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.

[userNoname]

This is great news. Regarding the energy efficiency, whole "food chain" should be considered as the hydrogen is mere energy storing medium.

[robertbluejacket]

Is there any way that Al Gore's flatulence production could be used to fuel a car? If so, a fleet of cars could operate with Gore's one day output.

[JonFraudCarry]

Explain to me why this is a good thing. Hydrogen can only be created by using electricity which must come from some sort of power plant. And don't give me junk about solar.

[skrubol]

I don't believe this is true. Most if not all commercial hydrogen is produced by cracking (is that the right term? I'm no chemist,) methane. Its production does release greenhouse gasses even though its use does not.

[flemingho]

What about the water-fueled prototypes we've seen that produce Hydrogen on the fly? Why can't we see commercial cars based on these concepts? Is it collusion between automakers and "fuel-station-provider" companies?

[skrubol]

Because the water-fueled cars we've seen are scams. The only method of producing hydrogen from water while not consuming more energy than can possibly be obtained from that hydrogen is a system that consumes aluminum. In that case, the water wouldn't really be considered the fuel, the aluminum is.

[erik_redned]

From what I understand, to get enough hydrogen (from water) to power a car for 250 - 300 miles you would need a few hundred gallons of water.

[JonFraudCarry]

Water isn't fuel, you can't burn water, you can't produce hydrogen on the fly unless you burn some other fuel. And solar will not work, we do not get anywhere near enough solar energy to propel a car.

[mchinsky]

No. It's nothing but people wanting to sell you ebooks on the subject. Same stuff was around in the 70's and people forget chrysler built a $33,000 hydrogen powered dodge omni in 1979.

Gas stations are being crushed right now. They make only a few pennies a gallon, not a percent of selling price. Most of their profit was on supreme gas and mini-marts. If people buy less gas than they are only being hurt. They would love the prices to come down, but you would never hear left wing politicians tell you this.

[Hopalite]

First; this car is only one of the prototypes being tested. All of the above comments except for robertbluejacket are positive comments. Many other types of cars such as the water-fueled prototypes mentioned above could in the end become the car produced for the masses. The most important issue about the article is that cars that do not run on gasoline are being produced and tested. As for Al Gore ; he has been involved in looking for ways to save our planet from green house/ global warming danger before you were even bore. I'm 57 years old and have been an activist for the past 30 years. Even though everyone is entitled to his or her opinion; their opinion can be phrased in a more dignified manner.

[xcopy]

Hopalite,

Actually, part of the problem with acceptance and understanding new technology is that some people (i.e., robertbluejacket and his kind) are terminally ignorant. It doesn't matter how much information you give them, how many times they're shown a better way, how many times you explain the same simple concepts (such as testing alternatives), they're unable to grasp it or change.

Now, if we can only get hydrogen power to flush these people from the gene pool we'll be getting somewhere....

[atmuscarella]

As was already stated this is actually an Electric car that uses the hydrogen fuel cells to provide the electricity. The fact that it is an electric car is just as important as the fact that it uses hydrogen. Electric cars could be powered by hydrogen fuel cells, batteries, small highly efficient gas/diesel/propane/natural gas/bio fuel motors or some other storage/generating medium still to be developed.

[jd.gtown]

Interesting possibility. Love the innovation. Just wish all this wasn't so driven by hysteria produced by the media and politics about "global warming" (now known as "climate change" since global temps aren't rising right now). I'm neither a proponent or an opponent of hydrogen production since I know so little about its production. But even if commercial electricity is required, coal-fired power plants produce energy MUCH more cleanly than any car. But then again, the word "coal" has been so demonized that logic no longer applies. And then there's nuclear energy (another victim of media and political demonization) that even one of the founder's of Greenpeace has reversed his position on and is publicly supporting as one of the best answers. Demonization is a hard thing to overcome though since most people have let the media take the place of there own brains. Environmentalists need to get past their utopian ideals and realize that this planet's ecosystem is much more resilient than they believe. Human perfection is NOT required for it to thrive.

[kenmcall]

Very interested to see where this leads. Not sure, however, about the accuracy of jd.gtown's comment's re: global temperature, however. I'm not a scientist, but I can read, and unless I am somehow totally missing something here, NOAA's annual report on climate for 2007 seems to indicate that, yes indeed, both land and ocean temperatures are rising (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2007/ann/global.html). Is there another report that indicates the opposite somewhere? As for nuclear power, yes, there is a bit of fear mongering there, but at the same time, the media did not cause Chernobyl. The images of the children horribly disfigured by that disaster tend to stick in one's mind for a while.

[suyts]

Yes, there are several, after glimpsing through the link you provided, I found something very curious. While they reference RSS and UAH, their graphs in no way represent the numbers each provide. For a good graph of the numbers with both on the same page, go to http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/?s=rss%2C+uah
These are the most up to date that I've seen. Among many other things, this shows that we are now cooler than we were in 1980. This site will also provide links to the actual numbers so you can see for yourself. Good point about Chernobyl, however, the Soviets didn't use our standards that we presently have for our nukes.

[rocket325]

for hopalite; I too am encouraged by any viable alternative energy vehicles. We know ethanol
is not economically feasible. I went through the contrived gas shortage of the 70's, and watched US car makers try to catch up with Japan and build fuel efficient cars...they failed.How soon Americans forgot about the volatility of oil and wanted bigger and more powerful vehicles. Enter the SUV, 300 HP pickups, hemi's etc. Here we are playing catch up again, with hybrids and other alternate types. I disagree about Al Gore; he is an opportunist, charlatan and an misinformed alarmist. By the way, before you question my experience or dignity, I will be 57 in December.

