264: 10 Years of Fuel Cell Ownership
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Concept
plug-in hybrids
A plug-in hybrid is like a hybrid, but you can charge it by plugging it in. That means you can often drive some distance on electricity alone before the gas engine kicks in.
Concept
effectively electric vehicles
They mean it drives like an electric car because it uses an electric motor. But instead of charging a battery from a plug, it makes electricity using hydrogen.
Term
dark interior
Interior color affects cabin heat soak, especially in hot climates like Southern California. A darker interior can absorb more solar energy, making the car feel hotter when parked in the sun.
Term
six months, no payments
They’re saying Toyota offered a break where they didn’t have to make car payments for six months. It’s basically temporary payment help during a tough time.
Term
EV
EV stands for electric vehicle, meaning the car is powered by a battery and electric motor rather than a hydrogen fuel cell. The speaker is comparing the economics and practicality of an EV versus a hydrogen car during times when hydrogen stations were unreliable.
Concept
hydrogen outage
A hydrogen outage means the hydrogen pumps aren’t working or aren’t available. That can leave hydrogen car owners stranded or waiting a lot longer than usual.
Term
gap insurance
Gap insurance helps if your car gets totaled and the insurance payout doesn’t cover what you still owe on the loan. It can prevent you from being stuck paying the remaining loan balance.
Term
rat damage
Rats can get into a parked car looking for warmth and chew on things. That can break wires and lead to expensive repairs, even if the car otherwise runs fine.
Term
wiring harness
A wiring harness is like the car’s wiring “bundle” that connects all the electronics. If animals chew it, the car can act weird or stop working because important electrical connections get damaged.
Term
hydrogen fuel
Hydrogen fuel is the “fuel” that a hydrogen car uses to make electricity. The car doesn’t burn it like gas—it's used inside the car to produce power, and you typically get water out.
Concept
fuel cells
A fuel cell EV makes electricity using hydrogen. Instead of charging a battery from a plug, it uses hydrogen to power the car.
Term
nozzle
In hydrogen fueling, the nozzle is the high-pressure connector that mates to the vehicle’s inlet and controls when fuel delivery starts. The transcript highlights a safety/locking step: the lever must be squeezed so the nozzle locks before hydrogen begins flowing.
Term
high pressure hydrogen
High pressure hydrogen is hydrogen stored and dispensed at very high pressures, requiring specialized fueling hardware and strict connection procedures. The speaker’s experience shows why: once delivery starts, any imperfect connection can lead to a rapid disconnect.
Concept
secondary release in the trunk
If the normal button for the fuel cap doesn’t work, there’s usually a backup way to release it. Here, the backup release is located in the trunk.
Concept
pump decides pressure is complete / tank is full
The gas pump watches the pressure and decides when the tank is full. So you don’t always control the exact stop point yourself.
Concept
H2
H2 is just the symbol for hydrogen. At a fueling station, it marks the area where you refuel with hydrogen.
Term
EV charger
An EV charger is the station that gives electricity to your electric car. Some chargers are faster than others, so charging time can vary a lot.
Term
app that you could look at
They’re using an app to check if the station is working before they drive there. That helps avoid wasting a trip.
Term
how many kilograms do they have left
Some stations show how much hydrogen is left. That way you can guess if it’ll still be available when you get there.
Term
hydrogen pumps
These are the machines that actually dispense hydrogen into the car. If they’re not working, you can’t refuel.
Term
seat heaters
Seat heaters are the controls that warm your seat. They’re especially nice in winter, and this person is saying the newer car doesn’t offer the same rear-seat heating.
Concept
hydrogen stations
Hydrogen cars need hydrogen at special stations. If there aren’t many stations, or if they’re sometimes out of service, it can be hard to fuel up when you need to.
Concept
reliable
Reliable means the station actually works when you go there. For hydrogen cars, that consistency matters a lot for everyday commuting.
Concept
infrastructure
Infrastructure is the system around the car—like making and delivering hydrogen and having stations that work. Without that network, even a good hydrogen car can be inconvenient.
Concept
station shut down
When a hydrogen station closes, it can break your normal routine for refueling. Then you have to travel farther or hope another station has hydrogen.
Concept
shopping for a hydrogen vehicle
They’re saying buying a hydrogen car is about more than horsepower or range. You also have to think about where you can refuel and what it costs.
Concept
$5,000 checks for two cars
They got a set amount of rebate money, but only for a limited number of cars. The lesson is to confirm how many vehicles the incentive covers before you commit.
LIVE
This is the What Car EV podcast for Thursday, April 2nd, 2026, episode 264, 10 years of
fuel cell ownership.
What on earth have you got us in line for here, Ed?
I don't know.
This is a little different, but I think I'm very interested in how this conversation will
go.
This is the special guest we were promising.
We'll get to that in a second, but let me ask you a question, Phil.
We've been talking a lot about fuel prices lately.
And of course, we live in California, the home of some of the highest fuel prices in
the US generally.
So how would you feel?
So right now, just today, I saw the national average for gasoline is now over $4, and the
national average for diesel is $5.55.
But how would you feel about paying $12 a gallon?
Sign me up.
Anyway, we'll get to that in a little bit.
Well, I'm Phil Royal.
I am one of the co-hosts here who the topic that we're about to talk about, I mentioned
this last week, week before, whatever it was, the topic that we're about to cover today,
I would have been on the opposite side of from where I am right now, somewhere in the
last like four years, I have swapped sides.
And I don't really, I guess I know why, but it's interesting to me.
