Mirai production begins @ 3/day

Honda and Mercedes had a test lease program going on with FCV's in California years before Toyota announced the Mirai. The Hyundai FCV is available now. Hyundai and Toyota have gotten the cost lowered, but the technology isn't new. The cars are still unaffordable to a large percentage of people without even considering the cost of the refueling infrastructure.

When the first gen Prius arrived in the US, it cost more than the Echo, Corolla, and even base Camry, but it wasn't in the high end luxury car price range. Tesla's are that pricy, but there are more affordable choices, and the Tesla S gives the buyer performance and luxury in addition to longer EV range for the price. The Mirai will cost around around as much as the S60. As a Lexus it should have the luxury for its price; reviews will confirm this or not. We do know it is smaller with lower performance than the S60 though.

Why more discussion of the Mirai than the others besides this being a Toyota fan site?
After their FCV release, Hyundai/Kia brought the Soul EV to market, and apperantly it will go nationwide. A PHV Sonota was also announced. They are diversified on this alt fuels front.
Mercedes is turning to EVs and plugins. They might continue their current FCV lease program, but they have made no announcements of releasing a newer model.
Honda has shown off their next gen Clarity FCV concept, but haven't made much noise about it. Based on their actions with the Fit EV, their main focus is on compliance to the ZEV program. The Fit EV was available in other states, so Honda may have had an actual interest in gathering data, as opposed to Fiat, but the incentive climate favors FCV's now, which they already have a large investment in.

Note what those companies haven't done, but Toyota has. They haven't had an anti-plugin campaign from one of their brands. I have said much the same before, the backlash against Toyota on the Mirai wouldn't have been as vocal as it is without those actions. Honda may have stopped on BEV's too, but they aren't as large a car company as Toyota, and they haven't felt the need to attack plugins as part of promoting their FCV. Toyota is acting almost like GM did in regards to hybrids, and part of the negative FCV flak they are getting is because of their apparent negative stance with plugins.

Go back to around 2005 and you will see tips, comments, and questions from me regarding the Prius. Since I no longer have my 2005 Prius, or have even sat in a gen3, I don't see the point of me wasting people's time doing so now. I thought my Prius was a great car, but didn't like the 'flying bridge' of the gen3, and was disappointed when Toyota abandoned plans to build the Prius in North American.

I don't have a plugin in part for the same reasons I had to sell my Prius. The fact that my house is old enough that the detatched garage was originally a carriage house and horse stable means upgrading the electric for a EVSE, or even a dedicated 15 amp line, will be much more involved than most have to contend with. Then my commute, with North Eastern winters, is pushing it in terms BEV range. I do want one though.

I guess I could have gotten a Volt, and just used it as a regular hybrid, but that would have been a waste of resources.

As to putting a negative light on Toyota, they are just another corporation, and a foreign one, driven by profits. Pushing FCV's in the US, where they will work for only tiny sections of the country and a minority people, while abandoning plugins, isn't for the good of us, but for their bottom line by spreading Mirai costs over a few more units sold.

For a small island nation with limited natural resources, switching from petroleum to hydrogen may prove to be a good move long term. For a country the size of the US, elemental hydrogen charged FCV's face serious infrastructure issues before they can even think of going mainstream. Why spend tax funds to commercialize them now when those issues haven't been addressed? California is spending millions on stations for cars that are only being sold in numbers to meet ZEV compliance. Who will pay to upgrade, convert, or decommission those stations in the event of better a 'fuel' coming along for FCV's. The car's are still expensive, and hydrogen may not be the fuel of choice for them in the future. The hydrogen stations that reform NG onsite could have at least been made dual purpose for CNG vehicles to diversify the investment.

 

which 'minority people' are we talking about?

 

Considering the sticker price of a Mirai, wouldn't it have made more sense for it to have been a Lexus? Might make it a little more palatable.

 

Not to mention it would be in line with the anti-EV commercials they've (Lexus) aired in the past year. But a Lexus Mirai would probably be fodder for BMW to poke fun at in retaliation later.

 

That is great to hear, thanks.
And no, I don't expect to e able to sit in one for a decade, or more (MN).

 

Well I can certainly eSit in one for the virtual experience.

How big kWhr is the Li Batt in a Mirai?

 

+1

No, never sat in one. I don't think toyota would make one available to me;-) I certainly could not fuel one. It is nice that the headliner is high quality.

Objections to the rosy projections, are belief in toyota's own released figures. Toyota could certainly easily overcome the review objections to styling, dash design, acceleration at a car at this price point with another model. The lease price is much lower than the buy price, leasing to customers at $499/mo and $3649 down including fuel (similar to the tucson and past clarity). Now that fuel toyota estimates will cost someone $10/kg (we don't know if it is toyota, the stations, or the state or a combination of all right now), and if you are using 20 kg of fuel a month that makes it $200/mo in free fuel, so if you want hydrogen your lease of the car is only $299/mo. This is similar to the honda clarity's lease of $600/mo with free fuel in 2009. The big difference is honda was losing more per car so they only promised 300 to the US in the first 3 years, and delivered significantly less. What is more difficult is to quickly drop prices for fuel cell parts, build stations, and drop the price of the 10,000 psi hydrogen. That is why Toyota now is not estimating the 33,000 the prius sold in 1997-1999, but 5700. They aren't estimating the tens of thousands a year they sold in priuses in the fourth year of production (when they started exporting to the US), but sometime in the 2020s. All the stuff toyota said at the launch is quite reasonable.

 

$10 a kg of hydrogen? How far will that take you? 100 miles? 50? 35?

It makes our petrol at $7 a US gallon look pretty reasonable.

