‘Car is unusable’
Around seven hundred American car owners are suing Toyota. They claim that their cars have become completely unusable and want to get rid of them. This concerns the Toyota Mirai, which can only run on hydrogen.
The Toyota Mirai was developed as an emission-free alternative to electric cars. It is powered by a fuel cell that charges a battery, which in turn drives an electric motor. The range is 650 kilometers, and the car only emits water vapor. On paper, that sounds promising, but seven hundred Mirai owners in the Bay Area in California think otherwise.
Class Action Lawsuit
They bought the hydrogen car under the assumption that the number of hydrogen stations in the region, which was around twenty, would increase – something Toyota had also promised. But in reality, their numbers steadily decreased, and the stations were often defective. Now, Mirai owners in the Bay Area are joining forces and suing Toyota in a class action lawsuit. They are convinced that Toyota defrauded them, as CBS News writes.
On paper, the hydrogen car seems like a clever solution: it has a range comparable to an electric car, it’s emission-free, and quick to refuel. But in practice, this proved to be a problem. One of the Mirai owners, Malcolm Boehme, recounts how he had to abandon his car after driving it to the only gas station in the wider area to refuel. “The pump was broken, and I couldn’t go home because I wouldn’t be able to get back to the gas station.”
No more hydrogen for sale in San Francisco
The Toyota Mirai was sold over a period of about nine years, and hydrogen refueling stations have gradually become so scarce that hydrogen is no longer available anywhere in San Francisco. Owners have to leave the city and sometimes drive to another county to refuel. “So people no longer use the car, and if you don’t use the car for seven days, the battery is dead,” attorney Jason Ingber tells CBS. The attorney calls the cars worthless.
Sales of hydrogen cars also collapsed in the Netherlands
It appears that the hydrogen car has lost the battle to the purely electric car, as this site previously wrote. In the Netherlands, the sale of hydrogen cars has therefore completely collapsed. According to the website Allesoverwaterstof.nl, only fourteen hydrogen cars were registered in 2024: nine times it concerned a Toyota Mirai and five times a Hyundai Nexo. Of the approximately three hundred Toyota Mirais sold in the Netherlands, 42 are for sale on our site.