Where was I in my introduction?
I'm me.
And I point people to youtube.com slash the walk car slash at the walk car to see our faces
or you can listen to us on audio on any podcast player and then you can help support the podcast
in the blog at the walk car.com slash store where it's not just t-shirts that have our
logo.
It's also, there's also a shirt that applies to today's episode there.
And you'll be able to figure out which one in a minute at Sanchez.
I was the voice at the top of the recording been doing this.
I'm just going to leave it at 10 plus years.
This is we're right around five years podcasting.
So and many more to come, hopefully, but without further ado, I would like to let our special
guests introduce himself and then we'll jump into the topic of the day.
Andrew.
All right.
Thank you.
No, it's probably been at least 10 years since I've seen you in person.
It's really good to reconnect with you here over the your podcast.
My name is Andrew Fisher and I have been driving hydrogen powered vehicles for just
over 10 years.
Is that possible?
We'll get into that.
Yeah.
So, yeah, to give a little background to Andrew, I mean, predominantly we're an EV related
podcast.
Preferably, we kind of cover, you know, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, so forth.
We do cover fuel cells, but again, it's very peripheral to our main coverage.
But when I saw your story on Facebook that you've been driving a fuel cell or you've
had a fuel cell car in your household for over a decade, I was like, we got to talk
to this guy because I got to hear this story.
So yeah, if you could start out kind of what got you started and kind of where we are today.
It is a long and winding path for sure.
But my understanding is that hydrogen cars, at least the one that I drive is Toyota Mirai,
which is Japanese for the future.
The Mirai cars are effectively electric vehicles.
They just get powered in a different way.
You don't have to plug it into the wall.
But my story, I think, actually goes as far back as 2004, when I first heard about some
car that had this regenerative braking capability.
It had an electric engine and a gas engine, right?
So of course, everybody knows that was a Toyota Prius, so ran out and bought a second gen
Prius when they were still pretty brand new and so a lot of people would, you know, stop
menstruate, go, oh, what's that?
What's that?
And then, of course, they became ubiquitous.
I paid that car off after five years.
I drove that car for 12 years.
I had over 235,000 miles on that car.
And then yeah, one day going to work, I just, you know, had a flat tire, well, not a big
deal, right?
But the wife was really worried and she said, I think it's time that you had a new car.
I said, well, you know, I love the Prius.
I'm going to go over 300,000 miles, right?
But at the time, I had never heard of the Toyota Mirai.
It just wasn't a thing.
And so she's like, oh, test drive a Beamer, you know, test drive this, that, whatever.
My brother mentioned, hey, there's this car and Toyota is practically giving it away and
they cover your fuel cost and, you know, you get free towing and you get free maintenance,
you get free everything, you know, even back then, they would give you many multiple days
of free rental cars.
Like if you were going to drive somewhere, go up to the mountains, go to the desert,
someplace where there were no charging stations, you know, you could take advantage of that.
So, you know, sure enough, I call Toyota and I said, this can't be real.
They go, oh no, yeah, we cover the fuel, we cover everything.
I was like, okay.
And they said, yeah, there's about a six-month wait list.
I was like, well, okay.
But apparently, you know, they looked at me and they said, you know, loyal Toyota driver
for at that point, already over a decade.
And, you know, I think we were mutually aware that that car had some different maintenance
on it, the Prius.
So, actually get to surprise my wife, it was really fun.
We went out of town, Valentine's Day weekend, that's how I remembered the date when this
all started.
A friend's wedding was up in San Francisco, you know, flew up there.
She had to work on the holiday.
So, we flew back like the night of the wedding instead of the next day.
And she went to, you know, she went to work and then I went to Toyota and I signed a bunch
of papers, drove a brand new Marai home, put it in the garage and, you know, didn't say
anything right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was that in 2016, that was the first model year that they were offered.
And so, there were only 300 of them made that year.
So, you know, little did I know I was going to also be showered with gifts, you know,
little die cast model cars, I still, I'm still proud of the Mirage Trailblazer jacket, right,
that they gave me and everything.
So, yeah, no, she came home, was totally surprised.
She's such a never driven car with under 100 miles on it, you know, and, you know, I just
started driving the thing and about a month later, ironically, the Prius, you know, had
lost its place in the garage, had a parked right in front of the house, driving this
brand new hydrogen car and she calls me and she says, you got to come home.
You got to come home.
Somebody hit your car and I'm like, immediately, I'm thinking, oh, not the new car.
Oh, wait, I'm driving the new car.
Oh, they hit the Prius.
Yeah, whatever.
Yeah, sure.
So, 12-year-old Prius is totaled, the Mirai, I drove it for the three years, you know,
no problems, no issues, and, you know, occasionally, if something weird went wrong, it was all covered
under the maintenance and the fuel was covered, technically, you had about a $5,000 fuel allowance
and that was more than enough to get me through those three years.
At that point, you know, we went ahead and just started a second lease and that was the
second generation model.
It was basically the same as the first vehicle, you know, the body, everything was the same
and just a light interior, that first model year, those first 300 all had a dark interior
which wasn't the best for Southern California, I guess, you know, especially in the summertime,
it just, the car would really heat up.
