Daily Debrief: Is Honda's fuel cell design the answer to $4.50 a gallon gas?

Earlier this week, Honda began building the first hydrogen fuel cell-powered car for commercial use. In green-tech circles, this has become quite the big deal--not the least reason being that the auto's only emission is water. Oh, and did I mention that the car will get more than 70 miles per hour?

But even though the Honda FCX Clarity, which runs on hydrogen and electricity, is a study in how high tech is changing car design, it's not the only approach. Earlier, I spoke with CNET's Brian Cooley about what the future holds.

[William Crow]

How much does it cost per miles for the hydrogen?

[mikeglaze]

In a previous article that i saw. The car actually gets around 76 miles per kilogram of Hydrogen (2.2 lbs of hydrogen) which is equivalent to 76 miles per gallon of gas. If i recall it said the car could get 250+ miles per fill up, so it can hold roughly 3.5~4 kilograms of hydrogen.

[HhoAdvocate]

Hydrogen is Free except for the price of water! It's in it you know.

[Seaspray0]

Charles Cooper, I am confused in your statement "get more than 70 miles per hour." Should this be "gets 70 miles per gallon" or "goes 70 miles per hour"? If it is 70 per gallon, then would that be equivalent to a gallon of gasoline's worth of hydrogen or a gallon of hydrogen? You are intent on making me play that video to get more answers, aren't you?

[HhoAdvocate]

70 Miles per gallon -- but no hydrogen stations around! And no body wants to talk about the pollution hydrogen factories will produce. But worse yet is the onboard hydrogen tank! Hydrogen is three times more explosive than gasoline...and if that's not an accident waiting to happen, I don't know what is!

[nguidry]

You can go a distance of 70 miles utilizing 1 hour worth of charge time from the battery.

[TheManInDboX]

Hmm, Just curious why it is that the 1991 honda civic HF (crx) got then 51-57mpg, and by todays new standard, 40-47mpg... And yet the new hybrid only gets 40-45mpg??? Further if the "Clarity" costs what i remember reading last year, at 1 million dollars to buy... isnt it still cheaper to own a 250,000 dollar ferrari, or better 20 or so honda civics?


Lets face it gas is still the cheapest, best way to get around...
Hybrids cost to much, even at 25g, when you can get the same with just the 4 banger, and loose 8mpg, and retain 10grand in cost diffrence.. 10 grand is alot of gas...
Flex fuel, is just stupid... yea! lets make food costs go through the roof so we can run our cars on corn... Brilliant!!!
Full electric... Hmm, unless you charge your car with sun or wind power, guess what? Chances are your "Clean" car is being charged by coal or natural gas...


What we need to do, is make the government, drop the requirements to reach a certain saftey requirement, so that car makers can make cars lighter... Lighter cars require less HP and thus burn less gas... I think it should be up to the consumer on what they would rather, not the big wigs who dont care if it costs 5bucks a gallon... Chances are they have stock in it anyway!

[nguidry]

I believe in 1994 is when they required all cars to have the 5star crash test standard. Before that, cars like the civic and the Geo Metro were very light weight since they didn't have to meet the standard. Now that they do, the added safety to the new vehicles adds more weight to the vehicle lowering the fuel economy.

[plcard]

I don't' know about the Honda, but I can tell you about today's cars.

Last year I bought a Toyota Camry. The reason was that magic number on the window ... 34 MPH hwy. Like an idiot, I believed it.

To make a long story short, I wasn't getting anywhere near that on my car. I returned it to the dealer and found a couple times it was a computer problem. Once that was fixed, I still couldn't get near the 34. I was stuck between 26 and 28 MPG hwy. I returned to the dealer only to be told the EPA had re-evaluated all cars and lowered the expected mileage. Sure enough, when I went out on the lot and looked at the Camry's, all of them had changed to 26 - 28 hwy. AMAZING! Now why didn't they do that in the first place and I wouldn't be driving this 4 banger when I had a car getting 24-26 on the highway. That might answer your question about the difference between 1991 and today.

