A team at the Jemca’s Edgware workshop in north west London carried out the service on a Mirai leased by Greentomatocars and used as a private hire vehicle.

The routine service gave technicians the opportunity to put their specialist hydrogen fuel cell training into practice.

Peter Kelly, a master diagnostic technician, carried out the task. He said: “It was great to be able use all the theory we’d been taught, but in fact it was very much like a normal service. If anything, it felt like there was less work to do than usual, as there wasn’t a petrol or diesel engine to work on.”

The car was serviced within one hour, with the service revealing no problems and the vehicle being given a clean bill of health.

In addition to the usual checks on brakes, fluids and tyres, Mirai also calls for inspection of the fuel cell’s cooling system, hydrogen sensor and hydrogen fuel supply system. The only additional equipment required is a hydrogen leak detector and a diluted hydrogen spray, used to check the operation of the sensors.

Greentomatocars’ car has so far clocked up almost 10,000 miles of quiet, zero-emissions driving in and around London in its duties as a private hire vehicle.