The 2021 Toyota Mirai Is a Futuristic Luxury Sedan

this is the new 2021 toyota mirai and it's a luxury sedan that's unlike any other luxury sedan on sale today that's because this is powered by hydrogen the current mirai is one of the only hydrogen fuel cell vehicles available for sale and now there's a new one that's been totally redesigned for 2021 and today i'm going to review it [Music] before i get started be sure to check out cars and bids my new enthusiast car auction website we've had many successful sales including with tesla models we've sold many tesla's model 3 model s model x all for excellent prices with happy sellers and buyers in fact every tesla listed on cars and bids so far has sold so if you're looking to sell your tesla or any cool special enthusiast car from the modern era the 1980s and up sell it with cars and bids at cars into bids.com first a little overview toyota is all about alternative fuel vehicles and their lineup includes gasoline-powered cars hybrid cars plug-in hybrid cars electric cars and also this a hydrogen car what that means is you go to a hydrogen filling station you fill it with hydrogen and then the hydrogen is combined with oxygen in a fuel cell inside the car creating electricity that powers the car to make it go and the only emission is water pretty nice of course if you're familiar with the current mirai you already know this the current toyota mirai this car debuted back in 2014 also hydrogen powered although its appeal is very limited that's because pretty much the only public hydrogen fueling stations in the united states are here in california a few in southern california a few in northern california and pretty much none anywhere outside the state that's because building hydrogen infrastructure isn't easy or cheap but if you live here in california at least this could be a neat alternative to a traditional hybrid car or an electric car now unlike the old mirai which looked like kind of an uglier version of the prius this new one has sleeker almost lexus like styling and it's been changed to rear-wheel drive to make it a better driving experience this car has a range of about 400 miles between hydrogen stops and it has about 180 horsepower which is roughly 30 horsepower more than the outgoing mirai but it isn't cheap mirai means future in japanese but if this is the future it's going to be an expensive one you get a base level mirai and pricing starts around 50 000 or you step up to this one the limited trim and you're looking at a starting price of around 70 000 that's big money although it's worth pointing out that toyota has massive discounts available if you lease the car huge subsidies to make the lease payment far more appealing and toyota also gives fifteen thousand dollars in free hydrogen to anyone who gets a mirai and today we're gonna find out what else you get when you get a mirai first i'm going to take you on a tour of this car and show you all of its interesting quirks and features then i'm going to get it out on the road and drive it and then i'll give it a dug score all right i'm going to start the quirks and features of the mirai with probably its most notable quirk and that would be that its only emission is water like i mentioned so a normal car drives around and it emits exhaust through the tailpipes and into the air but the mirai emits water onto the ground its tailpipe which is actually like a water pipe is located on the driver's side near the rear wheel and every time you turn off the mirai it just dumps water onto the ground as you can see it just sort of pours out like the car is peeing to be totally honest this is all the water that was generated when the hydrogen fuel cell was combining hydrogen and oxygen to make electricity to make the car go like i said water is the emission and that's where it comes out and it doesn't just come out automatically if you don't want it to there's a little button to the left of the gauge cluster that says h2o you can push that and manually dump water on the ground i'm not sure why this is available since the car will handle this process automatically but you can do it manual if you want maybe so that you can show people look here's how the water comes out of my hydrogen car it is kind of a neat party tray but anyway next we move on to the interior in the mirai and i have to say it's not really all that weird in here or really weird at all and i think that's by design toyota knows this car is already a bit of a weird thing because of its powertrain the hydrogen and so they want to make the rest of the car as relatively normal as possible so you don't have to adapt to a strange powertrain and a strange everything else so the interior here pretty standard pretty straightforward pretty toyota frankly although there are a few odd things worth mentioning for one this dashboard over on the passenger side you have this kind of line running from the gear selector in the center down below the dashboard and over to the climate vent over on the right that's a little bit strange although more and more cars are having similar lines that seems to be the trend car design is heading but it has a bit of a futuristic touch to it next up another thing in this interior that's a little bit strange is the whole gear lever situation when you start the car the gear lever is in this position and this is the lever this tiny little thing you can fit in just a few fingers in order to move it into drive you push it over and then down and then you're in d and it pops back to its regular position to go to neutral you move it over to the left then it's in neutral and again it pops back and if you want to go into reverse you move it over and up and then you're in reverse and once again it pops back probably the strangest thing in this gear lever aside from how it looks and how it operates is when you push it down you enter a mode called br that stands for braking so in most automatic transmissions you have low gears you can use if you're going down a hill in order to keep the car from accelerating too fast so you don't have to ride the brakes this car has that too but instead of a low gear it's simply called br which stands for braking and you're supposed to use that if you're going down hills to keep the speeds reasonable next up another unusual item this one very unusual is the sunroof situation this car has a panoramic sunroof as you can see on the outside but on the inside with the sunroof shade open you can see there's a giant crossbar going over the center even though most other cars with panoramic sunroofs have just one giant piece of glass not so in this car stranger still is the fact that you can't actually open the sunroof front or rear it doesn't open like basically every other car you