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Toyota Mirai Being Handmade in Ex-Lexus LFA Plant

Remember the rumors about Toyota losing money with each Mirai unit being made? Seems it’s a true fact, because it will be sold for the price of an entry level luxury sedan, yet it will be hand-built like a supercar.
Toyota Mirai 1 photo
Photo: Toyota
Yep, the Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel cell car won’t be made by cold robots, at least for now, but by the same experts that brought us the Lexus LFA right in the same facility at Toyota’s Motomachi plant in Toyota City.

The small LFA Works facility carefully manufactured all the 500 LFA units between 2010 and 2012, after which it started building the special edition, as well as $10,000-a-piece carbon fiber bicycles for enthusiasts and elite clients.

Why does the Mirai get the special treatment?

It’s kinda self explanatory in fact. Although the Mirai is believed to be the future for Toyota and put its name at the same height with the Prius hybridity preacher, it’s still an early experiment. Especially because it relies on infrastructure to work properly.

So, as a safety net, Toyota hasn’t yet invested in a new power plant or special assembly line and went with the LFA Works facility where it’s certain it will get the attention it needs as a new-born technology.

“Each unit is carefully built with utmost care. So therefore, the production volume might be limited,” said Toyota’s vice president for domestic sales Masamoto Maekawa. “During the initial stages, delivery time might be delayed.”

As you can imagine, building a car by hand requires quite some time, so those first clients waiting for a new Mirai will be a bit intrigued to wait for one as much as they would for a luxury sportscar or supercar. There are at least 200 orders placed for the fuel cell car at the moment, most of them coming from Japan.

Even with the powertrain and other mechanical components being made at the nearby Toyota Honsha plant, the LFA Works will be able to assemble a maximum of 10 units each day, hoping that at least 2,000 Mirais will exit the factory in a single year.

We’re just wondering if this first batch of hand-built cars will depreciate a lot lesser than those shifted to factory-robot production. Will somebody ever advertise a second hand one as “hand-built by Lexus LFA experts”?
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