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by melkiaur 2576 days ago
Wait. I thought their hydrogen cars were hybrid cars, just like the prius. Why do you say they gave up on batteries ?
1 comments

Kinda.

H2EV don't "burn" the hydrogen, because fuel cells are much better than engines that burn stuff in cylinders. So you end up with electormotor and fuel cell.

And since you can recuperate into fuel cell and fuel cells aren't very good at providing big short peaks of power, it makes sense to add a battery to smooth things out and to store energy when braking.

But the battery doesn't need high-capacity, because it's just a temporary store of energy. It's a very different battery technology than what you find in a Tesla or Kia e-Niro or whatever.

In the end, Toyota H2EV (Mirai) is basically 1) electromotor from Lexus hybrid 2) battery from Prius 3) Fuel cell.