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Posted by iancmceachern 13 hours ago

Toyota Mirai hydrogen car depreciation: 65% value loss in a year(carbuzz.com)
126 points | 289 commentspage 2
haunter 11 hours ago|
Beautiful car but for example I live in Hungary and there is a grand total of one charging station in the whole coutry in Budapest. Yes it's free to charge but probably only makes sense to get a Mirai if you are a Bolt or Uber driver. Nice tech demo though.

Here is the european charging station map https://h2.live/en/ Benelux countries, Switzerland, and the Ruhr area are most likely the best places to own this car

GregDavidson 7 hours ago||
This technology is completely amazing - for large fleet vehicles like buses, trucks, ferries, etc. Also airplanes! Getting this so compact and refined is a technological miracle. Now put it where it fits!
throwaway473825 4 hours ago|
Buses are already largely electric (with the US as a notable exception), and trucks are quickly getting there:

https://www.electrive.com/2026/01/23/year-end-surge-electric...

Meanwhile, hydrogen trucks are nowhere to be found...

decryption 3 hours ago||
I'm surprised it's only 65%. There's hardly anywhere to fuel these things up and the price of hydrogen isn't exactly a bargain.
joecool1029 11 hours ago||
Why was it made? I ask because GM’s EV-1 was discussed earlier and it basically existed due to California’s zero-emission requirement in the 90’s. Is this just Toyota doing some random R&D while fulfilling a state minimum requirement?
numpad0 9 hours ago||
I think that + it's an EV that Toyota don't have to source the battery cells. FCEVs are full EVs just like Tesla, that uses a different kind of battery than Li-ion.
beAbU 6 hours ago||
The latest model comes with a li-ion battery pack. Previous model had Nimh cells I think.
testing22321 11 hours ago||
To trick people into thinking hydrogen cars are the future so they don’t buy an EV now.

I’ve driven my own vehicles through 65 countries on 5 continents, and even the most remote villages in Africa and South America had electricity of some form.

I’ve never seen a hydrogen filling station in my life. The idea we can build out that infrastructure faster than bolster the electric grid is laughably stupid. Downright deceptive.

avidiax 10 hours ago|||
I think there's some truth to this. Toyota desperately needs the future to play to their strengths, something more complicated than EVs, which I think is behind their obsession with hybrids.

Not sure that a fuel cell vehicle isn't just an EV with extra steps, however.

sieabahlpark 10 hours ago|||
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some-guy 8 hours ago||
I lived a block away from a hydrogen fuel station in Oakland, and in the ten years I was there I maybe saw two different Mirais use it.
alexose 9 hours ago||
I've always been fascinated with these things. Is there any way to make your own H2 to fuel them? I suspect the purity requirements are too high for at-home electrolysis...
giancarlostoro 11 hours ago||
This is one of those cars that's interesting to me, but I don't know that we'll ever go this route in a significant amount. Problem is how complex it is to create hydrogen, although 'green hydrogen' is a thing, it would take quite a bit regardless. Interesting to note that if we could extract only 2% of the hydrogen burried under the earth, we could power the entire world for over 200 years. Which is crazy to think about.

The other interesting thing about these cars is the output is water out of the tailpipe.

pjc50 11 hours ago||
It's very easy to create hydrogen from fossil natural gas. Which is the real motivation behind 99% of H2 projects; continue to emit CO2, just hidden from the end user.

Battery electric is now pretty much inevitable.

pfdietz 10 hours ago|||
In fairness, hydrogen from gas would enable the CO2 to be sequestered. If the vehicle itself burned the natural gas that would require recapturing the CO2 from the atmosphere itself, which is much more challenging.

None of this is to detract from the attractiveness of battery vehicles.

pjc50 8 hours ago||
Carbon sequestration is another of those "if we did this, it might solve the problem, but there's no serious move to do it and pay for it on the scale required, plus it's prone to cheating".
2muchcoffeeman 10 hours ago|||
How do you solve aeronautical and maritime applications?
danhor 9 hours ago|||
Certainly not with hydrogen directly. It might be involved in the production chain, but it's such a pain. If it's at all possible to electrify, that'll very likely win.

For flights, a combination of batteries for smaller, regional planes starting with "islands hoppers" now and SAF from either Biofuel or produced from Electricity (with Hydrogen as an intermediate step). Although I think that we might first see moves to reduce the 2x non CO2 Climate Impacts which can be much cheaper to tackle (such as Contrails).

For maritime applications, batteries when regularly near ports, probably hybrids with methanol for cross-ocean passage far away from coasts.

pjc50 8 hours ago||||
The Toyota Mirai neither flies nor floats.

There's a bit of a movement for battery electric ships, but currently limited to short haul ferries. I have a suspicion this simply won't be "solved" for quite some time after car and heating electrification.

fsh 9 hours ago|||
Hydrogen is not great for airplanes since the extremely low density makes the tanks too large. The best solution would be synthetic hydrocarbons (synthesized using hydrogen) which can outperform fossil jet fuel.
Rohansi 11 hours ago|||
Creating hydrogen isn't the only problem. Storage and transportation is a big one since it is an actual gas instead of a liquid. Needs to be compressed, causes embrittlement, highly flammable, etc...
mono442 11 hours ago||
It's possible to create hydrogen from coal and carbon capture is supposed to be feasible. Though I don't know how commercially viable this is.
peterfirefly 10 hours ago||
Carbon doesn't really contain all that much hydrogen.

Feasibility is key.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GSV2kVkO1w

pfdietz 9 hours ago||
> Carbon doesn't really contain all that much hydrogen.

The hydrogen also comes from water reacted (mildly endothermically) with carbon, and by further reaction of carbon monoxide with water.

C + H2O --> CO + H2

CO + H2O --> CO2 + H2

pazimzadeh 6 hours ago||
This article is too long because it's written by a llm
retired 9 hours ago||
Cheapest second generation Mirai I could find is €9950 including VAT. It has scuffs all-round but no major or structural damage. Only 103k km.

This was a €71,000 car four years ago. That is 86% of the value gone. And you were driving around on very expensive hydrogen (compared to diesel and BEV).

vel0city 8 hours ago|
> And you were driving around on very expensive hydrogen

That original owner was probably doing all those miles on the free hydrogen given by Toyota.

HoldOnAMinute 6 hours ago|
The last time I checked local ads, they were giving these cars away free, and you could get a tax deduction. They were paying you to take it.
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