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NNadir

(38,628 posts)
Wed May 27, 2026, 08:08 PM Wednesday

Three Californians File a 5.7 Billion Dollar RICO Lawsuit Against Toyota's "Hydrogen Bomb."

$5.7 Billion RICO Lawsuit Says Toyota Ran A Hydrogen Crime Family

Toyota faces a RICO lawsuit alleging organized fraud and hydrogen safety failures, with claims that its Mirai sedans posed serious risks.

...Plaintiffs claim Toyota hid major hydrogen safety defects in the Mirai. 75 cars were reportedly destroyed by contaminated hydrogen.
A new class action lawsuit filed in California against Toyota is demanding an extraordinary $5.7 billion in damages, accusing the company of running a criminal operation to hide serious safety flaws in its Mirai hydrogen sedan. The complaint also levels a striking charge of “organized fraud” against the automaker...

...Originally written to chase down mob bosses, the RICO Act is now being used to accuse Toyota of running what can be best described as a white-collar version of organized crime...

The Allegations

It claims that the automaker, along with its financing arm and several California dealerships, coordinated to market and finance vehicles that technicians privately described as “ticking hydrogen bombs...”

...According to the complaint, the company and its hydrogen partners concealed multiple faults in the Mirai, including a risk of hydrogen leaking near hot engine components, which could pose an explosion hazard. Additionally, the lawsuit contends the Mirai can experience sudden power loss, acceleration, and braking failures.

Beyond technical issues, it criticizes Toyota Motor Credit Corporation for what it calls “aggressive financial collection tactics,” alongside frustrations over California’s sparse and unreliable hydrogen refueling infrastructure...


And here I am having heard that "hydrogen," overwhelmingly made by the steam reformation of fossil fuels is going to save the world.

Should I be disappointed? Well, probably not. Afterall, I'm an old guy and I've been reading all about the magic "hydrogen economy" for half a century now, but still wouldn't know where to buy a "hydrogen car." In fact I've never even seen a hydrogen car other than in fairly transparent fossil fuel greenwashing ads run here as posts.

If, by the way, if you search Google News for "hydrogen explosion" - I've done this - you will hear all about the real hydrogen bomb, the one made with tritium generated by lithium and neutrons.

This "hydrogen bomb" is lawyerly rhetoric.
5 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Three Californians File a 5.7 Billion Dollar RICO Lawsuit Against Toyota's "Hydrogen Bomb." (Original Post) NNadir Wednesday OP
Japanese enid602 Wednesday #1
...and, should they collect on the suit... NNadir Wednesday #2
A 5.7 Billion Dollar RICO suit... That sounds like the sort of lawsuit our beloved President would launch OKIsItJustMe Thursday #3
I am not a legal scholar and cannot comment on the merits of their suit. NNadir Thursday #4
a few things Caribbeans Thursday #5

NNadir

(38,628 posts)
2. ...and, should they collect on the suit...
Wed May 27, 2026, 10:25 PM
Wednesday

...the people of Nanjing should sue for collected money.

War is atrocity ratcheting, always was, still is, and always will be.

I'm an atheist, but I wish there could be a special hell for people who start wars.

OKIsItJustMe

(22,227 posts)
3. A 5.7 Billion Dollar RICO suit... That sounds like the sort of lawsuit our beloved President would launch
Thu May 28, 2026, 12:17 AM
Thursday

Do they claim they to have been injured by Toyota?

NNadir

(38,628 posts)
4. I am not a legal scholar and cannot comment on the merits of their suit.
Thu May 28, 2026, 07:53 AM
Thursday

It strikes me as a product liability suit, whereby they allege false advertising of an unsafe product.

I can't say I'm impressed by the plaintiffs. After all they were dumb enough to involve themselves in this fossil fuel marketing greenwashing game. By contrast, I understand hydrogen, how dirty it is when manufactured and how much potential danger is involved given its poor physical properties.

The big lie by which this junk is marketed is that hydrogen is made on a meaningful scale by electrolysis using so called "renewable energy." That's is an obviously fraudulent claim but is one we see here all the time, usually accompanied with slick videos produced by some dishonest marketing team.

