The world's biggest automaker Toyota Motor Corp. will launch its first mass-market fuel cell car in December, expecting to follow the success of its Prius hybrid, Reuters reported.
Named Mirai, which literally means "future" in Japanese, the four-seater sedan will be sold on Dec. 15 in four cities in Japan. In the fourth quarter of 2015, sales will follow in the United States and Europe, with the car to be unveiled in California and Tokyo simultaneously.
Before taxes, the Toyota Mirai will be sold at 6.7 million yen ($57,460) in Japan, which recently announced a subsidy of 2.02 million yen on purchases of fuel cell vehicles (FCVs). The car will cost $57,500 in the United States, but it could drop to $45,000 after federal and state incentives.
While fossil fuels are used in the production and pressurization of hydrogen, FCVs do not emit exhaust gas. Governments are subsidizing the construction of more hydrogen filling stations, but only a few dozen have been built around the world, according to ABC News.
FCVs run on electricity made through hydrogen fuel and oxygen mixture in the air. The only by-product of the technology is heat and water, which is so pure the Apollo astronauts drank it when it was first used in the 1960s in the Apollo moon project.
At the launch in Newport Beach, Toyota Managing Officer Satoshi Ogiso said that the FCVs technology is "going to change our world."
Toyota executive vice president Mitsuhisa Kato also said: "In time, the fuel cell vehicle will become mainstream. We wanted to take the first step. We want to be at the leading edge."
Primarily because of a shortage of hydrogen fuel stations, Toyota executives said that the company aims to sell only 700 across the globe in 2015, and by the end of 2017, it expects to sell 3,000 in the U.S.
Having led the first-generation Prius development, Toyota Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada expects global sales to rise to "tens of thousands" in the 2020s.