Mirai [Official] Toyota Mirai 2021
- Thread starter klier
- Start date
The Toyota Mirai is a mid-size hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (FCV) manufactured by Toyota, and is the first FCV to be mass-produced and sold commercially.
hoffmeister_fan
Kraftwagen König
It's been nice to see them do a GS with that body shape and stick in either the turbo V6 or turbo V8 that's rumored, but it'd hardly sell. This was something they could have explored in the early 2010's and possibly set-up the groundwork for this, but now it'd be too niche to do. Shame really.
Sunny
Premium
This is hilarious, Toyota is just giving this pos away for almost nothing and still hardly anyone takes it. - https://www.motor1.com/news/464435/2021-toyota-mirai-big-price-discount/
So the old Mirai, which cost $60k, Toyota supposedly lost somewhere ~$90k per car. The new one, they reduced the price by $10k and then added $20k discount. Plus $15k in free fuel. Add $4.5k CA tax credit and the effective price is down to ~$10k. Plus add 0% financing for 72 months, making it a effective payment of $138/month. That should make it the cheapest car in California (or the costliest paper weight depending on time and day of the year). So how many do they sell at this super low price? A grand f#cking figure of 77/month for last 2 months.
But they did announce this today - https://www.motor1.com/news/493528/toyota-x-prologue-teaser/, which makes me happy and little sad. I was hoping they would just bury the head in the sand for few more years till it decays and falls off.
ps. I forgot fed tax credit of $8000. That would make it effectively $2000. Why wouldn't anyone want a $2000 paper weight?
So the old Mirai, which cost $60k, Toyota supposedly lost somewhere ~$90k per car. The new one, they reduced the price by $10k and then added $20k discount. Plus $15k in free fuel. Add $4.5k CA tax credit and the effective price is down to ~$10k. Plus add 0% financing for 72 months, making it a effective payment of $138/month. That should make it the cheapest car in California (or the costliest paper weight depending on time and day of the year). So how many do they sell at this super low price? A grand f#cking figure of 77/month for last 2 months.
But they did announce this today - https://www.motor1.com/news/493528/toyota-x-prologue-teaser/, which makes me happy and little sad. I was hoping they would just bury the head in the sand for few more years till it decays and falls off.
ps. I forgot fed tax credit of $8000. That would make it effectively $2000. Why wouldn't anyone want a $2000 paper weight?
Toyota Moving Fuel Cell Manufacturing From Japan To China After Beijing Offers Support
Toyota is going to be producing the components necessary for fuel cell vehicles in China beginning next year. It marks the first time Toyota will produce these components outside of Japan, according to Nikkei.
Currently, components are being manufactured in Japan, before being sent to China to be assembled.
Beijing reached out to Toyota and asked the company to produce the components in the country, offering up support in hopes of moving toward its goal of putting 1 million fuel cell vehicles on the road by 2035. Beijing continues to push FCV as the "next generation" EV, offering cities incentives for establishing production facilities.
"Toyota is working with a Tsinghua-affiliated company to build a manufacturing facility for the driving systems of fuel cell cars," Minggao Ouyang, a Tsinghua University professor, told Nikkei. The company will manufacture fuel cell stacks and other components.
Components made in China will be used in commercial vehicles and busses. Toyota is still currently in the process of working out the details of its partnership with Tshighua. The automaker and Tsinghua University established a joint venture in 2020.
A new production facility is targeted for 2022 and 2023 and could cost "hundreds of millions of dollars".
Toyota has sold about 11,000 FCVs as of September 2020, cumulatively. 3,600 of the units were sold in Japan and 6,500 were sold in the U.S.
Source: Toyota Moving Fuel Cell Manufacturing From Japan To China After Beijing Offers Support
Toyota is going to be producing the components necessary for fuel cell vehicles in China beginning next year. It marks the first time Toyota will produce these components outside of Japan, according to Nikkei.
Currently, components are being manufactured in Japan, before being sent to China to be assembled.
Beijing reached out to Toyota and asked the company to produce the components in the country, offering up support in hopes of moving toward its goal of putting 1 million fuel cell vehicles on the road by 2035. Beijing continues to push FCV as the "next generation" EV, offering cities incentives for establishing production facilities.
