On 20 Aug 2021 at 17:15, Peter Eckhoff via EV wrote: > How far will $15,000 in "free fuel" take the Mirai?
I looked into this. According to a couple of sources, for the initial 2015 model, a full tank of H2 would take the car 312 miles. More recent Mirais have longer range, but I think (not sure) that's because they have larger tanks. I read in a 2016 review of the car that a fillup in California then cost $85. From that, I concluded that Toyota's $15k subsidy was good for about 55,000 miles. However, the Toyota freebie expires in 3 years. There are very few H2 stations outside of California - only 17 other states have them, and those states have 10 stations or fewer. I guess that people drive a lot in southern California, but in 3 years, how readily could a person living in the LA area put 55,000 miles on a car that can't leave the state? As an aside, the current Mirai costs (IIRC) around $50k list. In March Toyota was offering a $20k rebate if you financed one through Toyota Credit. I suspect that they're already losing money on the car at $50k - and then they hand you $35k in subsidies. Automakers will take a loss on a car for a while to get it established in the market, but selling an FCEV at $15k??? That kind of heavy per-unit loss seems unsustainable in the long term. > How is hydrogen priced in what unit of quantity? It's sold by the kilogram. A search says that it costs $12.85/kg in Santa Monica and $16.63/kg in Long Beach. The Mirai has a 5kg capacity. The $85 cost for a fillup that I cited above would be for the more expensive Long Beach price. Another review said that the 5kg of hydrogen in the car was worth about 165kWh of raw energy. So if the car got 312 miles from that tank, that means it's using about 530 Wh/mile. Compared to the similar size Tesla Model S at 288 Wh/mile, the Mirai is using 46% more energy. That's not what I'd call outstanding efficiency. > How far will that unit take a Mirai? If the range is 312 miles, that's about 62 miles per kg. > Is this a subsidized price? I don't know. > What is the expected price over time? I can't answer that either. But I will say that the Mirai is an expensive car to drive without the Toyota fuel subsidy. Taking the cheaper price of $16.85/kg, $84 will take you 312 miles, for a cost of 27 cents per mile. An ICEV getting 35 mpg on gasoline that costs 4.39 per gallon (average CA price recently) would cost you about 12.5 cents per mile, less than half. However, the ICEV will have other maintenance costs that the FCEV might not. An EV charged at home that uses 300 Wh/mile at the CA average of 15.34 cents per kwh would cost 4.6 cents per mile to drive, a tad more than one-sixth the per-mile cost of the FCEV. Cost of use isn't the only factor of course - but most vehicle buyers will look at that in making a decision. David Roden, EVDL moderator & general lackey To reach me, don't reply to this message; I won't get it. Use my offlist address here : http://evdl.org/help/index.html#supt = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = I am the one with no secrets. They [the Chinese government] have secrets. It is only because they have secrets that they can imagine everyone else having them too. -- Ai Weiwei = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ Address messages to [email protected] No other addresses in TO and CC fields UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/ LIST INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org
