On January 15, 2015 Toyota delivered its first production Mirai fuel cell vehicle (pictured above) to Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Handing off the keys was Toyota Motor Corporation President Akio Toyoda.
Mr. Toyoda is quoted saying, “This is a historic step and I’m truly excited. This will be a long journey, and to make this first step truly historic we will all need to work together.”
Now according to the Korea Herald, the relatively low price of the Mirai is forcing Hyundai to drop the price of their ix35 Tucson fuel cell vehicle almost in half.
The Korea Herald states, “Toyota debuted the FCV Mirai, a mid-size four-door sedan, at the 2014 Los Angeles Auto Show in November with a price tag of 7.24 million yen ($62,000). The price is almost half that of a Tucson FCV priced at 150 million won ($139,000). Both prices exclude the government rebates …
“…In Korea, the government subsides $55,700 per Tucson FCV unit, meaning that individual Korean consumers still have to pay $83,500 to buy Hyundai’s hydrogen-powered car … Hyundai Motor recently informed Gwangju City, a major local buyer of the Tucson FCV, of its internal decision to cut the car price.”
Because of the high price tag Hyundai had only sold 10 Tucson FCV’s in South Korea last year. Compare this to Toyota which has already received orders for 1,500 Mirais in Japan of which 60-percent are going to government agencies and 40-percent to individual consumers.
At least now Hyundai is headed in the right direction towards finding a price point that will get both government and commercial consumers excited about buying their cutting edge vehicles.
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