"Toyota is working with a Tsinghua-affiliated company to build a manufacturing facility for the driving systems of fuel cell cars," Minggao Ouyang, a Tsinghua University professor, told Nikkei. The company will manufacture fuel cell stacks and other components.
Components made in China will be used in commercial vehicles and busses. Toyota is still currently in the process of working out the details of its partnership with Tshighua. The automaker and Tsinghua University established a joint venture in 2020.
A new production facility is targeted for 2022 and 2023 and could cost "hundreds of millions of dollars".
Toyota has sold about 11,000 FCVs as of September 2020, cumulatively. 3,600 of the units were sold in Japan and 6,500 were sold in the U.S.
Source: Toyota Moving Fuel Cell Manufacturing From Japan To China After Beijing Offers Support
It is not a BEV. It is an ICEV for cities in Europe. No hybrid version, no plug-in version, no electric version. Very smart of Toyota.
D
Deleted member 1071
Somehow, the Mirai reminds me of:
the 1933 Standard Superiors.
the 1933 Standard Superiors.
hoffmeister_fan
Kraftwagen König
It looks like the parent that begat the Beetle and the 2CV. That said, can't see the relation of this to the Mirai. Perhaps that's what would be considered a fastback back in the day?Somehow, the Mirai reminds me of:
the 1933 Standard Superiors.
D
Deleted member 1071
Oh, it's just a personal perception of something that evokes a remote reminder. The area around the rear wheel, the decidedly cabin-back format perhaps ?
The 1933/34 *Standard Superior tells an interesting tale of an ingenious yet unfortunate engineer, Dr. Josef Ganz. The Standard Superior was primarily his brainchild and considered by many automotive historians to be the legitimate VW Käfer predecessor. Dr. Ganz, an Austro-Hungarian Jew, never received the recognition deserved until some 40+ years following his death in 1967.
*not Englands' Standard brand, but Germanys' Standard Fahrzeugfabrik in Ludwigshafen.
hoffmeister_fan
Kraftwagen König
The Clarkson Review: Toyota Mirai
Hydrogen can halt the charge to electric
By Jeremy Clarkson (Sunday Times, August 1)
The problem with trying to sort out the environment is that politicians want flattering headlines now, not praise in the history books. So they never really think about the long term, only what can be achieved immediately.
That’s why we are on a headlong rush to rid ourselves of cars with internal combustion engines. Politicians, who have been mesmerised by Musk, know that right now there is an electric alternative that sort of works, and they know that they can be just about charged up using renewable energy.
So that’s two boxes ticked, and now, in a bid for more back-slapping from the green army, they want to move on to the next phase — forcing us to live in houses with central heating systems that run on soil.
It all sounds very lovely and to the casual observer it is. But there are so many problems. Those graceful wind turbines, for instance, can need diesel generators to keep the power flowing. And ground source heating doesn’t work very well in the short term, and not at all after a few years.
And then there’s the business with electric cars. I had an electric sports car on test recently and God strewth it was wonderful — lovely to look at, lovely to drive and fast beyond belief. On a mate’s drive I hit 135mph. That’s 35mph more than I once managed in a big old Newport Pagnell Vantage.
But there’s no getting round the fact that child slave labour is used to source some of the ingredients in electric car batteries. And think about what you do when the battery in your iPhone starts to weaken. You throw it away and buy another. Well, soon you’ll have to do that with a £100,000 car.
It’s not just me who has concerns. Carlos Tavares, the CEO of Peugeot, Citroën, Opel and Vauxhall, wonders “who is taking the 360-degree view”.
He explains that European governments currently get €448 billion a year from tax on petrol and diesel cars and asks what will replace it when we all go electric. He also says that even in the future electric cars will be expensive — in the same way that bio food is more expensive than conventional food — which means people on low incomes simply won’t be able to afford personal mobility.
And that’s just the start of it. Because he reckons the seismic shift in the way we move about will cause runaway inflation, and that no European country is remotely able to provide a satisfactory charging infrastructure. As a result of all this we will no longer be able to drop everything and take a spontaneous run out to the seaside on a sunny Sunday.
