drive

Toyota’s new fuel call car still has some distance left to go

July 02, 2015

The Toyota Mirai Fuel Cell Sedan: a full-sized sedan that behaves like a traditional gas-powered car. – AFP/Relaxnews pic, July 2, 2015.When the Toyota Mirai goes on sale in the US later this year it will boast the longest driving range of any current zero emission vehicle – 502km between refuelling stops. But it is going to need that extra range

That distance, a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimate based on efficiency over the combined cycle – ie. inner city and highway use – is more than three times that of the Nissan Leaf (135km) and even surpasses the Tesla Model S (425km).

However, unlike the new Toyota, the electric batteries inside the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S can be recharged at home, at the office or even in the parking lot – wherever there's a power socket. That's because the Toyota Mirai is a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.

And, at the moment there is very little infrastructure to support the cars in terms of hydrogen refuelling stations. Despite the chicken and egg situation – infrastructure won't improve until there are more fuel cell cars on the road and consumers won't buy fuel cell cars until there is more infrastructure – the Mirai is a significant step towards taking the technology mainstream.

It's a full-sized sedan that behaves like a traditional gas-powered car and despite the huge development costs associated with fuel cell technology, Toyota has managed to make the car "affordable" in the sense that its price is on a par with a BMW or Mercedes.

"Toyota realised in the early 90s that electrification was key to the future of the automobile," said Toyota North America CEO Jim Lentz. "Just as the Prius introduced hybrid-electric vehicles to millions of customers nearly 20 years ago, the Mirai is now poised to usher in a new era of efficient, hydrogen transportation."

With the infrastructure in place, drivers will be able to pull on to a filling station forecourt and top up the tank with hydrogen gas in just three minutes. Compare that with a Tesla Supercharger which, as cutting-edge as it is, can only add about 270km of range in 20-30 minutes of charging.

But, as Nissan's head Carlos Ghosn is fond of pointing out, the infrastructure for electricity is everywhere we look and that is why his company is betting only on plug-in battery cars.

The Toyota Mirai is going on sale in the US initially in California where work has begun on extending the existing hydrogen refuelling infrastructure to 100 stations. However, fewer than half of those stations will be up and running before 2016. – AFP/Relaxnews, July 2, 2015.