Honda produces first commercial hydrogen cars

Honda has begun the first commercial production ever of a hydrogen fuel cell-powered car.

The Japanese auto manufacturer ceremoniously launched production of its first hydrogen-powered vehicles on Sunday in Tochigi, Japan, and announced its first customers.

The four-door sedan, called the FCX Clarity, runs on electricity from a fuel cell battery that is powered by hydrogen fuel. Steam is the car's only byproduct. The car can get a combined (city and highway driving) fuel efficiency of about 72 miles per kg of H2 which, according to Honda's own estimates, is the equivalent of getting about 74 mpg on a gas-powered car. The car can be driven for about 280 miles before needing to be refueled.

Honda CEO Takeo Fukui drives some of the first people who will lease the Honda's FCX Clarity hydrogen car: actress Laura Harris (front passenger), Southland Industries CFO Jon Spallino (behind her), and film producer Ron Yerxa.

(Credit: Honda Motor)

While many automakers and researchers have prototypes and pilot projects using hydrogen fuel to power fuel cells on electric hybrids, or as a direct fuel source for vehicles with converted engines, there are no hydrogen-powered cars yet available for lease or purchase to the average consumer.

Honda claims it is the first company to have a hydrogen car certified for regular commercial use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"This is an important day in the history of fuel cell vehicle technology and a monumental step closer to the day when fuel cell cars will be part of the mainstream," John Mendel, executive vice president of American Honda, said in a statement.

The car was first introduced as a concept vehicle in 2005 at the Tokyo Motor Show.

Starting in July, Honda plans to offer the hydrogen-powered FCX Clarity through a lease program at three dealerships in California: Power Honda Costa Mesa, Honda of Santa Monica, and Scott Robinson Honda in Torrance. Honda also plans to make the cars available in Japan. The cars will be leased on a three-year basis for about $600 per month, according to Honda.

Among the first owners will be actor/author Jamie-Lee Curtis and her husband, filmmaker Christopher Guest of This is Spinal Tap fame.

Of course, hydrogen cars are not going to be widely driven anytime soon. Honda estimates it will lease only about 200 FCX Clarity vehicles over the next three years. In order to qualify for the lease program, would-be owners will have to meet a set of criteria that includes living within range of a hydrogen filling station, according to Honda. As part of the lease, Honda will provide any necessary service or maintenance on the vehicle.

The biggest obstacle in mass market appeal of hydrogen-powered vehicles vs. gas-electric hybrids is where owners could fill up their cars. While the U.S. Department of Energy has been a proponent of hydrogen fuel as an alternative energy for cars, there are currently few hydrogen-fuel filling stations the U.S.

There is also an ongoing debate as to whether hydrogen, a fuel that requires large amounts of electricity to be produced, is truly energy efficient when its entire food chain is taken into consideration.

[Maintech-54]

Now if only the 'green' people would allow small nuke reactors like used on submarines to be set up along the coast lines and used to 'crack' salt water into hydrogen we would be doing great. Low cost renewable fuel that would never run out. I guess the 'Big Oil' people would be upset with the billions they would lose. So, I guess this will never happen. They will make sure the 'green' people put possible nuclear issues as priority for their protests. Money before national security and needs for the average American.

[RompStar_420]

The most efficient way to split water is performed by plants, they figured this out 2.5 billion years ago. Study them, and you get the efficiency you need and want. Then the 2nd best way is by using natural gas or methane. Then "electroloysis", and a man who is dead, name Stan Meyers has figured out how to split hydrogen from pure water without the need for an electrolyte like lye to be added to the water. Do a search on the hydrogen cell, or Stan Meyers on youtube.com and see for you self.

[CNET editors' note: Inappropriate material deleted. Please see the rules on posting comments for more details.]

[Maintech-54]

As I stated above, some idiot would bash the nuke idea. Yeah, I know about Stan. And yes I know that plants are more efficient. Now, you got a better idea on how to crack millions of gallons of hydrogen from water without using any natural gas or methane because these are the things we seem to be running kinda short on. And using the nuke plants to split the hydrogen is "electrolysis" but without burning hydrocarbons for power. You talk of global warming like really believe in it but want to use hydrocarbons to make hydrogen???? And you speak of concentration camps? You need to be committed to a mental health institute. You seem to think you are a well educated genius but you sound like a misinformed idiot. Have a nice day.

