Living With A Hydrogen Car (Toyota Mirai) Did NOT Go As Expected: Here's What Happened

hey guys what's going on it's tommy with the fastlane car and in this video we're going to answer a simple question what is it like to live with a car powered by hydrogen because behind me is the brand new toyota mirai and in 2021 believe it or not you can go out and buy brand new a couple of cars that are powered not by gasoline not by electricity but by the most abundant element in the universe hydrogen so we're gonna see what it's like to drive we're gonna see what it's like to fill up a car with hydrogen and get the full ownership experience so let me introduce you to my ride for the day the brand new toyota mirai this thing is so cool now you probably have never seen one of these in the real world because of course hydrogen cars are currently only for sale in the state of california but you can not only buy these cars you can also lease them got keyless entry and welcome to the interior now the interior in the mirai is just as nice as the exterior it may have a toyota badge on it but this thing is through and through lexus it really is that nice leather seating surfaces leather across just about every material giant instrument cluster everything you touch feels like a vehicle that costs 60 plus thousand dollars because of course this vehicle does cost 60 plus thousand dollars i present to you the monroeni let's see here total price sixty eight thousand five hundred and forty dollars what is it like to start up a hydrogen powered car well my seat belt on is it gonna sound like a flux capacitor key in the pocket foot on the brake push the start button a couple beeps couple bongs that's it absolute pure silence there's no whooshes there's no crazy i don't know grinding noises or buzzing noises it's just like starting up an electric car because at the foundation a hydrogen vehicle is an electric car so let's go ahead and put it into drive we do have a transmission selector that's very similar to what you'd find in a prius all right so now that we're on the main road how does a hydrogen vehicle work what are the fundamentals well it really is pretty simple in theory and very complicated in reality so i am sitting on top of three tanks which store hydrogen at about 10 000 psi now that hydrogen is sent to something called the fuel cell which is located underneath the hood and the fuel cell is a very clever piece of technology that combines oxygen from the air with hydrogen from the tank to create water now in the process of creating water it creates a little tiny zap of electricity and if you have enough zaps of electricity you've got propulsion through an electric motor very simple in its kind of thought process but very complicated in reality if that makes sense now there's a little bit more to it there's also a high voltage battery like you'd find on a hybrid car it's about 1.24 kilowatt hours so it is a small high voltage battery considering like a tesla is 100 kilowatt hours but then again it doesn't need a high voltage battery that's 100 kilowatt hours because as you drive along the fuel stack is making electricity to propel you down the road and then the battery just kind of fills in the gaps for example under hard acceleration you kind of have to build up that electricity production through the hydrogen fuel cell so that's where the uh that's where the battery fills in the gap so i pulled over here to a gas station i wanted to see what the fuel prices were at the station in just a random station in san diego 479 487 509 491 so it's getting expensive um yeah i mean you'd be like talking 100 bucks or so if you build up 20 gallons i want to try something i've always wanted to do filling up a car with hydrogen now there are 47 stations here in the state of california i've never done it i assume many of you have never seen it done but apparently there is one just around this corner so well this is a shell gas station i mean is there is there a hydrogen station here as well i don't know let's find out all right pulling in the navigation took me here oh look at this there is a hydrogen station and there there are four cars waiting is this for real right now this can't be right okay so we've got a first generation mirai a nexo another first generation mirai another mirai and then a brand new mirai now there are one two three four five gas pumps and i assume they're all double-sided so that's ten different ten different places to fill with gasoline but of course just one one hydrogen station let me go talk to the toyota guy so this is actually uh they had this set up for us toyota folks all right so norm question for you yes so four cars lined up typically how long will that take about a half hour about half an hour interesting okay yeah because they gotta pull up do their card lock it into place and when the machine has been used a lot yeah there's there's been about 20 cars through here today yep um it goes even slower so the more it gets used the colder it gets the slower it goes interesting so that's why we're at about a 20 minute wait as well as the nozzle is starting to freeze onto the nipple so here's the the predicament i'm in so there's four cars lined up for hydrogen we've got this gentleman norm who is you know helping out with this toyota event and is showing us journalists how to use it but of course this is a publicly open and available charging station damn it [Music] so that is way longer than i was expecting uh one of the benefits of hydrogen of course is that it's been pitched as a fast way to fill up your vehicle like an electric car we have to wait um for the vehicle to charge but 25 minutes to fill up four cars doesn't seem it doesn't seem great to be brutally honest with you and i just looked up another hydrogen station near me and i couldn't find find one close by norm was right norm is the guy working with toyota it was about 20 minute wait but it was actually super fun because there's like a great sense of community and people talking about their hydrogen experience it's kind of like what electric cars were like a few years ago so the first thing you need to do is push the fuel filler button okay so that's going to pop that open and then this is the nozzle dust cap okay and that's the nozzle yep gotcha so can you explain so it was h35 and h70 okay h35 is pressure okay it's not the grade of fuel so it's the same hydrogen fuel it's just this is 5 000 pounds and this is 10 000 pounds okay okay gotcha so you can fill or you could put h35 into an h70 vehicle but it'll only fill it halfway interesting okay so it's based on the pressure can't put h70 into an h-35 vehicle gotcha because that's too much pressure okay so one so we're gonna use h70 and then it's price per kilogram so we're at 16 bucks so when you buy mri they give you a special credit card that gives you 15 000 worth of free hydrogen which is just absurd um and then you can see the machine layout is pretty much the same as to what you'd find from a gas station so you have a little keypad you got a little screen you've got the option to print the receipts and then rather than having 87 and 89 and 91 you've got h35 for 5000 psi and an h70 for 10 000. this is a nozzle so there's like a collar right there you do is you hold on to this black handle yep you pull back on the blue you cover up the green put it on push out forward give it a little tug make sure it's connected and then you push your grade check that out and then there's like a hiss and like i guess that's it this just like hydrogen entering the vehicle you know wild so what norm has been saying and what kind of the general consensus is that um you'll actually get a huge burst of cold that can cause the nozzle to stick to the vehicle and then luckily it's a warm day so hopefully that doesn't happen too badly but that can prevent you from actually getting getting unhitched from the station and then look it slowly slowly counts up huh so it is like physically cold to the touch it's freezing yeah super interesting so if it's not frozen what you do is hold on to the black portion pull this back and we have success so was that can we see the infrared sensor in the it's this piece right here interesting so that's what communicates