Most important of all, though, he says that if we charge headlong into a new electric future, we will be screwed if, in 10 or 20 years, a better alternative comes along.
Which brings me neatly to the door of the car you see in the pictures this morning. It’s the hydrogen fuel cell Toyota Mirai. It looks like a car, but it’s actually a power station in a car-shaped wrapper.
You fill the tank with hydrogen in the same way you fill up now with petrol and then off you go, in silence, with nothing but pure water coming out of the tail pipe. Looking further ahead, you could one day use your car to power your house. Even if you live in Blenheim Palace, you’d just plug it in and it will provide all the energy you need, while continuing to issue nothing but a trickle of water from its exhaust.
The science sounds simple. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. But it doesn’t like to be alone. It likes to bond with something else, oxygen mostly.
So here’s what you do. You pass the hydrogen down a tube and on the other side of a membrane there’s air. The hydrogen can sense the oxygen. It can smell it. And it becomes as desperate as a teenage boy after 18 months of lockdown. It wants to bond. It wants to mate. And in its desperation it creates electricity. And then, when that has happened, and the car is moving along, the hydrogen and the oxygen are allowed to merge to become … drum roll … H2O.
Brilliant. And elegant. And wonderful. But sadly there are only a handful of hydrogen filling stations in Britain, and usually most of them are closed for one reason or another. So you can’t actually go anywhere in a Mirai, even if you were daft enough to spend £63,000 buying it in the first place.
You may imagine that if it were to catch on the cost would come down, but how will that happen? And how will we get more hydrogen filling stations if everyone is charging down the rechargeable electric route? It’s like we are all buying laser discs because we don’t know the internet is coming. And who’s guiding us? Yup, the government, the same organisation that told us, not that long ago, to buy diesel.
For years I’ve been tearing my hair out over this, utterly convinced that fuel cell technology was so obviously the way to go, and I was delighted that Toyota was swimming against the tide with the Mirai. But then I went to see some engineers at JCB and I’m not so sure any more.
They explained that the Toyota Mirai needs a rechargeable battery to act as a kind of turbocharger, filling the holes where the fuel cell is not working at its peak. So it’s not quite as elegant as I’d imagined, and I found that a bit sad.
There were a host of other issues too, mainly to do with the pressure needed to fill the tank, and how no one was working on solving this. And then they explained that they’d made a normal internal combustion engine run on hydrogen.
I went to a quarry where they test their new developments. There were little electrical diggers that could be used indoors as they are silent and produce no emissions. And there was a giant 20-tonne excavator that was running on a fuel cell. And then there, in the middle of it all, was a backhoe with the engine they’d been talking about.
I tried it and it felt normal. It sounded normal. It runs lean, really lean. Even leaner than Mrs Thatcher wanted engines to run before quick-fix catalytic converters came along — another disaster for the environment, by the way. But despite the apparent normality, the only stuff coming out of the exhaust pipe was steam. This is very intriguing.
The internal combustion engine has been around for more than a hundred years. We are all familiar with it and we are now very good at making it reliable and cheap. The cost to Ford of the 1.4-litre engine in your Fiesta is about £600. So I now find myself consumed with the idea of using the familiar technology but tweaking it to run on hydrogen instead of petrol, so that the only waste product is water.
Yes, hydrogen is difficult and expensive to make — it really doesn’t like being separated from oxygen and clings on for dear life when you try to pull them apart. But it is possible, and using solar or geothermal power to do this has zero impact on the climate.
And it seems that I’m not the only one who’s intrigued. Because earlier this year Akio Toyoda, the chief executive of Toyota, took part in a 24-hour race in a Corolla that was powered by a hydrogen-fuelled internal combustion engine. This is a company spending billions on fuel cell development, but its CEO is plainly saying, “Er, hang on a minute chaps.”
And that’s what we all need to do really. There are hundreds of thousands of engineers working in the car industry and they are simply not being consulted on what route we should take. Instead governments are reacting to the noises made by a Swedish schoolgirl.
