Cars as futuristic as the Mirai are usually only in concept form, but Toyota is on to the second generation of its hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV). The latest version is larger, more luxurious and has numerous technological improvements over its predecessor. We love it, but the lack of H2 fueling stations is confining its North American presence to major cities in California and British Columbia. Never mind, come along for a ride in the car with a name that means “future” in Japanese.
Foreign electric vehicle surge two companies notably toyota and hyundai continue to press on with what i think is a noble experiment the hydrogen electric vehicle like this the toyota mirai in fact this is the second generation of its hydrogen car it’s excellent it’s peppy it rides well it’s dead quiet it’s quite luxurious but of course there’s the issue of where do
You fuel it up hop in it’s time for family wheels foreign wheels is not powered by hydrogen or electricity or gasoline petrol if you wish it’s driven by your likes likes help spread the word while you’re at it hit subscribe and click the notification bell and if the mirror eye provokes your thoughts leave a comment thanks quite apart from the amazing technology
Of the mirai is its look this is perhaps one of the best looking toyota or lexus vehicles in recent memory compared to the first generation it is longer also lower it’s based on the tnga toyota new generation architecture dash l platform that’s really important that’s the same as under the big lexus vehicles so you have quite a luxurious car quite a large car also
Quite conventional looking but my how the styling has cleaned up the angry fish mouth has been dialed right back we have this nice blunt end here at the front and then down the sides not uninteresting but also very clean similarly at the rear nothing overdone nothing too gimmicky looking on this car foreign happens while it didn’t always happen here in the first
Generation mirai the fuel cell stack was under the cabin floor now it’s moved up to the area that we commonly know as the engine bay hydrogen from the fuel tanks and air entering from the intake grill meat in the fuel cell stack there a chemical reaction involving oxygen and hydrogen sends electrons to the drive motor and the small battery water’s the only tailpipe
Emission in a fuel cell vehicle fueling of course is the elephant in the room when it comes to fcev’s fuel cell electric vehicles which there are two these days the mirai as well as the hyundai nexo suv here in the metro vancouver area we have three count them fueling stations in our our whole region for what over 2 million people and east of here the next stop
For hydrogen station is quebec city the situation is substantially better in california which is basically the only place in the u.s that you can get hydrogen for a car the los angeles area has many fueling stations similarly the san francisco san jose corridor and if you’re in the los angeles or san francisco san jose or metro vancouver areas you’ll go a long
Time between phillips because the mirai has excellent range this luxury spec limited trim is claimed to have 574 kilometers while the base xle has 647 that’s 357 miles and 402 miles respectively amazingly it means i could do a vancouver seattle round trip with more than 100k to spare la to san francisco would need a fill up at the only h2 station on the i-5 between
Those cities at coalinga although the base spec xle would just accomplish the drive on one tank full let’s see if we can make it work there was one glitch the touch screen was not cooperative at first but the problem soon went away and did not occur at a different location issues reported by users include the nozzle freezing to the car requiring a number of minutes
To thaw but the main complaint is delays due to lining up behind other hydrogen vehicles to use a single pump that’ll be no surprise to battery electric vehicle drivers who faced the same delays even with multiple chargers at a station when i say that the mirai is as quiet as a rolls-royce i don’t have actual measurements for that but i have driven both and this
Feels as quiet as a rolls-royce and something just came to me as to one possible reason for that the electric motor one electric motor is in the rear it’s way back there it’s not up front the mirror eye is so darn quiet that one of the only sounds you hear other than the wheels on the road is the little toyota outer space noise that all its electrified vehicles
Have in order to warn pedestrians and cyclists and so forth at low speed toyota has gone to great lengths to isolate road noise as well while still keeping a a reasonably involved feel for the driver in fact 50 50 weight distribution in this vehicle that’s quite a surprise pretty nimble for a big car and remember it’s rear-wheel drive all-wheel drive is not an
Option the previous mirai was front-wheel drive it’s got less than 200 horsepower but because it’s electric the torque kicks in thanks to the fuel cell and hybrid drive combined see ya we’ve got 20 inch tires fair bit of rubber on the road and that certainly helps the braking very smooth linear not grabby really befitting a large luxury car a hydrogen-powered
Electric car is not free to operate hydrogen costs money and there’s a big variety in hydrogen prices depending on your location and how the hydrogen is sourced out also not going into the issue of cost to produce the hydrogen and its efficiency and so forth but the government figures out of canada and the united states they show the fuel consumption equivalent to
In the three liter per hundred range or in the 70 miles per gallon equivalent range compared to a gasoline vehicle with many billions of dollars pouring into production of battery electric vehicles batteries themselves and charging infrastructure the hydrogen highway looks to be decades out japan california and germany lead the way but infrastructure cost is the
Biggest barrier you could install about 10 350 kilowatt ultra fast ev chargers for the price of one hydrogen filling station so the benefit calculation involves upfront costs versus how many vehicles can be handled per day perhaps we’ll see both types at the same location but the mere existence of serious production vehicles like the mirai japanese for future shows
The fuel cell holds promise toyota developed its fuel cell technology in-house and has released more than 5 000 related patents royalty free in the near term hydrogen could work well for urban fleets such as taxis or delivery vehicles as they’d be out of service for less time than evs that are being recharged our luxurious top trim review car is not eligible for
Government subsidies in canada but the base model xle gets five thousand dollars from ottawa well here in bc the rebate can be up to four thousand dollars but is income tested the us eight thousand dollar federal tax rebate on the mirai has been eliminated although california offers 4 500. but toyota itself is throwing money at customers deals include up to twenty
Five thousand dollars cash back or a fifteen thousand dollar fuel card from toyota financial services offer not valid in canada foreign you get a big car you expect a lot of space that’s not the case here at least with the rear-facing child seat behind me the one that takes up the most space up front i’m 5 feet 11 inches tall 180 centimeters i can’t even get into
The front passenger seat so the child seat you have in the rear better be of the forward-facing variety the lack of rear seat room doesn’t just affect child seats my knees are up against the driver’s seat driver’s seat set for me and my feet are touching the underside of the seat in front of me now i don’t think it’s because of anything to do with the hydrogen
Tanks however there is a hybrid battery behind us very disappointing back here especially when you consider how much luxury is going on we’ve got a full set of climate controls and seat heat and seat ventilation and even audio controls as well as of course the panoramic moon roof that’s our look at the 2022 toyota mirai i think it’s a remarkable vehicle but what
Do you think leave a comment as always thanks for watching thanks for liking and thanks for subscribing i’m richard detman and i’ll see you next time on family wheels
Transcribed from video
Toyota Mirai is (powered by) a gas By Family Wheels