Curious sales

I figure FCV sales have peaked anyway. Most people are not taken in by the sales slogan "FCVs are the next step beyond BEVs" and are realizing that paying 3 times more for H2 than electrons is not worth the "convenience" of having to go to the H2 station every week.
 
March sales of new FCVs are up so near return to normal. Q1 2019 sales are less than Q1 2018 and more than Q1 2017.
 
Hot month for Mirai sales. 202 new which means the first 4 months of this year is higher than first 4 months of any previous year.
Used Mirai are also selling very well, median price has dropped (about $2k) to just below $19k but there are now 46 on the market down from a high of 59 about a month ago. 34 used Mirai sold in April.
 
Curious piece of trivia. Early April a Mirai for sale by a used dealer for about $16.5k was de-listed. So I figured sold. Three weeks later the car shows up at a Toyota dealer for about $25.5k, and about 100 miles more. $9,000 mark-up! But I have noticed that cars sold by Toyota dealers are significantly higher price than used car lots.
 
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I have a request for anyone who owns a Mirai or has access to one. There is an expiry date printed on the inside of the fuel door. It is illegal to re-fuel the car after this date. How many years from date of manufacture is this?
 
I did get an answer to my previous question about fuel cell expiration and now I can't remember for sure, but I think 18 years from date of manufacture of the tank itself, and for Murai some of those tanks were made 2 years before being installed in the car.
 
I have continued to follow used Mirai sales and my previous observation about the most expensive ones sell much more than the cheaper ones was especially true in the last couple of months. The cheapest are $14k but most sold were over $22k. Now in fairness, I don't actually know what these cars were sold for, only the prices I am quoting were the asking price before they were not listed anymore. 6 out of 7 sales this month were between 20,688 and 28,888, and one was $16,988.

Another thing puzzles me, sales in 2016 up to July were 30 to 52 per month, but August was 371 and ever since most months over 100. What caused the huge jump in August? I assumed that was when Toyota introduced their fantastic leasing program, just under $400/mth, no down payment, free H2 fuel for 3 years. So I expected to see a flood of lease returns to show up this August. But in fact the rate of used Mirai appearing on the market is unchanged from previous months and now stands at 20 vehicles for this month. Either there is going to be a huge dump in the next 2 weeks, or more likely my assumption is wrong. Does anybody know when the lease deal with free fuel started? Does anybody know why August 2016 had the largest monthly sales ever?
 
So far 1089 new Mirai have been sold this year up to end of July. For the same time period 2017 was 708 and 2018 was 743.
 
To answer one of my previous questions, I found out that the free H2 fuel for 3 years has been in effect from the very beginning. All Mirai sold to date have had this free fuel promotion.

Now August has passed and the mystery of 371 sales in August 2016 not producing the huge bump in used Mirai I expected to see on the market remains a puzzle. There were 38 used cars added and average for previous months was about 21. Only 17 used Mirai sold in August, which brings the total for sale I am tracking to an all time high of 68 units. Since I have been following this (February), 128 have been sold.
 
gooki said:
I wonder how many have been purchased by universities for research/study.
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I figured the CARB board members and their supporters bought/leased them. With about 40 stations costing ~$2m each in subsidies, California is in for ~$80m to cover about 4-5,000 fuel cell vehicles. Yes, some of them are academics. Buying commercial fuel cell vehicles for a university would not be terribly useful for any studies. Hopefully, California will get a clue and close the program down perhaps after the Japanese olympics.

Hummm, maybe new trade policies will solve the problem. After all, there are no USA based fuel cell vehicles to speak of.

Bob Wilson
 
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I meant the used ones. Must be a cheap way to get a fully functional fuel cell stack.

Or Nicola Motors have been snapping them up for their trucks.
 
I don't believe universities or Nikola are buying used Mirai. 97% of the sales are mid to high priced and a university that just wanted the fuel stack for educational purposes would buy the cheapest on the market.

There has been an uptick in sales lately. New sales/leases seem to be up and used is 3x what is was 2 months ago. I don't understand where all these buyers are suddenly coming from but somehow as more used appear on the market, more get sold. 30 used sold so far this month and about 90 cars total for sale.

Toyota must be loosing their shirt on these. Listed for $60k and selling to dealers for less than $45k. Off lease Mirai currently selling for average of $18k. Lease at $300/mth for 3 years is $10,800 so Toyota gets maximum of $28,800 each. And somebody has to pay for the 3 year free fuel, maybe split between California tax payer, oil company and Toyota? Anyhow Toyota seems determined to get these cars out on the roads. Of course, I forgot about the ZEV credits, probably makes the whole venture profitable.

Do you suppose the people who buy the used Mirai and then pay significant fuel premium are ultimately happy with their choice? I guess less than half the price of a used Tesla goes a long way to justify the high price of fuel. Or maybe a better comparison is with used Bolt which at the same price range as used Mirai would seem to me to be far more attractive.
 
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Roy_H said:
Do you suppose the people who buy the used Mirai and then pay significant fuel premium are ultimately happy with their choice?
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Is anyone actually buying the Mirai? I thought it was available as a lease only. It's hard to believe anyone would keep one of these cars past when the free fuel ran out. I mean, there's one in every crowd, so perhaps there are a few individuals out there willing to pay $15-16 per kg for compressed hydrogen fuel. But surely that has to be an extremely low percentage of Mirai owners.

As far as I know, no taxpayer money is being used to directly subsidize the cost of the "free" fuel. So far as I know, that's being paid for by Toyota, altho I can easily believe that Big Oil might be funding Toyota "under the table", as part of their strategy of using the "hydrogen economy" hoax to slow or derail the real EV revolution, which is plug-in EVs. Unfortunately real taxpayer dollars are going to subsidize the building of those insanely expensive (on a per-car basis) H2 fueling stations, and -- as you noted -- taxpayer dollars are also going to ZEV credits, which is throwing money down a rathole. It's just a boondoggle which helps nobody but Big Oil.
:(
 
Blockbuster used Mirai sales in October! 60 sold, vs 31 for September and maximum of 21 for any previous month. Hard to explain the huge increase, but people are now buying the mid and lower priced offerings whereas in the past mostly the high priced sold. Average price for October was $17.6k and current average asking price is $15.5k.
 
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