Piloting the otherworldly Toyota Mirai

Coming soon, a fuel-cell car for the real world

Just ahead of the LA Auto Show, Toyota rolled out the Mirai sedan, its first production-ready hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle (FCV). It looks like Toyota is making the sort of big bet on hydrogen that it did with the Prius back in 2000, a move that started the hybrid-car wave. We drove a prototype of the Mirai last winter and liked it fairly well.

The Mirai is based on a modified Lexus HS platform, a car that’s a bit smaller than a Toyota Camry. Power is rated at 153 horsepower and acceleration is claimed to be 9 seconds from 0 to 60 mph. That’s not a quick sprint time and unlike other electric cars, the Mirai doesn’t feel so eager to gather speed. Once rolling, though, it glides quietly and effortlessly. You do hear a distinctive whine while accelerating with this example. The Toyota rep who joined me on our ride told me that that comes from a compressor sucking outside air into the fuel stack where the chemical reaction producing the electricity takes place, and he advised that it would be muted prior to production.

Otherwise, the ride is unobtrusive in a Toyota kind of way. The suspension soaks up bumps well. Handling is nothing to write home about and in truth not that much different from a Prius. The high-tech interior has two display screens and a sci-fi ambience. Fit and finish looks and feels appropriately upscale. Unfortunately, the Mirai seats only four; in lieu of a center rear seat there’s a covered storage bin.

Two tanks with a combined volume of 122 liters (about 33 gallons) hold 5 kilograms of high-pressure hydrogen gas good for a driving range of about 300 miles, Toyota says. The tanks take five minutes to refill. While the price of hydrogen at yet-to-be-built fueling stations is not established, current estimates are that it ought to be about $10 per kilogram, which works out to about $50 to get 300 miles of driving.

Toyota says the Mirai will go on sale in small numbers by the end of 2015. Only about 200 will be available at first, but U.S. allocation will grow to 3,000 by 2017. The initial price will be $57,500, reduced to about $45,000 after various clean-energy incentives. But Toyota expects that about 90 percent of customers will lease one instead, for $499 a month including three years of free maintenance and most crucially, complementary hydrogen fill-ups. That’s definitely the way to do it as the technology advances rapidly.