A number of people who own and lease the Toyota Mirai hydrogen car have filed a class action lawsuit against the automaker because of their dissatisfaction with the vehicle.
According to the lawsuit, the automaker misled Toyota Mirai customers when it came to the reality of owning the hydrogen powered vehicle. The complaint states that the Japanese company and its sales teams led potential customers of the fuel cell cars to believe that “hydrogen refueling is available, seamless, and comparable to refueling with gasoline.” The complaint also states that this was not the experience of those customers.
Each of these issues have been cutting into the resale value of the hydrogen car, which has dropped to only 19.4% of its value after five years of use.
Source: Hydrogen Fuel News: Read The Article
PSR Analysis: The Mirai has been the jewel in Toyota’s hydrogen crown for some time now and this class action could be the beginning of the end for this model. This matter has been compounded by Toyota’s confusing strategy over Alternative Power vehicles. Only time will tell whether this proves to be the end of Fuel Cell vehicles (certainly at Toyota) or whether it will encourage more Hydrogen fueling stations. PSR
Guy Youngs is Forecast & Adoption Lead for Power Systems Research
