Aggregates

Evidence: High: 1 Medium: 2 Low: 4 No Data: 24

Theme Radar

sremani 2026-02-21 19:56 UTC link

I once did some research on Mirai and found at that time Plano, TX where Toyota NA is Headquartered did not have a Hydrogen station. Not sure if they have one now. It is such a limited car and because of the infrastructure stuck to LA and San Diego, I guess.

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

giancarlostoro 2026-02-21 19:58 UTC link

This is one of those cars that's interesting to me, but I don't know that we'll ever go this route in a significant amount. Problem is how complex it is to create hydrogen, although 'green hydrogen' is a thing, it would take quite a bit regardless. Interesting to note that if we could extract only 2% of the hydrogen burried under the earth, we could power the entire world for over 200 years. Which is crazy to think about.

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

wlesieutre 2026-02-21 20:09 UTC link

It’s not really fair to compare depreciation against MSRP when they were being sold new at massive discounts. You could’ve gotten one of these for $40,000 off.

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

LTL_FTC 2026-02-21 20:09 UTC link

Toyota restricted the sale of its hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to specific, qualified customers who lived or worked near existing, functional hydrogen refueling stations. I remember looking into them when first released but realized I wasn’t eligible and the fact that Toyota restricted the sale meant there was a huge risk in buying them.

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

BadBadJellyBean 2026-02-21 20:13 UTC link

I don't think hydrogen will ever be a thing for personal cars. Apart from the abysmal "well to wheel" efficiency it's also just such a hassle to create a fuel network for it. Gasoline is bad enough but a gas that will just leak away whatever you do seems like a stretch. It is just so much simpler with electricity. Pretty much every gas station already has it. No driving it around with trucks. Just maybe once install a bigger cable or a battery/capacitor.

haunter 2026-02-21 20:13 UTC link

Beautiful car but for example I live in Hungary and there is a grand total of one charging station in the whole coutry in Budapest. Yes it's free to charge but probably only makes sense to get a Mirai if you are a Bolt or Uber driver. Nice tech demo though.

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

joecool1029 2026-02-21 20:15 UTC link

Why was it made? I ask because GM’s EV-1 was discussed earlier and it basically existed due to California’s zero-emission requirement in the 90’s. Is this just Toyota doing some random R&D while fulfilling a state minimum requirement?

constantcrying 2026-02-21 20:50 UTC link

When comparing EVs to hydrogen cars it is very obvious that one is the superior solution.

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.

aunty_helen 2026-02-21 21:27 UTC link

Kinda glad this is the case. When people go out of their way to avoid common sense they should be punished.

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.

alexose 2026-02-21 21:39 UTC link

I've always been fascinated with these things. Is there any way to make your own H2 to fuel them? I suspect the purity requirements are too high for at-home electrolysis...

empathy_m 2026-02-21 21:41 UTC link

At one point recently the Mirai came with a fuel incentive program: when you buy the car, Toyota gives you a gift card worth $15,000 towards fuel at hydrogen stations.

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.

dehrmann 2026-02-21 22:38 UTC link

It's got the EV problem, but 100x worse. No only do you have to worry about where to find a place to refuel, there are far fewer of them, and level 1 charging isn't a fallback. It also doesn't have the EV upsides.

some-guy 2026-02-21 23:17 UTC link

I lived a block away from a hydrogen fuel station in Oakland, and in the ten years I was there I maybe saw two different Mirais use it.

GregDavidson 2026-02-22 00:07 UTC link

This technology is completely amazing - for large fleet vehicles like buses, trucks, ferries, etc. Also airplanes! Getting this so compact and refined is a technological miracle. Now put it where it fits!

seltzered_ 2026-02-22 00:25 UTC link

Theres something clickbaity and missing from this article, I encourage watching youtubers like 'mirai club' for better info. What i recall from his videos is:

- 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.

Again, I suspect most folks LEASED the Mirai due to it being a very niche car with limited usage outside of california due to the lack of hydrogen fuel stations. Youre now seeing some viral videos on the ultra low cost used Mirai's showing up in states that dont have hydrogen infrastructure due to some odd car dealer auction buys (Transport Evolved has a youtube video on this.)

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.

jacquesm 2026-02-22 01:39 UTC link

You only see Mirais within spitting distance of the one place where they can tank. The network just isn't developed to the point that owning one of these makes any sense at all.

bitmasher9 2026-02-22 04:13 UTC link

Hydrogen fuel solves a long term strategic problem for Japan, which is why the Mirai got as far as it did.

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.

killingtime74 2026-02-22 04:18 UTC link

I went to the Toyota museum where they actually have one of these cars as a cross section. I would never drive one. It's like driving around with a massive bomb under the rear seat. Forget thermal runway from batteries, I wonder how big the crater of the explosion from one these would be.

m463 2026-02-22 05:58 UTC link

It's really simple.

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).

unixhero 2026-02-22 15:33 UTC link

Hydrogen gas-stations have blown up in the past https://www.nrk.no/norge/eksplosjon-ved-hydrogenstasjon-1.14...