The Toyota Mirai Hydrogen Car Is A Fascinating Waste Of Money: Trade-In-Tuesday

I drove a hydrogen car for the first time in my life a few weeks back, and it was awesome for the first 10 minutes. That’s the amount of time I had in the 2018 Toyota Mirai that someone had traded in to our sister company (Galpin Volkswagen) before I had to head to one of the 58-ish filling stations in the entire nation. Luckily, I’m LA based, so I had a station nearby, but unluckily, what I learned upon arriving at that filling station completely ruined the car for me. Here, allow me to explain.

For the third installment of Trade-In-Tuesday, we take a close look at a hydrogen-powered 2018 Toyota Mirai, traded in to Galpin Volkswagen and then sent to Galpin’s huge maintenance facility referred to simply as “Raymer.” That’s where I had my first look.

It’s a decent looking car; it reminds me a bit of a Prius or maybe a Camry or Avalon — it’s unabashedly a newish Toyota:

The Mirai has a lot of the same qualities you expect out of any other vehicle from the brand: decent build quality, a well-engineered ride, good safety tech, etc. The interior is a decent place to spend time, with nice light-colored vinyl seats, and two-tone interior trim panels; the cabin comes with all the tech I’d have wanted in 2018, when the car was new:

There’s only seating for two in the back, presumably due to packaging constraints associated with the powertrain (I’ll get to more on that), but those two seats looked spacious, even if they were covered in some kind of strange purple liquid:

All of this is to say that, while I may have initially seen a hydrogen car as some kind of futuristic Jetsons-like hovercraft, the reality is that the car felt very normal when I first hopped in. Here, check out my review — the third episode of Trade-In Tuesday:

As you see in the video above, things continued to feel normal when I hit the start button and started driving.

The Mirai is comfortable, and drives like an electric car because that’s exactly what it is. It takes oncoming airflow, steals the oxygen, mixes it with hydrogen stored in its tanks, and from that creates electricity that it sends to a 151 horsepower electric motor at the front of the car.

The electricity production happens at fuel cell stack, which — counter to what I say in that YouTube video — is actually not under the hood. This is the Power Control Unit, which, according to Toyota “decides when to use stored energy from the battery or to draw energy directly from the fuel cell stack. This is part of what makes Mirai so energy efficient, and is based on the proven Toyota hybrid PCU found in Prius.”

You can see the Power Control Unit on the left side of the image below. You’ll notice that the two hydrogen storage tanks are under the rear seat and below the trunk (just aft of the rear axle), while the actual fuel cell is under both the front seats:

The small 1.6 kWh Nickel-Metal Hydride battery in elevated in the trunk area:

Here’s a nice system overview:

Here’s a top view:

And if you’d like some close-ups of the hardware, check out these carbon fiber/fiberglass/plastic tanks:

Here’s a closer look at the Power Control Unit under the hood:

Here’s the electric motor that drives the front wheels:

Here’s the fuel cell stack that converts the hydrogen and oxygen into electricity to feed the battery:

Here’s the four-phase “boost converter” that is hooked to the front of that fuel cell stack. Its job, per Toyota, is “[bring] voltage to 650 volts. Driving at a higher voltage makes more efficient use of the motor, giving Mirai a power output equivalent to other hybrids in Toyota’s portfolio”:

And here’s the baby battery pack, whose role Toyota describes thusly: “The battery allows for regenerative braking and also assists during high-power demands like accelerating — improving total system efficiency and fuel economy. Like the motor, the battery is sourced from proven Toyota hybrid technology”:

So now that you have a basic overview, and that we’ve established that it basically drives like a front-wheel drive electric car (albeit a fairly slow one, at 151 horsepower and over 4,100 pounds), it’s worth noting some things that make it a bit less compelling. The weird child-like scream that happens when you hammer the accelerator pedal is the least of anyone’s concerns, though it’s worth noting, since Automotive News once penned an entire article on how surprisingly not-silent the electricity-propelled car is, with the site writing:

The whirring kicks in when the driver punches the pedal for quick acceleration. It is reminiscent of the motor-assist in the Prius hybrid. But in the Mirai, it is actually the hydrogen pump working overtime to flush more hydrogen through the processing stack to ramp the car up to speed.

The clicking, which can grate like a noise-vibration issue, comes from the hydrogen fuel injector, which feeds the fuel from the high-pressure hydrogen tanks into the pump.

The clicking speeds and slows in time with your foot on the accelerator.

Both sounds emanate from just under the rear floorboards where the mechanisms are housed. Engineers said they are working on ways to better muffle the sounds.

To me, this “WHEEEEE!!!!” sound that I heard every time I punched the accelerator sounded like a small child having the time of its life, maybe on a roller coaster or something. But again, this was the least of the issues with the car: The biggest issue with the car is refueling. And you don’t have to take my word for it, because I spoke with a longtime Mirai owner named Micheline:

“First of all, I lovvvveee the car. I completely 100 percent love the car, BUT it has some pros and cons,” Micheline began, saying she scored a smoking hot deal on the 2017 model back when she picked it up just before the pandemic. “They give you the offer of free hydrogen gas…it last me for three years…it just recently changed maybe two months ago, so my credit is done so now I’m actually paying for [hydrogen].”

When I asked how bad it was having to pay for her own hydrogen, Micheline responded: “It’s horrible. I’m going to probably trade this car in.” Then she showed me her fuel pump. Just look at this thing:

Almost $110! And for how much range? Well, according to Toyota, the 2017 Mirai can drive 312 miles per tank, but Micheline says she does lots of highway driving, so she expects to drive only 240 before having to refuel. Now, let’s do some math.

The average cost of gasoline in California is $4.50 a gallon. That means Micheline essentially paid the equivalent of 24 gallons of gas. If she’s expected to only go 240 miles on 24 gallons of gas, that’s the same thing as driving a 10 MILE PER GALLON VEHICLE.

Yes, you read that right. Micheline is paying as much per mile as she would be if she drove a big, smoky, 1975 Chevrolet Square-Body pickup truck. That’s just utterly ridiculous.

Also slightly ridiculous: She has to put on gloves to take the often-frigid hydrogen fueling nozzle out of her car:

I went on to fuel up my car, since I didn’t want to leave Galpin in a lurch. I put $7 into it, figuring that would make up for the maybe 20 miles that I’d driven. In reality, the range on the car ended up lower than when I’d started! I don’t get it.

I will say that, as expensive and unpleasant as the whole refueling situation is, that quick-connect fitting between the hose and the car is quite satisfying to mate together:

In the end, what we have is a damn fine car let down by — for the most part — infrastructure. The car rides great, its 151 horsepower is adequate, the cabin is quiet aside from the screaming child, and the whole package feels modern and safe. The pedal is responsive, the seats are cushy, there’s plenty of room — there’s a reason why Micheline started our conversation with “First of all, I lovvvveee the car.” It’s a great car!

But $110 to go 240 miles is egregious, and so is having to park your car for weeks when the hydrogen stations aren’t working.

Even though there’s an awesome “H2O” button on the left side of the dashboard that release steaming water onto the road below, and even though there’s clearly a lot of engineering behind this machine, it’s impossible to overcome this big of a drawback.

All Images: Toyota or The Autopian (unless otherwise noted)