In the first month since its launch in Japan on December 15 last year, approximately 1,500 orders have been received for the Mirai fuel cell sedan, Toyota said on Thursday.
At the time of the vehicle’s launch, Toyota announced plans to sell approximately 400 units in Japan by the end of 2015. Due to the large volume of orders received, Toyota forecasts a significantly longer time to delivery than originally expected.
Roughly 60% of the orders are from government offices and corporate fleets, and 40% from individual consumers. Orders are mostly from Tokyo, Kanagawa Prefecture, Aichi Prefecture and Fukuoka Prefecture.
In its basic operation, a fuel cell vehicle works much like a battery electric vehicle. But instead of the large drive battery, Mirai’s fuel cell stack combines hydrogen gas from tanks with oxygen to produce electricity that powers the electric motor.
Toyota’s proprietary fuel cell stack represents a major leap forward in performance, delivering one of the world’s best power outputs of 3.1 kW/L at a dramatically reduced size that fits under the front driver and passenger seats. The system provides Mirai with a maximum output of 153hp, accelerating from 0-60 in 9.0 seconds and delivering a passing time of 3 seconds from 25-40 mph.
To help encourage the development of hydrogen-fuelled vehicles, Toyota recently made thousands of its global hydrogen fuel cell patents available to others, free of any royalties.
