Owners of the Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel car will no longer be isolated by distance or availability of hydrogen fuel stations.
Toyota Australia has built a mobile hydrogen refueller which will ostensibly permit a newfound state of go-anwhere freedom to negate the car’s biggest drawback.
The 2016 World Green Car of the year produces zero emissions by generating its hydrogen fuel into electricity. Aptly Mirai means ‘Future’ in Japanese and was designed to diminish the world’s dependence on oil and reduce harm to the environment.
With Mirai’s two tanks filled with 5kg of compressed hydrogen, owners are expected to achieve around 550 kilometres. Toyota claims it’s not a trade-off for driving fun; the 110kW fed through from its fuel stack sees 0-100km/h in less than 10 seconds and a top speed of about 180km/h.
“The decision to invest in a mobile refueller demonstrates Toyota’s commitment to maintaining its leading role in developing flexible and personal mobility solutions for the next 100 years. This is a practical and necessary measure to enable people to learn about and experience first-hand, the game-changing Mirai and its ground-breaking technology,” says O’Connor.
A interim solution that has all the foibles caused by automakers crreating technology that is far ahead of the infrastructure it ultimately depends on, Toyota Australia is having to learn to crawl before it can walk.
Presently the company uses a Hino 700 Series Truck and a purpose-built trailer. Hydrogen, delivered to the refueller in bottles, is cooled and pressurised to the required 700bar before being pumped into the three Mirai sedans. The refueller can also be used to deliver hydrogen to other fuel-cell vehicles, such as buses and forklifts, as well as being capable of transporting a Mirai.
The Toyota Mirai is not avialbale in South Africa. The lowest carbon emission car in that stable is still the Toyota Prius which was recently updated and road tested by our team.
