Toyota Invite; Come Drive the Mirai

For Californians the Miria is another option for drivers. The fuel is available and will become more widely avaiable over the next 18 months. CNG Civics sell and they have a poor infrastructure for CNG in California. People buy them for the car pool sticker. For some people the Miria's range and location of fuel will be perfect for them. Toyota is only releasing 700 cars, and buyers need to be approved. When you do want to take that cross country trip, Toyota will loan you a car, 7 times per year, to take that trip.

 

The cng civic sells poorly and honda is canclening it in north america.
Honda axing hybrid, CNG versions of Civic sedan

California Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition: Find a Fueling Station

There are 173 cng public stations today in california, and the infrastructure allows a cng driver to make it all the way to texas another state that is embracing the possibility of cng. CNG and lng make for sense for larger vehicles that can add the large tanks.

I don't think that history is good for the mirai, as CARB and CEC only expect 86 hydrogen fueling stations by the end of 2021. Tech advances that could make the infrastructure less expensive could happen by 2021, but if you lease a mirai today, you will have less than 86 stations to refuel at during the 3 year lease period, and buying is a dumb idea versus lease, as after 3 years a purchaser will need to actually pay for the hydrogen, while a new lease may include it.

 

The Miria comes with a fuel credit of $15,000. So leasing makes sense, and if Hydorogen does not add up to what Toyota claims, turn it back in. But if it does add up you can always buy it at the end of the lease.

 

Orenji, sorry to nitpick, but why do you keep calling it the "Miria"? I thought it might of been a typo, but you keep spelling it that way lol.

Back to the topic, I hope that people who lease/buy the Mirai will post here, and that car sites such as greencarreports interviews them so we can get feedback on how practical a fuel cell car, and especially the infrastructure, is for them.

 

What is the plural of Mirai? I like the plural of Prius being Prii and I can like "Miria" being a collection of fuel cells.

 

According to jalopnik Mirai is for plural as well.

Japanese nouns can be singular or plural!

The Hydrogen Toyota Mirai Gets Three Years Of Free Fuel, Is Crazy Ugly

 

i like normal names.

 

I see my spelling error thanks for pointing it out. MIRIA or MIRAI its one technically advanced car on the planet.

 

I think The plural of Mirai should be Maria! maria images - Google Search

Hope Grumpy does not see this: First Toyota Mirai hydrogen powered cars arrive in the UK

 

I did the Mirai road test at the Laguna Canyon presentation a few weekends ago. I just happen to be on my 2nd Prius, current one is the plug in advanced.
First thing I noticed was the car had similar but more comfortable seats, was definitely quieter. We weren't able to get up to freeway speeds in my session though as it was Laguna Beach to Laguna Woods and back on a Saturday. Feet room in the back was tight, at least in the seat behind the driver. They had nice A/C vents in the back, and they had controls for the rear heated seats. Dash was nicer with color display. Overall it was closer to Lexus quality than my advanced which is pretty nice to begin with. We also have multiple Lexus models in the family. My commute is about 60 miles each way and they are building a new H fueling station about half way in San Juan Capistrano, Orange County (which I visited, was interesting). Daughter is getting her license this year so she may get my Prius, as I've done the preliminary paperwork and deposit for the Mirai. They said I could expect delivery in March as I wasn't in the first batch signing up. I'm just intrigued by the whole thing and a little more comfortable car that's also eco friendly is what made me step up. Pics of the new fuel station under construction in a Union 76/7-11 location in SJC attached

Looks: Hmmm - first impression was a bit critical, but it's slowly growing on me. Didn't really like the Prius looks originally either, or the Porsche 928 and 924 either when they came out, but they all looked better in time and I even bought the Prius ;-)
I like what one reviewer said (and what I thought about the Prius vs the Honda hybrid) in that if you're going to have a ground breaking car, you should have a unique look that people notice. So I'm anticipating that it will continue to look better to me lol. It did look better in person at the test drive - looking down on it was more pleasant than the photos i've seen taken from a low perspective (like shooting a photo up someone's nostrils lol )

 

I think by the end of the year, there will be more Hydrogen stations than there is Supercharger stations in California. These retail stations can refuel more vehicles and provide EV miles than Superchargers is capable of.

Tesla better step it up

 

You expect more than 32 hydrogen stations that Toyota qualifies as "adequate for Mirai filling"?
Of course, since superchargers are only required for about 10% of miles driven, where Hydrogen stations need to support 100% of miles driven, and if you look at "pumps" rather than stations, Toyota... I mean tax payers have a lot further to go.

 

With 90% of charging happening at home, why would Tesla need more Superchargers?

 

Only if they stopped selling more new cars would they need to stop building SC locations. The SC concept is great and works well if there is always an open "pump". Current hydrogen technology is the same way. You don't want to be second, or worse, third in line at either station. At a conventional gas station, this would be simply a 10-15min. inconvenience or one simply drive to another station down the street. Not so with SC or hydrogen, you'll be waiting a very, very long time.

