» Test drive the Toyota Mirai Design
ACTUALLY, IT’S LIQUID HYDROGEN POWERING THE NEW TOYOTA MIRAI... WELCOME TO THE FUTURE
MORE than 20 years ago, I drove some new-fangled prototype called the Toyota Prius. A very clever piece of machinery, with its combination of petrol engine and electric motor.
A hybrid they called it. Little did I know that a couple of decades later I would be jumping in a Toyota Prius every time I needed a taxi.
Toyota was also beavering away in its secret laboratories on cars that ran on hydrogen. Not by burning hydrogen in a conventional engine (which is also possible, as shown by a BMW prototype years ago) but by passing hydrogen through a fuel cell to produce electricity.
The only emissions you get out of the back of a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, or FCV for short, is water.
Fast forward to 2015 when Toyota launched its first serious production FCV. It was called the Mirai and was very advanced, rather ugly and James May bought one.
He’s still got it, but is about to receive the car that we’re testing today – the second-generation Mirai.
The first thing The Grand Tour presenter will find is that the new Mirai is completely different from his current one. For starters, it’s considerably better looking – not beautiful, but stylish, svelte and slippery. It’s also bigger, now about the same size as a BMW 5-Series.
Underneath the skin it’s all change too. The liquid hydrogen is now stored in three tanks rather than two as before. Two of the tanks are placed end to end under the floor, where a traditional transmission and propellor shaft would normally be and a third is placed end-on underneath the rear seats and boot.
They hold 5.6kg of liquified hydrogen. It doesn’t sound like much but it gives the Mirai a maximum range of 400 miles.
Another physical change is that the fuel cell stack is now placed under the bonnet, is smaller and lighter, and powers a more powerful electric motor that produces 180bhp.
Talking of the motor, the first Mirai was front-wheel drive but this generation is rear-wheel drive.
The final bit of hardware that needs mentioning is a 1.24kwh lithium ion battery. This is used to both smooth out the acceleration of the electric motor and capture and store energy from regenerative braking.
So what’s this cutting-edge technology like to drive? Very quiet and refined is the answer. The ride is particularly good, even over poor roads. The interior is a vast improvement over the previous car’s and has a balanced mix of tech with a 12.3in infotainment screen.
Modern car manufacturers are incapable of building a car without offering loads of pointless driving modes and sadly the Mirai doesn’t escape.
Sport mode. How ridiculous is that. The Mirai is not quick, doesn’t handle in a sporty way and you will use up the hydrogen very quickly if you try driving it at high speed. I managed to average 0.88kg of hydrogen per 100km and the boffins at Toyota reckon anything under 0.9kg per 100km is good going.
Smooth, sophisticated and quiet. But what about the hydrogen? Where can I refuel my Mirai? For me it is a lot easier to refuel a FCV than it is to charge an EV. Within 25 miles of my house there are four hydrogen stations. Two are very close, the other two are at Beaconsfield services on the M40 and Cobham services on the M25. Clearly that is currently no good if I want to drive to Devon. The price of hydrogen costs from £10-£15 per kg. As a rough comparison, a 100km journey (62 miles) would cost you about £10.80 compared to £6.76 worth of petrol. However, expect the cost of hydrogen to fall as supplies increase.
There are three levels of Mirai available: Design, Design Plus and Design Premium.
We tested the latter which costs £64,995 (10k less than before) but the Design is a more modest £49,995. Contract hire rates start at £435 per month plus VAT.
I’ll be surprised if I drive a more interesting car than the Toyota Mirai this year. And I’ll be even more surprised if we don’t see a strong move to hydrogen across many modes of transport.