Toyota 'Mirai' Fuel Cell Sedan

[Johan]

According to Toyota the Mirai will be available in very limited numbers starting September 2015 in Germany, UK and Denmark. The price in Germany will be €66,000 plus VAT. Not really what I would call value for money.

 

[EarlyAdopter]

Not sure which saying is better here, but I think the Mirai is either:

going to go down like a lead balloon.
or
going to go down like a hydrogen balloon.

 

[ScepticMatt]

going to drain money like a bottomless pit, I'd say.

going to go down like a lead balloon.

About that ...

Mythbusters lead balloon - YouTube

 

[efusco]

I think they'll sell some, maybe a couple thousand even. And I firmly believe they don't have a prayer to make this go mass market (and I'm not sure Toyota even believes it can). But, much like the Tesla battery swap, the 9 carbon credits per vehicle sold are huge and allows them to stall a bit longer in the mass production of other alternative fuel vehicles.

 

[anticitizen13.7]

I think they'll sell some, maybe a couple thousand even. And I firmly believe they don't have a prayer to make this go mass market (and I'm not sure Toyota even believes it can). But, much like the Tesla battery swap, the 9 carbon credits per vehicle sold are huge and allows them to stall a bit longer in the mass production of other alternative fuel vehicles.

The Mirai is so ugly that I doubt the car will ever sell in large numbers. On looks alone Toyota is going to get killed by the Honda FCX.

 

[efusco]

The Mirai is so ugly that I doubt the car will ever sell in large numbers. On looks alone Toyota is going to get killed by the Honda FCX.

Maybe, I think it is an unusual, but not unappealing appearance in person, and the cockpit is pretty impressive. But I'm not one that's been that hung up on the physical appearance of a car, I put it as a tertiary priority at best.

 

[the dude]

if I was Elon Musk I would buy a Mirai and remove the fuel tanks and the fuel cells and replace them with a battery pack as close as possible in weight

then have a few races with other Mirai owners, would make for some good youtube videos

 

[Johan]

if I was Elon Musk I would buy a Mirai and remove the fuel tanks and the fuel cells and replace them with a battery pack as close as possible in weight

then have a few races with other Mirai owners, would make for some good youtube videos

It's a Nice idea, only the motor and inverter Attached to the small battery (which is charged from the fuel cell continously) is probably not going to be dimensioned for more performance than what the original set-up can provide (0-60 9 Seconds, 125 mph top speed, 152 hp, 330 Nm torque).

 

[the dude]

It's a Nice idea, only the motor and inverter Attached to the small battery (which is charged from the fuel cell continously) is probably not going to be dimensioned for more performance than what the original set-up can provide (0-60 9 Seconds, 125 mph top speed, 152 hp, 330 Nm torque).

good point I forgot about the inverter

 

[efusco]

I participate as a fairly regular member of a Podcast called What Drives Us. We discuss lots of things regarding alternative energy vehicles, the Tesla coming up almost every episode for one thing or another. But in a couple weeks we're having a special show about the Mirai:

Wednesday, April 29th, at our usual time, 9:00 EST, What Drives Us
will do an entire show dedicated to the Toyota Mirai. Special guests will be
Doug Coleman, National Marketing & Communications Manager Advanced Technology
Vehicles and Logan Grizzel who works for Doug in Advanced Tech Vehicles M&C,
from Toyota.

We’re encouraging viewers and listener to send in their
questions and we’re hoping that we can get a good number of people to watch the
show live.

I'll post a link to the live show on or just before the day if anyone is interested. If you have questions that you'd like to pose, please send them in to either:
What Drives Us
or
https://www.facebook.com/whatdrivesus?fref=ts

I know both of these Toyota guys personally and they're bright, are fully aware of the uphill climb Toyota has and that there is a LOT of skepticism out there. But they'll field your questions as best they can, while still towing the party line (what more can you expect).

 

[Jaff]

Evan, perhaps a good start of benchmark questions might be their personal take (not the corporate line) on the green car reports "10 questions" segment...