with the car and then if it is frozen there's condensation out there yeah it's how cold it is this is the sensor that reads that goes to the car yeah so have you had like a situation where you have to like play with it to get it off yeah i met him right especially in the evening i had to wait five minutes i couldn't get it off i just had to something i bring my wife with because she has a warm hands i got her out in her hand well that was quite the enlightening experience actually coming to this hydrogen station i'm really glad i took this opportunity to see what it's like to fill up one of these vehicles so filled up we were there filling up physically for just a matter of two or three minutes the car is saying 239 miles of range toyota claims 402 but of course that number is going to change pretty substantially based on how you drive the vehicle now was it a good experience um yes and no uh so the payment process was really really simple i was actually kind of poking around some of the other owners who were filling up and some of them actually had a really hard time disconnecting the nozzle because it would freeze into place on the vehicle that's how cold the hydrogen filling process gets but it felt very safe it felt very controlled now kind of a mixed mixed bag there was there were a bunch of folks there and i talked to all of them off camera the first lady the nexo was just fed up with it she she was not enjoying the hydrogen experience she said there's always problems with the equipment from a pump standpoint there's always big lines and she was just done with it the next lady was also in a mariah brand new mariah i talked to her for a little bit and she loved it like she really didn't have a lot of complaints with the car she loved the car the uh hydrogen filling situation was pretty simple and the final guy i talked to said he loved the car as well um needs more infrastructure um but apart from that he was really over the moon about the car and he paid 25 000 for his mirai 25 grand back in may uh just from you know the incentives and then of course the credits and that's basically what his his net net out the door is going to be is 25 grand so i did spend you know 20 minutes waiting in line for the four vehicles in front of me to fill up if there were more uh pumps that would be significantly quicker and then of course some owners were saying two you have to check on the uh the app to make sure that the station has hydrogen because they can physically run out of hydrogen and then you're not filling anything up but uh an interesting experience really glad i did it if you just show up you're the only one there i think you could pretty quickly be out of there in three or four minutes flat if you can get the nozzle to unhook on the first try um but really interesting really really interesting is it as easy as filling up a gasoline vehicle no is it quicker than filling up an electric car even with the weight i personally think yes if you wanted to go zero to 80 even with that 20 minute wait i took you'd be lucky to do that in any electric car so yeah very enlightening experience so what is it like driving a hydrogen-powered vehicle well it's like driving an electric car there is almost no difference you have the instant torque that you'd expect of an electric car you have the quietness the smoothness the lack of shifting because at its core once again it's an electric car but rather than storing its energy in a battery it creates it from the fuel cell so the overall driving characteristics are very similar to you know the power delivery of a full on battery electric however there are some differences one of the most interesting is that when you go to floor it there's a little whooshing noise and here's what's happening there's kind of like an electric turbocharger that is forcing air at very high psi across the fuel stack because uh when you accelerate you need to make more electricity when you make more electricity more hydrogen and to go along with the hydrogen you need more oxygen so you have to force air across those membranes to create as much electricity as possible so that whooshing noise this is a little fan frantically delivering air to the fuel stack uh but apart from that there's no delay now there would be delay if there wasn't the high voltage battery but the high voltage battery stores just enough power so when you plant it you can accelerate you don't have to wait for the fuel cell system to kind of kick in apart from that though this is one of my all-time favorite cars i love driving the toyota mirai it's just so incredibly soft and squishy if you've driven a lexus ls you've pretty much driven this vehicle because it's the same platform albeit this one is shortened um super light steering super soft suspension nothing about this is sporty and that's what i love about it so many modern cars are trying to be everything to everybody and they're trying to be comfortable and sporty and have different drive modes and all these different buttons not the toyota mirai it just wafts along in pure quietness with a little trickle of water coming out the tailpipe because that is all that is emitted as you drive along in your powered vehicle let's see how the handling is merging on i5 north not great but if i change the drive mode sport still not great this is a luxury tour it is not a high performance handler get a tesla if you want to go faster on turns but here in america all we do is primarily drive in straight lines for long periods of time so who cares about going around turns in your luxury sedan let's see how the power is okay that's sixty nine miles on the route slow traffic not not a lot in terms of passing power to be brutally honest this is not a very powerful vehicle it is perfectly adequate but if you want the ultimate acceleration a hydrogen-powered car is probably not the one for you because the nexo is kind of quick um but not really all that quick and the mirai certainly isn't all that fast but look at this cruising along in my bubble of solitude no engine notes no transmission shifting it's great it really is great um automatic climate control ventilated seats this giant screen i can plug in my apple carplay i've got navigation i've got a digital instrument cluster and i've got 236 miles to go according to the car and then three minutes later at a hydrogen station i'd be good enough to go for another 236 miles now is the toyota mirai perfect no um i don't think that the rear seat is particularly roomy i'm a little bit upset it's only available in rear wheel drive so if for example we do get hydrogen station in colorado this is not going to be much of a winter vehicle and the technology with the infotainment system is not very good it's the old school toyota system i wish i had the new system out of like the tundra however um you don't have to really change your driving habits to experience a hydrogen car it's like driving a gasoline car now it's not as convenient as an ev you can't plug it in at home for example and wake up at the full charge but then again when you're at a dc fast charging station you have to hang around for 25 or 30 minutes waiting for your charge and keep in mind you can also get those lines at a dc fast charging station not just a hydrogen equipped station but overall it's such a good thing to drive it's such a good thing to look at and even though it's 68 000 with discounts and rebates and all that i mean you can find these for much much less and that's also keeping in mind the tax credits and that kind of thing i just wish that there were more hydrogen stations it's going to take a manufacturer like toyota or hyundai to really invest in the infrastructure by themselves because otherwise in my opinion it's just not happening from like air leaked and all these other manufacturers shell they're just not expanding quick enough around the country for this car to be really successful they put so many billions into this car just go to the final mile and build the infrastructure and you've got yourself a winner on your hands well let me know what you think in the comment section below as always this has been tommy with the fastlane car check out tiavocar.com for the latest and greatest in new car reviews

