Toyota Mirai price, MPG, review, release date & specs: the pros and cons of investing in a hydrogen car

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Toyota is one of the pioneers in developing hybrid electric cars today and it is looking to go in the right direction in terms of providing vehicles that are eco-friendly due to reduced emissions. In 2050, the company intends to terminate their production and sales of cars dependent to regular gasoline and focus on electric and fuel cells.

And, it seems like they are off to a good start with the launch of Toyota Prius 2016 and their hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, the Toyota Mirai. The Japanese automaker made an estimate that by 2020, the annual sales of fuel cell vehicles will surpass 30,000 units. Toyota Mirai has received more than 1,500 orders in Japan since it went on sale late last year while it has also debuted in the U.S. and European market recently, according to Toyota.

There is still, however, a lot of skeptics when it comes to investing in a hydrogen car. Some questions will needs to be addressed by Toyota like the issue on range and fuel capacity, wrote EnergyFuse.org. Because, hydrogen has a low energy density, there is a need to store larger amounts of it inside the vehicle in order to deliver almost the same driving range as a regular car. But a bigger storage tank may get in the way of interior and cargo space.

Another thing to consider is the price. The Mirai will have a base price of about $58,000. In a test drive conducted by Car and Driver, the Mirai averaged 56 miles per kilogram of hydrogen or about $0.25 per mile, which is almost four times the cost of driving a Toyota Camry hybrid.

Owners of hydrogen car also have to deal with the fact that, as for the moment, there are only limited number of stations where Mirai owners can refuel. In the UK, for instance, there are only four stations available to the public, located in Swindon, Heathrow, Hendon and Teddington, that can provide the 700-bar pressured fuel, according to Pocket-Lint. In California, there are less than 20 stations for the Mirai as compared to more than 10,000 gasoline stations across the state.

As for the pros of driving a hydrogen vehicle, the Mirai, for one, offers a more environmentally-friendly emission without having to sacrifice performance. This hydrogen-dependent car can deliver almost the same performance as that of an ordinary car, it can reach 100 km from scratch in just a little under 10 seconds. The top speed, meanwhile, is around 178 km/h.

Toyota's Mirai has a total driving range of about 300 miles, which tops the numbers posted by most of the commercially available battery electric vehicles today. Another advantage of hydrogen cars over other electric vehicles is that refueling is a lot faster, which can only take a few minutes, PC World noted.