Toyota Motor Corp. revealed that it has started production on its Mirai fuel cell vehicle, which the company claims is "a turning point in automotive history."
The launch of the Mirai's production comes at an interesting time for the automobile manufacturer though, as the announcement was made exactly five years after probably the lowest point of the company's history.
The Mirai fuel cell vehicle, its name meaning "future" in Japanese, is powered by hydrogen. The vehicle emits water, as opposed to the carbon dioxide in traditional cars, which means that the Mirai qualifies as a zero-emission vehicle in states that have regulations in place for such a kind of car.
"Imagine a world filled with vehicles that diminish our dependence on oil and reduce harm to the environment," Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda previously said in a video released late last year. "A bold but inspiring goal, and today it is a reality."
Toyota will be manufacturing the fuel cell vehicles in the same area where it put together the Lexus LFA supercar. The assembly team, which is composed of 13 people, will be manually assembling the Mirai units to produce three cars daily without the usage of conveyors that are commonly seen in mass-production facilities, Toyota Motomachi plant assistant manager Mitsuyuki Suenaga said to reporters.
Included in the planned production checks of the Mirai is the pumping of helium gas through the pipes that are connecting the two hydrogen tanks of the vehicle to the fuel-cell stack. This ensures no leakage in the system after the installation of the components, Suenaga added.
The Mirai, which will sell for a price of 7.24 million yen, equivalent to just over $60,000, represents that company's wager that the future of emission-free vehicles will see the cars run on hydrogen and not on electricity. The wager will be small at first, as Toyota has plans to only build 700 Mirai units for this year.
Toyota's chosen day of Feb. 24 as the birthday of the Mirai is an unprecedented one, given that five years ago on the same date, Toyoda was placed on a hot seat in front of the U.S. Congress and was in tears over the company's sudden-acceleration recall crisis.
Toyota has come a long way since that day though, with Toyoda committing to restore the lost public trust in the car company. Toyota has outsold all its rival automobile manufacturers in each of the previous three years, with the company forecasting a record $17.9 billion profit in the financial year ending next month.