[bruceslog]

This is a good thing in 2 major ways...
1) It can eliminate our need for Oil... Huge improvement here !
2) It is much cleaner and healthier for the environment. Again a huge improvement !
I hear the arguments about the cost and impact of producing hydrogen. And I agree it that such a cost exists right now. I'm hoping that as hydrogen comes into it's own, that ways are found to drastically reduce, or eliminate, those costs to the environment. I'm even hoping that a way will be found someday to create the hydrogen artificially.
Point is, anything that we can currently think of to replace fossil fuels for the foreseeable future is going to impact the environment. Look at Ethanol.
BUT, in my opinion, hydrogen is still the Best step in the right direction, right now.
We Must get off of environmentally destructive and expensive oil. And we must do that Now.
And although I'd love for solar to be the answer... it has far to many drawbacks..
( a week of cloudy days, anyone ? ), And the components we need to make solar work are actually available /obtainable in limited amounts.
We can hope for a breakthrough in the near future with solar, maybe true photosynthesis, but until then, hydrogen is the most abundant and cleanest in it's end use that we have available to us right now.
KUDO's to HONDA.
GM ? FORD ? It could have been you stepping out into the lead...
Wake Up America !

[atmuscarella]

I think a some people are mixing up a few thinks Hydrogen isn't the energy source that replace Oil what ever you produce the Hydrogen from is the actual energy source that replaces Oil.

It is the same as electricity when you use an electric loan mower instead of a gasoline loan mower the electricity isn't the energy source that is replacing the gasoline; it's whatever energy source that was used to generate the electricity that is replacing the gasoline.

How "green" Hydrogen fuel cell powered electric cars really are or if they will actually reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources depends on how and what the hydrogen is produced from. No different than electric cars being powered by batteries.

[suyts]

To kenmcall or anyone else for that matter. I looked into your link a little further, you have the dated version. Their temp references were in error. They have been corrected, sadly the correction wasn't covered very well in our media outlets, including this one. And I can't believe that the web page not being corrected wasn't intentional. Here's a story that should clear up the discrepancy for you. http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/08/1998_no_longer_the_hottest_yea.html

[open-mind]

Good for Honda, but I think the title of this article is misleading. A small number of hand-built cars that can only be leased to a narrow subset of people in Japan? IMHO, using the phase "Honda produces" in that context is a bit of a stretch.



For example, GM has a few hundred hybrid-electric busses running in 25 cities in North America. But I wouldn't say that "GM produces hybrid electric busses" unless they could be purchased in quantity.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHSlnDryKAE

[galeso]

JonFraudCarry said "Hydrogen can only be created by using electricity which must come from some sort of power plant." Wiki says "Hydrogen gas is produced by some bacteria and algae and is a natural component of flatus. Methane is a hydrogen source of increasing importance." It can be made from hydrocarbons, but I think JFC would not be interested.

[Sherman-Homan]

Flatus moron, flatus. Do you know what that is? Show me just one source of enough hydrogen to power a single car from some bacteria in a pot of muck. Don't be a fool.

[superfunkomatic]

knock, knock. big oil, it's hydrogen. take advantage of your high fuel prices while you can. this spells the end of reliance on oil and gasoline.

can't wait until these are available in mass production. i'll be first in line!

[blurble]

Who cares. I'd rather drive the BMW 7 that runs off PURE hydrogen. And Mercedes has had buses running off fuel cells for over 4 years all over Europe. This is nothing new or interesting except for the fact I will only drive a German car because I AM a Eurosnob and the only cars in the world are GERMAN.

[mchinsky]

Cnet is based in San Francisco, lunatic land.

This version of the news, unlike the already left New York Times, fails to note that the fuel is subsidized 50% and the car is subsidized by about 80%. At a 50% fuel subsidy, the car only gets the same mileage as an Accord. Without the subsidy, it would get the same mileage as a Suburban. see this version of the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/opinion/20fri3.html
This is nothing a paid PR campaign for honda. I hardly call the production of 200 cars with 80% subsidies a "commercial hydrogen car" as their misleading title indicates

Fuel Cells are 10 to 20 years away from being a practical vehicle option. I have a client that makes these for a living and wishes it weren't the case, but facts are facts and wishing a solution to a problem that needen't be one won't help. The United states is sitting on more oil than the entire middle east combined, but we aren't allowed to drill for it. I'd like to see how the dems win an election this year blocking the ability to get our own oil which 99% of our cars will run on for at least the next 10 to 15 years

[flemingho]

There might/could have been a better alternative which wasn't good for business economics for automakers & "fuel" suppliers.

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/223/index.html#here

Right now the American automakers are happy to make people unemployed, than make these cars that the market is ripe for.

[Hopalite]

rocket325: Sir; I would not question your experience or Dignity. Every one is entitled to their opinion.However; I believe that commentators should not Be vulgar. The words opportunist, charlatan and misinformed alarmist are dignified terms. However; The term flatulence is not. I respect your opinion but disagree with it. As gentlemen; we can agree to disagree.

[rocket325]

hopalite; glad we can be civil. you are correct, no need for vulgarity.
I am a bit surprised by your support of al gore.
Don't you find him similar to hollywood types, who preach frugality and
conservation, while maintaining huge homes, SUV's, globetrotting and grandstanding? he has made millions pushing global warming as fact, before the experts can agree on our role in it. I just can't embrace the hypocrisy of the left.

[tghounsell]

Characterizing the electricity needed as "a large amount" is misleading. Electrolosis is a more efficient process of energy conversion than most conversions, and much more efficient than the internal combustion engine.