2021 Toyota Mirai first drive review: Like a hydrogen-powered Lexus

Acquire off the Toyota badges and slap a significant ol’ spindle grille on its nose, and this 2021 Mirai sedan could completely go for a Lexus. Inside of and out, the new Mirai has a amount of style and refinement you would not count on for a mass-market Toyota. And the Japanese automaker is hoping this high quality aim will be sufficient to influence people to give hydrogen gas-mobile power a test.

“Mirai” means “future” in Japanese, which I guess is pretty proper, offered the car industry adage that not only is hydrogen the gas of the future, it usually will be. Indeed, with only about fifty filling stations in California (finish with somewhat spotty reliability), hydrogen as a gas resource tends to make a ton of feeling on paper, but is even now out of arrive at for most individuals. Even so, Toyota continues to be steadfast that this futuristic future will futurize into fruition and the significant investment into glowing-up the Mirai is proof of the automaker’s dedication to hydrogen on a world-wide scale.

2021 Toyota Mirai: Sharp-lookin’ sedan with hydrogen power

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For starters, just seem at this thing. As much as the design is anxious, the Mirai went from worst to to start with like that (snaps fingers). Styling is subjective, natch, but I am going to quantify this updo and say the 2021 Mirai is accurately six,243{d11068cee6a5c14bc1230e191cd2ec553067ecb641ed9b4e647acef6cc316fdd} greater seeking than its predecessor, which was the ugliest motor vehicle on the market. 

Design and style comparisons to the Kia Stinger are not unwarranted, which is a compliment in and of by itself. Dimensionally, the Mirai is about the same measurement as a Stinger — 195.8 inches lengthy, 57.9 inches tall and 74.2 inches vast. But compared with the Kia, the Mirai is not a hatchback the battery and a person of the hydrogen gas tanks are positioned underneath and behind the rear seat. That means you can find only 9.six cubic toes of cargo potential — approximately the same as the rear compartment of a Porsche Cayman. In other words and phrases, pack light, or just throw your bags on the spacious rear seats.

Speaking of which, when all Mirais have a 3-across bench in the back again, the top rated-end Minimal has a substantial, fold-down centre console with a touchscreen that permits travellers to command many local weather command and audio capabilities. You know, just like what you’d uncover in a Lexus.

All round, the Mirai’s interior is wonderful. The SofTex seats are heated and cooled for both of those front and rear travellers, when the dashboard, doorway playing cards and centre console are lined with more of this convincing fake-leather content, building them smooth and plush to the touch. All of the Mirai’s buttons seem and feel like they belong in a Lexus, apart from for the silly little equipment shifter, which appears and feels like it belongs in a very last-technology Prius. Oh, and you can find no volume knob, which I assumed we as an car industry made the decision was a negative thought.

Every single Mirai gets a whole lot of cabin-tech, with an 8-inch digital gauge cluster and a twelve.3-inch touchscreen atop the centre stack. The onboard infotainment computer software is the same as what you can expect to uncover in Toyotas like the new Highlander SUV, with a somewhat cluttered house monitor and lots of menus and submenus. Apple CarPlay and Android Automobile are standard, so you’re greater off sticking with a person of those. Every single Mirai also will come with embedded navigation, a JBL high quality audio procedure, Amazon Alexa compatibility, wi-fi system charging and Wi-Fi.

A whole bunch of driver-aid tech will come standard, also, by way of Toyota’s Security Feeling 2.5 As well as suite. All Mirai versions get pre-collision braking with pedestrian detection, lane-departure warning with steering help, automated high-beam headlights, comprehensive-pace adaptive cruise command, site visitors indication recognition and a person of the most intense lane-centering devices I’ve seasoned in a lengthy time. (I couldn’t transform it off promptly sufficient.)