Again, I have no admiration for the plaintiffs, nor for the fact that their cars have become huge paperweights because hydrogen is a risky material, has a record of causing explosions and thus an infrastructure that can, as California's has, collapse quickly.

They should have done some homework. After all we've had 50 years of "hydrogen economy" bullshit and to the extent it exists it's a subpriduct for the agricultural industry responsible for the release of 900 million tons of carbon dioxide each year. Have a nice day.

Caribbeans

(1,325 posts)
5. a few things
Thu May 28, 2026, 03:42 PM
Thursday

Toyota introduced the Mirai in 2014. It pissed off anyone that thought (and had INVESTED IN) carrying around a 3000 pound battery was the future for every single car in the US. Some actually threatened physical harm to anything Toyota, like the stations, which were called "True Zero" and not owned by Toyota. Toyota says they build cars, not hydrogen stations.

When the car was introduced, H2 was somewhere between $10-15 per Kilogram, which was high but not ridiculous and everyone was saying the cost would come down. Today's price: $30.00 + PER KG. - the HIGHEST PRICE IN THE WORLD! I have asked and searched for WHY this is for years and have not found any answers.

Toyota (and Hyundai with the NEXO) forced anyone that wanted to buy a H2 car to prove that they lived near a hydrogen station (in writing). They likely had some agreements that were made at the time that were not honored as the whole thing fell apart, hopefully the lawsuit will force these out into the public.

Then it might have worked but TPTB decided that H2 MUST NOT WORK in the biggest market for cars in the US. It was easy to rig the "Failure". Make the fuel unaffordable, make sure everyone knew of the problems and wait.

Now all the H2 haters can say "We tried H2 in Calif but it didn't work". H2 costs around $5.00 per Kg in China right now which the US cannot allow (a "full tank" on the Mirai would cost around $30.00 which is less than petrol.)

The Hydrogen Basher and former TESLA Investor from CleanTechnica - Michael Barnard- claims to be a part of this suit. If you want to see what he's about this is worth reading (He's an extremely nasty piece of work):

Exposing Anti-Hydrogen Media Bias – Part 1: Michael Barnard’s Background and Journalism Style
https://fuelcellsworks.com/2025/10/27/h2/exposing-anti-hydrogen-media-bias-part-1-michael-barnard-s-background-and-journalism-style

You can still find H2 in Europe for as low as €10 Kg (at least for now) because Europe wants H2 to be available (at least some do) but at $30 Kg H2 doesn't make sense for anything.

You can see these stations here (might have to click "inhalte nachladin" ) https://h2.live/en/ . By the way, when it became clear to Toyota that the US didn't want their H2 car, they packed up their hydrogen division and went to Europe where they can get closer to a fair deal.

You can also see that entirely new stations WOULD NOT have to be built, which is one of the haters main points. You can see the address on the site then go to google earth and choose "Street view" and see the actual stations. Many have been added to existing stations which the haters DID NOT LIKE at all.

map of existing stations in California (there are less stations now than when the Mirai went on sale, they just closed Harris Ranch, the only way to get to the Bay Area from SO. Cal. )
https://h2fcp.org/stationmap

BMW VP explains how it SHOULD have been and how it will likely progress for the future

BMW VP Dr. Juergen Guldner: Hydrogen Stations "Not Rocket Science" - our uptimes & reliability #'s way higher than CA



BMW's H2 car will be introduced around 2028

One last thing: When the Mirai was introduced, very few could have imagined that a 114 kW h2 fuel cell stack would be sold and part of a car, the stack alone was >$100,000+ and simply not usually available. The bashers like to say that "It's been 30+ years with no big improvements" but that is simply wrong. The cost alone has come down an incredible amount. You could buy a used Mirai (if you had a way to fill it) and park it on a street and power a whole neighborhood (20-30 homes) if you wanted. You can also imagine that this is also not wanted by TPTB.

Southern Chinese Megacity Guangzhou Spearheads Use of Hydrogen Vehicles
# of public hydrogen stations in Calif in 2016: around 50
# of public hydrogen stations in China in 2016: 0
# of public hydrogen stations in China in 2026: Over 500

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