Verdict Weird, wild, unnecessary, arguably horrific to look at, or at least challenging, too fast, too silly, the Cybertruck is many things, but all of the bad things are obvious from a distance while you only realise just how impressive, clever and intense it is once you take it for a drive. The drive-by-wire steering alone is a revolutionary bit of tech that will surely bleed into the wider world. Overall I thought I would hate it, but I walked away, head still shaking, with grudging respect approaching admiration for the Tesla Cybertruck. Verdict Believe it or not, the Mirai represents a pretty big gamble for Toyota, a company who has been known in the past for being relative conservative with its vehicles. In recent years though, with models like the GR Yaris and even the RAV4 Hybrid, it seems like Toyota is more willing to go out and take a chance on something that would not be considered a safe bet. The Mirai represents this willingness to experiment, but it is still too early to say whether it will a winner or a failure. It drives well, looks good and its powertrain is a potential gamechanger for electric cars in Australia, but whether hydrogen takes off locally with customers is beyond Toyota’s control and up to those willing to invest in refuelling infrastructure. Design Is there anything interesting about a Narwhal, or a rhinoceros? It’s hard to know whether to give the Tesla Cybertruck 10 out of 10 for how interesting its design is, or zero for how offensive it is, but it would certainly get a solid 20 out of 10 for uniqueness. Sure, in pictures it looks pretty out there, but when you stand before it in all its shiny steel it makes you laugh out loud, to the point where it has taken your breath away. And then you start to notice all the fingerprints on it. Every time you - or any of its many admirers - touches it, you get nasty, oily stains and keeping it clean would make looking after a car painted in a matte finish look as easy as sleeping. So, stainless steel as a choice for constructing a car? Perhaps there’s a reason no one else has ever followed the DeLorean’s lead here, but there’s no denying it grabs your eye, and provides a certain solidity to the whole structure. Much like a Frank Gehry building, you’re either going to love the Cybertruck and think it a work of modern art, or dismiss it as a childish man’s fantasy made real (essentially that was the design brief for this vehicle, “make Elon a toy”, and it has nailed that brief), but either way you’ll definitely have strong feelings about it. A car, or even a pick-up truck, with no round surfaces, nor subtlety of any kind, can’t really be described as beautiful in any way. But interesting? Definitely. Design Remember your awkward teenage years when you were still a little uneasy in your own skin and tried to find your way in terms of your own style? (I certainly do!). Now remember bursting on the scene in your 20s with the confidence and swagger of a Calvin Klein model after working out your niche? (I’m still waiting for this to happen). Well, the Mirai certainly remembers because the inelegance of the first-generation car has given way to a much more confident and handsome model. From the outside, there is no denying its Toyota-ness and from certain angles the new Mirai even looks a bit like its Camry cousin, with a bit more flair. The split front lighting signature and massive grille direct your eye to the blue-tinged Toyota badge, which the Mirai wears proudly, while the puffed-up bonnet and lower-bumper chrome accent add a touch of sportiness and class, respectively. Move to the profile and you will see 19-inch wheels filling the arches, as well as a sloping rear roofline and silhouette that echoes the best of the premium German sedans. From behind, the body-wide tail-light design and subtle spoiler adds to the Mirai’s strong road presence without looking over the top, but I especially like the way the lines of the former continue down the bumper to break up the body panels. If you can’t tell already, I'm a fan of the exterior looks of the Mirai, and I bet if the Toyota badge was swapped out for a Lexus one, no one would think it looked out of place. Step inside the Mirai and there are familiar Toyota appointments like the way the dashboard sweeps away from the driver, as well as a shifter design lifted from a Prius. The surfaces are all soft-touch, though, and the mix of leather and gloss-black materials combine to elevate the interior ambience. The interior of the Mirai might not be as stunning as the exterior, but it is certainly no drab and