• Southern California shoppers might get up to 70% off hydrogen fuel-cell Mirai
• Bay Area customers can get discounts too
• Sales have slowed, and the price of hydrogen has soared

If you live in Southern California, you can buy a new Toyota for about the cost of the cheapest subcompact car—with $15,000 of free fuel.

That car is the 2024 Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell sedan. CarsDirect reports that Toyota is offering discounts of up to 70% off the base XLE grade, which is normally priced at $51,285 (including destination). That brings the price down to $17,005 with destination, or within a few hundred dollars of a gasoline Nissan Versa sedan. The Mirai Limited, which normally retails for $68,210 after destination, now costs just $25,210 with this discount.

Like other fuel-cell cars, the Mirai is only available in California because other states lack sufficient fueling infrastructure. But these deals only apply to residents in the southern portion of the state. Discounts in Northern California are lower, but still significant—at $25,000 off the XLE and $33,000 off the Limited. Toyota is also, for now, offering lease incentives of up to $7,500.

Mirai customers also get $15,000 of free fuel over up to six years, a perk Toyota was already offering. In XLE trim, the Mirai returns 72 miles per kilogram of hydrogen, according to the automaker, so this credit still amounts to more than 30,000 free miles even at the peak price of $34.55/kg California experienced last October.

That was only the latest in a line of supply disruptions affecting consumer-level fuel-cell vehicles in recent years—as an infrastructure for commercial trucks and industry builds out. An unreliable hydrogen supply has likely contributed to sluggish sales of the Mirai. Toyota reports that in the U.S. it delivered just 499 of the fuel-cell sedans in 2024, down from 2,737 in 2023.

2024 Toyota Mirai

The Mirai isn’t a bad car. While the first generation felt akin to a Prius, the current generation feels like a luxury car, with ride quality, handling, and low noise, vibration, and harshness levels comparable to the gasoline and hydrid sedans from Toyota’s upmarket Lexus brand.

While Toyota claims the current-generation Mirai effectively cleans the air as you drive—what the automaker calls “minus emissions”—hydrogen needs to be cleanly produced and readily available for that to happen. Studies earlier this decade suggested that hydrogen would become greener and even cost-competitive with gasoline by the end of the decade. But the price of hydrogen has instead soared.