can open the sunroof shade with this little switch on the ceiling forward or backward open it but you can't open the glass itself to get air coming into the interior and even when you have the shade open you have that crossbar taking up a large portion of your sunroof it's a very weird operation not your traditional sunroof for not your traditional car and next up i want to move on to a few items in this interior i absolutely love starting with the heated and cooled seats now a lot of cars have that but the cool thing here is you can turn it to auto mode and it will heat or cool the seats for you go into the infotainment screen you press auto and then you can see an auto light lights up by the heated and cooled seat controls and then you're cold you don't have to turn on the heated seat the car will know that it's cold outside and it will provide you precisely the level of seat heating that you need based on where you've set the climate control temperature same deal with cooled seats same deal with the heated steering wheel it will do it all automatically now automatic climate control in a car is a pretty common feature but auto heated and cooled seats and a heated steering wheel that is a nice luxury touch you don't see it on too many cars next up another feature i love in this interior to the left of the steering wheel there's a little button with a camera that says view you push that and it turns on the around view camera i'm not sure what toyota calls it but basically a look around the car from the outside of the car which can be tremendously helpful if you're parking trying to see if you're near a curb if you're going to hit something on the outside it is a fantastic feature almost looks like a little helicopter is showing you what's around your car great technology and it's cool to see more and more automakers adopting this and speaking of cameras another one i love i always love the rear view camera situation you look at this rear view mirror and it looks like a normal mirror but if you pull this little switch below the mirror you can see it turns into a camera and the benefit here is of course that if you're looking in the mirror with the camera on you then no longer have to see your trunk or your rear headrest back there or anything else you just have an unobstructed view to the back now next up i want to move on to a few items in this interior that i don't really like all that much starting with the most obvious and that would be the volume control in here which is this these two individual buttons one volume minus one volume plus when it really needs to be a knob that you just twist that makes it so much easier than tap tap tap tap tap tap the button to turn up the stereo and then tap tap tap to turn it down it makes no sense and it's in the wrong spot too because the driver already has a volume control on the steering wheel so the control in the center will mainly be used by the passenger but it's over on the driver's side so to reach it the passenger has to reach all the way over the center console and then tap tap tap tap tap tap it really ought to be a knob over closer to the passenger and next up another item i don't love in this interior is in the center console where you have your phone charging tray you can see it's right here in the middle you put your phone down very convenient but you go over a bump and your phone is liable to just pop out of here bump around and maybe fall out of the center console entirely a lot of cars have a little arm that keeps your phone in place that would probably be better you get in an accident it'll go flying even hard cornering it'll probably send it sliding around this center console not really the best spot for the wireless charger and speaking of charging another thing i don't love in this car there are no usb c ports for charging devices in here all automakers are switching to usbc it's faster for better charging but this car still has old school usbs which will feel outdated in only a couple of years it's so strange to me that this car with the powertrain of the future still uses the charging technology of the past you'd think toyota would figure that out and get that right but they haven't and next up we got to talk infotainment although it's worth noting this is pretty much the same infotainment system in other new toyota models and i've already covered it and i will link those in the description below for a little bit more of an in-depth look at the infotainment system but worth covering some of the highlights it is a large screen and it is a touch screen and it's placed sort of on top of the dashboard in its own housing the theory here is it's intended to tie in with a similar housing over on the other side of the gauge cluster and look like just sort of one piece that's only broken up by the gauge cluster and that is kind of a nice look but anyway the screen itself and the use it's pretty responsive to your touch it's pretty intuitive to figure out how to use it and what to do for navigation for radio for climate i like the fact that you can move certain things around the screen for instance if you want the radio information to be on the other side of the screen you just tap here and now it's closer to the driver to make it easier to see or you can maximize the size of certain things if you want to see the map larger or the radio whatever you want again easy screen to use nothing unusual or special here especially compared to other toyota models one other thing i do like about this system i like that there are still hard buttons for some of the most commonly used basic features of the screen you can see home map audio menu along the bottom and you press those and it goes to any of those features a lot of other automakers include these items in the screen but it's nice to have them as hard buttons so you always have a backup you can push if you're confused you can't figure out where to go next just tap home and it'll take you back to something you're familiar with and i like that now next up we move on to the screen in the gauge cluster toyota has ditched analog gauges in this car you just have a screen but it's a little bit small compared to other automakers gauge cluster screens and i'm not exactly sure why because the sides of this screen area are just unused they could have made the screen larger but for some reason they didn't and the result is that some of the commands and controls in here can be a little confusing you can see a lot of different acronyms for all the different driver aids and it's just hard to keep all that stuff straight if they had more room they could write stuff out and make it a little bit easier to use and see with that said one thing i do like in this gauge cluster screen is the eco score