depressing place to spend some time. Practicality While the front and rear seats feel plenty spacious, that odd peaked baseball cap roof is a bit challenging in terms of headroom, and I smashed my noggin into it a few times trying to reach into the back seat for more Oreos and Mountain Dew. You can pop up the bench seat in the back to create even more space for storage, or to provide a flat floor to sleep on. You can also lie an American sized pizza box on the vast swathe of dash between you and the wildly angled windscreen, there’s plenty more storage on the floor between you and the passenger and then more storage bins at your hip, as well. A wireless phone charger sits twinned with the spot where you park your Tesla card key. It’s a practical, semi-rugged feeling space, but with the usual kind of Tesla less is more feeling, except when it comes to the screen, which is stupidly large and requires far too much input when you’re driving to be safe. And there’s still no speedometer where you need one, in front of your eyes, and no head-up display, despite Tesla’s love of other jet-fighter tech, like drive-by-wire steering. Practicality Measuring 4975mm long, 1885mm wide, 1470mm tall and with a 2920mm wheelbase, the second-generation Mirai is comparable in size to a mid-size sedan like the Camry and Mazda6. However, it is a little longer, wider and lower, with an elongated wheelbase, and is in fact larger in all dimensions (save for height) than a Honda Odyssey people mover! You’d think this would afford passengers heaps of room, but all the whizz-bang cutting-edge technology has to go somewhere. Based on Toyota's new GA-L platform, the second-generation Mirai is fitted with three hydrogen tanks – two smaller ones positioned laterally behind the rear seats and one large one mounted longitudinally where a traditional transmission would sit. What this means is that rear seat room is compromised, and the hydrogen tank eats into the middle seat’s legroom so much that the new Mirai might as well be a four-seater. Leg- and shoulder-room in the second row are adequate, but the sloping roofline means it can be hard for taller passengers to get comfortable. I'm 184cm (6'0") and had trouble. Move to the front seats though, and it’s a different story with comfortable and supportive seats offering plenty of adjustability for drivers/passengers of any size. Storage options are also ample, with a door pockets, a centre storage bin, two cupholders and a tray for your phone/wallet. Opening the boot reveals a cavity large enough for just 272 litres (VDA) of volume – less than the smaller-sized Corolla sedan (470L) and well-down on the similarly-sized Camry (524L). Like the rear seats, boot space is compromised by powertrain components, the culprit being the battery and electric drive motor found above the rear axle. The rear seats in the Mirai are also fixed, which means they won’t fold down to open up more volume. Price and features How does one define value when it comes to the vehicular equivalent of a cockroach, one that seems capable of surviving the apocalypse with it indestructible (but possibly slightly rusty in appearance) stainless-steel exterior, HEPA filters (will protect you from pollution, pollen and “industrial fallout”) and (almost, kind of) bowling-ball proof super-strong windows (it can allegedly survive the impact of a baseball at 112km/h - handy if someone is trying to kill you with a baseball)? And what price can you put on the kind of attention driving a Cybertruck gets you? Perhaps only a Bugatti or a Pagani could match the level of wide-eyed, slack-jawed excitement you see from other people when you drive this thing around. Then there’s the fact that it accelerates like an actual rocket, is allegedly so cosseted in the cabin that it’s “as quiet as outer space” (this is a comparison test I am up for, if Elon’s Space X would like to arrange it), and can tow “an average African elephant”, or 4,990kg, and has a 1134kg capacity in that vast rear tray, covered by a standard, automatic tonneau cover that’s so tough you can stand on it. In that rear tray you’ll find a bottle opener, and some storage tubs with drainage holes to keep your beer cold or your fish frozen. You could sleep in there, on the composite bed, which is tough you don’t need a liner, but why would you when you can sleep in the truck - the dash is so large you could comfortably lie under the windscreen to sun yourself - using 'Sleep Mode', which runs the air con all night from its giant battery to keep it at your set temperature. Speaking of your battery, you