So, basically the same car, light-colored interior, same deal, there was even a pretty
hefty state tax credit that you could apply for and get, so I did that, did everything
all over again in 2019, right, so got my tax credit, got my free fuel, all my maintenance
covered, all the days of rentals, you know, thankfully never once had to use the towing,
but you know, the free towing was included, you know, really, really great cars really
handled well, but around that time, that was, I'd say probably the first fuel crisis that
I experienced, the price of the hydrogen had been flat for those three years and it stayed
the same, but a lot more people were driving at that point and the fueling infrastructure
hadn't kept up, so I remember 2019, I've actually got some cute photos of my oldest son, you
know, he looks like he's driving, but we're just sitting there in this line of 12 deep
waiting to use the one fuel pump, right?
Like Costco.
Yeah, yeah, very much like that, yeah, yeah, so you said that was basically the same as
the first, but I saw, it looked like you had them until recently or I guess now, the most
recent, so you've actually had three Marais or?
Yes, yes, I'm on the third one now, yeah, yeah, there was just, you know, obviously things
being what they were 2020 came around, I'm sure it was different for everybody, that
did result in me getting laid off from the job I've been working, right, and took about
a year to find another job and Toyota was very cool about it, they even said, hey, six
months, no payments, like they just covered it for six months, you know, I was like, yeah,
thank you, good timing, right?
And then the company I work at now, I started working there and they kept trying to say,
let's all work in the office and then one person we get COVID, everybody go back and
work from home again, it came around to 2022, and we were right, you know, it's kind of
this crisis point, right, it was like, hey, we actually do want you back in the office
2022, and the fuel card had expired even though I hadn't used up all my credit, you know,
I'd said, hey, let me just extend the lease and they said, oh yeah, everything stays the
same, you're in California, you don't even need to sign any secondary contract, you just
make the same monthly payment, I said, I still get towing, I still get fuel, I still get
maintenance, oh yeah, yeah, everything stays the same.
Two weeks later, right, I go to fill up the car and, you know, the fuel card is rejected.
Yes, yes, I was like, wait a second here, you know, so, you know, I made some working
queries, made some calls, they're like, yeah, that's not accurate, no, there's no extension
on the fuel credit.
So, again, it was like April 2022, and they're saying, you've got to get back into the office,
you've got to be working, you know, we need you driving, and it didn't make sense to keep
paying for the car and, you know, have to pay for the fuel on top of that, so, you know,
just roll right into the next one, a few things were different though, they weren't
offering a three-year lease, they said, well, we'll do a purchase on a, you know, six years
with, and a no interest, all that, you know, they said you get not $5,000 of fuel credit,
but $15,000 of fuel credit, you know, everything else, the maintenance, all that was covered
for at least three years, I actually signed up and said, let me get an extended maintenance
that would take me through eight years, so the way I looked at it was, okay, six years
of payments, 2022, 2028, right, probably eight years worth of fuel, because that fuel price
has stayed steady from 2016 to 2022, and, you know, basically two years of just free driving,
no car payment, no fuel payment, right, so very excited in 2022 to get the new model,
you know, it's completely redesigned interior, the handling is great, the handling on the
cars too, we're great too, it's the turning radius is unbelievable on these cars, so at
that point, you know, went back into the office, started driving, 2023, everything went, started
to go sideways, I noticed that the fuel, yeah, fuel price kind of doubled overnight, you
know, and you don't think about it when it's not, you know, you just take a fueling card
and you swipe it, you don't really kind of think about it, you know, you look, oh, that
number that used to say 75, now it says, you know, 125, I'm like, hmm, okay, and then there
was chatter on the Facebook channel, everything else, they said, oh, well, you know, the tax
rebates this and that, whatnot, very sorry, had to increase the price, temporary measure,
so on, as well, that temporary measure was temporary because about a month later, the
price increased again, so now I'm looking at almost triple, you know, what it used to
cost, and you know,
So, that 15,000 wasn't going to last as long as it was at first?
It wasn't, it wasn't, and you know, 2023, 2024, I'm watching because what was, you know,
like $13 a kilogram was now $36 a kilogram, so I know that's a little hard to compute,
but you know, I did some, some mental gymnastics and figured out, yeah, we're talking 11, almost
$12 a gallon equivalent, so you know, I said, okay, well, you know, if we got one year at
high prices, we need like a couple years of low prices to balance it out, the prices stayed
at $36 from 2023 until basically like January, February this year, it, you know, so it was
flat, then it spiked, and then it stayed at this higher number for three years, you know,
and so it's kind of like a game of chicken, you know, you're just kind of driving and
you're using your fuel card, and you know, again, I can do the math, you know, about
a year ago, maybe more than a year ago, I'm looking at it going, okay, you know, I've
got about a year left if these prices, if these absurdly high prices stay the same,
you know, and people are waiting to see, you know, maybe, you know, Toyota and maybe some
of the other manufacturers, you know, who do the similar thing, maybe they were gonna offer
you more credit or figure out, you know, some other kind of deal. Last year, they did contact
me and they said, you know, hey, we want to talk about maybe getting you out of a hydrogen car,
maybe getting you into something else. I said, okay, yeah, let's talk. So what they didn't
tell me over the phone, what they told me a person was that, you know, they still want the full
value of what I signed up for, but the trade-in value was based on Blue Book, right? So there
was about a $10,000, $12,000 gap there between what they wanted me to pay and what they wanted
to offset, you know, for a new car. I actually did test drive an EV, I forget exactly to make a
model of it, but they had an EV option. And, you know,
Was that BZ4X or?
