Yahoo Autos You thinking charging an EV is bad? Try filling a hydrogen-powered car!
AGOURA HILLS, Calif. – You think the country’s electric charging infrastructure is bad? Try owning a hydrogen-powered car!
Chances are, you live in a place where that isn’t even possible, but here in California, there are indeed hydrogen filling stations dotted throughout the major metropolitan areas and, as such, cars for sale or lease that utilize hydrogen fuel cells. OK, so there’s presently just two, the Toyota Mirai and Hyundai Nexo, but the Honda Clarity Fuel Cell had been available up until 2021.
I got a chance to drive the Clarity on its press launch along with the first-generation Mirai (best known for frightening all who gazed upon it), but as I spent five of the last six years in Portland, Ore., and therefore outside the hydrogen infrastructure, I had not had a chance to spend a typical week-long press loan with a fuel-cell car. And I still haven’t, but we’ll get to that.
The current-generation Toyota Mirai dates back to model year 2021, and as anyone with functioning vision can attest, is as radical a visual departure as you can get. What was once a vaguely Prius-like lump of four-seat, front-wheel-drive hideousness emerged from a cocoon to become a long, sleek, five-seat, rear-wheel-drive luxury sedan with plenty of engineering enhancements to go with it.
At this point, it’s probably best to explain what exactly a hydrogen fuel cell car is. It’s broadly similar in concept to a hybrid powertrain, with an electric motor and battery pack, but with a hydrogen fuel cell instead of an internal combustion engine. The fuel cell itself is technically a collection of multiple cells where hydrogen and oxygen are chemically combined to create the electricity needed to move the car and replenish the battery (much as a Toyota hybrid’s engine does). As you might recall from basic chemistry, the byproduct of combining hydrogen (H2) and oxygen (O) is water. No smog-causing or climate-changing emissions, just a light mist of H2O spritzing the cars behind you when accelerating. I speak from experience – I’ve been spritzed on multiple occasions by highway-going Mirais.
For the most part, the Mirai drives like an electric car since the rear-mounted electric motor exclusively propells the wheels. That motor produces 182 horsepower and 221 pound-feet of torque, which isn’t that much for a large sedan that weighs 4,335 pounds. That might be less than what an all-electric vehicle of its size would weigh, but acceleration is nevertheless on the pokey side. It has the typical, immediate torque response of an EV or a series-style hybrid like various Hondas, but things really start to hit the wall as speeds increase, say, when accelerating onto the highway. I was stunned to find Motor Trend clocked a Mirai from zero to 60 mph in 6.2 seconds – it feels two seconds slower than that.
Besides that, the hydrogen fuel cell only emits an usual whine when being pushed, but there’s really nothing weird about driving what is a very weird car. The same can be said beyond the powertrain realm. I drove the Mirai out into the Santa Monica Mountains and it very much behaved like a large Lexus sedan since that’s exactly what it is underneath, sharing the same excellent platform as the LS and LC. You can feel the sophistication of the suspension in the way it responds to mid-corner bumps and maintains its composure around turns, but unlike the LC and to a lesser extent, the LS, there is little in the way of engagement present. There’s capability without feedback.
With the dynamic portion of the program out of the way, my would-be week with the Mirai transitioned to more mundane matters. Specifically, dropping my wife off at LAX 38 miles away, followed by an additional 20-mile drive to a studio location in Long Beach for a sneak-peak of the 2024 Acura TLX and 2024 Honda Ridgeline. Do the math, and I’d need at least 110 miles to make the journey. Theoretically, this should not have been a problem. Theoretically.
The Mirai has three carbon fiber-reinforced tanks: one behind the rear axle, another in front of it and a third running the length of the center tunnel. By the way, the battery sits above the axle while the fuel cell is up front where an engine would be. Those tanks together hold 11 pounds of hydrogen at 10,000 psi, an amount that takes five minutes to fully refuel. That would be hydrogen’s main advantage, besides weight and sourcing battery materials, over an EV. Instead of sitting in a Walmart parking lot for a half-hour (if you’re lucky) or living somewhere that has access to a plug or charger, you can pop into a gas station just as you do with a regular engine.
Oh, and one more advantage: cost. Owners of both the Mirai and Hyundai Nexo get $15,000 worth of hydrogen over the course of a three-year lease or six-year ownership period. At the current hydrogen price I spotted at True Zero station ($36 per kilogram), you’d theoretically be getting 83 tanks of fuel included.