10 Questions On Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Cars To Ask Toyota, Honda Hyundai

I would be interested to hear a more elaborate "defense" of fuel cells answered by these two gents...hoping that they would be able to give better answers than the somewhat "weak-ass" answers to some questions posed in the green car reports piece...:biggrin:

 

[santana338]

Article quoting a Toyota engineer about why hydrogen is better for long haul than fast charging:

Electric cars wont spread even with rapid chargers -Toyota engineer - Yahoo News

 

[nwdiver]

Article quoting a Toyota engineer about why hydrogen is better for long haul than fast charging:

Electric cars wont spread even with rapid chargers -Toyota engineer - Yahoo News

There are a number of things Toyota is conveniently ignoring... not the least of which being the potential for battery swapping for long-distance driving.

 

[ecarfan]

Electric cars wont spread even with rapid chargers -Toyota engineer - Yahoo News

I think Toyota is drugging their engineers, as they seem to be living in a different reality than the rest of us inhabit. Teslas are spreading all over the U.S. and Europe and Superchargers are growing by leaps and bounds.

 

[johnnyS]

The Hyundai Tuscon fuel cell has been available for a while now. I think I just read that there are a grand total of 54 on the road---not exactly brisk sales so far.

 

[derekt75]

Article quoting a Toyota engineer about why hydrogen is better for long haul than fast charging:

Electric cars wont spread even with rapid chargers -Toyota engineer - Yahoo News

The argument is that even if you can charge your 85 kWh battery quickly, the 500 kW load on the electric grid "guzzles so much electricity" that it's not "ecologically sound". That seems like a stretch to me. I mean sure, a fast turn-on of a 500 kW (or 1 MW?) load is an engineering challenge that someone will need to think about. but not ecologically sound?

 

[santana338]

The argument is that even if you can charge your 85 kWh battery quickly, the 500 kW load on the electric grid "guzzles so much electricity" that it's not "ecologically sound". That seems like a stretch to me. I mean sure, a fast turn-on of a 500 kW (or 1 MW?) load is an engineering challenge that someone will need to think about. but not ecologically sound?

That is what I was hoping to explore. As the number of Teslas increase, can we imagine what the load on the grid might be on say the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving? At what point will we have so many cars charging at so many superchargers that we start having electricity capacity issues?

 

[Saghost]

The argument is that even if you can charge your 85 kWh battery quickly, the 500 kW load on the electric grid "guzzles so much electricity" that it's not "ecologically sound". That seems like a stretch to me. I mean sure, a fast turn-on of a 500 kW (or 1 MW?) load is an engineering challenge that someone will need to think about. but not ecologically sound?

Tesla is already putting 400 kWh pallets at many Superchargers to load shave/level. There's no reason a pack like that can't support short periods of 500 kW load to charge your battery instead of longer periods of 120 kW.

You need some remarkable wiring and connectors, and a car pack that can take the load, but there's no reason it has to come straight from the grid...

 

[dhanson865]

Tesla is already putting 400 kWh pallets at many Superchargers to load shave/level. There's no reason a pack like that can't support short periods of 500 kW load to charge your battery instead of longer periods of 120 kW.

You need some remarkable wiring and connectors, and a car pack that can take the load, but there's no reason it has to come straight from the grid...

the 400 kWh is only UL listed for 200KW. Still that is enough to cover 3 cars supercharging and partial load of a 4th.

Considering how many 4 and 6 spot superchargers there are and how splitting a pair limits supercharging rates a single 400 kWh / 200 KW unit is enough for the majority of the cases of rush hour style congestion.

For insane sites in California with double digit supercharger spots they would need two of those to even make a dent but the majority of the world would do fine with one.

 

[Saghost]

the 400 kWh is only UL listed for 200KW. Still that is enough to cover 3 cars supercharging and partial load of a 4th.

Considering how many 4 and 6 spot superchargers there are and how splitting a pair limits supercharging rates a single 400 kWh / 200 KW unit is enough for the majority of the cases of rush hour style congestion.

For insane sites in California with double digit supercharger spots they would need two of those to even make a dent but the majority of the world would do fine with one.

Okay, they'd have to re-rate the pallets to support the massive discharge rates. I still think that's one of the smallest challenges involved in 500 kW supercharging.

Your point about the needs of high demand superchargers is well taken - but the pallets are conveniently portable modular units - Tesla is using six of them (I think it was six, it might be more now) in parallel to manage the power usage of the Fremont factory.

If the demand situation warrants it (and assuming the site geometry allows it,) I would expect Tesla to install additional pallets eventually (still have to balance battery availability - every pallet is 5-7 cars they aren't selling unless the cells are culled by quality/binning.)
Walter