It could be something like that. It wasn't quite a sedan, it wasn't quite an SUV,
somewhere in between. So, you know, I looked at that and they said, well, normally the payment
would be this and it's basically equivalent for what I've been paying every month for, you know,
about nine years at that point. Or, you know, when you do the trade-in and then they take the entire
rebate to pay off the trade-in, then the monthly payment would go up by about $300. So I've been
paying more than for my wife's big SUV every month to drive an EV, which should have just been like
apples to apples with the hydrogen car.
So then what's, I mean, I remember, I can't remember exactly what date this was, but there was
basically a region-wide hydrogen outage, like basically no hydrogen fueling stations effectively
in the state were like operational. I was wondering if that affected you at all and
kind of how you navigated that.
It was another moment of, I would say, perfect timing, right? So in February, I found that the
price actually did come down from 36 to 26 at what is now kind of my one reliable station.
The station that I used to wait in long lines for, that one's been shut down. The station
close to my house has been shut down for over five years. There was also, out in the riverside,
there was a city utility yard that had a bunch of different fuels and we used to be able to go
there and fuel up. At some point, that access was terminated, right? So the once it was like,
wait, I'm paying for this, but it's also cheaper than it has been for the last three years. Still
not cheap enough to make sense, right? So I was looking at the cost of renewal. The DMV renewal
was over $500 and it always has been for this car for some reason. Plus making the monthly
payments, plus price of fuel, everything, right? So I was like, okay, now is the moment. Now is
the moment where I do that thing. It says on the DMV renewal, PNO, 20 bucks, right? $20, right? So
that means it's off the street, means I don't drive it. And yeah, so I put the cover on it,
put it behind the gate and I looked on the Facebook, everybody's saying, I can't get fuel. No,
this one's down, this one's down. No one's letting them deliver the fuel, which seemed crazy to me,
right? But just as a thought experiment and your listeners can do this too, just ask Alexa,
what the price of hydrogen fuel is in California, then ask what it is in another state like Washington
State and you'll see there's a pretty big disparity going on right now.
So basically you have a two ton paperweight in your driveway?
I do, I do. And honestly, as of right now, I don't know which direction we're going to go,
right? So I've looked into everything at this point. I think I've kind of looked at an auto
trader and said, hey, if I just had a jalopy that just got me to working back, how much would that
cost? And crazily enough, you can buy from a private party and apparently you can auto trader will
let you do monthly payments. So I could have like a $50 monthly payment on another car,
drive that, fuel that of course, right now $6 a gallon, right in California. But
you know, I could do that if I could offset somehow by reducing the price on, you know, my
last two years of car payments here. So I thought I've been carrying gap insurance all
along. It wasn't gap insurance, it turns out it was like, it was that extended maintenance plan.
So there's supposedly there's a check coming to Toyota Financial, which could either reduce
the monthly or just maybe give me three months of no payments, you know, that would help.
I actually have a car dealer across the street. He doesn't deal in these cars as new cars, but
he did tell me, you know, he was, he gave me a generous offer to take the car off my hands. It
was still, it's not quite there again, in terms of like, how much I still owe versus how much he
could give me, but a fairer site better than doing like just a straight trade in, you know,
and I'm not looking to, you know, start over with another new vehicle or even a three-year-old
vehicle at this point. It's like, if I'm going to do something, if I'm going to drive something
else, I'd rather, you know, like I said, just get me to work them back. You know, the wife's got
her car, we still have her old car, which is older than my, well, it's almost as old as the
Prius that we no longer have, but you know, we put a few bucks in the back at the air conditioning
working. So that's kind of right now, my mode of transportation is a 20-year-old Jeep, but
you know, I think everyone else goes to the fuel pump with their car and they look at this,
you know, they look at the price and I go there and I fill up the Jeep, I'm like, oh, it's under
100. This is beautiful, you know. This is great. So outside of not being able to get hydrogen
and it costing a lot of money when you can. What was the ownership experience like? Was it,
like, I mean, is it just basically a Toyota? Like, I had a Corolla that I took to 317,000 miles
and it was doing great, you know. Is it that kind of experience or is it a little bit off?
It, I mean, it has been, and this is, this one is the longest I've owned any
Mirai, right? I'm up to, I'm pushed just past the four-year mark here on this one, but
really didn't have, like I said, any problems with the first two, haven't had any significant
problems with this one. The craziest thing, the only thing I'm worried about right now,
you know, you think you don't need insurance when you're parked behind a gate on your own property,
but when this car was new, I got up one Saturday morning, I had to get my son somewhere,
and turn the car on, and it basically, the screen said, do not drive car, you know. I was like,
well, what's going on? Turns out that the wiring harness on these cars is a delicacy to rats.
So if you park it outside in winter and a rat's looking for a warm place to hide,
they may hop up on your tire and they go from your tire to your engine. And when they're hiding in
the engine compartment, they may realize, hey, this wiring harness is pretty tasty. So I've lived
through that once already with this car. Insurance covered it, but that was a whole
different sort of maintenance. And in winter, we'd go out and spray all four tires. We'd like it
peppermint spray to keep the rats away. So I mean, the main, is the main reason you're not
driving it right now, just fuel costs, fuel availability, just what's keeping you from,
because it sounds like for the most part, you enjoyed the car itself, but
I have, I have, it feels like it feels like a concerted effort by whom I don't know,
but a concerted effort to get the hydrogen cars off the road in California.
