Because you won’t get another $15k of free fuel. If you return and lease another or buy a used CPO you get the free $15k fuel card again.
That's all you got to say for that entire post. Hydrogen stations cover just half of California, but it is a big state. Hawaii has just one. For an entire state that is an island chain. I put about 18k miles on the Camry a year. At California prices, $15k would fuel my car for 9.6 years, and that is suppose to be for 3 years worth of hydrogen in a FCEV. Most of the hydrogen used in California is already the cheap kind from fossil fuels. While requiring some to be renewable adds to the price, bringing the cost down for renewable hydrogen won't lower the cost to transport and dispense it.
You are missing the point. That is a huge subsidy, in addition to the sales rebate and other incentives, for a car type that will supposedly catch on soon. With an MSRP of $58k, how people would have released another Mirai without another $15k worth of fuel also on the hood? It costs more to go a mile in it than an ICE Camry. In California, with some of the nations highest gasoline prices. The ES hybrid is over $15k less than the Mirai. So is the Rav4 Prime, and it gets much of the other incentives as the Mirai.
Mirai is better quality than the ES IMO. As stated before the Mirai is hand built, not mass produced like the ES or Tesla. The quality is evident. The $15k fuel card is to help with the higher prices of Hydrogen. Hydrogen prices are coming down and are expected to decrease more over the next few years. So is Toyota making money on this deal, no. But they probably are looking at it as way to get them on the road and make the public aware of them.
How are hydrogen prices going to come down? I know renewable sources are improving on price, but nobody talks about how the costs of transport and dispensing will decrease. Electricity is a big component of that cost, and it is expensive in California. A hydrogen station can't wait for periods of excess wind or solar to pump the gas.
