Remember the Toyota Mirai, the car named after the Japanese word for “future”? Well, the future for hydrogen cars might not be as bright as Toyota hoped.
Filling up a hydrogen car can be a nightmare. Some owners have reported frozen pumps and stations running out of fuel, leaving them stranded. Hydrogen is also expensive, and its price keeps going up. This makes driving a Mirai a lot more costly than Toyota might have promised.
Because hydrogen cars are still uncommon, their resale value is terrible. This means Mirai owners are stuck with cars that are expensive to maintain and refuel and hard to sell if they want to upgrade.
No wonder some Mirai owners are feeling angry! They feel like Toyota sold them a car with a bright future, but that future never arrived. Some are even suing Toyota or asking for their cars to be bought back.
One owner, Shawn Hall, says there’s literally no hydrogen fuel available in his city, San Francisco, despite Toyota still selling Mirais there. The closest stations are far away and require expensive tolls to reach. On top of that, there’s no guarantee these stations even have fuel, and some might even be broken down.
Even when stations do have hydrogen, things can go wrong. The extreme cold temperatures used to store hydrogen can freeze pumps, leaving cars stuck for hours until a technician arrives. This can create long lines of frustrated drivers who can’t reach the next station because their tanks are running low.