[make_or_break]

In case you haven't noticed, cars have been getting bigger, heavier and more powerful. My late '80s Civic got great gas mileage (it wasn't a HF), but was more than a little pokey given its tepid HP rating. And it's a munchkin when parked next to the current Civic. Moreover, modern cars more often than not are straddled with all sorts of power-hungry subsystems that car owners 20 yrs ago could barely dream of, let alone own.

[08Rabbit]

hahah im trying to avoid the video too.
Coop, fix the article!

[tikiman123]

it's really cool that there is a car that runs on hydrogen.....too bad it takes massive amounts of electricity to separate water into oxygen and hydrogen. i guess they can use the coal plants to make the hydrogen, but then it is not any better than using gasoline.

[TheManInDboX]

We can always burn gas to do this... oh wait... sorry thinking like a politician again... LOL

[sameole]

Progress is never one giant step it is an incremental step. I believe it has potential to be fuel of the future, there is so much potential in hydrogen.

[tikiman123]

it's really cool that there is a car that runs on hydrogen.....too bad it takes massive amounts of electricity to separate water into oxygen and hydrogen. i guess they can use the coal plants to make the hydrogen, but then it is not any better than using gasoline.

[derekf23]

you dont need massive amount of alectricity to separate hydro and o2 from water. all you need is 9 volt battery....we did this in high school 15 years ago..

[fasteddie22]

They will use gasoline to make hydrogen most likely, stupid idea.

[furbelly]

Brian Cooley for President!!
(I just LOVE him)

[ReasonableGuy]

Hydrogen is a fuel, NOT an energy source.

There are no large pools of hydrogen waiting to be pumped out of the ground. Most commercial hydrogen is made from natural gas or other hydrocarbon feedstocks. Unless the hydrogen comes from a clean source it is no better than oil as far as carbon dioxide emissions are concerned.

IF we produce hydrogen by hydrolysis of water, (using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen), it will be "green" only if the electricity source is green (wind, solar, geothermal, wave). But even then, it may more energy efficient to use the electricity to directly charge a battery, rather than create hydrogen.

Whether someone will come up with an energy sensible method of creating hydrogen is yet to be seen. For us to bet all on a hydrogen future is foolish until we know we have a viable way to cleanly and efficiently make hydrogen.

[HassanDavis]

Experimentation and exploration into potentially cleaner forms of energy storage/usage is never foolish (certainly not when viewed from the perspective of the yet unborn).

What is foolish is our utterly complete reliance on current sources which are both self injurious AND depletable.

Indeed, Hydrogen fuel is but a battery. But, betting on us to find clean ways of charging that battery may well push us to do so. In this catch-22, someone has to be forward-thinking enough to make the first move.

Kudos to Honda and the other companies and organizations that dare push the envelop in this arena.

[derekf23]

hydrogen is one of the most abondant element on earth....it can be found in water( H2O). Remember your chemistry....the sea is the largest body of water on earth....you only need 9 volt to separate hydogen and o2 from water. we did this in high school chemistry 20 years ago.

[Dalmatian28]

This sounds like industry is trying to figure out what comes first: "chicken or the egg'! You don't need a hydrogen fueling station if you don't have a cars that use it... and also you can't have a hydrogen cars if you don't have hydrogen station to fill it! I think that this is perfect time to get government involved and make them create infrastructure for hydrogen stations as quick as possible! If the private sector (oil companies and etc.) get their hands on it....it will still be 5+ $ per gallon and we didn't accomplish much when it comes bringing prices down! Again.... most important part is: Keep the private sector out and make all station government owned! Government can charge just enough to brake even, they don't need to make profit!

[HhoAdvocate]

Sounds like taxes would hit an all time high and we would be better off paying $5 or $7 a gallon for gas!

[rieskame]

Wow... You assume the gov is competent to do anything on time and with a budget. And just what we need is more taxes. Always better to let the private sector come up with breakthroughs vs the bureaucratic gov with 8 middle managers effectively killing any progress in any goal.