[michael_o]

It's interesting that Bush visited Saudia Arabia twice to cow-tow and beg for oil output increases and was twice ignored. But the day after Obama said a substantial portion of the money flowing into Iraq will be diverted to flow into alternative energy development the kingdom announced their single largest pumping increase in history.

[honorable1]

Rompstar_420 - Global warming (caused my man) IS a joke and you are obviously brain washed to believe otherwise. It's a global power play to vastly redistribute wealth from 99.99999% of the world's people to the remaining .00001. (Yes, that's 5 significant digits - which leaves about 60,000 rich people controlling all money and resources of the other 5,999,940,000 serf-slaves, that includes you and me).

Not many people argue about global warming existing or not, they argue that to blame it on man is wrong. Get with the program.

Micheal_o - It's KOW-TOW (it's from chinese origin) not COW-tow...

[sanenazok]

I expect a bunch of Hollywood celebs will sign up for this. H-powered cars make sense, but only where there's plenty of cheap renewable power, like Iceland (geothermal). These could be good in California only if they had non-CO2 power sources, like neeewclear.

[k2dave]

RompStar_420 you talk about things like global warming and earth saving hydrogen production that Stan Meyers has discovered like you are a expect on all. And it is very sad you wish to hurt and kill those who disagree with you, even if what you say is true. The man made global warming issue is really impossible for one single person to determine, it just takes too many disciples and various experts contributing their work and trust in the work they are using is correct. Such a issue is just so darn political in nature and there is so much at stake that the chance of some of the data being skewed along the way to produce certain results is just too high to say for certain that it is occurring. You don't know if man made global warming is occurring, it really would be foolish to say that you know for sure it is...........................................

As for hydrogen, it's a interesting fuel, there are issues of production, storage, cold performance and I personally don't see it as our long term solution as a primary fuel but see it as a possibility. I do see battery plug in hybrids where the battery will run exclusively till nearly depleted then a secondary fuel (hydrogen fuel cell / gasoline / natural gas / whatever) would kick in when extended range is needed. This way daily commuting can be run off of battery power....................................

As where to get all the electricity to recharge all the batteries, at our point unfortunately I think the only option is to build coal power plants quickly, exempt them from the most stringent regulations, but some pollution controls will be needed, and build them so more stringent pollution controls can be added later but get them online quickly. And also build nuke plants, which will take longer

[newghas]

There is a way to accomplish a hydrogen infastructure. Go to a new website called newghas.com.

[ferretboy88]

If every single Democrat would sell their car and walk or ride a bike to work that would save the planet. How dare they continue to drive using gas. I hope we can switch from oil/gas soon so we can tell the Arab's to bite it.

[carlhage]

What about economics compared to a battery? There's no mention how much the fuel cell (would) cost Honda. The current price is (from DOE web site) about $4500/W, so a 200kW Telsa car battery would be $900,000, or a 40kW Prius Plug-in would be $180,000. The SECA fuel cell program hopes to bring this down to $400/kW, so the Prius plug-in capacity would be $16K-- higher than an already selling Li battery for $10K. Toyota, GM, etc. is waiting a few years for the new generation battery technology to become available, reducing the cost to $3K or so. While fuel cell cost could come down, battery cost will also, and batteries need to come down by 3X not 30X to replace gas. Also, battery vehicles are around 80% efficient, vs 30% for renewable H2. If fuel cells reach $1000/kW, then the best way to use them would be to replace a furnace and water-heater so you could sell "waste" electricity used in making building heat rather (fuel cells generate 50% waste heat), or could be used for summertime peak power. Fuel cells would be economical for this use, but still way off for cars.

[pyr8t]

I'll believe global warming when Al Gore lives the Amish lifestyle

[donhamma]

back in the mid 1970's an engineer who worked at union carbide drove an austin america across the country powered by hydrogen. The fuel cells were mounted on the roof for safety reasons and resembled welding tanks. The car was a hybrid electric consisting of 10 standard lead acid batteries mounted in the rear passenger area. the electric drive motor was mounted to the original transmission and drive train. The fuel cells were interesting in that they were charged with solid fuel where the oxygen and hydrogen was micro encapsulated for quick and safe recharging of the fuel cells. The fuel cells were activated by a catalyst to charge the interior batteries. It cruised at normal highway speed for a range of just under 500 miles before the fuel cells were recharged which took less than 15 minutes.

[BW1977]

well put