Dec 19 2014

The fuel-cell vehicle unveiled earlier this year will hit the U.S. and European markets around next summer.Toyota priced the four-door sedan at 7,236,000, yen (about $61,100), exclusive of government subsidies worth 2.02 million yen.The world's biggest carmaker plans to produce 700 units by the end of 2015 and sell 400 domestically. But it also looks to increase production amid strong demand.

 

Toyota Motor Corp.on Mondaybegan selling its Mirai hydrogen-powered vehicle in Japan, becoming the world's first automaker to offer the advanced environmentally friendly car to general consumers.

The Mirai, which means "future" in Japanese, features both fuel-cell and hybrid technologies including Toyota's new proprietary fuel-cell stack and high-pressure hydrogen tanks.

 

Toyota touts the Mirai as marking the beginning of innovations that will replicate the success of its Prius hybrid, hoping that the first widely available fuel-cell vehicle will make hydrogen technologies more popular. The Mirai can travel 650 kilometers on a full tank of hydrogen under the Japanese standard. What the company dubs the "ultimate eco-car" runs on electricity made by mixing hydrogen fuel and oxygen in the air, only emitting heat and water.

 

The relatively modest pace of production highlights difficulties facing Toyota and other carmakers in making fuel-cell cars a viable option in the mass market, due not only to higher costs but also to a limited number of hydrogen-refueling stations, crucial infrastructure for their popularization.

 

Toyota will initially sell the Mirai mainly in the major cities of Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka where such stations are to be located.