Photo: Toyota
As the industry advocates for battery-powered electric vehicles, a handful of manufacturers decided that there’s more to zero-emissions driving than that. I’m referring to, of course, those outfits that have embraced hydrogen.
The lightest element on the periodic table and the most abundant chemical substance in the universe, H can be converted into a solution for propulsion in two ways. You can burn it (see liquid-propellent rockets) or make it react with oxygen in a fuel cell in order to run electric motors. Implementing the latter of the two solutions in a road-going vehicle is far from being simple, but world-class automakers such as Hyundai, Honda, and Toyota did it.
Toyota is especially proud of what it achieved with the Mirai, a mid-size sedan built in the factory where Lexus manufactured the LFA supercar. It costs $57,500 excluding destination, which is a lot of green dollar bills. To its defense, however, buyers are offered a purchase support of $7,500, three years’ worth of complimentary hydrogen fuel, plus a $5,000 CA rebate.
The Japanese company would like the world to know how awesome its car is that Toyota actually overdid things in terms of advertising. Case in point: the automaker’s marketing division created Google Ads for the Mirai targeted at Tesla Model 3 reservation holders, which is some pretty low trickery if I’m to be brutally honest. Then there’s the advertisement displayed in an electric vehicle charging station, a tongue-in-cheek move that’s somewhat redundant considering the deficits of the hydrogen refueling infrastructure.
This time around, Toyota got its act together and produced one hell of an advertising stunt by installing 37 eco-billboards in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The billboards have built-in “catalytic converters," and their purpose is to purify the surrounding air. That’s a very interesting and clever way of catching the eco-conscious crowd’s attention, alright!
“Toyota consistently searches for new environmental technologies across all operations. When Clear Channel Outdoor Americas brought us the opportunity, we saw it as a perfect match,” said Mark Angelacos, advanced technology general manager at Toyota Motor North America. “This new campaign delivers Toyota Mirai’s ‘vehicle of change’ message on a medium that lives up to that promise.”
Toyota is especially proud of what it achieved with the Mirai, a mid-size sedan built in the factory where Lexus manufactured the LFA supercar. It costs $57,500 excluding destination, which is a lot of green dollar bills. To its defense, however, buyers are offered a purchase support of $7,500, three years’ worth of complimentary hydrogen fuel, plus a $5,000 CA rebate.
The Japanese company would like the world to know how awesome its car is that Toyota actually overdid things in terms of advertising. Case in point: the automaker’s marketing division created Google Ads for the Mirai targeted at Tesla Model 3 reservation holders, which is some pretty low trickery if I’m to be brutally honest. Then there’s the advertisement displayed in an electric vehicle charging station, a tongue-in-cheek move that’s somewhat redundant considering the deficits of the hydrogen refueling infrastructure.
This time around, Toyota got its act together and produced one hell of an advertising stunt by installing 37 eco-billboards in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The billboards have built-in “catalytic converters," and their purpose is to purify the surrounding air. That’s a very interesting and clever way of catching the eco-conscious crowd’s attention, alright!
“Toyota consistently searches for new environmental technologies across all operations. When Clear Channel Outdoor Americas brought us the opportunity, we saw it as a perfect match,” said Mark Angelacos, advanced technology general manager at Toyota Motor North America. “This new campaign delivers Toyota Mirai’s ‘vehicle of change’ message on a medium that lives up to that promise.”
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