We must do something. Everyone agrees on that. But before we commit to rechargeable electric cars, which is extremely risky, we must pause and seek advice from those who know what they’re on about. And we should start with Tavares, as it seems to me that this is a man who proves that heaven really is missing an angel.
The Clarksometer
Toyota Mirai Design Premium Pack
Powertrain: Polymer electrolyte fuel cell
Power: 180bhp
Torque: 221 Ib ft
Acceleration: 0-62mph: 9sec
Top speed: 108mph
Range / CO2: 400 miles / 0g/km
Weight: 1,950kg
Price: £64,995
Release date: On sale now
Jeremy’s rating: ★★★☆☆
Head to head
Toyota Mirai Design Premium Plus v Hyundai Nexo Premium SE
Price: Toyota: £64,995 / Hyundai: £69,495
Power: Toyota: 180bhp / Hyundai: 118bhp
Fuel economy: Toyota: 0.9kgH²/100km / Hyundai: 1kgH²/100km
0-62mph: Toyota: 9sec / Hyundai: 9.5sec
Top speed: Toyota: 108mph / Hyundai: 111mph
Range: Toyota: 400 miles / Hyundai: 413 miles
Source: Clarkson's Columns: The Toyota Mirai Review & Useless Olympians
Hydrogen can halt the charge to electric
By Jeremy Clarkson (Sunday Times, August 1)
The problem with trying to sort out the environment is that politicians want flattering headlines now, not praise in the history books. So they never really think about the long term, only what can be achieved immediately.
That’s why we are on a headlong rush to rid ourselves of cars with internal combustion engines. Politicians, who have been mesmerised by Musk, know that right now there is an electric alternative that sort of works, and they know that they can be just about charged up using renewable energy.
So that’s two boxes ticked, and now, in a bid for more back-slapping from the green army, they want to move on to the next phase — forcing us to live in houses with central heating systems that run on soil.
It all sounds very lovely and to the casual observer it is. But there are so many problems. Those graceful wind turbines, for instance, can need diesel generators to keep the power flowing. And ground source heating doesn’t work very well in the short term, and not at all after a few years.
And then there’s the business with electric cars. I had an electric sports car on test recently and God strewth it was wonderful — lovely to look at, lovely to drive and fast beyond belief. On a mate’s drive I hit 135mph. That’s 35mph more than I once managed in a big old Newport Pagnell Vantage.
But there’s no getting round the fact that child slave labour is used to source some of the ingredients in electric car batteries. And think about what you do when the battery in your iPhone starts to weaken. You throw it away and buy another. Well, soon you’ll have to do that with a £100,000 car.
It’s not just me who has concerns. Carlos Tavares, the CEO of Peugeot, Citroën, Opel and Vauxhall, wonders “who is taking the 360-degree view”.
He explains that European governments currently get €448 billion a year from tax on petrol and diesel cars and asks what will replace it when we all go electric. He also says that even in the future electric cars will be expensive — in the same way that bio food is more expensive than conventional food — which means people on low incomes simply won’t be able to afford personal mobility.
And that’s just the start of it. Because he reckons the seismic shift in the way we move about will cause runaway inflation, and that no European country is remotely able to provide a satisfactory charging infrastructure. As a result of all this we will no longer be able to drop everything and take a spontaneous run out to the seaside on a sunny Sunday.
Most important of all, though, he says that if we charge headlong into a new electric future, we will be screwed if, in 10 or 20 years, a better alternative comes along.
Which brings me neatly to the door of the car you see in the pictures this morning. It’s the hydrogen fuel cell Toyota Mirai. It looks like a car, but it’s actually a power station in a car-shaped wrapper.
You fill the tank with hydrogen in the same way you fill up now with petrol and then off you go, in silence, with nothing but pure water coming out of the tail pipe. Looking further ahead, you could one day use your car to power your house. Even if you live in Blenheim Palace, you’d just plug it in and it will provide all the energy you need, while continuing to issue nothing but a trickle of water from its exhaust.
The science sounds simple. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. But it doesn’t like to be alone. It likes to bond with something else, oxygen mostly.
