The HySE-X2, a hydrogen-powered UTV developed in a joint project between Japan’s automotive giants, crushed the Dakar Rally’s Mission 1000 fan vote on Friday to earn ten bonus points.

The poll was conducted via the official Dakar Rally Instagram broadcast channel over 12 hours on the rest day. By its closure, the HySE-X2 racked up roughly 3.3 thousand votes.

KH-7 Ecovergy’s hybrid MAN truck, the defending Mission 1000 winner and current overall leader in the class, was second with approximately 1.6 thousand votes. Segway, represented by three electric bikes, had 1.3 thousand. While they did not win the vote, KH-7 and Segway still earned five and two points toward their ranking, respectively.

Piloted by Yoshio Ikemachi, the HySE-X2 is second overall with 110 points following the vote. It has completed the full distance every day (which earns ten points each) and beat the reference time thrice in Stages #2B, #4, and #5.

The KH-7 truck, with Jordi Juvanteny behind the wheel, has consistently finished atop the leaderboard, netting the full ten points for beating the benchmark time in Stages #2B and #5.

Segway has Benjamín Pascual, Xu Jianhao, and Yang Jie riding the bikes. Pascual was the only Mission 1000 entrant to smash the reference time in the Prologue, and did so again in Stage #5. However, he only did half the distance in Stage #2B. Jianhao has completed the entire stretch so far, but only has 77 points with only one instance in which he was within the benchmark time (nine seconds back in Stage #5). Jie has yet to come within 110% of any of the times.

Ikemachi and Pascual also netted ten more points each through Launch Control, a 200-meter drag race.

Mission 1000 standings after Stage #5 and Fan Vote

Rank	Number	Competitor	Team	Distance Points	Drive Mode	Launch Control	Fan Vote	Total Points
1	1040	Jordi Juvanteny, José Luis Criado, Xavi Ribas	KH-7 Ecovergy Team	70	45	0	5	120
2	1030	Yoshio Ikemachi, Paulo Marques	HySE	70	20	10	10	110
3	1000	Benjamín Pascual	Segway Racing	65	15	10	2	92
4	1001	Jianhao Xu	Segway Racing	70	5	0	2	77
5	1002	Jie Yang	Segway Racing	59	0	0	2	61

Featured image credit: Charly Lopez / ASO