Channel: The Fast Lane Car

Views: 622,964

Keywords: toyota mirai, toyota, toyota mirai review, toyota mirai 2021, mirai, 2021 toyota mirai, 2016 toyota mirai, toyota mirai 2020, mirai toyota, 2021 toyota mirai review, new toyota mirai, toyota mirai fuel cell, mirai toyota 2021, toyota mirai price, 2021 toyota mirai interior, toyota mirai 2021 interior, toyota mirai hydrogen fuel cell car, toyota fcv, toyota mirai fill up, toyota mirai fueling, toyota mirai record, making of toyota mirai, toyota mirai 2

Id: M0_RsqR37-E

Length: 17min 2sec (1022 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 26 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/GrimmOne]

I am about to turn in my 2018 Mirai, which is now off of a 3 year lease. I could not wait to be done with it, so I went out and leased another vehicle before this lease was up. In the SF Bay Area, the supply of hydrogen is extremely inconsistent. It was not uncommon to leave my office and head to my local pump (which showed adequate supply) and then arrive at the pump to find a long line of vehicles draining the last of what was available. It became a job to get fuel for this car. I also saw folks getting back in line after tanking up because the pumps will only give you a half a tank of fuel if they are low (and they are more often than not low these days as all the manufacturers continue to belch more of these vehicles onto the road at a higher rate than they are building infrastructure.) On top of that, the nozzle sticking to the car is no joke. I've had to wait 5 minutes for the nozzle to defrost after fueling my vehicle. This is on top of waiting 20 minutes or so in line for the one fuel pump that is available in my area.

Do the math before you get one of these. How many miles do you drive per day? How many miles is it to the fueling station? Assume you get 239 miles per tank up because I have yet to find anyone who gets the full 400 some odd miles quoted by Toyota. (And after nearly 3 years of having this vehicle, I've spent a lot of time standing in line talking to other hydrogen car owners -- people laugh when you ask how you can get the full quoted miles per tank.) Then also factor into this that you have to plan to get fuel before you are low because there is no guarantee the fuel will be there when you need it. In my situation, I had to fuel up every 4 days. Talk about range anxiety!

I would not buy one of these vehicles if you work for a living and need to have a car that is reliable. When hydrogen is unavailable in your area, you have no other choice but to park it. And when you park it too long the battery dies. It's a beautiful car, but there are a lot of beautiful cars out there that are environmentally friendly and won't make you WORK to fuel it.

[u/taggat]

Same old story.

Cars are great Personally I had to drive 180 miles for Thanksgiving, the car was perfect made it there made it back only used 140 miles of range, better than advertised.

Stations suck Got back needed to fill up checked the station status, first station out of gas so I go to the second station which is full and up get there and now it's down, check the app again first station now has 800kg so annoying. However when I get to first station there is no line to so I just fill up and three minutes later I go from 89 mile range to 240 mile range.

When the stations work like they are supposed to you know it's the future. but so many more need to be built.