The legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans this year provide an opening act for alternative forms of propulsion. Mazda comes with a unique concept car in many ways : the RX-8 rotary engine powered by hydrogen and Yojiro Terada at the wheel has also a member of the ...Teams on board, won 19 years ago for the first and only time with a rotary engine car, the 24 hours.

Then victory was 787B Mazda vehicle with an average speed of 205.33 km / h on the road and is also still the only Japanese car ever, which could win the famous endurance race in the world. The race car developed 700 horsepower from 2.6 liters of chamber volume.

Quite as strongly, the RX - 8 Hydrogen is not. The small-scale experimental vehicle makes 109 hp in hydrogen mode (gasoline : 210 HP) and thanks to the 110- liter hydrogen tanks around 100 km range with the alternative fuel. Currently 30 of the vehicles run on lease basis in a Norwegian research project.