So here’s what you do. You pass the hydrogen down a tube and on the other side of a membrane there’s air. The hydrogen can sense the oxygen. It can smell it. And it becomes as desperate as a teenage boy after 18 months of lockdown. It wants to bond. It wants to mate. And in its desperation it creates electricity. And then, when that has happened, and the car is moving along, the hydrogen and the oxygen are allowed to merge to become … drum roll … H2O.
Brilliant. And elegant. And wonderful. But sadly there are only a handful of hydrogen filling stations in Britain, and usually most of them are closed for one reason or another. So you can’t actually go anywhere in a Mirai, even if you were daft enough to spend £63,000 buying it in the first place.
You may imagine that if it were to catch on the cost would come down, but how will that happen? And how will we get more hydrogen filling stations if everyone is charging down the rechargeable electric route? It’s like we are all buying laser discs because we don’t know the internet is coming. And who’s guiding us? Yup, the government, the same organisation that told us, not that long ago, to buy diesel.
For years I’ve been tearing my hair out over this, utterly convinced that fuel cell technology was so obviously the way to go, and I was delighted that Toyota was swimming against the tide with the Mirai. But then I went to see some engineers at JCB and I’m not so sure any more.
They explained that the Toyota Mirai needs a rechargeable battery to act as a kind of turbocharger, filling the holes where the fuel cell is not working at its peak. So it’s not quite as elegant as I’d imagined, and I found that a bit sad.
There were a host of other issues too, mainly to do with the pressure needed to fill the tank, and how no one was working on solving this. And then they explained that they’d made a normal internal combustion engine run on hydrogen.
I went to a quarry where they test their new developments. There were little electrical diggers that could be used indoors as they are silent and produce no emissions. And there was a giant 20-tonne excavator that was running on a fuel cell. And then there, in the middle of it all, was a backhoe with the engine they’d been talking about.
I tried it and it felt normal. It sounded normal. It runs lean, really lean. Even leaner than Mrs Thatcher wanted engines to run before quick-fix catalytic converters came along — another disaster for the environment, by the way. But despite the apparent normality, the only stuff coming out of the exhaust pipe was steam. This is very intriguing.
The internal combustion engine has been around for more than a hundred years. We are all familiar with it and we are now very good at making it reliable and cheap. The cost to Ford of the 1.4-litre engine in your Fiesta is about £600. So I now find myself consumed with the idea of using the familiar technology but tweaking it to run on hydrogen instead of petrol, so that the only waste product is water.
Yes, hydrogen is difficult and expensive to make — it really doesn’t like being separated from oxygen and clings on for dear life when you try to pull them apart. But it is possible, and using solar or geothermal power to do this has zero impact on the climate.
And it seems that I’m not the only one who’s intrigued. Because earlier this year Akio Toyoda, the chief executive of Toyota, took part in a 24-hour race in a Corolla that was powered by a hydrogen-fuelled internal combustion engine. This is a company spending billions on fuel cell development, but its CEO is plainly saying, “Er, hang on a minute chaps.”
And that’s what we all need to do really. There are hundreds of thousands of engineers working in the car industry and they are simply not being consulted on what route we should take. Instead governments are reacting to the noises made by a Swedish schoolgirl.
We must do something. Everyone agrees on that. But before we commit to rechargeable electric cars, which is extremely risky, we must pause and seek advice from those who know what they’re on about. And we should start with Tavares, as it seems to me that this is a man who proves that heaven really is missing an angel.
The Clarksometer
Toyota Mirai Design Premium Pack
Powertrain: Polymer electrolyte fuel cell
Power: 180bhp
Torque: 221 Ib ft
Acceleration: 0-62mph: 9sec
Top speed: 108mph
Range / CO2: 400 miles / 0g/km
Weight: 1,950kg
Price: £64,995
Release date: On sale now
Jeremy’s rating: ★★★☆☆
Head to head
Toyota Mirai Design Premium Plus v Hyundai Nexo Premium SE
Price: Toyota: £64,995 / Hyundai: £69,495
Power: Toyota: 180bhp / Hyundai: 118bhp
Fuel economy: Toyota: 0.9kgH²/100km / Hyundai: 1kgH²/100km
0-62mph: Toyota: 9sec / Hyundai: 9.5sec
Top speed: Toyota: 108mph / Hyundai: 111mph
Range: Toyota: 400 miles / Hyundai: 413 miles
Source: Clarkson's Columns: The Toyota Mirai Review & Useless Olympians
Toyota To Launch Hydrogen-Powered Prius And Corolla In 2023
Seen in the recent Fuji 24-hours, the Corolla Sport race car, employed an engine powered by hydrogen.