 

Well all the leases include hydrogen for the whole lease, if you buy the car its included for 3 years and your costs go up. Depreciation is likely to be high if there are advances, and if there are not, hydrogen might be even more expensive or might be fully subsidized by the tax payers or car companies. Toyota estimates that at least 90% of the US cars with be 3 year leases with the hydrogen included.

Toyota estimates that you will be able to go about 300 miles for $50 worth of hydrogen, and that if large volumes of cars appear it will drop to $6/kg (4 pounds). We have no idea how much the government will subsidize the fuel in the future.

 

It will be a Lexus; in the US at least.

It's NiMH, and the pack(or close to it) from the Camry hybrid.

 

Mirai is able to go 75 miles (not 60) on a gge (kg) because vehicle operation efficiency is 60% compare to Prius (~40%).

Projected costs of hydrogen (assuming high-volume production and widespread deployment) have been reduced to ~$2.00/gallon of gasoline equivalent (gge) produced (<$4.50/gge produced, delivered and dispensed for 700 bar fueling), for a wide range of natural gas prices—a cost that is competitive with gasoline.
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Accomplishments and Progress | Department of Energy

Producing a kg of H2 emits more than a gallon of gas but better efficiency during operation makes Mirai a cleaner car, well to wheel.

Buring natural gas in a CNG Prius would be no better than a gas Prius and NG compressor (for garage) is expensive and not reliable. Plus, you don't get zero tailpipe emission and EV driving experience.

 

All fuel are subsidized, including solar.

Due to the incentives, I will be getting free PV panels and the electricity it will produce. It is a great deal but it is not sustainable.

Plugin car incentive and other battery upstream incentives are making the battery 16kWh (or below) basically free as well.

From that perspective, hydrogen fuel as well as FCV should get similar incentives.

EV chargers also have incentive. L1 and L2 chargers will be obsolete soon once faster chargers (more expensive) are deployed. Not a good way to use our tax dollar. Even worse, there is no standard EV charger.

H2 stations will be standarized and at the premium refuel speed, comes premium price - until early adopter stage is passed.

 

That was discussed here: Twenty Hydrogen Myths | Page 3 | PriusChat

The Mirai has a 650km(404mi) range under JC08 conditions, and filled to 70MPa(10k psi). With a 5kg tank that Toyota lists for the specs, that is 80.8mi/kg. With 4kg as you contend, it is 65.8mi/kg.

The Prius gets 76.7mpg under JC08 (I may have been using another value in the other thread). The 50mpg EPA combined is 65.8% of that result.

So EPA estimates for the Mirai are 52.7mpge with a 5kg tank, and 65.8mpge with a 4kg one. Putting the 60mpgs estimates based on released NA specs in the middle.

The Clarity is close in size to the Mirai and rated 59mpge combined. I expect the Mirai to be close to this. Toyota likely may have attained efficiency improvements over Honda's older FCV, but being heavier and having a more powerful motor will reduce the improvements in the final vehicle. Besides, Toyota's big achievement with the Mirai is supposed to be in reducing the cost.

 

The level 1 and 2 chargers are standardized. Level 1 is literally a 15 amp outlet. Level 2 allows for reasonable charging of a BEV overnight at home. It really isn't fast enough for away from home charging, but home charging is the norm, and that is standardized.

Blame the corporations for there not being a standard for fast DC charging. Chademo was too greedy in regards to licensing fees, so GM and Europeans decided to go their own way. Everybody was moving too slow for Tesla's requirements. Tesla offers the widest range of options to their customers in terms of charging. For home they have level 1 and 2, plus dryer and RV outlets for options. There is a Chademo adapter available, and if not now one for the SAE DC charger will be available soon.

We don't really have a single standard available for hydrogen FCV's. California is building new stations and upgrading old ones for 70MPa. Meanwhile Japan has 82MPs at many of their stations. A public EV charger doesn't really have to be upgraded once faster comes out since most charging is at home. A hydrogen station would have to upgrade in order for the FCV's it is area to get a full fill, and that will cost more than upgrading the EV chargers that need it.

Then there is the possibility of on board reformers to fuel a FCV directly with natural gas or methanol. The natural gas ones are already available for residential power. It is only a matter of time before the size and cost come down to fit it on a car. FCV's are still luxury items in terms of price. Why rush to spend the tax money on hydrogen stations when it would be far less costly to go NG nationwide for them? NG stations can also be used by NG ICE's, hybrids, or PHV's. So expensive FCV's can be sold with cheaper NG ICE's until their costs come down for mass market vehicles. The same can be asked about methanol.

 

Driving 404 miles with 4 kg is 101 MPGe. Under EPA cycle, 75 MPGe is a good estimate.

 

How so when an efficient car, the Prius, gets 65% of its JC08 rating on EPA? 75mpge would require the Mirai to do 10% better than the Prius on the EPA to get that 75% of JC08.

FCV's have an all electric drivetrain so lets try a different comparison. The 2013 Leaf gets 228km(141.7mi) of range on JC08. It gets a little better than half of that on EPA with 75 miles. If being electric as a larger effect than a hybrid on EPA, the Mirai would have a 214 mile range on a full tank. It comes out worse under that comparison.

Your 75mpge is extremely optimistic and requires leaving the tank 20% full. Toyota could claim a much higher range than they did if it was close to that.

 

So you have a $25k car replaced by a $60k car that actually costs the manufacturer $120k to make?

The original Prius was a couple of grand over the cost of a similar sized car, not double. It just doesn't add up.

 

It said range is up to 300 miles. Assuming the refueling starts at 10 MPa (the same as Japanese version), 300/4=75.

http://pressroom.toyota.com/releases/2016+toyota+mirai+fuel+cell+product.download