2021 Toyota Mirai
 

Whoa! The 2021 Toyota Mirai FCEV has thrown out its quirky/ugly design and was completely redesigned with a handsome and luxurious styling. The second-generation of the hydrogen-fuel cell-powered sedan has a 30% increase in range, longer, wider and can seat five. Sharing its platform with the Lexus LS sedan and LC coupe, it looks like it is rear drive. When it goes on sale late next year, the 2021 Mirai will probably still be limited to the California market and will be going to market as a premium luxury market. https://www.thedrive.com/news/30283/...ve-performance

That's a good looking car. And rwd!
Looks pricey, though.

Toyota images...
 

botsapper is back!

And, wow - that's a transformation. If they do this, the Honda Clarity will win the annual ugliest alternative energy powertrain contest by default!

I looked at the images before I finished reading your post...


https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1571334481


https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1571334532


https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1571334578


Aha! That's why it looked familiar.

Its design is not really my cup of tea, but not so bad at all. I'd still not hold my breath for hydrigen-powered cars anyway...

It looks much better - so after it fails, they can't blame the looks, at least.

The existing Mirai is a Lexus HS ?

At $5000 almost worth buying one for EV conversion or cng + ice conversion

It's fossil fuel free as long as you ignore that hydrogen is made from natural gas.

"It's fossil fuel free as long as you ignore that hydrogen is made from natural gas."

That too can change...

http://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/...iAAEgJYbvD_BwE

As long as natural gas is $5 per therm no one is going to use anything but natural gas to make hydrogen.

Hydrogen from anything but oil or natural gas will likely cost at least twice as much as gasoline burned in a hybrid and more than 10x that of an electric.

As soon as people find out how much it's going to cost, hydrogen dies.

Is it just me, or does the front seem too long? Feels almost like a Viper, but without a V10 under the hood. Overall looks are pretty good, just too long of a snout.

To all the hydrogen fan boys:
How much do you think hydrogen is going to cost?
Free.
Less than electric.
Less than a gasoline in a hybrid.
Between electric and gasoline.
More than gasoline.

What do ya think?

Isn't it lease-only?

If you really want to you can buy one, like EV owners nobody does buy a new example.
.

https://www.cars.com/vehicledetail/d...5372/overview/


Via auction you can get a 2016 Mirai for around $5000, or $15,000 retail with $15000 of free fuel

These cars have an excellent EV drivetrain and would make a great EV conversion
A Mirai otherwise is nothing more than a repackaged Lexus HS (which failedin the market) and could likely accept a drivetrain swap from a Prime or Lexus with some effort, sadly they are big heavy cars even with the hydrogen bits removed so not real interesting

Fellow Mirai owners are actually complaining that too many people are buying them now that used examples are for sale.

Peruse the Mirai forum if you want a laugh

It goes way beyond the cost of the hydrogen from electrolysis, or even from steam reformed natural gas. It is very high priced - $10-15 / KG which is equivalent to a gallon of gas in terms of energy.

It is the cost of building the filling stations and the infrastructure to supply them. They cost about $2 Million each, and they can fill about 15 cars per day.

In the area around LA, which is where most of the hydrogen filling stations in the US are - they have had a LOT of problems with supply, and very often, they can only fill cars to about 5,000PSI. Which is about half the usual pressure - so you only get about half the range.

Since there are only stations in a limited area, you can only drive (less than) half of the range away, so you can make it back.

South Korea is also struggling to get FCEVs rolling. Who wants to buy a car than you can't drive? Who wants to build filling stations, when there are so few cars? Which side of the equation has to go first, so to speak?

FCEVs are a much greater departure from gasoline than other alternate fuels such as ethanol and CNG, which are also much easier to store than hydrogen. It's impossible to not compare FCEVs to ethanol-capable flexfuel cars and the CNG conversions, which required not only a previous effort to increase their availability but also competitive prices in order to attract ordinary customers in countries where such options are more widely accepted.

I already know how much it will cost. I wanted to see what the hydrogen groupies think.

That's sad I don't have any problem filling my leaf up all the way, at home and for almost nothing.

Hydrogen cars are stupid.

Here is my personal charging network. One more has been added since I took this pic.
https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1571696868

Hydrogen cars are dead. Put bigger batteries in 'em and add a plug.

Hydrogen cars were always doomed to be dead on arrival.
They had a chance when fuel cells looked like they maybe could be the future, then along came lithium batteries and made them obsolete for most if not all terrestrial ground based, mobile applications.

Wait a bit and you might be able to

2016 Mirais are only $5000 through auction.

I haven’t gotten word if the Mirai would pay the EV tax from the state dmv, if it doesn’t everything but the battery is there to do an OEM conversion to a Bev.

My guess is if hydrogen supply issues continue and cars age they might get cheap enough as used sheetmetal to justify for new BEV conversion

Maybe the hydrogen tank would make a good cng tank.

The hydrogen tank wouldn't make a good cng tank.
It would make a great cng tank for automotive use.
It's already approved to be used as a vehicle fuel tank.
It's already designed to fit under a vehicle and they fill to over 5,000psi. 5,000psi is the lowest psi I have heard of I think they could go as high as 10,000psi.

I can't speak for your experiences, but finding a place to certify to 10k psi I found to be really difficult, and AFAIK, places won't fill unless you have a recent cert.

IIRC Ford did at least one plug-in FCEV prototype when Bush Jr. was still the POTUS. Well, nowadays I'd not hold my breath for something like that to become mainstream. Even some plug-in serial hybrid with a multifuel microturbine-driven "range extender" would be more likely to reach commercial viability under a mass-market perspective than a fuel cell.

A Fuel Cell isn’t the real problem

It’s the hydrogen part.

Nissan was testing an alcohol powered fuel cell range extender on its EV van

That is the correct way if there is any

The fuel cell is the problem.
Right now it takes about a troy ounce to build a car fuel cell. Yeah bostitch says they are working on a 7gm of Pt fuel cell but I wouldn't hedge bets on it.
Pt, Pd are constrained resources. There isn't enough for everyone who wants a car to have an ounce of Pt.
Long term forecast in the mining industry says in 10 years current usage for catalytic converters and oil refinery wont be kept up with then by 20 years there will be shortages.
Add a demand of tons more for fuel cells and no.
The reason why they want to attempt to build a 7gm of Pt fuel cell is because that's about how much is in a larger catalytic converter then it could just be a roughly 1:1 swap, not a 4:1 swap.

Lead and manganese can power an ethanol fuel cell

I think liquid fired fuel cells make way more sense but that's not where the industry is going.
All the gooberment and private research money is for hydrogen fuel cells.

That's why fuel cells never caught up. Trying so hard for an approach that looks far more sophisticated, and in fact it is, has a price the average Joe is not willing to pay and maybe can't actually afford. Durability of the membranes of a fuel cell and some eventual difficulty to recondition them, while it may seem easier to overhaul a traditional ICE, are also likely to be a deterrent against FCEVs.