[iff2mastamatt]

Wow. You really are retarded. Let me tell you a little tid-bit. Ready? Want to know why gas is $13 a gallon in Europe? The government tax is $10 for each gallon. Want to know why gas is $4 a gallon in the USA? You can thank the bidders on Wall Street who bid up the price of each barrel of oil. So now you think the government will manage anything else better? Come on.

[HhoAdvocate]

Hho is really our fastest and easiest way out of high fuel prices immediately. Hho is hydrogen on demand...no hydrogen fuel tanks needed onboard a vehicle. That's because a hydrogen/oxygen extractor unit operates with a very small amount of water with an electrolizer submerged, and about 2 volts of DC electricity from a car battery/alternator charging the electrolizer cell. "Michael Faraday's laws of electrolysis" were discovered in 1834, so this is nothing new! Check him out in Wikipedia with the quoted keyword phrase above. Many people are already experiencing 40 and 50 percent fuel savings by running an hho extractor in their own vehicles. The patents are expired for these, so its an open source product. The Lang brothers have spent 23 years of their lives experimenting with this old technology, and figured out how to adapt it to a vehicle whether it's a gasoline or a diesel burner...as long as it's an internal combustion engine...it will work on it! The hho extractor generates hydrogen/oxygen in perfect mixture with no need to adjust fuel/air mixture, because it's already appropriately mixed by nature...hiding inside of water. And one quart of water has enough hydrogen in it to last for hundreds of miles. A conversion is cheap and people can build an electrolizer at home in their garage in a weekend for under a hundred bucks in parts available in every city. The Lang brothers have formed their own corporation and Ozzie Freedom is president. He has written a manual for a do-it-yourself hydrogen extractor to be built at home. It's the first and foremost manual of it's kind with over 200 pages. He has more photographs, diagrams, and drawings to explain any particular point than anybody else out there. Plus, the Lang brothers have developed a unique electrolizer design made of stainless steel wire instead of plates, and this design runs on lower voltage and produces a higher amount of hho. His website is at RunWater4Gas.com

[fasteddie22]

you must be kidding, will never work, a total scam

[derekf23]

i truely beleive that hydrogen is the fuel of the future. Its cheap and easy to produce, and its one of the most abondant element on earth. you dont have to pump it out under the earth. Just look and see the body of water on earth... yes the sea contains hydrogen. vast amount of hydrogen and its unlimeted and reusesable. just imagine a car thats emits nothing but water. and gues what that water will go back to the reservoir of the car and back to the hydrogen/oxygen extractor to produce another rounds of fuel to the running car......too good to be true......i'm 38 years old. before i get old and die I want to see a car that runs with water....its very much possible....theres only one problem...no oil company and no government in the world doesnt want to loose billions of dollars of profit from oil consumption...honda is beginning to produce hydrogen fuel cars which is a big breakthrough. I hope all of the car companies will start their own production too. soon airplane engine, boat engines and electric generators that runs with hydrogen all this engines only emits water and recycle back to the recervoir. Tell me That I'm crasy but its all possible.its only depends on our government and the people to make it happen. well good luck on that but i already seen whats in the future if we want it to happen.

[jrm125]

Doesn't it require more energy to extract hydrogen than we're getting out of it. Hydrogen is just an energy conveyance, not a fuel, so aren't we actually just wasting energy in the process?

[HhoAdvocate]

Depends on what your hydrogen source actually is: Not so if you are pulling it out of water through electrolysis. It takes less than 2 volts of battery power to produce enough hydrogen onboard a car to save half the fuel you are buying at the pump any day you drive up to it and buy from it. It's an on-demand system: Meaning it only produces when the ignition key is turned on and it stops producing with you shut off the key. So what's the advantage? No dangerous hydrogen tank on board the car. And yes...water will come out the tail pipe of an internal combustion engine when it has a hydrogen generator installed to it. It's all explained at RunWater4Gas.com

[mduke33]

Hydrogen fuel cells will remain to expensive as the catalyst used to separate the hydrogen from its electrons is platinum. It sounds like the one post on here is talking about burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine which could be possible. As far as where hydrogen comes from and untapped source is coal gasification power plants. Coal Gasification power plants produce very little emissions by being able to remove almost all of the carbon dioxide and other harmful emissions from the plant emissions. Hydrogen could be collected just as easily as the CO2 is. The biggest problem is that there is no way to distribute the hydrogen efficiently. The current infrastructure is set up to deliver liquids but gases are extremely different. To get enough gaseous hydrogen into a car to go 300 miles or more you need a pressure vessel capable of 50,000 PSI or more. On a weight scale the tank and gas won't weigh to much but the volume needed is vast.