system that will actually give you a score for how economically you're driving to make sure you can maximize your eco-friendly driving which makes sense in a car like this it may not be the fastest or most exciting car on the road but if you're into hyper-miling and maximizing your fuel economy there's one way to have fun in a world of electric hydrogen vehicles and next up we move on to the back of the mirai which i must say is actually pretty tight they're pitching this as a luxury sedan it's almost 196 inches long which is pretty big and yet there's not much space back here i'm sitting at the passenger seat where i would have it my knees don't really fit my toes going under the seat don't really fit and headroom is a bit of a challenge too if i sit normally i kind of have to sit back and even then i'm in kind of a cavity behind the sunroof there is not a lot of space in the back of this car it is not a huge luxury sedan by any measure but the rear seat is quite luxurious i say that because you fold down the center armrest and you have this little panel at the front that is dark until you press the power button and then it lights up it gives you all sorts of rear controls you wouldn't expect from a car like this you have heated and cooled rear seats cooled rear seats are tremendously uncommon at any level of the car industry but the mirai limited has them you also have a control back here for the rear sunshade you press this button and the rear sunshade goes up to provide rear passengers with more shade and for even more shade you have rear sun shades on each of the side windows in the back seat although those are manual you actually have to lift those up put them in place but then you have a whole sunshade experience in the back but anyway other controls in this center armrest you can control the temperature back here with your own climate zone and you can also control the stereo you can press volume up down that changes the volume for the entire car not just like the rear speakers or headphones back here and you can turn on and off the stereo from the rear seats as well in case you're being chauffeured around in your mirror you're tight and kind of uncomfortable but you have many controls next up one other rear seat item to mention back here i said that it was pretty tight for rear seat passengers but that primarily applies to the outboard seats the ones by each door on this rear bench there is also a middle seat back here which is just laughably tight not only is it small but you're facing this giant hump in the center that steals all of your leg room and so you have nowhere to put your feet if you're sitting in this middle seat i assume that hump is there for various drive train components with the hybrid powertrain powering the rear wheels but it's huge and it means that the middle seat is pretty much completely unusable even though there is a seat belt there and i guess technically you could stick someone there although they would be very uncomfortable and next up we move on to the back of the mirai and the first thing you discover when we come back here to the trunk is you don't have a power trunk which is kind of a shame considering this car's price point like i said around 70 000 to have a manual trunk it just seems not really correct the other interesting thing about this trunk is it really isn't all that big like i said this car is 196 inches long basically full size sedan territory and this is all the trunk space you get i assume various hydrogen components probably steal a little bit of trunk space and that's kind of a shame because you really don't get a huge trunk despite having a fairly large vehicle now one other trunk related item worth noting is the floor you can see there's a little diagram on this latch on the floor and it explains that you can do something kind of cool with it you can lift up this latch and then you can hook it to kind of the top of the trunk area and that way you have access to the tools that are fitted below the trunk floor now that's kind of cool because that means if you have a flat and you're trying to change your tire you don't have to worry about where to put the trunk floor while you're accessing your tools it will just stay clipped to the trunk and give you easy access so you can do whatever you need to do but anyway next up we close the trunk again manually like a plebian and we see that this trunk has a big light bar going across on the outside that's not really all that unusual a lot of cars have light bars that's become a big modern styling trend and in fact the lighting in this car is not particularly unusual in general both in back and in front you can see fairly standard lights up here even the turn signal all pretty standard for modern cars the interesting thing about the styling of this car to me is just how lexus like it is the front grille is very large and very toyota it fits with their design theme but basically everything else looks lexacy between the wheels and the headlights and just the general overall theme and profile of this car it really does look like a lexus it's intended to look kind of like a more upscale luxurious sedan and it's a huge improvement over the old mirai which was constantly being mocked for kind of its weird hatchback shape and those strange lines that went across it everybody thought the old mirai looked kind of strange this one is definitely a huge step up in the design department there's no question about that looks almost lexus like and next up we move under the hood where you can see the fuel cell or at least plastic covers on top of the fuel cell and all around it and you can also see a bunch of little orange hoses going basically everywhere behind it which look kind of scary you don't really want to touch them and you certainly don't want to cut them under here a lot simpler than what you'd expect in your traditional combustion engine vehicle in part because they've just put plastic trimming around everything they don't really want you to get in here and start working on anything that is very much above a do it yourself at home level of expertise now as for the fuel cell like i said this is the thing that combines the hydrogen which you pump into the car with oxygen to make electricity and that powers the car and the emission is water as for pumping in the hydrogen it's kind of interesting you have a fuel door just like you ordered a normal car in about the same place and you pull up to a hydrogen filling station and well it looks just like a regular gas pump in fact i would show you this process but it's not really all that interesting it looks just like putting gasoline petrol whatever you want to call it in your normal car and it takes about the same amount of time too not really