Toyota Has 200 Orders For Hydrogen Fuel Cell Car

Toyota built 500 Lexus LFA supercars between 2010 and 2012 in what has been called a "secretive workshop." The automaker has been wondering what to do with that production line since the last LFA rolled off in December 2012 and, like so much else for Toyota these days, the answer is a hydrogen car – and in about the same small numbers.

The 2016 Mirai fuel-cell vehicle will go into production later in December at the old LFA workshop, which is located behind Toyota's Motomachi assembly plant in Toyota City. The skilled workers there have been doing other things (like building bicycles) since the last LFA was finished, and now they will hand-build the Mirai so that the car can get the attention to detail Toyota wants. Also, the demand is manageable because there won't be that many of the hydrogen cars made for a while.

Toyota has already said it will sell only 3,000 Mirai FCVs in the U.S. by the end of 2017 (it won't arrive here until late 2015, with deliveries in Japan starting earlier). With 200 orders already in and a plan to build only 700 in 2016, Toyota is already talking about delivery delays. Toyota's Executive Vice President for Domestic Sales, Masamoto Maekawa, said that, "the 200 orders are mostly from government and corporate fleets."

Production could remain at LFA Works for a while. One Toyota exec said that even if the company makes 2,000 Mirais a year, that would still be only ten each day.

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