TPT March 2015

Global Marketplace

Prius’s 50mpg rating by 20 per cent. He needn’t have noted, but did, that Toyota has a good record of predicting – and dictating – consumer tastes. Its ultra-reliable Camry has been the best-selling car in the US for the last 12 years. And in 2012 and 2013, in California, its Prius hybrids were not merely the best-selling cars of their kind but the best-selling over all. › Will history repeat itself with Toyota’s newest vision, more ambitious by far than any other in the company’s history? Challenges abound, beginning at the fuel pump. California, the global launch market for the Mirai, currently has just ten hydrogen filling stations. In comparison, there are in the state some 10,000 stations dispensing conventional gasoline and more than 1,800 electric-vehicle charging stations. On the increasingly important environmental front, hydrogen presents a mixed pedigree. It can be extracted from water with the use of electricity generated from solar, wind, and hydropower. But most hydrogen produced in the US derives from natural gas, the extraction of which can pollute the environment. › “Futuristic appeal and drinkable emissions aside,” Mr Czap wrote, “whether the world’s first mass-produced fuel- cell car succeeds is a matter of timing and infrastructure.” That is to say, if the newest Toyota brainchild is to succeed in the manner of its siblings, an enormous investment in hydrogen infrastructure will be necessary. The Mirai – a “perfectly personable” car that delivers a borderline-unremarkable ride – is about to jump-start the discussion.

Automotive Toyota forces the discussion of whether the time has come for an enormous investment in infrastructure for hydrogen- powered cars “Unlike most new cars, whose computer-rendered carapaces conceal retrograde combustion technology, the Mirai’s swoopy bodywork cloaks a truly sophisticated power plant: a hydrogen fuel cell whose only emission is water vapour.” In his report for the “Joyride” feature of BBC America on his recent test drive of the Toyota Mirai, the San Francisco-based journalist Nick Czap described “a fully realised and perfectly personable car.” Taking its name from the Japanese word for “future”, the Mirai even so delivered a ride that “borders on the unremarkable.” (“Toyota Mirai: Miracle Machine or Vaporware?,” 23 December) It is the Mirai’s fuel and powertrain that are exotic. Toyota claims a range of up to 300 miles on 5kg of gaseous hydrogen, stored in two high-pressure tanks made from carbon fibre. The carmaker notes that a kilogram of hydrogen has the same energy content as a gallon of gasoline. In broad strokes, wrote Mr Czap, the Mirai’s fuel economy is thus equivalent to 60 miles per gallon (mpg), which would best the

Dorothy Fabian, Features Editor (USA)

83

www.read-tpt.com

M arch 2015

Made with