- The Mirai made financial sense AS A LEASE for folks in Southern California back in 2022 (possibly 2023) because:

  - Car prices in general (including EVs) were fairly highly priced at the time due to demand, the chip shortage, etc.

  - There were clean vehicle incentives to get a Toyota Mirai, including things like a hydrogen fuel fill up card to cover expenses.

  - At the time there was some assumptions that hydrogen fuel costs would go down over time, but they actually went up.

The article does talk about the lack of investment in hydrogen infrastructure, this is true and theres been a huge split between announced infrastructure investments and what has actually happened (see https://bsky.app/profile/janrosenow.bsky.social/post/3labfzi... for a chart going through 2021-2024). The current US political situation and its impact on clean energy probably doesn't help either.

Hydrogen is such a terrible idea it was never getting off the ground. There seems to be some kind of psychosis around it being the next oil and therefore greedy people want to get in early on. But this blinds them to the basic chemistry and physics.

https://www.carscoops.com/2024/02/toyota-offers-crazy-40k-di...

An interesting second part of the program was that if you live near a hydrogen station but it's broken, Toyota will instead reimburse a rental car and gas for the rental, one week at a time but presumably for as long the hydrogen fuel station remains broken.

Japan imports energy. They have to be very careful about which type of energy they build infrastructure for, because they must pay to import that type of energy for decades or centuries. (LNG vs Coal use very different equipment) This is specifically a strategic problem for Japan compared to other energy importers because they both use a lot of energy, and don’t have a military option to secure a foreign supply.

Hydrogen fuel could be created by almost any energy source and then used just like any other fuel source. Ideally Japan would like to pay energy exporters to convert their energy to Hydrogen so Japan has maximum flexibility when importing energy.

Projects like the Mirai exist as proof of concepts for Hydrogen, and the United States was never going to be an early widespread adopter of this technology.

With all the recent outrage and lawsuits, I wonder how many buyers actually did their due diligence and weighed the risk before committing to them? Or maybe the huge fuel subsidy was seen as a win even if this event played out? Idk but I commend Toyota for taking the risk and going for it.

Edit: typo

An EV is a clear simplification of an ICE. Add a Battery and replace the mechanical complexity of a combustion engine with a relatively simple electric motor. So many components are now unnecessary and so many problems just go away. EVs also make charging simpler.

Hydrogen cars on the other hand are very complex and also quite inefficient, requiring many steps to go from hydrogen generation to motor movement. And they require a very sophisticated network of charging infrastructure, which has to deal with an explosive gas at high pressures. Something which is dangerous even in highly controlled industrial environments.

I just do not see a single reason why hydrogen cars would catch on. EVs are good already and come with many benefits.

Pure range is 500+ miles but not many Hydrogen stations.

Here is the european charging station map https://h2.live/en/ Benelux countries, Switzerland, and the Ruhr area are most likely the best places to own this car

1 Kg of hydrogen is SUPER EXPENSIVE (equivalent ~ 1 gallon of gas)

$17/gallong when I looked at the pumps

When the Mirai first came out, owners didn't care because the fuel was free.

But after that ended, they had to buy it for themselves.

who wants to pay that?

(also, stations weren't plentiful like EV chargers, and even though you could fill up faster than an EV charge, who cares when you can't go very far (distance-wise from home).

The other interesting thing about these cars is the output is water out of the tailpipe.

https://alpha.chem.umb.edu/chemistry/ch471/evans%20files/Pro...

Nothing fundamental has changed in the last 2 decades to refute the arguments Bossel made in 2006.

This was a €71,000 car four years ago. That is 86% of the value gone. And you were driving around on very expensive hydrogen (compared to diesel and BEV).

At least it’s not as blatant of a green energy scam as the high speed rail to nowhere. In this case they actually built a few stations that worked.

Teslas may not be anymore the future of EVs, but we can't deny that by building the Power Charger infrastructure, Tesla gave consumers the confidence to buy an EV knowing that it wouldn't be basically a geofenced vehicle.

I am sorry. ;-)