Last year we wrote about how Kawasaki were dipping their toes into the  hybrid market. Well this is coming on apace and now, looking directly towards a greener future, there's a hydrogen fuelled version on its way.

Starting with the electric hybrid which has appeared in Japan, it looks as though Kawasaki are using the Ninja 400 parallel twin engine as the petrol component of the engine, with an electric engine mounted over the transmission. It seems that the engines can both drive the bike independently when required or can work in tandem. So when using the machine out on the motorways it can drive on petrol only and flip over to electric in cities and towns where there is likely to be more traffic and possible jams.

Kawasaki has committed to having 10 hybrid motorcycle options available to buy by 2025, on the way to 2035 when the entire range will be electric. But not only that, they are also working on a four cylinder hydrogen powered version as well. In order to achieve this it is necessary to develop a dual injection system which combines the normal fuel injection system of a standard bike with a direct fuel injection system which squirts petrol straight into the combustion chamber at considerable pressure. Direct injection is essential when converting a petrol engine to a hydrogen one and turbo engines are better for conversion to hydrogen, so the super charged H2 engine is a great start for this project. If new motorcycles like this are successfully developed then motorcycles could still carry on using internal combustion engines but if they are powered by hydrogen then their emissions would be mainly water vapour – a great improvement pollution wise.

There are still a lot of things to work out with hydrogen powered engines like how the hydrogen can be safely stored in petrol stations (hydrogen stations?) and how to fill the tank on the bike when re fuelling is necessary. But Kawasaki's  focus is now on it and things usually have a way of getting fixed once they are in the spotlight, so watch this space.