Posts mislead on Toyota's hydrogen-powered cars

AFP

5 days ago

'Toyota has just changed the game! A WATER ENGINE That Will DESTROY the EV industry! In a groundbreaking move that could redefine the global automotive industry, Toyota has unveiled an engine powered by water – running on hydrogen produced through electrolysis!' This is how a Facebook post from June 21, 2025, begins. The post further claims that the supposed engine would not use lithium, would not require charging stations, and would emit only water vapor.
'With this move, Toyota is not just competing with electric vehicles but is announcing the end of the battery era,' reads another post from July 11, 2025. Similar claims appear in many other Facebook posts – for example here, here and here – shared thousands of times on the platform.
The claim spread previously on other social networks such as Telegram -- here and here, TikTok, YouTube, as well as in online articles such as this one. False and misleading claims like the Bulgarian one are circulating in many other languages, including English, and have been seen by millions of users worldwide across social media platforms.
In a race for zero emissions cars that pits electric vehicles (EVs) against hydrogen ones, the claim that water instead of fuel can be used to power cars, has resurfaced sporadically over the past decades, but has never been supported by factual evidence. A handful of Bulgarian inventors are sometimes mentioned in relation to the supposed creation of a water‑fuelled engine, but there is no verified evidence that such a technology has ever existed. Such claims fuel and accusations that the automotive and oil industries deliberately conceal "revolutionary" technologies to preserve their profits, either by buying up and hiding patents or by allegedly making their inventors , as explained in this article on the Bulgarian fact-checking platform Factcheck.bg (archive).
The claim, however, is false. Toyota told AFP that the company is not developing a 'water engine' and described the claim as 'fake news.' Experts also explained that such a system would be inefficient and very difficult to implement in real-world conditions. The Japanese car manufacturer produces vehicles that use hydrogen as fuel; the vehicles are at specialized stations and are equipped with lithium-ion batteries.
The claim was also debunked by the Australian fact-checking platform AAP FactCheck.
Image
Screenshots of Facebook posts spreading false information. Taken on 28 July 2025. The red crisscrossing lines were added by AFP
Toyota is not developing a 'water engine.'
'We are indeed not developing anything that could be described as a 'water engine,' said Jean-Yves Jault, from the Toyota Motor Corporation, in an email to AFP on July 23. Jault described the claims as 'fake news", mainly in dubious Facebook posts likely created to generate engagement by spreading false but sensational content, and referred to a Forbes article that debunks the claim.
The author of that article is Robert Rapier, a chemical engineer, who explains that water is not a fuel but a product of hydrogen combustion, which is the actual source of energy. 'The idea that water can power a car is absurd,' he writes.
The process of electrolysis
Electrolysis i when water is split into hydrogen and oxygen. The process requires a significant amount of electricity and is efficient only when there is a stable power source. Electrolysis does not release energy – it consumes it in order to produce hydrogen, which can later be used as fuel to power vehicles.
T
Experts say that water is not used as fuel
who works with his students on hydrogen fuel cell projects, that the hydrogen used as fuel is not produced on board the vehicle. 'All of these vehicles generate electricity in fuel cells that use pure hydrogen preloaded in tanks,' he stated in an email from July 7.
'I am not aware of any such vehicle, and even theoretically it would be extremely inefficient and impractical,' he added.
'It is technically possible to use electrolysis to utilize residual energy from a moving vehicle, but it is economically unjustified,' said Prof. Dr. Eng. Boriana Tsaneva from the Technical University of Sofia in an email to AFP on July 7, 2025. According to her, this is due not only to the high cost and additional weight of the electrolysis cell and its control electronics but also the generation of an explosive gas mixture that cannot be stored and must be fed into the fuel system immediately after being produced and the negligible amount of usable energy generated when the gas mixture is burned.
Water as a cooling medium (and byproduct?)
The Toyota Mirai is a mass-produced vehicle that uses a hydrogen fuel cell to generate electricity, which powers an electric motor (archives here and here). The vehicle is refueled at high-pressure specialized stations, and the only by-product of converting hydrogen into electricity is water vapor. The vehicle does not have an electrolysis system to produce hydrogen from water. It is also equipped with a lithium-ion battery.
As part of its long-term vision for carbon-neutral mobility, Toyota is pursuing a multi-pathway strategy that includes hydrogen fuel cells, hydrogen combustion engines, and the development of solid-state batteries
Toyota also uses electrolysis to produce hydrogen at some of its facilities, but this process takes place externally and not inside its vehicles.
Battery electric vehicles currently dominate the zero-emission market due to lower costs, better energy efficiency, and more developed charging infrastructure. However, hydrogen cars are seen by some car manufacturers, including Toyota, as a complementary solution for heavy-duty transport and long-distance travel, though their widespread adoption faces challenges from high costs and limited refueling networks. Industry analysts widely expect that zero-emission transport will involve a mix of technologies – with batteries remaining the main option for most passenger cars, while hydrogen may play a niche role in sectors like heavy trucks and industrial transport (archive).
AFP has previously debunked other claims alleging the existence of cars that run on water here and here.