engine size,, boot space,, handling,, quality of suspension, and,, yes, number of cupholders. A car dealer acquaintance of ours tells us that they are one of the first things people remark on, ask about or play with when they come to look at a car. People buy cars on the basis of cupholders. Nearly all car advertisements note them prominently in the text. Some cars,, like the newest model of the Dodge Caravan,, came with as many as seventeen cupholders. Seventeen! The largest Caravan holds seven passengers. You don’t have to be a nuclear physicist, or even wide awake,, to work out that that is 2.43 cupholders per passenger. Why,, you may reasonably wonder,, would each passenger in a vehicle need 2.43 cupholders? Good question. Americans,, it is true,, consume positively staggering volumes of fluids. One of our local petrol stations,, I am told,, sells a flavoured confection called a Slurpee in containers up to 60 ounces in size. That is three English pints of sickly stuff that turns your tongue blue. But even if every member
5 minutes,, and on a full tank of hydrogen the car gets an estimated 312 mile range. The electric motor powering the Mirari outputs 151 hp and 247 lb ft of torque. Even though this is one comparison,, the differences are evident. Barring the price difference,, the Toyota Mirai beats out the Volkswagen E Golf in range, fill time,, and power. The only major distinguishing factor is the price. Electric vehicles have been in production for a better part of the last decade,, and it should come as no surprise that they will be cheaper than new fuel cell powered vehicles. Consumers have grown accustom to using gas stations as the means to fill their car up. The difference between charging an EV,, which might take up to 14 hours depending on the voltage being used, or five minutes that it takes to refill a FCV cannot be understated. In today’s fast paced environment,, the need to charge a car every day or two can simply become an inconvenience. The negatives of EVs do not stop from a time standpoint, but also from an efficiency