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Toyota Mirai Fuel Cell Sedan Advertised on EV Charging Station Is Ironic

In case you missed it by watching the price of the oil barrel to closely, there is a war being fought right now between battery-powered electric cars and hydrogen fuel cell electric cars.
Toyota Mirai poster on charging station 1 photo
Photo: Michael Thwaite
Shouldn't they just bury the hatchet, join hands and fight the common enemy - the vehicles powered by internal combustion engines? Well, to put it simply, no. A few high-profile companies have invested large sums of money in developing cars that use one of the two alternative propulsion systems, and they're not ready to admit it was all just a big waste of resources, dust off, and begin from scratch.

Ultimately, one of the two sides is going to have to admit defeat, but that day isn't here yet. You could say that Toyota announcing its work on a battery-powered electric vehicle tilted the scales heavily in one direction, but it's still an open-ended fight.

There's an old saying that "fair fights are for suckers," and while that's not exactly what you would want to teach your kids, it is how good businesses managed to become great. And they rarely come much greater than Toyota, the Japanese manufacturer that's been topping the global sales charts for years.

Building the vehicles is one thing, convincing the people to buy them is a completely different one. That's where advertising comes in, an industry that's proved to be a very efficient battlefield in the past for ICE-powered cars as well.

Here, the product doesn't count as much as long as you manage to find the right message for your target audience that's also as relevant as possible in the given context. Advertising a fuel cell car on an electric car charging station seems ridiculous, but that's exactly what Michael Thwaite came across in a car park in L.A. (via Green Car Reports). And Toyota made sure to hit where it (still) hurts the most with its Mirai poster.

That's right, the hydrogen fuel cell has just one real advantage over the BEVs, and that's the fact it doesn't need to plug in to recharge. Instead, it will refill just like an ordinary vehicle, only instead of fossil fuel, it'll use liquefied hydrogen. Which is why the ad came with a headline saying "Fuels in 5 minutes or less."

Of course, people who drive EVs are in the know and have made their choice well aware of Toyota's (or Honda's or Hyundai's) offering. The chances of this convincing anyone to make the switch are slim, but it shows FCEVs are not going down without a fight. And they fight dirty. The ball is now in the BEVs' court.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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