Toyota is one of the last major manufacturers to launch an electric vehicle, holding back its introductory ‘bZ’ EV debut until 2022. The reasoning behind that stance is explained in the last paragraph. In the meantime however, Japan’s No 1 carmaker has been heavily pushing hydrogen as a viable future carbon neutral fuel through its production of the Mirai fuel cell car and its planned heavy-duty truck fuel cell module assembly in Kentucky, with at least two more hydrogen-powered models—a Prius and a Corolla—destined to land in showrooms by the end of 2022.
As the world’s first mass-produced hybrid vehicle, the Prius debuted in 1997, and over the next two decades, the brand expanded its hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains to encompass the whole lineup. About the only models that don’t offer hybrid options are sports cars like the Supra, GR Yaris and GR86. Even the Land Cruiser is expecting a hybrid spec version in 2022.
And now, Toyota plans to launch an all-new 5th generation, 1.8-liter Prius gasoline-hybrid in December 2022, and will add a hydrogen-powered PHEV version to its lineup in 2023. This will be the first time that Japan’s largest carmaker has blended its two signature technologies, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen power.
But that’s not all. In late 2022, Toyota will launch the Corolla Sports GR, a 4WD high performance five-door hatchback model that employs the same 257 hp 1.6-liter, 3-cylinder gasoline turbocharged engine as the multiple award-winning (UK Car of the Year etc) GR Yaris. And yes, the GR Yaris may not have made it to U.S. shores but the hot Corolla hatch is expected to.
While this particular Corolla does not use hydrogen, Toyota has indicated their future plans to launch a hydrogen-powered Corolla by 2023, after having competed in Japan’s only all-day race ‘The Fuji 24-hours’ using a Corolla powered by hydrogen. This will not be a fuel-cell car like the Mirai but use hydrogen to power its engine. The reasons for this switch are twofold: to achieve its goal of carbon neutral by 2050, and to improve fuel efficiency across the range.
The reasoning is simple? Apart from aiming to achieve its carbon neutral goal by 2050, and improving fuel economy, Toyota will use its motorsport program to promote hydrogen as a viable alternative to electric cars. Toyota has only just launched its second-generation hydrogen fuel-cell powered Mirai sedan, but this is the first time the company has raced a car powered by hydrogen.
To avoid confusion, we should explain here that the Mirai’s powertrain and that of the Corolla race car, and 2023 model year Prius for that matter, are very different. The Mirai generates electricity to power its motors from a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen in the fuel cells, where as hydrogen engined vehicles like the upcoming Corolla, are similar to conventional engined cars except that they burn hydrogen in place of gasoline. And the next generation Prius will use hydrogen to power its plug-in hybrid system, instead of gasoline.
What Toyota is trying to say through it hydrogen powertrain development, but getting caught up in media criticism that it is ignoring the industry trend towards electric vehicles, is that manufacturers should be striving to become more multi-faceted ‘mobility suppliers’ and aiming for a more balanced mix of powertrain technologies across their lineups, a mix that includes hybrids, plug-in hybrids, EVs, fuel cell cars like the Mirai and hydrogen powered engines like the Corolla.
To explain the firm’s slow adoption of electric cars, a Toyota spokesman in 2019 mentioned that Toyota is able to produce enough batteries for 28,000 electric cars each year, or 1.5 million hybrid cars. One other important factor is emissions. Toyota says that selling 1.5 million hybrid cars reduces carbon emissions by a third more than selling 28,000 electric cars. So, put simply, its carbon footprint is smaller if it sells many more gasoline-electric hybrid and hydrogen powered vehicles.
