, porsche 911 and so on
R10 is in the Prototype 1 and 2 classes and SARD Supra HV-R would be in the GT class instead

MR_F1

The GT-One raced in GTLMP, which is basically a protoype class, but with closed in cockpits. It only raced in the GT class one year because of a change in the rules.

UberNoob

oh oh oh
GT-1
sorry i thought we were talking about HV-R
so is lexus the only contender in prototype class in 12/24 hr type races from toyota now?
(ie Rolex)

LexFather

Very nicely done

TRDFantasy

A huge win, almost as important as Audi's R10 win in the 24hrs of LeMans. This really cements the idea that hybrids can be very reliable. I'm almost certain that some of the things learned and the technology used in the HV-R will soon be in production.

UberNoob

good point
hopefully they used some of hte hybrid components that they plan to put in the FT-HS to test out race-track capabilities and push things to the limit

Seize

Congrats to Toyota on the win and making history!!

And here's what Kelly Hu has to say about that

MR_F1

A tid-bit from Edmunds

Toyota FT-HS here we come?

XeroK00L

^^the fact that it uses capacitors in place of batteries makes it a totally different animal from your usual Toyota HSD-based vehicles. Probably friendlier to tracks than it is for daily road use.

UberNoob

toyota did say that the next synergy drive system will use capacitors to work with li-ion batteries because li-ion batteries cannot handle the quick discharge without overheating and blowing up

so capacitors are needed to store that electricity for short periods of time for acceleration

MR_F1

A look at the tech of the HV-R

Pretty good stuff. One has to wondeer if Toyota is making everybody think its main focus is on li batteries, while they really are one step ahead working on ultracapacitors.

Good reacd, check it out.