- Southern California buyers can get up to 70% off the hydrogen fuel cell Mirai
- Bay Area customers can get discounts as well
- Sales are down, and the price of hydrogen is up
If you live in Southern California, you can buy a new Toyota for about the cost of a cheap small car—and $15,000 in free gas.
That car is from 2024 Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel cell sedan. CarsDirect reports that Toyota is offering discounts up to 70% from the base XLE range, which is normally priced at $51,285 (including destination). That brings the price down to $17,005 destination, or within a few hundred dollars of the gasoline-powered Nissan Versa sedan. The Mirai Limited, which normally retails for $68,210 after destination, now costs just $25,210 with this discount.
Like other gasoline vehicles, the Mirai is only available in California because other states don't have enough fuel infrastructure. But these agreements only apply to residents of the southern part of the country. Discounts in Northern California are lower, but still significant—at $25,000 on the XLE and $33,000 on the Limited. Toyota is also, currently, offering lease incentives of up to $7,500.
2024 Toyota Mirai
Mirai customers get it too $15,000 in free gas over six years,Toyota's property was already contributing. In XLE trim, the Mirai returns 72 miles per kilogram of hydrogen, according to the automaker, so this bill is still more than that. 30,000 free miles even the highest price of $34.55/kg California achieved last October.
That was just the latest in a series of supply disruptions affecting consumer-grade gasoline vehicles in recent years—as infrastructure for commercial and industrial trucks is built. Unreliable hydrogen supply may have contributed to Mirai's weak sales. Toyota reports that in the US it launch 499 fuel-cell sedans by 2024down from 2,737 in 2023.
2024 Toyota Mirai
The Mirai is not a bad car. While the first generation felt like a Prius, the current generation feels like a luxury car, with ride quality, handling, and lower noise, vibration, and stiffness levels compared to gasoline and hybrid sedans from Toyota's top-of-the-line Lexus range.
Although Toyota says the current-generation Mirai cleans the air while driving—what the automaker calls “emissions reduction”—hydrogen needs to be produced cleanly and readily available for that to happen. Earlier studies this decade suggested that hydrogen would be greener and more cost-competitive with gasoline by the end of the decade. But the price of hydrogen has instead increased.