Source: Forbes
Seen in the recent Fuji 24-hours, the Corolla Sport race car, employed an engine powered by hydrogen.
Toyota is one of the last major manufacturers to launch an electric vehicle, holding back its introductory ‘bZ’ EV debut until 2022. The reasoning behind that stance is explained in the last paragraph. In the meantime however, Japan’s No 1 carmaker has been heavily pushing hydrogen as a viable future carbon neutral fuel through its production of the Mirai fuel cell car and its planned heavy-duty truck fuel cell module assembly in Kentucky, with at least two more hydrogen-powered models—a Prius and a Corolla—destined to land in showrooms by the end of 2022.
As the world’s first mass-produced hybrid vehicle, the Prius debuted in 1997, and over the next two decades, the brand expanded its hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains to encompass the whole lineup. About the only models that don’t offer hybrid options are sports cars like the Supra, GR Yaris and GR86. Even the Land Cruiser is expecting a hybrid spec version in 2022.
And now, Toyota plans to launch an all-new 5th generation, 1.8-liter Prius gasoline-hybrid in December 2022, and will add a hydrogen-powered PHEV version to its lineup in 2023. This will be the first time that Japan’s largest carmaker has blended its two signature technologies, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen power.
But that’s not all. In late 2022, Toyota will launch the Corolla Sports GR, a 4WD high performance five-door hatchback model that employs the same 257 hp 1.6-liter, 3-cylinder gasoline turbocharged engine as the multiple award-winning (UK Car of the Year etc) GR Yaris. And yes, the GR Yaris may not have made it to U.S. shores but the hot Corolla hatch is expected to.
While this particular Corolla does not use hydrogen, Toyota has indicated their future plans to launch a hydrogen-powered Corolla by 2023, after having competed in Japan’s only all-day race ‘The Fuji 24-hours’ using a Corolla powered by hydrogen. This will not be a fuel-cell car like the Mirai but use hydrogen to power its engine. The reasons for this switch are twofold: to achieve its goal of carbon neutral by 2050, and to improve fuel efficiency across the range.
The reasoning is simple? Apart from aiming to achieve its carbon neutral goal by 2050, and improving fuel economy, Toyota will use its motorsport program to promote hydrogen as a viable alternative to electric cars. Toyota has only just launched its second-generation hydrogen fuel-cell powered Mirai sedan, but this is the first time the company has raced a car powered by hydrogen.
To avoid confusion, we should explain here that the Mirai’s powertrain and that of the Corolla race car, and 2023 model year Prius for that matter, are very different. The Mirai generates electricity to power its motors from a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen in the fuel cells, where as hydrogen engined vehicles like the upcoming Corolla, are similar to conventional engined cars except that they burn hydrogen in place of gasoline. And the next generation Prius will use hydrogen to power its plug-in hybrid system, instead of gasoline.
What Toyota is trying to say through it hydrogen powertrain development, but getting caught up in media criticism that it is ignoring the industry trend towards electric vehicles, is that manufacturers should be striving to become more multi-faceted ‘mobility suppliers’ and aiming for a more balanced mix of powertrain technologies across their lineups, a mix that includes hybrids, plug-in hybrids, EVs, fuel cell cars like the Mirai and hydrogen powered engines like the Corolla.
To explain the firm’s slow adoption of electric cars, a Toyota spokesman in 2019 mentioned that Toyota is able to produce enough batteries for 28,000 electric cars each year, or 1.5 million hybrid cars. One other important factor is emissions. Toyota says that selling 1.5 million hybrid cars reduces carbon emissions by a third more than selling 28,000 electric cars. So, put simply, its carbon footprint is smaller if it sells many more gasoline-electric hybrid and hydrogen powered vehicles.
Source: Forbes
To be fair, the E38 750hl and E68 Hydrogen 7 were dual fuel engines, capable of running on Hydrogen or Petrol as required. An engine specifically optimised for Hydrogen would likely have fared better. Also, even just the petrol V12 has come on by around 50% in terms of specific output since those days, so... it might not be a 1000hp monster, but I'd expect it's come a way since needing a V12 to make Turbo 4 power.
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