What is the cheapest car in America? Until recently, we might have said the Mitsubishi Mirage or the Nissan Versa, but there’s a surprise new contender. This is no penalty box hatchback either. It’s a four-door luxury sedan with cutting-edge looks and a radical powertrain. That’s right—I’m talking about the Toyota Mirai!
As covered by CarsDirect, Toyota has been dishing out massive discounts on 2024 models of its flaghsip fuel cell vehicle. Southern California has seen discounts approaching 70%, dropping the price of a Mirai to less than $17,000. Not only that, but Toyota has been throwing in $15,000 in free fuel to sweeten the deal.
The Mirai was supposed to help Toyota herald in the age of hydrogen transportation. Now it’s sitting firmly in the bargain bin. Let’s explore these crazy deals and how it all went so wrong.
Hot Deal
It’s no surprise these cars are going out cheap, as Mirai sales have slowed to a crawl. Demand for hydrogen cars has never really eventuated and it doesn’t help that you can’t access the fuel in most of the country. Just 499 examples were sold in 2024, compared to 2,737 sold in 2023. The big discounts have been on 2024 models which naturally became less desirable when the calendar flicked over to 2025.
In Southern California, you can save up to $35,000 on a Mirai XLE, which usually retails around $51,325 including destination fees. After the discount, that comes down to around $16,325. That’s enough to make the Mirai the cheapest new car on sale in the United States right now. You’re also getting a whole lot more car for your money compared to the next cheapest entry, with the compact Nissan Versa starting at $18,330 in comparison.
If your tastes are a little more luxurious, you could go with the Limited trim. It starts at $68,250, but discounts up to $43,000 are available. Do the sums, and you’d end up paying around $25,000 and some change.
You want to buy in Southern California to score big. Up in Northern California, you’re only going to get discounts of $25,000 on the XLE and $33,000 on the limited. Stingy, no? Whichever way you go, these offers are available under Toyota’s Finance Subvention Cash program. Basically, they’re cutting you a sweet deal that’s only available with special financing, which is at an attractive 0% APR right now. Throw in $15,000 of free hydrogen fuel, and you’re laughing all the way to the bank.
Sadrogen
It’s worth noting that you don’t actually have to live in California to get this deal. You could fly in from anywhere in the country and pick up a cheap Mirai, no problems. However, you would struggle to drive it far beyond the state border. That’s not because of any laws or regulations, but purely down to the 402-mile range of the Mirai and the limitations of hydrogen infrastructure.
The Department of Energy lists just 54 hydrogen filling stations in the US, 53 of which are in California and 1 in Hawaii. Some of those are currently out of order, too, due to supply disruptions. Based on their locations, you could just about get from the Sacramento filling stop to Reno and back before you ran out of gas (haha, get it?). Alternatively, you could try a trip from LA to Las Vegas, but you’d probably run out of fuel somewhere near Edwards Air Force Base on the way back. Don’t crawl under the razor wire looking for help, they hate it when you do that.
Ultimately, it’s a sad reflection on hydrogen fuel cell technology. It was once touted as the ultimate replacement for gasoline, providing energy with no harmful carbon emissions and fast refueling. Regardless, it never found a foothold. Hydrogen cars were obscure, infrastructure proved expensive, and widespread rollouts of either never took place. As EV technology moved along at a rapid pace, the case for hydrogen cars grew ever weaker.
Let’s run the maths on that $15,000 of free fuel that Toyota is throwing in, too. Last year, hydrogen prices rose to around $34/kg. The Mirai will drive approximately 72 miles per kilogram of hydrogen. Thus, that offer will net you about 441 kg of hydrogen, enough for you to drive just over 31,000 miles. Not bad! You do only get three years to use your free fuel allowance, though.
It’s a funny state of affairs. On the one hand, there’s never been a better time to buy a Toyota Mirai. They’re cheap as hell, and the fuel is free. On the other hand, these cars have very little resale value. Punters won’t be lining up around the block to buy your Mirai in a few years, given it’s largely landlocked to California and the very western edges of Nevada and Arizona. Indeed, it’s no surprise the Ukraine Army used a Mirai as a bomb, given they’re not particularly useful as transport when there are no hydrogen pumps around.
If you’re a big fan of fuel cells, buy a Mirai to support the hydrogen cause. If you’re insanely rich, buy one for your friend as a joke. If you’re just looking to get around, though, you might find the Nissan Versa more useful, even at the hefty price premium of $2,000. It’s an interesting time to be shopping for a new car in California, no?
Image credits: Toyota, Cars.com via screenshot, h2fcp.org via screenshot
The sweetest car i ever drove that is wildly impratical… i know people that bought one at a ridiculously low price (perks of working for a Toyota dealership). For them it was a no brainer as they’re living next door to a hydrogen station, never going very far and getting a fully warranted, brand new car. The deal was too good not to take. For me however, it would have meant a 50km detour to fill that thing up.. and if the only hydrogen station in Quebec City ever broke, i would have been fawk’ed so i bought a Prius Prime instead. Wayy less luxurious but oh so more practical to me.
Man, this would so awesome for a motor. Hell even the Toyota V6, but I would think the electronics would be a nightmare.
This is the dumbest move Toyota has made in their history. Any halfway intelligent person that understands HOW renewables are sources (fill chain) knew this.
