2021 Toyota Mirai Yearlong Review: So This Is What It’s Supposed to Be Like!

toyota mirai Full Overview

In our last update to our yearlong test of the newest Toyota Mirai, we talked about how nice the car is and how enjoyable it could be—if only the damn fueling infrastructure would work. The gods of hydrogen must have heard our prayers, because over the last few weeks we’ve seen a marked improvement in fuel station reliability, and we’ve finally been able to experience what life with a fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) ought to be like. Turns out, when everything works, life with the Toyota Mirai is pretty darn nice.

Toyota’s promise for the Mirai is that it provides a convenient way for people who can’t install a home EV charger—apartment-dwellers, say—to drive an electric car without having to rely on the public charging network (which can be difficult, even in our charger-rich home city of Los Angeles). FCEVs are fueled at hydrogen pumps, many of which are located at traditional gas stations. It’s the same paradigm as gasoline: Connect the hose to the car, swipe your card, fill your tank, and go on your way. The process is a tad slower than liquid fuel; in our experience, it typically takes between 3 and 5 minutes to fill up.

Over the past few months, we’ve had a new two-pump True Zero station open near to the Mirai’s home base in Sherman Oaks, and that location’s teething problems were dispensed with quickly. Reliability has improved at nearby stations, as well, so although we’re likely to see other FCEVs at the station (mostly first-gen Mirais but also a few Hyundai Nexos and the occasional Honda Clarity Fuel Cell), we rarely have to wait in line. We’ve come a long way from the rampant problems we experienced just a few months ago.

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With a dependable source of fuel now just 2 miles away and four backups within 10 miles, we’ve relaxed a bit. We used to start thinking about filling up when our range hit 100 miles, but we now routinely drive until range is at 50 miles or less—in other words, we treat it pretty much the same as we would a gasoline-powered car. And now that we don’t have to fret about fuel, we’re really enjoying the convenience of hydrogen. We’ve marveled at the charge rate of the Hyundai Ioniq 5, which we’ve seen go from 0 to 100 miles of indicated range in 9 minutes and 0 to 200 miles in 24—but that seems like an eon considering the Mirai can get from an empty tank to 350 miles of range in less than five minutes.

Which, by the way, is not to say that hydrogen fuel cell is a better power source than batteries. Hydrogen has plenty of its own baggage relating to its extraction, transportation, and environmental costs, none of which we’ll delve into right now. Nothing beats the convenience of home-charging a battery-powered car—but if you can’t do that, hydrogen is a pretty close second.

Hydrogen also has the advantage of price stability. While petroleum prices have spiked in the wake of world conflict, hydrogen prices at the stations we frequent haven’t increased since the Mirai joined our fleet last spring—not by one penny. At the Sherman Oaks station (which happens to be among the cheapest at $13.17 per kilogram), going from a quarter tank to full still costs about $50. That’s equivalent to a 12.5-mpg fill-up in a 20-mpg gasoline vehicle. So we’re definitely saving money—in fact, we’re not out of pocket at all, because the Mirai comes with a $15,000 fuel card, and we have barely made a dent in that total.

And what of the car itself? It’s still great—we’re enjoying its luxury-car-like smoothness and big-car presence. We recently took the Mirai to Toyota of Santa Monica for its 10,000-mile service. We would have liked to have tried a different dealership, but only a few Toyota dealers service Mirais, and Toyota makes it frustratingly difficult to find them. We got as far as scheduling service at a nearby dealership—which lists the Mirai on its service page and let us register our Mirai for a service appointment—only to get a call the day before the appointment to be told they don’t actually service Mirais. One would think Toyota might monitor its dealerships for such behavior, but apparently it doesn’t.

Anyway, the 10,000-mile service for a Mirai comprises a tire rotation, replacement of the cabin air filter, and a thorough inspection of the hydrogen fuel system and the fuel cell’s cooling system, all covered under Toyota’s complimentary maintenance program. We asked to have the wiper blades replaced—SoCal summer heat kills the rubber—but the dealership only had the driver-side blade in stock, which it replaced for $14.99. We were promised a phone call when the passenger-side blade came in, but we never heard back. No matter; it was only the left-side blade that was streaking.

So merrily onward we drive, finally enjoying the promise of the hydrogen FCEV—or most of it, anyway. The carpool lane sticker, which the Mirai is eligible for, has been hung up by paperwork. (Most folks we know get their stickers within a couple of weeks.) Aside from a very un-Toyota-like creak in the dash (which we forgot to ask the dealership to investigate), the Mirai soldiers on trouble free.

As more staffers find the courage to brave the hydrogen infrastructure, we get more comments about what a nice, Lexus-like car the Toyota is—though bigger and taller folks continue to note how its interior is crowded by the wide center console (under which lives one of the Mirai’s three hydrogen tanks) and low roofline. “The cabin size to exterior dimensions ratio is peculiar,” associate online editor Alex Leanse, MotorTrend’s tallest team member, said. “My head was on the roof [Editor’s note: Not literally, though we’ve been tempted]. Granted, at 6-foot-10, I’m an outlier, but I don’t encounter that in other cars very often.”

We’re hopeful our most recent experiences with the 2021 Toyota Mirai aren’t just flukes but rather represent a genuine, lasting improvement. If that’s the case, we’ll have more reason to recommend both hydrogen and the Mirai—and we’ll have even more reason to like this very likable car.

Looks good! More details?