I think it’s safe to say we have a bit of a morbid fascination with the Toyota Mirai here. There’s something about this car, which is on one level a technological marvel, and yet at the same time might just be the least desirable and usable car you can buy in the world today. I just can’t fathom why anyone would want to buy a Mirai? Even a bunch of people who own Mirais can’t fathom why they own Mirais, at least according to a lawsuit. It’s not really the car’s fault; it’s more a fault of the overall hydrogen fueling infrastructure which, charitably, is piping-hot wet garbage. These hydrogen fuel stack cars can really only exist in Southern California, which is why this ad for one for sale in Elkhart, Indiana is so fascinating. And baffling.
We’ve seen Mirais for sale far from their only reasonable fueling options before, but in most cases, they ended up there accidentally, with purchasing managers for dealerships confusing them for Priuses or assuming they were of the expected, plug-in battery electric variety of car, not the kind that needs Hindenberg juice. This particular case is a little more fascinating because it seems to have been brought to Indiana intentionally, and then, somehow, sold to someone else. Here’s how the ad explains why it’s here:
“Note: this runs on Hydrogen gas We don’t have it around this area. Previous owner brought it here from California and did not realize there’s no fuel stations here. Clean title 52k Car runs great just need fueled up, has very little fuel left in it so bring a trailer.”
I have so many questions. So many. Mostly, how the hell does someone – not just any someone, someone who willingly decided to buy a hydrogen-fueled car and has presumably been living with this car for the past, what six or so years – just, I don’t know, forget to check if they can get hydrogen fuel for their car in the place they’re moving to?
Filling up at a hydrogen station isn’t something you can easily ignore; even if you live in the state that is the heart of the hydrogen fueling infrastructure, the state that has the greatest density of hydrogen refueling stations, we’re only talking about 50 stations across the entire state. Remember, this is a state that takes up most of the United States’ West Coast. Anyone driving a hydrogen car would, I think, be acutely aware that they can’t just go to any gas station, and real planning is needed for refueling.
So how could you move to a new state and pay to ship your car without, I don’t know, at least doing one freaking Google search to see if you can fill up the damn car anywhere in the state? Who does that? You know where the closest hydrogen station is to Elkhart, Indiana? It’s not even in the country. It’s in Canada. Specifically, 352 miles away in Mississauga, Ontario. Even a completely full Mirai couldn’t drive there on one tank of hydrogen, because the range is 40 miles less than the distance. And you’d need your passport.
If you want to refill and remain in America, you’re really screwed, because the closest station is 1800 miles away, in Corona, California:
How? How does someone get themselves in a situation like this? And, even more fascinating is that the seller is not the original owner! That means the person running this ad bought this useless, shiny boat anchor from the person who didn’t think to check if they could fuel their car in their new home, so… what was that conversation like?
Did this person know the car was essentially impossible to refill where they were when they bought it? Or did they buy it thinking they had a line on some other source of hydrogen? I mean, I suppose that’s possible; there have been some attempts to start a Midwest hydrogen fueling station, or perhaps there’s a way to use industrial hydrogen, or they have a spaceship in orbit with a Bussard Ramscoop or something like that. But beyond that, I really don’t understand why anyone would have bought or brought this thing to Elkhart, Indiana.
I reached out to the seller to try and get the full story, but so far I haven’t gotten a response. I did offer them a grand for the car, though, because this could be a fun Autopian project car. I mean, pretty much anything we do to or with it would be the first time that thing had been done to or with a hydrogen fuel cell car, right?
Top graphic images: Facebook Marketplace seller
Avoid the chainsaw if this becomes an Autopian project car, thats not a first you would want to experience.
Jason “Chainsaw-Mitts Hindenburg” Torchinsky
My thought as well, but thank god you got here in time to make the first page of comments!
My first question is – why move to Elkhart IN of all gawdforsaken places???
To build RVs, of course!
Or make Saxophones!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanh%C3%B6user_Saxophones
Yeah. That alone says a lot about the intelligence of the previous owner.
Jokes aside, I’d give it a 99% probability of moving back to take care of ailing relatives.
Won it in a poker game
I assume it went down something like this:
“Lessee. If I win I win everything.”
“If I don’t my headache becomes someone else’s headache.”
“I can’t lose! Deal me in!”
Cocaine is a helluva drug.
No idea how the first owner messed up this bad but my bet for the 2nd buyer was some shmo who thought he could get it to run on propane or maybe LNG using the 3rd grade logic that they are all gasses, not realizing that the car doesn’t really ‘run’ on the hydrogen, but rather the hydrogen is for the fuel cell.
There ARE fuel cells that do run on propane and natural gas (Boom energy). Just not the one in the Mirai.
“There ARE fuel cells that do run on propane and natural gas (Boom energy)”
I can’t believe a company involved with a natural gas consuming product would call themselves BOOM Energy.