can also charge things with it using the integrated power outlets, and that includes the ability to charge another Tesla, or to re-zap your Tesla Powerwall at home and run your house during a blackout. Or the Apocalypse. Tesla has put a price on all this, of course, and in America it ranges from US$81,895 to US$101,985. Frankly, that seems like quite good value when you add it all up, or at least it would if the Cybertruck really could tow five tonnes further than the end of the street, and if range - surely something of an issue for an outdoorsy vehicle like this - really could be guaranteed at 547km. If and when it gets to Australia, of course, its value will need to be reassessed on what is sure to be a much, much larger number. Price and features With only 20 examples available in Australia, and none offered to the public to buy, it’s hard to judge exactly how much value you get with the car. Toyota has released pricing, though, sort of. The 20 units are available to organisations who might want to trial the hydrogen powertrain, costing $63,000 for a three-year lease. The cost of refuelling over that period is included in the price, too, but Toyota is restricting the lease to Victorian organisations as its Altona refuelling station in Melbourne’s west. The Mirai comes fitted with LED exterior lighting, rain-sensing wipers, auto-folding and heated exterior mirrors, 19-inch alloy wheels, rear privacy glass, synthetic leather interior, leather-wrapped multi-function steering wheel, power-adjustable front seats, dual-zone climate control, keyless entry and push-button start. Handling multimedia duties is a 12.3-inch touchscreen system with satellite navigation, digital radio, Bluetooth connectivity, Apple CarPlay/Android Auto functionality and a 14-speaker JBL sound system. There's no wireless smartphone charger, though, which is a big miss in our book for a car that is so future focused. No doubt the bulk of the cost of the car is due to its cutting-edge powertrain (which we will cover further below), but the levels of equipment would be on par with high-end mid-size sedans like the $46,990 before on-road costs Camry SL Hybrid, $51,390 Mazda6 Atenza and $50,990 Hyundai Sonata N Line. It's also hard to compare the Mirai against Hyundai's Nexo hydrogen SUV, which has no pricetag in Australia but its Korean price can be converted to around $A84,000. Under the bonnet Yes, I’m giving it 10. Because how could you want for more than a torque figure of 13959Nm, and a Ferrari-humbling 630kW of power to boot? The Cybertruck is the perfect example of Elon Musk’s approach to what we’ll call science, or Twitter, or X. If it can be done, just do it, don’t ask whether it’s a good idea, or batshit insane. So because he could fit a vast 123kWh battery and two crazy powerful motors to this pick up monster, and that could provide enough grunt to send three tonnes of mass to 100km/h in 2.8 seconds, they did. Is it wise? Probably not. Is it wild and almost, somehow, strangely admirable? Yep. Under the bonnet What even is a hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicle? Well, we're not scientists but the way we understand it is that there is a special component in FCEVs - the fuel cell - which combines incoming air with hydrogen to produce electricity, with the only bi-product being water. The single electric motor driving the rear wheels of the Mirai outputs 134kW/300Nm, which enables a 0-100km/h acceleration time of 9.2 seconds in the 1900kg sedan. Top speed is also pegged at 175km/h – or well and truly above the road-legal limit – and the electric motor is paired with a single-speed auto transmission. Performance may seem underwhelming, especially when mainstream electric cars like the Nissan Leaf and Hyundai Kona Electric can hit triple digits in a much faster 7.9s time, but the Mirai is designed for efficiency and smoothness, not performance. Hyundai's Nexo meanwhile, makes 120kW/395Nm from its electric motor. Efficiency Tesla claims a range of 547km between charges and that even when towing something of “reasonable size” (a smaller Tesla perhaps) it will still get 400km. I, for one, very much doubt that. Tesla also claims you can recover up to 235km of range with just 15 minutes of Tesla Supercharging, while a charge from 10 to 80 per cent on that same Supercharger would take 44 minutes. On a 110V American plug it would take 110 hours, or 4.5 days, to fully charge from zero to 100 per cent. Efficiency Official consumption figures for the Mirai are published at a combined 0.7kg of hydrogen per 100km… which doesn’t