Sam D’Anna had barely signed the purchase agreement for his new $75,000 Toyota Mirai hydrogen car, a gunmetal gray sedan, on a scorching July day in 2022. He realized almost immediately that something was very wrong.
The fuel gauge showed just a tiny amount of hydrogen in the vehicle’s tank, and someone on the sales staff at Roseville Toyota, where he had purchased it, ran to tell him that the nearest fueling station, in Citrus Heights, was offline and therefore unavailable, D’Anna said.
The next-closest one was in West Sacramento, nearly 25 miles away, and the indicator said the vehicle could only go 22 miles…