That’s not very nice of you Toyota. The dust had hardly settled following Hyundai’s record-breaking achievement in Australia in early May, and now Toyota has come along and clinched the world record for the longest distance driven on a single hydrogen refuel.
Whereas the Hyundai Nexo FCEV covered an impressive 887.5 km last month, Toyota claims to have covered 1 003 km in late May, in a Mirai hydrogen vehicle on a series of roads south of Paris. The Japanese carmaker says this has been certified by an independent authority.
Toyota states that no special techniques were used in the record run, although an “eco-driving” style was necessary to stretch the vehicle’s official claimed range of 650 km to surpass the 1 000 km mark.
Four Toyota employees, including an engineer and PR manager from France, shared the driving duties.
“It’s an amazing challenge that we achieved with the new Mirai,” Toyota France CEO Frank Marotte enthused.
“Internally, it is the mindset of Start your Impossible, going beyond our own limits, that drives us, and we proved it again today.”
The Toyota Mirai is currently in its second generation, and this more luxurious version is based on the Lexus LS. The hydrogen tanks are arranged in a ‘T’ configuration, running longitudinally and centrally beneath the vehicle’s floor. The new architecture also allowed the hydrogen fuel cell to be moved from its previous location beneath the floor to the frontal section where the engine would have been in a normal car, while the battery and electric motor are perched above the back axle. This arrangement allows for a perfect 50:50 front to rear weight distribution, Toyota claims.