That's how it feels to me. Again, I don't know whom might be behind that, right? I'm not here
to spin conspiracies on your show, but just this out of control field situation. One entity's
kind of had the monopoly ever since the day that the prices increased, others kind of got out of
the business of providing the fuel. Supposedly it was the cost of delivery, but if the gas prices
increased as it has, then there should be some equivalent movement of the hydrogen price. It's
just never kind of tracked along with any other metric that I can measure. There was sort of
glimmer of hope last fall when the state said, okay, as of July 1st, 2026, we're no longer going
to be charging state taxes on hydrogen fuel. So I thought, okay, I'm saved, right? Because now
all this increase has to be because of taxes. And then there was an op-ed. I'm sure it's still out
there that you could look it up, but somebody said, oh, hey, you know, now a hydrogen car driver will
go from, you know, without state taxes, they'll save about $7 every fill-up. So I'm like, okay,
so instead of like 150, 175, it might be 143, 168. And they even said that, you know, you can buy a
nice sandwich with $7. And I just kind of went, where? I'm like, yeah, you know, it's just, yeah,
it's still, it's still outrageous. Even like I said, even at the $26 a kilogram mark, you know,
that's that it eased off a little, but I'm looking at it like, oh, I just, it doesn't pencil out,
you know, need to come down another 10 bucks per kilogram for that to kind of make sense where I
could say, hey, now I'm, you know, equivalent to driving the wife's old car, which that one just
pushed 150K on it. But, you know, I just tried to keep that one running and, you know, keep that.
So it sounds like originally, there were a lot of kind of incentives and sweeteners to really
entice people to get into the Marae. And I'm sure you were like, hey, this is kind of a no-lose,
you know, how can, how could I lose, you know, it's like, I'm getting all these freebies and perks
and stuff. It was, yes. But, you know, kind of the reality, I guess mostly around just like the fuel
situation, what, I mean, what is your view of fuel cells now having had this, you know, nearly
decade-long experience with them? Are you disillusioned at all or are you still kind of hopeful
about it? Or are you kind of like, well, that was fun while it lasted. I'm not doing that again.
It's, there's a glimmer of hope, you know, I mean, like I said, it wasn't that I was saying, hey,
these insane prices will come back to normal. But when I was driving even back to Gen 1,
Marae, you know, they were saying, oh, you know, it's $13 to $16, but someday it'll be $4, right?
$4 a kilogram. Like if you could pay that now, you'd be paying about 20 bucks to go 300 miles,
you know, and everybody will be lining up to get one. Instead, you know, there's just,
you know, you go to the Toyota dealer, there's just a row of these cars that other people have
returned waiting for that uncertain future. There is also the possibility that, and I'm not necessarily
saying that I'm going to be the one to do this, but I know people have kind of set up their own
electrolyzer and set up their own, I don't know where you get the pump. It's a very specialized
kind of pump handle, but hydrogen is, it's one of the most plentiful things on earth. And,
you know, you can, you can make it with solar power just like you would electricity. So,
you know, the notion of having my own backyard, you know, fuel pump is very enticing.
And of course, the thought of having two little kids running around, you know, with
some kind of hydrogen tank in the yard, you know, maybe that's, that's not the smartest thing for
me, but I'm sure somebody else either has done it, isn't the act of doing it, or, you know,
they're going to, they're going to go down that path and find their way to free fuel. So.
So along those lines, I have a question about, this will sound really stupid. How do you,
how do you fill up? Because I did a while back in another life, whatever, I was doing
was doing something on CNG conversions on big trucks, and we went and filled one up. And it's
very different from fueling up like a regular class eight truck, because what we did, and there was
like compressed gas. Yeah. And like the driver had to like climb up and like turn on a couple knobs,
and then there was like a vent thing. And there was a whole process that goes to it. And granted,
that was a big, you know, class eight, class, whatever it was, almost class eight truck. Yeah.
So what's it like with, with a hydrogen car? Like, I mean, it's pretty straightforward to put gas in
a car. You, you know, you stick it in, you pull a lever and the same thing with electric, jam it in,
hit a button, or not even that. What's the hydrogen process like? It's a great question. And it's
something I wish they would have done like a five minute training on the day you drive off the lot,
because they worked hard to make it as similar to filling a gas car as possible. But what they
didn't explain, you know, in the, you know, my very first time going to the pump, you know,
is that, you know, you take that nozzle, and you find the valve, it looks like a Schrader valve on
a bicycle, right? And you just on a bike tire, and you put that on there, and then you're supposed
to squeeze the lever first, that actually locks the mechanism in place. So not knowing that my
very first time out, you know, I just put the pump on, and then I went and I, you know, put the credit
card in and whatever and hit the button. And then it immediately, it starts, starts to, excuse me,
it starts to fill up. So if you haven't locked, you know, the nozzle onto the car, as soon as that
high pressure hydrogen, you know, starts being delivered, the nozzle just goes flying off. So
yeah. So that, that was me. Yeah, the first time around is it landed on the ground. Oh,
you know, and then I went to do, I went to do the whole process again. And, you know, thankfully,
somebody, somebody who, you know, was driving before me happened to pull up it. Oh, no, you
got to put it on, you squeeze the lever and then feel it lock on there. Okay. Now you can tell it
you push the button on the, on the pump of what you want. And then it does everything else for you.
