Toyota Mirai (2015 – 2020) Review

The Japanese brand is to be applauded for launching the Toyota Mirai with its hydrogen fuel cell technology, but abysmal infrastructure and the car’s high cost counted against it. As a result, buyers headed for the likes of the company’s own Toyota Prius, the all-electric Tesla Model S or the likes of the BMW 3 Series plug-in hybrid. Read on for our full Toyota Mirai review.

The hydrogen-powered Toyota Mirai was the future, quite literally – that’s what its name means in Japanese.

However, it was incredibly expensive at more than £65,000 in 2015 and it didn’t sell in big numbers – just a dozen or so cars a year in the UK.

Instead, it was a showcase of how hydrogen fuel could work, while other car makers were sticking with hybrids.

Filling up the hydrogen tank (or tanks, as there are actually two linked together) takes a few minutes and gives a range of more than 300 miles. Unfortunately, there are barely any places to fuel up with hydrogen – then or now – which makes it tricky to recommend as a used car buy.

Despite its radical styling, the Toyota Mirai is incredibly easy to drive, with an automatic transmission, comfortable suspension and excellent refinement.

The drive system makes a faint whir, but it’s so quiet the engineers had to work hard to soundproof the car from other noise, like tyre roar and wind rush, with impressive results.

Performance is good – peak power is 154PS and torque is 335Nm, available from zero rpm. Since there is no gearbox, acceleration is seamless, giving the Toyota Mirai great pace away from traffic lights. Since its only emissions are water, it falls into VED Band A and is free to tax.

Space is reasonable, although there are only two rear seats, and taller back seat passengers will struggle for headroom. Additionally, the boot, while a decent size, isn’t quite as big as you might expect.

On the plus side, there is plenty of equipment including a heated windscreen, heated steering wheel and heated seats, as well as leather upholstery.

Price and infrastructure aside, the Toyota Mirai was a very convincing effort. With a bigger network of filling stations, there is great potential for it and cars like it as an alternative to range-restricted, slow-charging battery electric vehicles.

Fancy a different hydrogen fuel cell car? Read our Hyundai Genesis review here.

The company’s engineers worked hard on refinement and it really shows.

The Toyota Mirai is incredibly quiet and serene on the move, helped further by a comfort-focused suspension set-up that irons out lumps and bumps tremendously well.

The trade-off is slightly wallowy, high-speed cornering, but that kind of driving isn’t really what the car is for.

Settle back and you will find it can cover ground with ease thanks to its supple ride and light steering. Plus there is still good grip in corners, so it’s not only about straight-line driving.

Unlike a battery-powered EV, the Toyota Mirai has a built-in fuel cell that generates electricity by stripping the electrons from hydrogen atoms.

The electron-free hydrogen ions then combine with oxygen to create water, which is the only tailpipe emission the car produces. There’s even a button to purge stored water, if you want to show off.

The Toyota Mirai is front wheel drive, with peak power of 154PS and peak torque of 335Nm. Those figures might not sound much for a car that weighs almost 2000kg, but in reality performance is surprisingly swift.

This is particularly true from a standing start, since peak torque is available from zero rpm.

On the road, the Toyota Mirai is indistinguishable from any other electric car.

It’s an automatic, with a single forward gear ratio. Acceleration is seamless and almost silent, with just a faint whir under full throttle. Because the ‘engine’ produces no sound, other noises like wind rush or tyre roar became more noticeable in development.

The Toyota Mirai has been built in such a way that its hydrogen fuel cell is wholly protected in the event of a collision.

It also has leak detectors to spot if any hydrogen is trying to escape from its storage tanks.

Beyond that, it is equipped like any other Toyota of the era, with seven airbags, Isofix child seat mounts, ABS anti-lock brakes, traction and stability control, and three-point seat belts for all four occupants.

It also comes with automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, hill start assist, rear-view monitor and cross traffic alert and parking sensors front and back.

The Toyota Mirai was never rated for towing, so you cannot pull any trailer with it.

The company’s design team started with a blank slate when creating the Toyota Mirai, rather than using an existing model and converting it to run on hydrogen.

The result is an intelligently packaged, well-made and high-tech cabin, but with a few practicality caveats. Fortunately these aren’t major – the Toyota Mirai is as user-friendly as most saloon cars.

There are four seats, rather than five, and the aerodynamic roofline means rear headroom can be tight for taller occupants, but there is plenty of legroom.

The boot has a capacity of 361 litres, which is plenty for some smaller suitcases, but the position of one of the two hydrogen tanks means the rear seats can’t be folded down.

Up front, the car feels very much like a Toyota, but with a more futuristic layout. The small, joystick-style gear selector is about the only control on the centre stack that isn’t touch sensitive.

Everything else from navigation to ventilation and heated seats just requires a delicate tap to operate, like a smartphone screen.

Material quality is typically Toyota, with a mixture of solid and hard-wearing plastics and plusher, luxurious details like leather upholstery on the seats.

This quality goes some way to explaining its high original price.

The Toyota Mirai was designed with a seven-inch colour touchscreen as standard. It incorporates AM/FM radio, CD, Bluetooth, navigation system and DAB.

The car is equipped with a JBL premium sound system featuring 11 speakers, and USB and Aux terminals are provided as standard in the centre console cubby.

Finding a Toyota Mirai for sale is going to be the biggest hurdle to ownership. At the time of writing, there was just one on offer anywhere in the UK.

On the plus side, this was a 2019 car with just 9000 miles to its name, which was priced at £15,000.

That’s less than a quarter of what it would have cost new – quite the used car bargain.

Hydrogen is priced by the kilo and its cost means filling a Toyota Mirai – if you can access a filling station with the fuel – will be the same as fuelling a small car for 300 miles.

Only water comes out of the tailpipe, so with no CO2 emissions, the model costs nothing in road tax.

Insurance will be a cost to consider, though, as the Toyota Mirai sits in group 34 (out of 50), which is a fair few notches higher than a Toyota Prius or BMW 3 Series.

You will have to stick with one of the brand’s dealers to service the Toyota Mirai due to its specialist nature, but it should be reliable.

The Toyota Mirai comes in a single trim with pre-crash safety system, adaptive cruise control, blind spot monitor, rear cross traffic alert, hill start assist, power windows, auto wipers and auto lights.

It also has a power-adjustable steering column, power adjustable seats, smart entry, push button start, heated front seats and heated steering wheel.

Add to that Bluetooth, Toyota Touch 2 with navigation, dual-zone climate control, 17-inch alloy wheels, heated power-fold door mirrors, LED rear lights and LED headlights.