that unusual or exciting the only big difference is when you're filling a car with hydrogen you have to seal it up very tight with the car to make sure no gases escape and you don't create a dangerous situation obviously it won't actually start pumping in the hydrogen until that seal is created but that's kind of the one thing that's different from regular fueling at a normal gas station otherwise it's fairly similar and so those are the quirks and features of the new toyota mirai now it's time to get it out on the road and see how it drives all right driving the new mirai now this car has a sport mode unbelievably so i have put it in sport mode i mentioned that because toyota insists that this the new mirai is sportier than the old one it's a real bonafide luxury vehicle with like some performance driving pretensions for a little proof of that they have switched this to rear-wheel drive as opposed to front-wheel drive like before and it's no longer like a frumpy looking little hatchback now it's kind of a real rear-wheel drive sedan uh even though it's only about 180 horsepower so let's see what it's like flooring it here in sport mode and i must say not particularly fast the old one was dog slow this is well actually it feels about the same 0-60 it's probably faster than the old one you know when you're driving an electric car you're used to the instant blowback of the torque and this is for all intents and purposes an electric car uh and it doesn't really give you that it's some acceleration but it's just not particularly exciting or thrilling as far as the driving feel goes and the steering and handling capabilities of the car it's certainly better than the old one there's no question now the old one is a front wheel drive hatchback this being a rear-wheel drive sedan that's just gonna happen but at the end of the day it's not a sports car and it doesn't even really feel like a sports sedan steering is pretty good they've clearly tuned it so there's a precision to the steering uh that you don't typically associate with a car like this it's it's quick to respond but that's kind of electronic thing the actual handling of the car the way that it responds to wheel movements and inputs that sort of thing in that sense it's just not all that great i mean it doesn't have like a wide track um you know for for great stability it doesn't have very aggressive tires i assume the suspension setup is not particularly sporty and just driving it you can kind of feel that that's certainly true i will say it drives more substantially in the outgoing model i don't want to complain about it that much because actually it's a big improvement in terms of driving experience drives pretty well the issue is it just doesn't drive like kind of like toyota pitches it it's not really that sporty of a sports sedan but it does feel more luxurious than i was expecting more comfortable than i thought you get in that back seat you see that trunk you see some missing features in this car opening sunroof and you think well maybe it's not really that luxurious but behind the wheel it's pretty nice pretty smooth very quality very quiet in here and i like it now of course it also is essentially silent it's because this is effectively in terms of driving experience basically an electric car because you have this conversion process happening the fuel cell to put out electric power to make it move with electric power and so it feels like an ev in that sense except you fill it up and you don't have to wait for you know longer to charge it so you hear kind of the sounds of an eevee um you know a little bit of a when you're accelerating there are some sounds front and back when you're in driver reverse at lower speeds to let pedestrians know that you're coming really it is a pretty nice car on the road it's interesting that toyota's kind of pitching it as more of a sportier car to me it's it's not really that but it is a fairly competent luxury car more than i was expecting in fact i'm a little surprised this doesn't wear the lexus badge uh you'd think it would do a little better more a luxury brand seem to be adopting alternative fuel a little bit more than regular brands for a bunch of reasons but mostly because they're more expensive this car maybe would do better as a lexus i would think but regardless even though it has the toyota badge it certainly feels kind of lexus like in its driving experience in the comfort of the seats um just about everything it's a pretty luxurious car and so that's the new 2021 toyota mirai the whole hydrogen versus electric debate rages on between enthusiasts of alternative fuel vehicles and i'm not really here to give an opinion on that aspect of this car neither it seems is toyota because they pretty much make one of everything but if you're on the hydrogen side of the alternative fuel vehicle debate this is a pretty compelling car probably the best hydrogen vehicle yet and miles ahead of the old mirai and now it's time to give the new mirai a doug score starting with the weekend categories and styling the mirai looks nice far nicer than the old mirai but it's still just sort of like a normal sedan and it gets a five out of ten acceleration is pretty slow and gets a one out of ten handling is okay and it gets a 4 out of 10. fun factor is low not absolutely zero because there is some fun in driving a car with such an unusual propulsion system but it's not particularly engaging and it gets a 2 out of 10. cool factor is higher than a lot of toyota sedans it's certainly interesting and it still turns my head a bit when i see a mirai on the street even in california where they're relatively common and it gets a 4 out of 10 for a total weekend score of 16 out of 50. next up are the daily categories and features the mirai has a lot of good stuff but it's also missing some obvious stuff and it gets a 7 out of 10. comfort is excellent it feels lexus like and it gets a 7 out of 10. quality is excellent materials are nice and of course toyota reliability and quality has a strong reputation and it earns an 8 out of 10. practicality is normal for a sedan and it earns a 5 out of 10. finally value and these are too expensive simply put they're overpriced but some huge incentives from toyota makes them more reasonable especially if you're leasing and it gets a 6 out of 10 for a total daily score of 33 out of 50. add it up and the doug score is 49 out of 100 which places it here against some alternative fuel rivals i like the mirai but the model 3 is just a better vehicle better tech more engaging more fun even a bit more practical the mirai is more luxurious but that's probably its only advantage unless you simply prefer hydrogen power in which case the mirai is one of your only options [Music] you

