Driving the Toyota Mirai, the most futuristic car you can buy
By Steve Siler
January 15, 2015
Motoramic
Go ahead. Call it ugly. Toyota doesn’t care.
People called the Prius ugly, too, when it was first launched (still do, actually), and it went on to become one of America’s best-selling cars. With the Prius, Toyota knew it had a game-changing technology on its hands, and to make it noticeable to its customers — who didn’t tend to pay much attention to cars, even when 50 mpg fuel economy was on the spec chart — Toyota had to make it noticeable-looking. People noticed. Next thing we knew, the Prius’ doorstop-chic styling became a point of pride. Toyota took a risk on ugly, and it paid off.
Toyota is attempting to perform the same trick with the 2016 Mirai. Only now, it’s working with hydrogen, not hybrids. We explicated the reasons for the Mirai’s various styling elements when the Mirai was introduced last year at the Los Angeles Auto Show, so we won’t bother repeating ourselves, but even after spending time with it, we’re not sure we’ll ever find it anything but jarring. Time will tell if Toyota can do the same trick with the Mirai that it pulled off with the Prius, but Toyota is banking on it, and banking even bigger on the technology and infrastructure becoming the next revolution in driving.
More at link: https://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motor...ic/driving-the-toyota-mirai--the-most-futuristic-car-you-can-buy-152757849.html
By Steve Siler
January 15, 2015
Motoramic
Go ahead. Call it ugly. Toyota doesn’t care.
People called the Prius ugly, too, when it was first launched (still do, actually), and it went on to become one of America’s best-selling cars. With the Prius, Toyota knew it had a game-changing technology on its hands, and to make it noticeable to its customers — who didn’t tend to pay much attention to cars, even when 50 mpg fuel economy was on the spec chart — Toyota had to make it noticeable-looking. People noticed. Next thing we knew, the Prius’ doorstop-chic styling became a point of pride. Toyota took a risk on ugly, and it paid off.
Toyota is attempting to perform the same trick with the 2016 Mirai. Only now, it’s working with hydrogen, not hybrids. We explicated the reasons for the Mirai’s various styling elements when the Mirai was introduced last year at the Los Angeles Auto Show, so we won’t bother repeating ourselves, but even after spending time with it, we’re not sure we’ll ever find it anything but jarring. Time will tell if Toyota can do the same trick with the Mirai that it pulled off with the Prius, but Toyota is banking on it, and banking even bigger on the technology and infrastructure becoming the next revolution in driving.
More at link: https://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motor...ic/driving-the-toyota-mirai--the-most-futuristic-car-you-can-buy-152757849.html
) and automatically bottles it, would tickle some folks silly.
