Gadgetory

if your Toyota your Prius is both a huge triumph and kind of a nightmare let's set the bar really hot after you did that and kind of change the auto industry what do you do next they think it's this this is called the Mirai Japanese for future they tell me it is a production hydrogen fuel cell vehicle at a time when most people think hydrogen fuel cell is either yesterday's failed experiment or distant tomorrow's technological wish the mariah is fascinating because it's a big bet being made by the company with the most to lose in terms of its cred as a powertrain visionary let's tour the guts of a Mirai now in the back you've got not one but two hydrogen tanks one kind of here around the axle line and one under the rear seat those are filled at 10,000 psi with hydrogen gas that gets down to a liquefied level but it's only about five kilograms total weight of hydrogen you'll put a lot in here notice it's got a battery this is a hybrid but it's an electric electric hybrid sometimes the Carle take this hydrogen and run it through this fuel cell stack right here but use that directly to power the electric motor but other times or at the same time it will also create energy in the fuel cell stack and send some into the battery for storage while also driving the vehicle that's why it's a hybrid of two kinds of electricity the idea is to be able to have a nice buffer and not create at all on demand and then of course you've got an electric motor with a power control unit that is relatively like other electric vehicles the really interesting stuff is from midships on back the simple version of a fuel cell is that it takes in hydrogen crosses plates and as that happens the hydrogen's electrons are coaxed off in different directions which is where the electronic flow is generated that creates current at the final stage hydrogen combines with available oxygen to form h2o in the form of water vapor enough water vapors produce that the mariah has an h2o dump button that empties out it'd splatter if you will so you can leave all that outside instead of it puddling on your garage for notice you can also use this vehicle to power other things like your home in an emergency it's a weird little side angle to this vehicle but there's a great big high current port in the trunk so if you were to have a power outage at your home they will have accessories that will let you break that out into household current 120 AC 300 miles of range on a fill three to five minutes to fill up the tanks and no plugging in whatsoever now in the market the key to the mariah is actually not so much the Mirai as it is Toyota's ability to sell a vision and that turns on making hydrogen available but they say less available than you might think if every vehicle in the state of California ran on hydrogen we could meet refueling logistics with only 15% of the nearly 10,000 gas stations that are currently operating in the state based on an assumption that owners would want to reach a refueling station within six minutes of their home or work okay what's a like driving this advanced technology well as Twitter is actually kind of proud to point out it's sort of unremarkable if you've driven an electric car before it doesn't feel that much different that's really different at all high torque very quiet occasional whine of motor and reduction gears but it feels like any other electric which is what they were going for it don't want this to be jarring or something you have to get used to other than the different way you fuel it I'll say this though it does feel torque e'er and generally more powerful than a lot of other sort of mid class electrics or plug-in hybrids that rivet there's no lack of power or power assist things like seat eaters and heated wheel and things you'd normally be nervous about the battery cargas you want to preserve that precious charge in this car they point out the behavior should be different because you'll be able to charge readily if you can fill it up at all in your area and then you won't worry so much about being so parsimonious with the bolts size of the vehicle on the outside is kind of closer to Camry than it is to Prius and notice in the trunk you do not have folding rear seats you do have a little bit of a limited trunk space they're not bad but there's some intrusion from where they have mounted the twin hydrogen tanks now if you're just in this to save money sit down sufficient hydrogen to cover say 300 miles will cost you around 50 bucks in a Mariah you can do that same distance for about $33 in a four cylinder gas Camry that cost a lot less upfront and for just ten dollars in a Nissan Leaf but with all the charging stops it by taking days to get there and it's anybody's guess where hydrogen prices would go should there be widespread adoption because we're nowhere near that now saying Toyota wants this to be the next bigger Prius is an apt statement but the Prius required no changes in infrastructure the world was already set up for it if you will the Mehran arrives on a very different stage okay the Mirai hits the US fall 2015 price will be around 57 5 that's steep of course new technology look for about $13,000 in federal and California credits the only state where it's going to be sold initially later they'll expand out to some northeast markets they have to follow the infrastructure of course but this is a major stake by Toyota a vision not just of a vehicle but of where they think infrastructure can reasonably go and if they're right this short circuits a lot of the headaches that surround battery electric today