The other thing that when I was new, for whatever reason, that, that, that first,
first gen, that very, you know, first 300 off the line car, the little release button inside
the car for the fuel cap on that on my particular car was just stuck. And it was, you know, I felt
like I was like, you know, we weren't communicating. I was telling Toyota, Hey, I can't open the fuel
cap, right? And they sent the video, Oh, here's a button, you push this button. I'm like, I saw
the button, push the button, you know, still not working. Yeah. Yeah. Thankfully, the owner's manual
said that there's a secondary release in the, in the trunk. So I had to go find that and, you know,
pull that little thing and then that that worked. So over the years, you know, I've, I've helped a
lot of other people that the number one thing that, that you're not ready for when you go to
fuel the car the first time is just that that, that nozzle will freeze on you. They've improved
the technology quite a bit. But, you know, in the early days, it wasn't uncommon to wait a
couple minutes after you're done fueling for it for the ice to thaw just enough that you could
unstick it and pull it off, put it back, you know, on the, on the pump. So,
yeah, I saw them go through, like I said, a few iterations, there were, there were handles for a
while that had like a secondary cable suspended because I think too many people were doing what
I did and having them drop on the ground and, you know, probably break. So that was a thing for a
while, you know, and then, you know, people were taking little bottles of water, you know, so if
it was stuck, you know, just pour some water on it and make it fall out faster. That just, that made
it worse for the next person and the next person. So they kind of said, hey, cease and desist.
Um, you know, the most hilarious one to me, though, was that they didn't, in the early days,
have like a regular fuel stop button. Like I said, once you started, it was sort of automatic,
but it would continue till it decided, the pump decided, hey, the pressure is complete, the fuel
tank is full, you know, then it would stop the delivery. It would just blast hydrogen out into
the atmosphere. It would otherwise if it didn't, but the only stop button they had was a big red
emergency stop button. So, you know, if you hit that, then the whole thing was shut down, the whole
process was shut down till it technically come out and reset it. So, you know, they had to put
big signs, they do not push this button unless it's a real emergency, right? So, then finally,
they, you know, started even hiding those buttons kind of behind a clear acrylic so somebody would
have to like push that to the side and push the button or, you know, put the emergency stop like
20 yards away, like at the, you know, at the side of the yard somewhere. So, you had to walk over and
you had to be really deliberate about that. I'm not aware of any fueling emergencies,
you know. You know, even if you did have, let's say you were in a collision and somehow your
fuel tanks were to rupture, you know, it's not like gasoline that just spills out onto the asphalt,
it's, it's hydering gas, so it just goes out. Yeah, evaporates really quickly. Yeah. Yeah.
How long does it take for like three quarters of a tank?
Um, you're, you're in and out and like if three quarters of a tank, you're going to fill up in
about five minutes. And, you know, the freezing, like I said, has definitely been improved with
some of the newer nozzles you can usually get unstuck, you know, within, you know, 15 seconds
or so. You just, you know, may not work the first, second try, but you just, they have more of an
integral lock mechanism. So, you just kind of hold and you pull back and once it, once it pulls back,
you feel it release and the whole mechanism comes off. And, you know, if you were, if you were in
that situation, like in 2019, if it was car after car after car, you know, that third or fourth car
might start to really get stuck. But there's, there's now few enough drivers and just enough pumps. I
see where, you know, I show up and there's maybe like four pumps at a station. It's usually under a
branded gas station. They have a separate area where they've designated for the H2. So, I haven't
really had those stuck problems, haven't had to go around the corner to the other guy and try to
help him get unstuck in a while. So it's been, that part's been better.
Does it generally fuel at the same speed? This is also, I got tons of stupid questions.
The fuel basically, you go to like a gas station and, you know, it takes like five minutes to
fill a car, but then periodically you'll get a pump that just goes really slow. Or like you could
go to an EV station, it'll, an EV charger will charge at one speed, but then if somebody plugs
into the port on the other side, it starts splitting. Yeah, it splits the power. Is hydrogen like,
is it always the same? Or like, are some stations just like sticky or whatever slower than others?
It's pretty consistent. There was one of the, the one station that we had when I first started
that was close to my house, that was a single pump. And it was what, you know, the people on
Facebook referred to as, oh, that's an old Gen 1 technology or something, you know. And it seemed
like whenever you filled up there that it was really working hard and it could take not every
time, but sometimes it could take like a good 15 minutes for that station to pump out a full tank,
you know, which again, I didn't mind because it was, it was the one, one and only station I've
ever had that was, you know, close to home for me. So yeah, it's pretty consistent.
I gotta ask, I mean, with all, with all of these experiences, you know, the good bad and the ugly,
is it a matter of the fuel getting down to a reasonable price to have you
consider another fuel cell? Or are you kind of like, I'm done with my fuel cell adventures.
I'm going to look at a hybrid or an EV or just a regular gas car from here on out.
I'm definitely all options are on the table right now. You know, I could, I could go ahead,
pay the DMV and start driving to work tomorrow in my, you know, much younger car than the wife's
old car. You know, if the engine falls out of that old Jeep, that might be what we have to do.
You know, I'm tempted to see, you know, if there is a resale market in other states,
you know, and I've never tried to sell a car from, you know, from one state to another and
exactly how that would work and the delivery, I'm sure all that. But, you know, like I said,
if there's, if there's somebody out there who's in a state where you can get hydrogen, you know,
there's not many, I can tell you that. California has the highest concentration, but
it does, it does. But yeah, you know, if you've got, if you've got more than one pump close to,
you know, your, you know, your day to day commute. And, you know, if you're in another
state where you can get fuel at a reasonable price, you know, under, under 10 bucks a kilogram
would be a very reasonable price. So, you know, if anybody has that situation, you know, yeah,
give me a call. So there's one thing I will say too is just, you know, like I said, the stress of
going to the pump and looking at and go, oh, I paid this much for gas today, right?