Even for commercial purposes, the benefits are slim at best.
I honestly don’t know why anyone believes in hydrogen outside of fast-paced heavy duty uses (buses, trucks).
“Oh, let’s spend a ton of electricity to make hydrogen that we can then turn back into electricity later!”
Makes no sense for commuter cars at ALL.
The unforgiving second law of thermodynamics and the molecular weight of hydrogen make it so when you start with 100 kwhr of electricity to make green hydrogen to feed to a fuel cell, it will give you 30 kwhr of electricity at your Mirai electric motor. If you put 100 kwhr into a battery you will deliver 95 kwhr to the electric motor. Hydrogen is really difficult to contain without leaking. This is not a secret, except to some governments and some investors.
It kinda hurts to see that nice looking car go to waste. But, even if there were filling stations, at the price the article gives it would be around 47 cents a mile for fuel. I did some rough math on my Corolla Cross hybrid, and that’s less than 9 cents a mile, so yeah… no. I’d have to try to sell it once the free fuel ran out- for me, at 16K miles/year, that’s under two years.
You’ll love our follow up article on the hydrogen black market…
https://www.theautopian.com/hydrogen-for-cars-is-so-expensive-its-created-a-black-market/
That was a good one. If somebody’s got the hustle, I say good for them. Reminds me of Winona Ryder in Reality Bites.
The cheapest new car in the US is actually a Colorado Nissan Leaf at $13k with additional incentives allegedly has been had for around $9k. But again only in if you live in Colorado like the weird $0 lease for a 500e.
The used marai market is very soft I’ve seen some for $2k with maybe 50k mi. You could probably do some kind of reffer diesel swap and keep the electric components. A $2500 car with 1500 hrs of fab and electronic work.
If it could be converted to run on Methane and that $15k converted to Taco Bell coupons, I might be a buyer.
Although I think I might need a divorce lawyer if I did that.
Would make a wonderful Uber or Lyft car
Saw a Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell demo vehicle at a street fair some years back. The rep kept saying you could drink the exhaust product (Water), but wouldn’t do it himself.
LS swap?
The new Ford crate motor (shhhh! It’s not street legal, but no one will think you have one in here until you are too far away to catch).
Unless they do emissions tests in your state with inspections. But it would be fun while it lasted.
Joking aside, maybe just a Camry V6 from a donor. You could probably be into a “brand new” car with a lightly used engine for $20k. Plus you could laugh as you drive by your friends lined up at the hydrogen station on your way to buy cheap sweet dead Dino juice.
I kinda like these and still want to get the deal and…Hemi swap! Ha ha
Had a co-worker who bought one because there was a supply station next to the office, so he could drive it in once a week for a fill up and then let his wife commute in it the rest of the week.
Worked great until they laid him off…
Before hydrogen prices skyrocketed, the $15k credit was about on par with buying gas. So if you lived near a fuel station; getting the car for $16k would essentially allow you do drive a nice car for just the cost of gas.
But don’t forget, unlike leasing you still have to pay taxes and registration on the full cost of the car. So taxes alone will be almost $5k. Also insurance on these is pretty expensive.
Hey, at least if it gets stolen they won’t get far.
Buyers are going to burn through that $15,000 worth of free hydrogen faster than the stated calculations project, as the real-world range is reported to be considerably under 400/mi per fill up. More like 250 miles, it seems. At that rate, you’d run out of hydrogen credits around 20,000 miles.
Mirai sounds like something you have because your parents are siblings.
Toyota usually does better with car names.
bZ4x has entered the chat
It means “future” in Japanese, pronounced more like Mill.I.
Yes on the meaning, no on the pronunciation – “mi” pronounced like “me” and then “rai” with a hard “r” sound to break up the intonation (it is two kanji, after all – 未来).
I think that to most people with no knowledge of Japanese it will sound a lot more like Mill.I.
The “i” part of “me” is too long, “mī” or “ミー”, and do most people know what a hard “r” is, or that “ai” is pronounced like the English “I” rather than as in “wait”?
I disagree. Writing it as “I” followed by a double “L” in this case makes it sound like the word “mill”, with a soft “L” pronunciation, which isn’t right. I would sooner write “meer-eye” as the correct way to pronounce it for the average native English speaker – the hard “R” pronunciation that’s natural in Japanese may be lost, but it’s a lot closer than “mill-eye”.
Let the people judge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9m9nxqBI4M
If you’re driving from LA to Vegas and end up near Edwards AFB, you have taken a severely wrong turn somewhere.
When I lived in SoCal, I was less than 2 miles from a hydrogen filling station and I still wouldn’t have purchased a Mirai.
If only I had the time money and expertise, I’d love to convert one into a hybrid S232 Crown Sedan. They’re the same car and you’d remove the geographic constraint of hydrogen fuel. It would make for a great luxury sedan.
Makes me wonder if you could get a second hand one for next to nothing and make that happen. I wish we got the normal S232 Crown sedan rather than the Crossover – it’s such an understated, but good looking car.
That’s a very good looking car, the Mirai, too bad it’s with that experimental powertrain. I think it would sell quite well as ICE or EV or hybrid.
It’s a great look!
It’ll be a Miraicle if they sell even at this price
….Ill show myself out