Oh wait you were joking and they’re actually called Bloom Energy
Damn autocorrect! >:( Why you gotta do that to me?
Yeah, their plant is right near me, its on the site of the old Chrysler plant where they last built the Aspen/Durango
If you already own a Mirai, I can understand not wanting to give up on it. Hydrogen is very easy to bond with.
Groan.
“Groan.”
Did you not like that joke? I thought it was a gas…
ROFL!
It’s like a Dad joke if your Dad is a middle school science teacher.
I refuse to react to that joke.
That’s very noble of you
Fine! Stay inert…
H2? Ooooohhhhhh…..
This was a very uplifting joke.
I loved that joke… it was a gas…
If insurance companies balk at wood stoves, what’s it like insuring a hydrogen fueled car?
I wondered about that. Several years ago, Shell added an H2 fueling dispenser to its gas station on the south side of San Francisco. Not only was it at the end of a (long) freeway off-ramp, but it was across the street from an elementary school. I couldn’t help think: how much is the insurance on this and how did the City code inspectors sign off?
It was a moot point as the H2 station was ripped out immediately after Shell exited the H2 market.
Are you trying to make light of hydrogen?
Hydrogen as a fuel for cars is an extremely strange thing. It makes ZERO sense. The energy efficiency is less than a 40 yr old AstroVan belching head gasket oil and hydrocarbons untouched by combustion, last time I looked you get about 20Watts at the wheel from the 100Watts you generated at the source.
The only logical premise that keeps the H2 flowing is that fossil fuel companies see it as new product they can process and still keep us in bondage to their filling stations.
The Japanese government likes hydrogen, because they believe hydrogen combustion engines will preserve more jobs in the automotive manufacturing industry than EVs
LS Swap it.
Crazy as that sounds, it would pale in comparison to some of the ones in this YT vid I just finished. https://youtu.be/7se-AMoV5UY?si=8W3_tOv8reiOfAUv
Donut may be a shadow of what they used to be, but their Real Mechanic Stuff subchannel is generally pretty solid.
Great! Now you have me looking at the Mirai design to see where you’d put the petrol tank!
Edit: Your LS swap would land the gasoline tank in the trunk. Don’t plan on going golfing.
It’s not a Corvette. 🙂
I betcha they had a plan to use an industrial location for fill ups, but then some middle manager found out and shut it down.
So how could you move to a new state and pay to ship your car without, I don’t know, at least doing one freaking Google search to see if you can fill up the damn car anywhere in the state? Who does that?
Have you met a Californian? Other than those at or around Galpin…
I’m guilty of similar thinking, imagining every other place does things the way I am used to. I would hope if I had a Mirai, I wouldn’t fall into this fallacy, but it is entirely plausible that I would.
Many such cases. See: tesla bumpers falling off the moment they encounter rain or the cybertruck’s headlights failing because snow builds up on them
How do they rate on a scale of 0 to Florida?
Misplaced Okies with flipflops and dental care.
Same meth different state. Though common sense is more prevalent in Florida.
Totally different unit of measure.. That’s like asking “what time does water freeze”
The answer is blue.
I’ll need you to show your work…
A native CA person couldn’t imagine how messed up things are in Elkhart, Indiana. I’m from Ohio originally, so I get it. Still: I left as soon as I realized I was allowed to go.
‘The wagon broke,
so we stayed! ‘
That’s a deep cut, I can’t remember the comedian though..
Back when comedy was funny
Jake Johannsen?
No idea off the top of my head.
My dad took me to WC Fields movies when I was a kid. Got me a signed picture from Moe Howard once. I had recordings of everybody, including Lenny Bruce.
Met Honey Bruce once.
Told a joke about Leno to a group he was part of one time. He played along with it.
Could have been Dangerfield I heard that joke from, but it could date back to vaudeville originally.
I use a philosophical quote on a website from Dave Chappelle, but Seneca could have easily said the same.
A native Indianan could not imagine how gullible a Californian is. They believe in unicorn farts to fuel a car, so hydrogen (you know, the most common element in the universe) is surely available everywhere.
Well the idea is to let the dumb ones go to the Midwest or the South.
Word is Californians think there are 500 miles of blank space between their border and New York.
Those who have never been to California somehow seem to have all sorts of opinions about the state and its people.
Easy enough to do, though. How many people have never been to Florida, and seem to know all about the typical Florida Man?
Oh, I know a lot about California, more than I do about Florida.
Half the family was in LA during war production, including my mother.
My favorite aunt didn’t come back until she retired. I nearly moved there myself.
First stranger I met in California was Charles Manson. Seriously.
No big deal though. He wasn’t famous then. If it makes you feel better, I met a serial killer in Florida too. Also a loser.
Last trip to the Bay area got a very high g ride through San Francisco in an S6 wagon, worked at the Shipyard metal studio in Berkeley a bit, went to a wedding at Landfill, stayed at another art studio on the bay, which was nice, and helped get a cd produced and released. Got to meet up with some Lotus enthusiasts too. Imagine the damage I would do if I lived there!