There's, there's that, but it's the ubiquity of gas and you never really realize that till you
don't have it. And, and as you were alluding to earlier, and there's the, you know, kind of very
recently, there've been some real challenges getting fuel. It's sort of normal to say, okay,
I have to drive, you know, to the next city or the next city after that, because the stations are so
few and far between, but they've always had an app that you could look at it and you can see,
okay, this one's up, this one's down, you could nowadays, you can even see, okay, how many,
you know, kilograms do they have left that they can deliver before the station refuels,
right? So you have a good sense of what's available. But there's a station in orange,
which is kind of, you know, on my route to work. And, and so I, you know, the last two times that I
drove there to get fuel, I'd check the app, it would say the station was up, I'd get to the station,
station was not up, all four pumps were down. You know, and then it's like, oh, I think I can,
you know, you have to make that split decision, can I limp it to work and still get to another
station after work? Or, you know, do I have to divert and then, you know, drive down to like
Newport Beach or someplace and get fuel, you know, somewhere where there's like two or three
options, we're pretty confident that one of them will be at least running. So that's a,
that's a stress that, you know, I don't wish on anybody. There was one time, not proud of this,
but one time at that orange station, you know, they, the way they did it is they had existing
gas pumps and they would slot hydrogen pumps right in between, you know, so where there was
space for two cars, there's now fueling points for three cars. Some of the stations, they do that,
it's, it's really not ideal for anybody, but, you know, I was desperate that day and I was trying to
pull in and some guy in a little sports car, he was, he was backing into his spot, you know,
and if we could have just had a civil conversation, I could have said here, can you just go on that
side because, you know, my, you know, my, where I plug into this, this car is, is really towards
the very back, the numerized, it's very much towards the back of the vehicle. So I only had
kind of one position I could take to fuel and he could have fit easily on the other side, but,
you know, for me to be kind of headed in this way and he's headed in that way, there was no way for
us both to, to fuel. So, so we're sitting here like doing this and eventually, you know, he just
doesn't know what's going on. He backs up, you know, parks his car and I just start fueling and
he comes over you. So it's like, come on, common courtesy, man. Hey, I'm trying to, you know,
and, and, you know, I was like, Hey, I'm sorry, I'm stressed out, you know,
offered to buy him something at the, at the 7-Eleven there. And but, you know, he just said,
he just said, you know, just think about other people next time. And he drove off,
you know, of course, when he drives off, he can go, you know, just a few blocks to another station,
right? When I drive off, who knows when the next fueling opportunity is going to be, right?
So, yeah.
The vehicle turned into just a commuter car because of, or like, because of where you can get
hydrogen from that you, you have to almost be on a railed, like, enclosed area where you know
everything. It really, it really has. And I think that's the sad part is that we enjoyed,
you know, the first, you know, five, six years, it was like, you know, we'd, I'd go over the word,
but it's like, Hey, let's go here. Oh, let's take, let's take them a ride. Cool. You know,
those, those gen ones had seat heaters in the front and the back. For some reason,
the current one only has front seat heating as an option. But for some reason, that's a,
that's a feature of cars that people in my family really like is that, Oh, I can heat the seat.
You know, I think the problem was that the old ones, if you, if you, like, your kid
pushed the button to make the backseat heated and then got out of the car and then you might
drive for a week by yourself, not realizing that that backseat was still being heated. You know,
so that's probably what happened there. But yeah, it was just, you know, driving it for fun kind of
became the thing. And then like I said, you know, when you're, you know, when you're already fighting
traffic on a Monday morning and you know, you got to stop and get fuel, if you're going to even
make it all the way to work, you're like, it's rough, not knowing that you're going to get to
the station if there's going to be any fuel for you, you know. So it sounds like the fuel situation
went from, I wouldn't, I don't know if I'd say plentiful, because I mean, relative to gas stations,
there's a lot fewer hydrogen stations, but you at least had some consistency knowing where they were,
they were usually operational now to the point where there's only like a small handful and
you're just hoping they have fuel availability. I mean, would you say that's the case or?
It's funny. It's just popped into my head, you know, an old movie quote where the
the actor who's playing the president looks at, you know, a junior senator and kind of says,
you know, you're the future of the party and you always will be, you know,
you know, it's like that was an insult. Yeah, you know, it took a second, right? He just insulted
it, right? But, you know, the card literally like the name Mariah in Japanese is future. So,
you know, it still feels like, you know, it's still the, the ideal situation has always been
in the future. You know, someday in the future, if, you know, the, the stations become a little
more ubiquitous, a little more reliable, and if the fuel price will consistently be reasonable,
then, you know, it's a great option, you know, great option, great car, you know, like I said,
I had, you know, people want to blame Toyota and like, well, Toyota made a great car, you know,
they spent probably 20 years researching it before they even brought it to market.
It's just, yeah, they were, they were invested along with other hydrogen car manufacturers,
they were invested in, you know, the, the infrastructure and the supply, but
that station also is one that, you know, the first one that I used to fill up that,
and my last company, it was like two blocks from work, I was like, this is perfect.
That station shut down beginning of 2025, more or less permanently. So that was,
that was not only a fuel station, it not only delivered the hydrogen consistently a few bucks
cheaper than the one supplier who's still out there with the monopoly, but, you know, had a lot
of sort of advertising built in, you know, it said, you know, partnership, you know, future,
everything, you know, having a car where you can push the H2O button and have the exhaust,
which is basically water, it just, you know, feels like you're playing the old spy hunter
game or something, right? It's like, oh, the sky's on my tail. Deploy the water slick, right?
