A considerable amount of activity is happening in the green car market, and the awareness about the benefits of eco-friendly vehicles has increased in recent times. Toyota an ace Japanese based luxury car brand is a pioneer of the green car market. It stunned the world with the introduction of Prius and Camry hybrids.
Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel cell
Apart from hybrid and electric vehicles, the latest progress in the eco-friendly vehicle automobile industry is hydrogen powered vehicles. Toyota has for months announced of its plan to build Mirai hydrogen fuel cell car. The principle behind the operation of a hydrogen fuel cell car is different from others of its kind. The mode of operation here is the fitment of stack of hydrogen cells that reacts with atmospheric oxygen to form electricity that drives the vehicles.
The mode of discovery of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle sounds high-tech and practical, it is an unexplored sources, that many would believe should have been thought of years ago. Toyota is keen to unravel the potential of hydrogen fuel cell technology through the construction of Mirai and the goal is to carry the technology to the market and make it effectively accessible to a mass crowd.
The senior Vice President of Toyota, Bob Carter says, in order to showcase a pioneering futuristic technology, display it in the form of a real model, and that’s what we are working on. Mirai is a huge development and the company has stated over 5,000 patents, and is constructing measures to make the hydrogen fuel system available to a mass crowd through the construction of hydrogen gas station.
Toyota launched Mirai in 2014 November, and the vehicle runs on electricity generated from hydrogen, and it is not all dependent on electric engine. The acceleration potential of the vehicle is praiseworthy in just 9 seconds it can breezily travel distances of 0 to 60mph. With just a single tank of hydrogen gas, the car can zoom through vast distances of maximum range of 300 miles.
Despite the heightened efficacy and space-age technology infused into Mirai, Toyota is not very satisfied with the development of the vehicle. The size of Mirai is parallel to Camry, and it costs $57,500 pricier than any other high-tech Toyota car in the market. The main concern is majority of the inner space is occupied by stack of hydrogen fuel. The other issue is the efficient availability of hydrogen gas, and sources state that the gas is not as eco-friendly as the company makes it out to be. Hydrogen is the most widely available gas, but storing it is not as realistic as its abundance value. It is more light-weighted than atmospheric oxygen and harvesting it is tedious.
Toyota has been banking on the potential of hydrogen fuel cell technology, but the initial stages of development did not start on a positive note. It is a known fact that hydrogen gas is difficult to harvest, because it is the lightest element on Earth. There is however still scope for progress, mainly because once hydrogen is harvested and the electricity generation process involves zero gas emission. Let’s observe the evolution of the technology in the near future.
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I am into the auto blogs field for quite a long time. Living my passion of reviewing cars.
Tagged: Toyota Mirai
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