Japanese Toyota has been stirring the journalistic scene for several weeks now. At the beginning of May, the carmaker launched the second generation of its hydrogen fuel cell-powered car on the Czech market. It is called Mirai, and the name is more than accurate - in Japanese it means future.
Japanese Toyota has been stirring the journalistic scene for several weeks now. At the beginning of May, the carmaker launched the second generation of its hydrogen fuel cell-powered car on the Czech market. It is called Mirai, and the name is more than accurate - in Japanese it means future. Just a few days after its launch in the Czech market, DEVINN got the chance to see and test the Mirai. And since hydrogen is the fuel of the future for us too, we didn't hesitate for a minute and went for a ride.
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The Mirai is one of the few mass-produced hydrogen-powered models on the world stage, but the journey the model has taken since its first generation is all the more impressive. While the original Mirai from 2014 felt more like a vision of the distant future, in this generation Toyota offers us a grown-up, elegant car that can be called a limousine without exaggeration. What strikes you at first glance is how stately the car is. Perhaps the most impressive thing is the front, the huge elongated bonnet looks great," said DEVINN CEO Luboš Hajský. The car looks massive from the outside, which is matched by its length of just under five metres.
But it would be a mistake to focus only on appearance. "I was a little worried that the ride wouldn't be smooth, or that there would be noise in the car, but the car is so well sounded that a layman has no chance to tell that it is an alternative drive car," said our project manager Adam Bažant, the second member of our crew. "The most obvious sign that the car runs on hydrogen is a button that says H2O. It's located next to the steering wheel and is used to drain water from the car's system before entering the garage, for example." Water is the only waste product of the reaction that takes place in a hydrogen fuel cell. Here, the merging of hydrogen and oxygen molecules produces electricity, which powers the Mirai one hundred percent.
The Mirai is just one piece in the mosaic that the largest carmaker is putting together. Already today, Toyota boasts that one in three cars that roll off the production line is powered by a hybrid or alternative energy system. Near Japan's Fuji volcano, the carmaker's money is also funding an experiment in the form of a city to be powered by the island's hydrogen engine.
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