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 1,973,087

Keywords: toyota mirai, 2021 mirai, mirai, mirai review, toyota mirai review, 2021 toyota mirai review, hydrogen car, hydrogen car review, toyota hydrogen car, doug demuro, demuro, doug de muro

Id: rwu78OwR4fE

Length: 25min 14sec (1514 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 19 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/cocoagiant]

The H20 button makes sense.

If you are pulling into your garage and you don't want a puddle on your garage floor, you can push the button before driving in and it will dump the water out before you come inside.

I think the car looks really nice. I don't know if hydrogen EV cars really make any more sense than a battery EV as there are similar infrastructure issues, but it is a cool concept.

[u/Rage_Your_Dream]

I just want to point out that the H2O Button is so you don't accidentally piss water all over your garage.

[u/Drzhivago138]

This or the previous Mirai is probably the most recent example of a car from a mainstream manufacturer that I will never see in my area.

[u/[deleted]]

This piano black plastic bullshit has to stop. IMHO the interior looks cheap only because of that.

I also hate it in the Golf 8.

[u/dont_wear_a_C]

hard cornering

in your Toyota Mirai?!?!

[u/Relevant-Asparagus-2]

a premium rear-wheel drive sports-luxury FCEV

Slower to 60 than the Sienna but okay

[u/DaRealFish]

Disappointed that he didn't drink the water. Sounds like something Doug would do.

​

I know, I know, its safe to drink but you shouldn't because of bacteria or other things.

[u/steve98ex]

“It looks a lot like a lexus”

Mf’er looks like a wish.com Kia Stinger

[u/Zarrex]

Great redesign but jesus is it a bad value. Nearly $70k for a niche car that can only fill up in like, 1 state in the US while also having a cheap looking interior and 180hp. I just don't see why the average person would buy this and not a Model 3/Model S