 

10-15 min? not sure why you think it would be that long to fill up on hydrogen. First it takes 3 to 5 minutes to fill which is equal in time to filling a full size pick up truck these days. There are plenty of these on the roads. Second, Toyota is only releasing 700 cars the first year, so not much of an impact on the initial fuel stations.

 

This may be what Toyota is telling you, and it may be the case if you use one of the hydrogen stations Toyota classifies as "Mirai ready".
We won't know for sure until Toyota starts making these available in California.
What we do know is that, as reported by Hyundai drivers in California, refueling can take much longer.

 

That is now....but moving forward the future is looking brighter.

 

It is possible the cars coming right after the first couple could experience longer fill times. Filling up gas(the physical state, not the fuel) tanks to high pressures is more involved than filling up a liquid one.

All the equipment is needed to fill a car with gasoline or diesel is a pump. Keep the station's tanks filled, and the station can fill up cars has quickly as one leaves and the next pulls up to the pump. Worst case, the flow rate drops a little with all the pumps in operation as the tank empties.

In order to fill a hydrogen car up as quickly as a gasoline one, more equipment is needed. A compressor fills up a refueling tank to a pressure greater than 10k psi. At the same time that tank is being chilled to combat the heat generated from compressing the gas, and then to chill it to allow for faster filling of the car's tanks. For a 3 to 5 minute fill time, the hydrogen needs to be at -40C.

First car to the pump, the hydrogen is fully pressurized and really cold. They get filled in that 3 to 5 minutes. For the next car, the pressure in the refuel tank has dropped. The compressor is adding more hydrogen to increase the pressure, but this heats the gas up, so the chillers needs to run some more, and then the cars after the first one will have longer fill times. Eventually hitting 20 minutes or longer, if at all.

Larger refuel tanks and faster compressors with faster chillers can increase the number cars that get filled before the fill rate starts dropping, but the cars are still in the precommercial phase, and so are the stations. Making hydrogen stations that could handle a rush that wouldn't bother gasoline station will just add to their already high price tag. Even with the extra cost, a hydrogen station simply can not keep up the fast refill times like a gasoline station. The physical limits of handling pressurized gases and hydrogen in particular; heat it up too much with compressing and it explodes.

The biggest hydrogen stations can fill a hundred cars or so a day, and only at the fast rate if they come in spread out over that time. Then there are stations out there that can't chill their refuel tanks down to -40C. Then on top of that, the air temperature effects the hydrogen's fill rate. It won't be 3 to 5 minutes on a hot day because the system doesn't want the hydrogen to get above 100C in the car's tanks.

 

How many nozzles/pumps will all of those stations have by the end of this year in California? I'm guessing these H2 stations typically have 2 or 4 nozzles.

As others have asked, how many cars can be fueled consecutively between, say, 6am and midnight? How many miles of driving would that enable?

Today, Tesla had 30 SuperCharger locations in California with around 244 charging stalls or an average of 8 stalls per location. Some have only 4 and some have 12 or more. I don't know what expansion plans might exist by the end of the year.

As others have noted, those locations are apparently enough to service many thousands of Model S cars already on the road in California today because the huge majority of charging is done at home or at work using AC at a more leisurely and unhurried pace.

 

I believe there are 32 super chargers in California. CARB estimates 44 fuel cell stations by the end of the year, but toyota's Craig Scott thinks only 15 of those will be mirai ready (able to fill a mirai up quickly) as he said in his forbes interview.
US Tesla Superchargers | Tesla Motors

So yes I believe there will be more hydrogen stations at various states of fueling speed, then superchargers at the end of the year. Every estimate seems to be missed. I expect that those fueling and expecting it to be as easy as gasoline will be disappointed with the hydrogen stations this year. Mr. Scott said fuel cell owners should be prepared for some stations not performing well. The average supercharger location in california has 8 plugs that can each fill up a car 170 miles in half an hour, 16 an hour at that rate, versus full charge of 1.25 hours meaning 6 an hour at that rate. Many of those 44 will fill a couple of cars then have to wait an hour to compress the hydrogen, which means the 32 can handle a lot more cars than the 44 hydrogen stations.

But let's look out to 2021, when hopefully these pumps and compressors are all in good shape, and CARB estimates it will have built 86 stations by the end of that year. That is more fair. Many of these though can only produce 100/kg of hydrogen a day, so carb estimates those low volume stations can only handle 100 vehicles a week. Maybe those 86 will be able to fill 30,000 fcv, a week, which means if vehicles fill up an average of once a week they will be able to handle 30,000 vehicles. For the supercharger network, because 90% of charging is done off network, they already can handle 30,000 vehicles in california. Most of the california stations they need will be there in 2016, so they are ready for much higher volume model 3, and road trips from and to california. As stations get clogged, tesla can easily add new plugs, and as needs arise tesla can add new super charger locations. These compliment the home and work charging, the L2 and L3 network. NRG now has more L3 locations in the US than tesla, but of course tesla drivers will try to go to the free superchargers..

Maybe hydrogen stations get cheaper in 5 years, or maybe they don't. If they get cheaper because of a technical breakthrough that will be one of steven chu's miracles that will have come true.