The Toyota Mirai is being unfairly lumped in with a lot of poorly sold cars for the wrong reasons. Search for “best selling cars” and there it is, among the worst. In fact, Toyota has only sold a few thousand of these sultry luxury sedans since the car was launched in 2015.
The Toyota Mirai isn’t a best seller, and that’s okay. It’s a shame it falls on these lists. It’s a shame because it’s interesting, has Lexus-like levels of fit and finish, an interesting if not pretty design, and one of the most futuristic powertrains available today.
It’s not the car, it’s the engine
The problem is not the car, it’s how it works The Mirai is a car that runs on hydrogen. It’s one of three hydrogen-powered cars you can buy at a dealership. The Hyundai Nexo and Honda Clarity are the others. Chances are you’ve never seen one on the road.
The US only has 54 public hydrogen stations and 53 are in California, which is one of the reasons it’s only sold there. So this is a major obstacle to most people buying (or in Honda’s case starting) one of these cars. But, if you live near a hydrogen station, it can be handy.
How does a hydrogen fuel cell engine work?
These hydrogen-powered cars use fuel cells to produce electricity. Basically, there are two electrodes, one negative and one positive, and then an anode. The hydrogen is fed to the anode and a catalyst that breaks apart the protons and electrons, creating electricity. This electricity is sent to an electric motor and a battery. The best part about a hydrogen car is that the only emissions are water. This is one of the reasons why many forklifts you find in warehouses today do not run on gas, but on hydrogen.
What that means for the Mirai is that it makes 182 horsepower and gets 357 miles of range on a full tank, or up to 402 miles with the extended-range Mirai XLE. It’s also a silent electric car since it’s basically electric. In addition, it only takes about five minutes to completely fill a hydrogen tank.
What is the 2023 Toyota Mirai?
Let’s face it, the Toyota Mirai is a strange car. It has some Toyota Crown styling cues, a grille that doesn’t really look like its Toyota siblings, and a cabin that looks like it came from the Lexus store across the street. Its styling is conservative and exclusive, as if it was meant to be a Lexus, but the company didn’t decide that at the last minute.
It’s not very fast, like most electrics, but it’s said to go from 0 to 60 mph in about 7.5 seconds, which is about as fast as a Chevy Tahoe SUV. It is rear wheel drive. It has Toyota’s latest Toyota Safety Sense 2.5+ with adaptive cruise control and automatic emergency braking.
How much does a Toyota Mirai cost?
A Mirai starts at $50,595 for a well-equipped XLE version. The Limited is a more luxury-focused version, but it starts at $66,955 and has less range. Either way, the fuel cell powertrain has an impressive eight-year, 100,000-mile warranty, and the battery is backed by a 10-year or $150,000-mile warranty. Although Toyota has only sold a few thousand Mirais since 2015 and only about 5,000 since the 2021 redesign, according to car sales tracking firm GoodCarBadCar, it’s proving the hydrogen concept.
However, it does come with $15,000 in free fuel whether you lease or buy. Try getting that with a Camry.