really mean much without a frame of reference. The 2021 Mirai is fitted with three hydrogen for a combined capacity of 5.6kg (or 141 litres) that enables a driving range of 650km when tested on the WLTP (Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles Test Procedure) standards. Okay so a 650km range is pretty good and comparable to diesel SUVs of a similar size, but that’s moot if refuelling costs more. Because hydrogen refuellers are not yet readily available, the cost of refuelling is still a little unclear, but Toyota has said it works out to be around $70-80 to fully refuel the second-generation Mirai, making it comparable to filling up a petrol or diesel car. The new-generation car also features three hydrogen tanks instead of two, which means during range is up 30 per cent compared to the first-generation Mirai. Meanwhile, the Hyundai Nexo features a 6.33kg hydrogen tank, enough to propel it around 666km before needing a refuel. Driving It’s fair to say the Tesla Cybertruck is an intimidating prospect in the metal. It towers over you and seems to stretch into forever, because it does, at 5.68m long (too long to fit in a standard Australian parking space). It’s also a full 2.0m wide, 1.8m tall and weighs 3.1 tonnes, but along with its size comes the fact that it just doesn’t look… right. There’s not a round surface on it but there are plenty you could cut yourself with, or lose a finger in. It’s no less weird inside, as the giant A-pillars, vast dash, crazy yoke steering device and graphically lovely screen confront you, making it feel like you might be on the Starship Troopers ride at Universal Studios rather than in an LA car park. Then, while you’re getting used to this and having a good laugh at the Easter egg on the touch screen (smash the windows on the graphic of the car with your finger and you hear the sound of Elon freaking out at the infamous failure demonstration of its unbreakable glass), you’re warned that it is going to be almost as weird to drive as it looks. This is, in part, due to the Cybertruck’s unique drive-by-wire steering - a technology previously popular only with jet fighters and other planes - which allows it to have a yoke instead of a steering wheel without being annoying, because your hands will never cross over and be left grasping air. Yes, the Infiniti Q50 debuted with 'steer-by-wire' a decade ago, but featured a full mechanical system as a fail-safe back-up. No mechanical safety net here. The Cybertruck has less than one full turn lock-to-lock, and it has not just passive but aggressive rear wheel steering, allowing the back wheels to turn the opposite direction to the front ones at parking speeds, quite radically, which, once you’re used to it, makes it much easier to park than seems possible. It also makes this Tesla incredibly sharp and direct and means that, for the first few minutes of driving it you will turn the wheel, sorry, yoke, far more than necessary. Once you get used to it, however, it is fabulous, as long as you don’t think about what would happen if the software that’s the only thing connecting you to the wheels - rather than actual moving parts - failed. The steering makes the Cybertruck shrink around you to the point where you forget, at times, just how big it is. Combined with the low centre of gravity and the bank vault solidity of the chassis, it also makes it turn-in and handle like a much smaller sports car (and it has a turning circle that defies belief, one that’s sharper than some sedans). Speaking of sports cars, most of them won’t keep up with the Cybertruck if there’s someone brave in its driving seat. Indeed, you’d need a proper hypercar to match its constant, surging torque (no, I don’t believe it can really have 13,000-plus Newtons, but it’s a lot), and its purely outrageous, surging speed. Tesla has a habit of calculating torque at the wheels, not the motor(s) and gearing reductions increase torque markedly. Yes, I do believe it would do 0 to 100km/h in three seconds, maybe slightly less, but I’m also equally sure it’s not a great idea to try (I'm also very grateful I didn't experience the problems with the throttle sticking open on some examples that recently saw every Cybertruck recalled). The problem is that 3.0-tonne weight figure, and all that mass. It feels beyond weird to move something this big, that fast, and it quickly makes you pause for a chilling thought about whether it’s all going to be able to stop again. It does, or it did for me, but boy, it puts the wind up you every time you try. Overall, though, it’s hard to overstate