Although many automakers are betting on electric vehicles to battle climate change, Toyota is focusing on an alternative power source for its new car models. The Japanese company unveiled an updated version of the Mirai, a hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicle, on Friday.

The Mirai, a four-door sedan that was first displayed at the November 2014 Los Angeles Auto Show, has been redesigned to include "significantly greater range, improved driving performance, and an elegant, sporty design that offers increased passenger room and comfort," according to Toyota. The original model won the 2016 World Green Car of the Year Award, announced at the 2016 New York International Auto Show.

The new version, which is built on the same platform as Toyota's luxury Lexus brand's LS sedan and LC coupe, uses compressed hydrogen gas, which is combined in a fuel cell with oxygen from the atmosphere to produce electricity that is stored in a battery. The only byproduct is water; therefore, hydrogen vehicles don't emit greenhouses gases.

Toyota still has high hopes for hydrogen-powered vehicles even as it has continued to expand its electric vehicle fleet. In June, the company announced that its goal was to have electrified vehicles account for roughly half of sales in the next five years.

Although the automaker still trails companies like Tesla and Volkswagen in terms of electric vehicle production, it does see the technology as the wave of the future. Last year, Toyota sold 1,000 electric cars last year, according to LMC Automotive, compared to the 220,000 that Tesla traded.

The new Mirai has an overhauled fuel cell stack that can store more hydrogen, which means the vehicle can go 30% further than its previous incarnation, which had a range of 312 miles on a full battery. Toyota has not revealed how long the new Mirai will take to charge, but the previous model took just 3 to 5 minutes.

RELATED: BMW i Hydrogen Next Debuts At Frankfurt Motor Show

Toyota says the car will launch in late 2020 in Japan, then in North America and Europe. Since its original launch in 2014, Toyota has sold about 10,000 Mirai units worldwide. Last year, 1,700 Mirais were sold in the US, and as of January 2018, Mirai sales represent more than 80% of all hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in operation in the US.