The Mirai’s rear-wheel-travel architecture is shared with the much larger Lexus LS (amusing how that performs). That’s a adjust from this model’s predecessor. Though swapping pushed axles from front to back again may well look odd for a rather innocuous sedan like the Mirai, Toyota states it investigated front- and all-wheel-travel layouts and uncovered rear-travel to be the greatest for packaging and performance. But no, the Mirai won’t do a burnout. (I tried. Twice.)

Science time: 3 carbon-fiber-strengthened hydrogen tanks mail fuel into a gas-mobile stack underneath the hood, which mixes with oxygen to create energy that powers a 1.24-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery and synchronous electric powered motor. All advised, the motor produces a utmost of 182 horsepower and 221 pound-toes of torque and the only byproduct of this gas-mobile power is water, which sprays out of a tailpipe when you’re driving. You can also manually empty the water reserve by pressing the H2O button on the dashboard to the left of the gauge cluster. I am not positive why you’d ever do this you when the motor vehicle will do it automatically. Then yet again, when testing a 2019 Mirai just lately, I did say to a good friend, “Hey, wanna see the motor vehicle pee?” So, yeah.

Toyota states the base Mirai XLE has a variety of 402 miles, which represents a thirty{d11068cee6a5c14bc1230e191cd2ec553067ecb641ed9b4e647acef6cc316fdd} improvement in excess of the aged motor vehicle. The increased-end Minimal is rated at 357 miles owing to its enhanced body weight and much larger wheels, but that’s even now a wonderful action up from the aged, unsightly Mirai’s 312-mile ranking. If you’d alternatively speak about performance in conditions of miles per gallon equivalent, the Mirai XLE gets 74 MPGe combined when the Minimal returns sixty five MPGe. For the sake of comparison, a 2021 Volvo S60 plug-in hybrid is rated at 69 MPGe.

The Mirai XLE weighs in at four,255 pounds, with the Minimal tipping the scales at four,335. With only 182 hp and 221 lb-ft of motivational force, the Mirai isn’t really accurately quick. Toyota estimates a 9.2-second -to-60-mph time, which seems about right to me. Sure, you get the fast torque delivery of an electric powered motor, but that’s even now a whole whole lot of Mirai to transfer all over.

The moment it truly is up and transferring, having said that, the Mirai is pretty superior to travel. The steering is light and vague (it truly is a Toyota), but the independent front and rear suspensions, as perfectly as the best fifty:fifty body weight distribution, indicate the Mirai is astonishingly knowledgeable on winding streets. Individuals Lexus underpinnings shine when the Mirai is just cruising on the highway, resulting in a buttery clean journey, even on my Minimal tester’s upsized twenty-inch wheels with 245/45-sequence tires. The cabin is tremendous tranquil at all occasions and that JBL seem procedure can quickly drown out any weird gas-mobile drivetrain noise that may well make its way into the cabin. I won’t go so much as to simply call the Mirai sporty, even with these RWD bones, but yet again, if you advised me this was a Lexus, I’d completely consider you.

Probably it should just be a Lexus, offered how the 2021 Mirai is priced. With a starting up MSRP of $fifty,455 such as $955 for destination, the new Mirai is more than $9,000 less costly than the aged model. But that’s even now about as substantially as a new GS 350. Action up to the Mirai Minimal and you’re seeking at $66,955. Incorporating in chrome wheels and a fancy paint preference provides that top rated-end MSRP to $68,500.

Of study course, those figures really don’t convey to the comprehensive tale. When you purchase or lease a new Mirai, Toyota will throw in as substantially as $15,000 in absolutely free hydrogen gas. And really don’t fail to remember about the $8,000 federal tax credit history, in addition an added $four,500 from the point out of California. That’s a wonderful way to make a motor vehicle like the Mirai more obtainable to people who may well be on the fence about taking the plunge on hydrogen lifestyle. And hey, if this whole gas-mobile thing would not pan out like Toyota hopes it will, just shove a V6 underneath the hood and simply call this negative boy a Lexus.