just how surprisingly good, and yes, at times even fun, the Cybertruck is to drive. Oh, and for the trainspotters out there, claimed efficiency is 22.4kWh per 100km, but we actually saw 27kWh during our two days of test drives. Our second Cybertruck was also making some distinctly weird metallic clanking noises from underneath, particularly when we switched between forward and reverse. It might be worth waiting for the second generation of this thing before buying one, but that won’t be an issue for Australian fans, anyway. As far as its off-road abilities, we managed to find a bit of beach in a car park and pointed the Cybertruck at it. After an initial fearful moment of being sure we were going to sink, we just put the foot down and let all that torque power us out of trouble. It felt effortless. Driving Toyota is positioning hydrogen as a potential future fuel source that is – crucially – sustainable and eco-friendly, which means the Mirai has a lot riding on its shoulders. And behind the wheel the new-generation Mirai drives just fine. The Mirai uses hydrogen to create electricity to drive its wheels, which means it feels very much like a battery electric car from the driver’s seat. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but keep in mind Toyota’s potentially revolutionary drivetrain won’t feel so revolutionary behind the wheel. Like all EVs, torque is available instantaneously for a quick and peppy pick-up off the line, but the Mirai won’t demolish the 0-100km/h sprint like the Porsche Taycan or Telsa Model S. Designed for efficiency rather than pace, the Mirai will accelerate briskly to 60km/h, but takes 9.2s to hit 100km/h – not that we got to test the latter in the extremely short drive loop in Melbourne’s West. Despite tipping the scales at over 1900kg, the Mirai’s ride is soft, supple and extremely compliant, almost to a fault. Steering feels light and effortless, while 19-inch wheels do nothing to upset the serene and comfortable interior ambience – it’s seriously good enough to be a Lexus. What’s so striking about driving the Mirai though, is how much it could appeal to motorists who travel long distances (as is often the case in Australia) and can’t afford the sometimes 10 hours required to recharge a battery electric vehicle. Refuelling the Mirai is as quick and easy as a conventional petrol or diesel car. Australia just needs more hydrogen stations to make use of the technology and open up electrification to those that may not have considered it (or deemed it unfeasible for their needs) in the past. Safety Some unkind experts have referred to the Cybertruck as a “death machine” and a “guideless missile”, pointing out that putting a stainless steel body on top of a big old battery is inherently problematic. As is the lack of crumple zones. Making all this very pointy metal move as fast as a McLaren supercar has also raised some questions about sanity. Then there was the recent recall of every Cybertruck built so far: "Cybertruck owners reported that their vehicles were at risk of getting stuck driving at full speed due to a loose accelerator pedal. Video showed the pedal itself falling off and the piece beneath wedging itself into the car’s interior, which would force the vehicle into maximum acceleration. One driver was able to save himself from a crash by holding down the brake pedal." Elon Musk, has claimed, however, that the Cybertruck, is “much safer per mile” than its competitors. Australia has different pedestrian safety regulations to the US and while some have posited that the Cybertruck will pass, pointing to the fact that you can buy an even bigger Ram truck here, others are not so sure. The Tesla Cybertruck does have six airbags, and a suite of active safety features as part of its 'Autopilot' system, but it does not yet have 'Full Self Driving'. Safety The 2021 Toyota Mirai has not been crash tested in Australia or in Europe, and as such does not carry an assessment rating from ANCAP or Euro NCAP. However, Toyota has fitted its hydrogen-powered sedan with its 'Safety Sense' suite, which includes autonomous emergency braking (AEB) with pedestrian and cyclist detection, adaptive cruise control, lane-keep assist, lane departure warning, automatic high beam and traffic sign recognition. Other features include blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, seven airbags, surround-view monitor and rear-seat ISOFIX anchorage points. The Mirai’s hydrogen tanks are also stronger than before thanks to a new multi-layer construction. Interested in a Tesla Cybertruck? Insurance Quote