[HhoAdvocate]

Yes sir, I am talking about burning hydro in an internal combustion engine: And it solves half our fuel problem today...not five years down the road, or even ten. Drilling for more oil is great for the future and so is hydrogen cars if it's true that the plants producing the hydro does not produce more pollution than what they are worth. And then again...you have to think about how much it will cost to produce it, and what that will cause the end price to the actual consumer will be. Half the problem (on an individual basis) can be beat by extracting hydro from water on board a person's car or truck as he drives. It's called electrolysis and it takes less energy to produce than what you get out of it. And when I say half the problem can be beat right away...I mean as soon as a person installs a hydrogen generator (if you want to call it that) onto his internal combustion engine: He starts saving 50% or more on gasoline. Because the generator supplements hydro to the gasoline engine. It's conservation and it's free energy -- except for the cost of buying the parts to put one together and the time involved in doing so. Otherwise it's free energy!

[djFLWB]

Why the talk about Hydrogen? So you trade one "fuel model" for another where somebody is making money off supplying it.

Haven't you heard of the Air Car? It has a motor powered by compressed air. That's right air. Readily available. Just need to compress it into an onboard storage bottle.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/new_cars/4251491.html
http://zeropollutionmotors.us/

Much cheaper than a Honda fuel cell with a smaller carbon footprint.

The Japanese have also recently announced an H2O car although that is in the very early stages of development.

[EverAPessimist]

Response to TheManinDboX, who wrote: Quote -- "What we need to do, is make the government, drop the requirements to reach a certain saftey requirement, so that car makers can make cars lighter... Lighter cars require less HP and thus burn less gas... I think it should be up to the consumer on what they would rather, not the big wigs who dont care if it costs 5bucks a gallon..."

We have SUVs and Hummers because that segment of the auto industry magically missed the government's auto standards years ago, when passenger cars were forced to meet certain mileage standards. Given no gov. regulations, the auto builders respond to what the population wants -- big, powerful machines. A few points:
1. It was only when the gasoline got so expensive that folks demanded better economy...but as soon as the "gasoline shortage" of the 1970s was over, they all went right back to their big gas-guzzling cars.
2. Until folks stop buying all of those vehicles, they will continue to be built.
3. If the notion that auto companies could build them lighter and more economical by their own initiative, we'd already have this problem solved.
4. If we suddenly had $2 gasoline again, folks would go right back to their Hummers and massive SUVs and would be more than happy to do so.

[BenFlavoredCandy]

There are a lot of myths running around on these posts, I feel I should clarify some. 1. This 'plentiful' hydrogen is not in easily accessible forms. It will most likely come from natural gas (not water!) as that is currently the least energy-intensive source. In a life cycle perspective, hydrogen cars have less emissions than gasoline cars. 2. An electric fleet have the huge possibility to be less carbon intensive than a fleet of gasoline cars. Reducing point-source emissions and utilizing renewable energy for grid power is much easier than cutting tailpipe emissions. 3. Ethanol from cellulosic sources (such as switchgrass or corn stover, a waste product) could play an important role in the future only if the technology develops in a cost-effective manner. Corn ethanol would have large negative effects on the economies of poorer nations. 4. Technology exists to make cars many times more efficient than they are today. For proof, look at the techniques used by the X-prize 100mpg competitors.

[JJ2000426]

Clearly ALL major auto makers believe that hydrogen fuel cell cars are the future since they have all spent big money on it and Honda now has commercial production available.

