Toyota’s Mirai FCV went on sale in Japan on 15 December 2014 and is now scheduled to be sold in the U.S. beginning mid-2015. Price is set at US$57,500 before any government incentives, almost half the price of the Teslo Model S. It will initially be available only in California. In Europe it will be available from September 2015, beginning in UK, Germany and Denmark.

Toyota’s Fuel Cell Vehicle Design

Vehicle Specs:

• The car has a driving range of 650 km (400 mi), & can go as high as 700 km depending on conditions at time of refueling.
• Comes with an auxiliary 1.6 KWh Nickel-metal hydride battery.
• The fuel cell system is more energy-efficient than internal combustion engines and emits no CO2.
• Exhaust water volume is 240 mL per 4 km.
• The Fuel Cell stack is based on licensed tech from DOE’s Brookhaven platinum/gold electrocatalyst.
• Toyota mistakenly claims a world-record volumetric & gravimetric power density of about 3.1 kW/L and 2.0 kW/kg respectively, but that record actually goes to UK’s Intelligent Energy who have a 3.7 kW/L and 2.5 kW/kg fuel cell system.

What this basically shows is that the energy landscape is changing and this is only just the beginning. Imagine, after over 100 years of development and hundreds of iterations, the internal combustion engine is still only able to produce about 100 kWh from a full tank of gasoline (tank to wheel). Now this infant called Fuel Cell comes along and right from the get go is already producing over 100 kWh from just 5 kg of hydrogen. Truly impressive.