Staying in the Haight with friends that self identify as Los Angelenos, they had ambitious plans to bike across the Golden Gate, climb a mountain, and other ambitious stuff.
I get up and they’re just sitting around depressed. Looks like end of the world.
I ask about their plans. They say we can’t go, it’s cloudy.
So not hot, not raining, cooler and cloudy!
To me, a perfect day! To someone from LA, disaster! They just stayed home.
There’s a California story for you!
Lovely people, and he’s a genius in more than one area.
Oh, I have personally heard people say,
“If it’s meant to happen, it will.” in California. And they were not being ironic!
Saw one at a used car lot on 82nd in Portland OR a little while ago. Poor thing. I always wonder if you could come up with a way to fuel one at a Linde or Airgas, but I doubt they’d let you.
I’ve wondered the same thing. It looks like you can buy bottled compressed hydrogen, but it usually requires a business address and safety compliance certifications.
I suppose a laboratory or industrial gas company themselves could have a Mirai as a shop car.
I’m going to go ahead and assume you have bussard collectors on the mind because of the Star Trek S1E8 episode “Miri”, which is pretty close to the name of this vehicle.
How long till some joker ends up with one of these, attempts to solve the no hydrogen filling stations problem themselves, blows themselves up, and prompts the world’s dumbest recall.
Like the old guys who blow up their houses when replacing the hot water heater with typical overconfidence?
Making hydrogen is easy, doing to safely and getting it in the car is not easy.
“Like the old guys who blow up their houses when replacing the hot water heater with typical overconfidence?”
Which is the exact reason why I chose to hire someone when my furnace broke down and I did NOT follow suggestions of trying to fix it myself
The road to hell is paved with overconfidence (usually male).
Oxygen tanks are fairly available.
They aren’t risk free.
and yet, somehow, there are idiots claiming “Hydrogen is the future! EVs suck!”
Still? I thought hydrogen combustion was a great idea in.. 1995… But that’s because EVs had 20 Lead acid batteries and went 12 miles.. I have never understood using fuel cells.
“The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.”
I know someone who sold a couple of Mirais to a company that had access to industrial hydrogen. He acted as a middle man, taking advantage of ridiculous Mirai incentives and reselling the car in…Texas? Made bank on it.
But that’s a pretty limited market.
I LOVE the Autopian project car idea! How close is Galpin to a Hydrogen station?
It’s possible there’s one between it and David’s house, but there’d be only one and if it goes down…
It’s an important lesson to learn… never buy a car from someone full of hot air.
LMFAO!! This is wildly hilarious schadenfreude
I want to make some comment about the ineptitude of most car buyers, the unscrupulousness of car sales people and low bar of knowledge expected of both, but nothing is coming to mind.
I wanted to reply to your comment, but I, too come up empty.
You think not just one but two chuckleheads signing up for a Mirai far, far from any viable fuel source is nutty, explain this:
Toyota is still offering new Mirais for sale.
Why not? They already designed it and dedicated an assembly line (at least part of the year).
In the 12 years it has been on sale, Toyota has just barely managed to move 25,000 examples of the Mirai. In no year have they sold more than 6,000; most years they don’t sell 3,000. Compared to other models Toyota offers, that’s a rounding error.
Tesla got smart early, building out infrastructure to make electric cars more wide-ranging than something tethered to an at-home charger. The Mirai, meanwhile, is limited to a very few, isolated markets with no way of connecting them. Almost as soon as you could buy a Tesla Model S, you could start thinking about taking it more than 100 miles away; the Mirai, you barely dare driving it out of the county. There are pending corridors crisscrossing North America – but none that will actually get you all the way from coast to coast, if you wanted to consider a trip that long – but just to emphasize: pending. The hydrogen corridors don’t exist.
I say raise the Mirai two inches, slide a skateboard of batteries under it, shove a couple of buckets of batteries in where the 10000psi H2 tanks live, and sell it like hotcakes.
Have to wonder if someone’s thought process was along the lines of “No, I’m pretty sure they sell it in smaller containers at Home Depot or Lowes, so not ideal but…”
I honestly have no idea Indiana is so close to our former friend and ally, Canada.
I’d like to think, to most people, Canada is still friend and ally, but goodness me there’re a lot of feet being shot lately.
To me, Canada is friend, ally, and family.
My own mother and sister downright refuse to visit the US or buy anything US-associated, for as long as options exist.
At least they don’t hate me. I think.
Well, I’m going to continue pretending to be a white guy from the Bahamas whenever I go up there for the foreseeable future. Its a flimsy cover story, but the usual strategy of pretending to be from Canada when outside the US doesn’t really work when you’re in Canada
Former?
WHAT did you do?
A clear case of caveat emptor.
Every one of these should be fleet cars for local gas utility companies.