Can you drink water produced by a Toyota Mirai? This journalist puts it to the test

The Toyota Mirai is the first mass-produced vehicle powered by a hydrogen-fed fuel cell system.

A journalist has put the “cleanliness” of the Mirai to the test with a simple proposal: drinking the water produced by the car.

In this curious test, summed up in a video of barely a minute and a half, we can see a motoring journalist attempting the feat of drinking the water the car produces. Let us recall that the Mirai moves thanks to a fuel cell fed by hydrogen, stored in high-pressure tanks in liquid state.

How does the cell work? In reality, the operation of this system is relatively simple. The stored hydrogen (H2) is combined with oxygen from the surrounding air (O2). Electrolysis then takes place, a process that releases electrical energy, which is used to drive the electric motor that, in turn, moves the car’s wheels.

It is a very clean process with high efficiency (roughly 55%) and minimal environmental impact. Apart from electricity, the only “waste” produced during the process is none other than water (H2O), water that, moreover, is extremely clean and pure.

The Mirai has an electric powertrain of approximately 155 CV. It is capable of accelerating from 0 to 100 km/h in 9 seconds, covering almost 500 km on a single tank of hydrogen. It seems the Mirai is proving successful, as it already has 1,900 customer reservations from people who have not even been able to test it.

The car has a curious system that accumulates the water produced so the driver can expel it at will, thus avoiding possible spills in the garage or in sensitive areas. As a result, the journalist managed to collect up to half a glass of pure water which, in front of the camera, he tasted, claiming that “it tastes the same as mineral water”.

[jwplayer file=”https://youtu.be/ex1NZ8-bXvg” autostart=”false” mute=”off”]

Source | Vadim Ovsiankin