– By David Brown –
Toyota has brought in some examples of its new hydrogen powered car to show its new technology to the Australian market. It has a whole new look, new body and new interior. But none of that is of particular interest at this stage.
The car is the Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. The real issue is not just whether the Mirai is a good car but how the hydrogen fuel cell technology fits into the vehicle and to see how it feels to drive. These are the practical pointers to the future of this technology and its use in fleets.
Named as the 2016 World Green Car, the Mirai is the world’s first mass-produced fuel-cell sedan and is already being sold in Japan, the United States and Europe in areas supported by a refuelling infrastructure.
The Mirai is an electric engined car but it is not powered by batteries which have considerable weight, have limited range and are slow to charge. The electric motor in cars like the Mirai and the Hyundai ix35 get their power from a fuel cell that takes hydrogen and combines it with oxygen in a reaction that releases electricity. The by-product is water.
Toyota says that the Mirai will have a range of about 550 kilometres and take three to five minutes to refuel. The catch at the moment is that we do not have the infrastructure in service stations and other outlets to store hydrogen or compressed it so that it can work in the car. The Mirai stores hydrogen in its tanks at 700 Bar (or 10,150 pounds per square inch in the old measure).
There are two tanks with a combined capacity of just over 120 litres that will carry a total of 5kg of hydrogen. One tank is under the rear seat and the other takes up some of the space in the boot. The rear seat and leg room does not appear to be compromised by the first tank but the boot capacity is restricted to 361 litres. By comparison a Camry has a luggage volume of 515 litres.
The fuel cell unit fills most of the under the bonnet area and appears to be about the size of three cylinder petrol motor.
By having an electric motor the Mirai does not need to have a gearbox.
Based on overseas experience Toyota estimates that it will cost about $60 to fill the tank and they started selling them in America in October last year for a list price of under $80,000 in Australian dollars but that can come down to about $61,000 with government incentives. These incentives need to be renewed for next year.
As far as driving such a vehicle, in many ways I preferred it to a petrol or diesel engine. For a start there is no engine noise.
The Mirai’s power output is rated at 110kW but the most impressive figure is the 335 Nm of torque. A Corolla has 103 Kw of power but only 173 Nm of torque while a Camry has 133 Kw and 235 Nm of torque. Clearly the electric motor in the fuel call car has significantly more “pulling” power.
The other great benefit of the electric engine is that the maximum torque is available from zero revs.
The result is that the car pulls away from rest with immediate, strong power and while it does not quite have the legs of a reasonably sized petrol engine when you get into the higher rev range, it does work best when you need it at the start.
The Mirai has an eco and power mode. In power mode it surged forward in a more than adequate style. Unlike a petrol engined car, it doesn’t get stronger the more you rev it and it feels a little weaker in the higher revs especially as you started out so well. But I accelerated up a reasonable hill and it was more than enough.
The instantaneous power from when you start is the thing I love the most. This is why I like driving it especially in city traffic.
Going around the city you soon realise that many new cars have a reason to hesitate (if only for a fraction of a second) when you pull out from a side street into the main roads where approaching traffic can be travelling at a good speed.
Turbo lag, automatics selecting a gear, cars that have to start up again because they turn off when you are idling, and in the extreme the automated manuals that appear in some Fiats and the Citroen Cactus can all hesitate that little bit when starting out. The electric car is full power straight away.
All of these are relatively brief delays, it’s just that in these circumstances I want instant confidence.
Which is why I like the electric motor and why when it is powered by a fuel cell with practical operating features such as range and refuelling time that I look forward to further developments of the fuel cell car technology.
Creating the refuelling infrastructure is the big issue and next time I will talk about why fleet operations may have a big role to play in this area.
Click here to hear an audio interview of Marc from Fleet Auto News discussing the new Mirai with me.
