Toyota workers assemble the Mirai, which runs off hydrogen, at the automaker's Motomachi plant in Japan on Tuesday.    Credit:Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

Toyota workers assemble the Mirai, which runs off hydrogen, at the automaker’s Motomachi plant in Japan on Tuesday.
Credit:Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

Toyota this week officially rolled out what it’s betting will mark “a turning point” in automotive history — a sleek, affordable, eco-friendly “future” car that can drive for 300 miles, takes less than five minutes to refuel and comes with three years of free gas.

It’s everything critics of gas-guzzling car culture could love. And the biggest name in electric cars hates it.

Toyota’s Mirai (meaning “future” in Japanese) will be one of the first mass-market cars to run on hydrogen fuel cells, which convert compressed hydrogen gas to electricity, leaving water vapor as the only exhaust. As opposed to getting plugged in overnight, the sedan will need only about three minutes to get back to full charge, a huge boon for convincing the world’s drivers to convert to a cleaner ride.

But the green technology has found a surprisingly forceful critic in Elon Musk, the electric-car pioneer and founder […]

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