Anyway, well, I want to be mindful of the time, but I, I don't know if I have any other questions
unless you do, Phil. No, I mean, it seems like the last and only question that I'd have remaining
is just what advice would you give somebody to shopping for a hydrogen vehicle? And it seems
like know where the pump is. What it all boils down to. No, know where the pump is,
know exactly what you're getting into, you know, you know, I hate to say, you know, you do have
to really be aware of kind of what the inclusions are. You know, had I been able, had I been offered
the chance to do a third lease four years ago, you know, I would have, would have gotten out of that,
you know, right on time one year ago, right? And then probably at that point would have said,
okay, I'll take a break and, and look at doing something else. But, you know, the idea was
ownership at this point. And the idea was, you know, six years of car payments, eight years of fuel,
but it, you know, turned into eight years, turned into four years because of that,
that huge increase in the fuel price. The other thing that I got the first two times around was,
you know, the state had a rebate program, the program, I don't know, it's probably gone now.
The program was still going on when I got the third car, but what they didn't tell me was,
you only get two of these, right? So they, they looked at my application said, we've already,
we've already cut you to $5,000 checks for two cars, you don't get a third one. So,
of course, somebody told me after the fact, oh, you know, your wife can just buy the car and
then she can get the rebate. I'm like, well, would it have been useful a month ago? Yeah, thanks.
Well, Andrew, I'm really, I'm really thankful for you coming on and kind of sharing your story,
because I think for a lot of us, a lot of listeners, the idea of a fuel cell is still
kind of exotic and rare. And, you know, they've heard like, you know, third party accounts of it
and, you know, YouTube videos and whatnot. But for someone to have, you know, been committed to
for, for basically a decade and live with it and live through all the experiences, I mean,
I think I'm grateful we had this opportunity to talk with you about it.
Yeah, I'm all kinds of stubborn, you know. And I think Ed couldn't be happier that he picked an
EV versus... Right, right. Well, I mean, I've had my own ups and downs with it, but, you know, by and
large, you know, and thankfully it is a Tesla, I mean, not to, you know, rub it in, but, you know,
they have a very well-developed charging infrastructure. So, at least in California,
it's kind of a no sweat proposition, but... That's what it always boils down to. I mean,
before NACS was ubiquitous on all the EVs, that was the thing that we kept coming down to is you
basically get a Tesla because of the charging infrastructure. And it seems like that's the
Achilles heel of this vehicle is nothing like everything else is great. It's
once again the fueling infrastructure. That's what it all comes down to is the infrastructure.
So, you know, I guess I would say I guess they need to build that out more, but I don't really
know if that's going to happen at this point because when I said at the beginning like I flopped
sides, like you go back five years and I was, I, Ed was talking EVs and I was like, I was very
pro hydrogen and then as I learned more and then you learn about like MCS and the higher voltage
charging and all the stuff and you're like, oh man, you know, maybe hydrogen isn't the answer.
And I'm still like, I think that there are applications. I think there are good things.
I think if you need to be trucking next to a hydrogen pump, maybe it is worth it, you know,
especially if they're paying for your fuel, like there's all these things that add in together.
But it, my journey is definitely flopped. Very enthusiastic to, wow, there's special use cases
of this that could be applicable. It's unfortunate, but like you said, yeah. And
you know, if anybody wants to see where I end up, like I said, I don't know where to go from here.
You know, whether I make a deal with my neighbor, whether I start driving it again,
you know, whether I find some, you know, buyer from some far exotic location that happens to be
right next to a fuel pump. Like you said, my Instagram is A-F-I-S-H, that's A-Fish at 197.
So however this turns out, you guys can find out about it there.
And we'll have a link in the show notes, which are going to be down below in YouTube and somewhere
else for the audio listeners. So thank you very much for coming on. Absolutely.
Never driven a fuel cell. So it's like, I know I'm in theory. I don't know the realities of them.
Yeah, where you're located. But if I ever take it out, out again, you know, you can,
you can drive around in a parking lot. I did that once early on with a
colleague I used to work with. She was a Tesla driver. You know, I don't know.
This is probably an early model about eight years ago, I think that we did that. But
she just, she drove my first Mirai. She says, this turns really well, you know,
and I assumed her car does too. Maybe, maybe those gens didn't, but you know,
she was very impressed with just the maneuverability of the Mirai.
Cool. Thank you very much. Thanks again. Thanks for having me. It's been fun.
About this episode
Hydrogen fuel-cell ownership gets real with Andrew Fisher, who’s been driving a Toyota Mirai for 10+ years. The hosts compare early “free fuel and perks” incentives to today’s California reality: hydrogen prices that spiked dramatically, shrinking station availability, and occasional outages that leave drivers scrambling. Andrew shares practical fueling lessons (nozzle locking, occasional freezing), rat-damaged wiring issues, and the emotional toll of relying on a limited network. He’s still hopeful for niche use cases, but admits his future may be EV or hybrid.
Original notes
This week, we speak to someone who has lived the fuel cell lifestyle for 10 years and is now at a crossroads. From gen 1 to today, Andrew Fisher has parked three Toyota Mirais in his driveway. Revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly, Andrew recounts his ownership experience and offers his advice as to whether YOU should consider owning a fuel cell vehicle.
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SHOW NOTES
Follow Andrew Fisher on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afish197
This week’s hosts: Phil Royle and Edward A. Sanchez
Episode art courtesy Toyota
Music courtesy Twisterium at Pixabay
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