Broad usage of fuel cell vehicles and fuel cell powered mobile electronics rely on two PGM metals, platinum and palladium, which are in short supply and will be more so in the near future. There are two great North America based mining companies who can benefit greatly.

Read these articles for a detailed analysis:
http://seekingalpha.com/author/mark-anthony

I am currently driving a Prius and I wish I can drive a hydrogen fuel cell car very soon!

[1gabbyn]

It costs 60¢ a gallon to drive the FCX. It takes 5 minutes to recharge/refuel the fuel cells. You can drive 170 miles between fill ups, if my memory serves me correctly. This car requires practically no maintenance, just a yearly check up on the battery. :-) I've seen pictures of their refueling stations. The refueling stations can be set up in your garage (eventually) and heat your home at the same time. The FCX is safe, fun and comfortable to drive.

Instead of subsidizing Big Oil, we should be subsidizing the infrastructure of this technology. There's mention of "natural gas" needed to build these small refueling stations. I believe that natural gas is vaporized steam, super-energized by a certain radio frequency. Since this car is 2nd or 3rd generation already, this latest model was greatly improved with a bigger battery.

The price to manufacture these cars will come down once they're mass-produced. They're quite lightweight, compared to the typical automobile of today. Reducing the weight with a small electric engine, battery and 4 gallon fuel tank, allowed more room inside the sedan. Thus, these cars should be considerably cheaper to buy, once they are massed produced. Right now, the factory in Irvine, CA produces only one car a month.

Right now, a lightweight car for $2,500 is in production in India, designed by a Frenchman who wants to share the technology with every country to produce their own--and put people back to work--instead of exporting the cars. This particular car runs on air compression. Most of us have an air compressor in our garage and simply requires an adaptor handle and recharges quicker than the FCX. This car is very bare bones, no frills, just cheap transportation.

[iff2mastamatt]

HYDROGEN IS THE WORST IDEA EVER! Why does honda think that $50,000 car is economical? Anyone with that much money to blow on a car wouldn't care if gas was $20 a gallon. First of all, the only real "galvinizing factor" for Hydrogen power is because it is environmentally friendly. This BS (as a nice way of saying it). Global Warming to begin with is fallacious theory (please, don't get me started on GW). Anyways, I have studied with a Chem major and he did a research study on hydrogen fuel-cell at Princeton University, and he said it wouldn't make sense to use a resource that is not as easlity accessible as oil and requiring so much time and energy to get a very littl amount.
The Problem: Hydrogen Power sounds like a great idea on paper. Sounds great on the news too.
The Reality: Won't happen unless you prefer to live green and backrupt
The Best solution: Hybrids + Fuel efficiency. America's best bet is to CONSERVE OIL.

[HhoAdvocate]

It's time to start drilling in America...drill now...and pay less! It's congress who is preventing this. Sign the petition to drill here, drill now, and pay less. Send Congress a message along with over one million other signers that America needs to loosen up it's tough no-drill policy. It's pretty bad when China plans to drill just 50 miles off the coast of Florida and we cannot do so. Congress is the problem. There is more oil in the Rocky Mountains alone than what Saudi Arabia has all together. And Alaska has enough oil to supply America for 200 years without help from foreign dictators. And Brazil just found billions of barrels of oil off their own coast, yet America has been prevented by lawmakers in Congress for over 25 years from even exploring off of our coasts. I wouldn't mind looking off of a coastal area and seeing an oil rig in the horrizon, but I doubt if that would be a high possibility since we cannot see beyond 13 miles or so. Go here and sign "drill here, drill now, and pay less".
http://www.americansolutions.com/

[empryean]

Right, GM and Ford made electric cars from 1996 to 2001 then shredded them in a metal grinder. Today, the electric car can and should be mass manufactured. An electric car, the size of a Malibu, can go 200 miles on a charge and go 75 mph. Yes, the charge takes 6 to 7 hours, but so many Americans can fit within that framework that millions of gas cars could be taken off the highways...not 5 or ten years from now, but right now. The demand is so swollen it fixing to explode like a water ballon and when somone like Tesla Motors starts cranking them out, they will make billions. The electric car's time is now.