Honda's fuel cell experiements remind me of Chrysler's exploits from 1963 with the Gas Turbine. The only difference is, that Chrysler put 50 of these cars in the hands of ordinary people, not celebrities. I guess "face time" wasn't nearly the big deal then that it is now.
You'll notice the office this car is parked in front of isn't yours. And it probably won't be for a long time.
Inside.
BMW's Hydrogen experimental 7-series. The most advanced technology, on the most expensive model BMW makes; are we painting a picture here?This qualifies as "that's a damn shame." I saw the commercials on TV this week too, wondering what they were all about. Had Honda finally produced what noone else seems to have been able to up to this point? How long will it be before the rest of us have the privilege of even getting to make up our own minds on these cars? As Ulrich says, it seems pretty much like a mirage.
Regular folks can forget the Honda FCX Clarity.
By Lawrence Ulrich of MSN autos
Click to see more pictures
2009 Honda FCX Clarity
I woke one day this week to find the future had arrived. Honda had made the hydrogen car a reality through its FCX Clarity. I yawned and went back to bed. Nothing had really changed. Hydrogen cars were still an appealing fantasy, a mirage that recedes just when it seems within reach.
Of course, the media (newspapers, Web, TV) was saying the opposite. The Honda was on its way to showrooms, just in time to save the planet and help the world kick its gasoline habit.
Too bad none of that is true.
Now, don’t get me wrong. The second generation of Honda’s FCX is likely the most advanced fuel-cell car yet — a sleek sedan that drives as well as it looks. Like fuel-cell cars from GM, Ford, Toyota and others, the Honda carries a tank of compressed hydrogen onboard, which mixes with oxygen from the air in a chemical reaction. The result is enough electricity to cover 280 miles on a tank, with heat and water vapor as the only by-products — not a trace of tailpipe pollution.
The problem: all the inconvenient truths that Honda and other fuel-cell makers keep glossing over. Yes, the technology is intriguing. But it will still be several years (at best) before you’ll see hydrogen cars in a showroom. Don’t believe me? Ring up some Honda dealers and tell them you’d like to put a down payment on a shiny new FCX Clarity. After they stop laughing, we’ll talk.
Made for the Media Honda got the flashbulbs popping in Takanezawa, Japan, where the first FCX Clarity models rolled off the assembly line on June 16. As they have in the past, Honda executives promoted the fiction that the FCX Clarity is an actual production car. But by any accepted definition, a production car is one that sits on showroom floors that people can actually buy. The FCX Clarity is more of a working prototype, a test bed for technology.
View Pictures: Hydrogen Powered Cars
You — meaning the average car buyer — will never own this hydrogen car, no matter how much you’re willing to spend. You can’t take one for a test drive. If you live outside of California, you will likely never see an FCX Clarity on the road.
At the plant in Japan, several of the first recipients were on hand to see their hydrogen cars take shape. Honda has selected roughly 100 Americans — including celebrities Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Harris — who will be allowed to pay $600 a month to lease an FCX Clarity for three years, and then return the car to the manufacturer.
Fair enough. Automakers have to start somewhere. And since experts peg the cost of building a single fuel-cell car at $500,000 to $1 million, automakers aren’t about to roll out thousands of these babies at once. But in a U.S. market that will buy roughly 45 million cars over the next three years, what exactly will 100 hydrogen Hondas do for people struggling with gas prices, or for global warming?
And why is it always celebrities? Why should the rich-and-famous get the first and often only crack at these sci-fi cars? You can answer that one yourself. Where there’s a celebrity, there’s a TV camera. To Honda, it doesn’t much matter whether real people drive the FCX Clarity, or whether it does anything to save fuel or ease global warming. What’s important is that people see Honda’s green conscience in action.
Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell
Hydrogen Cluster Honda is far from the only automaker developing a hydrogen test fleet. BMW has been loaning its Hydrogen 7 — a big sedan that can burn either gasoline or hydrogen in an internal combustion engine — to the likes of actor Will Ferrell.
GM has been recruiting people to test its fuel-cell Chevrolet Equinox in California, suburban New York and Washington, D.C. And while celebs will take part, the GM selection process appears to be more democratic: Customers are largely being chosen from the general public, based on their participation on the company’s Project Driveway Web site devoted to hydrogen issues.
It’s hard to blame Honda or any other automaker that’s trying to steal some green ink from Toyota. If you don’t make big promises, no one’s interested.
As I’ve reported previously, Ben Knight, Honda’s U.S. research-and-development chief, estimates that Honda is targeting the year 2018 to bring affordable fuel-cell cars to dealers. Yet Honda knows better than to emphasize the point that its hydrogen cars are at least a decade away. Doing so would scare away the TV producers and editors who are desperate for feel-good stories on green cars. But this technology hype does a disservice to consumers who want real solutions to $4-a-gallon gas.
Even if Honda or GM can lick the huge technical and cost issues of hydrogen cars, I’m not convinced they’re the best approach to getting us off gasoline. Stories on fuel cells tend to paint hydrogen as a free lunch. But it takes massive amounts of energy to create usable hydrogen fuel. Theoretically, the source of that hydrogen could be clean, as in nuclear, wind or solar energy. But it’s just as likely to be dirty, using electricity from coal-fired plants.
Certainly proponents of electric cars and plug-in hybrids have their own axes to grind. But the creators of the electric Tesla Roadster have asked a great question: What’s the point of using electricity to create hydrogen, trucking it to stations and pumping it into a car, just so the car can convert hydrogen back into electricity? Why not just put the electricity directly into cars?
One answer is batteries aren’t yet efficient enough to let cars travel long distances, but that’s likely to change as automakers race to develop plug-ins juiced by lithium-ion batteries. I wish Honda and others well in their efforts to make fuel cells a reality. But years of fuel-cell promises have convinced me that hydrogen will lose the tech race.
My prediction? By the time fuel-cell cars are available at a price a non-zillionaire can afford, other technologies — whether plug-in hybrid, diesel hybrids or pure electric cars — will have beaten it to the punch. When everyday drivers can afford a plug-in that tops 100 mpg, they won’t need to think about hydrogen cars — or how to become rich and famous enough to get one.
By Lawrence Ulrich of MSN autos
Click to see more pictures
2009 Honda FCX Clarity
I woke one day this week to find the future had arrived. Honda had made the hydrogen car a reality through its FCX Clarity. I yawned and went back to bed. Nothing had really changed. Hydrogen cars were still an appealing fantasy, a mirage that recedes just when it seems within reach.
Of course, the media (newspapers, Web, TV) was saying the opposite. The Honda was on its way to showrooms, just in time to save the planet and help the world kick its gasoline habit.
Too bad none of that is true.
Now, don’t get me wrong. The second generation of Honda’s FCX is likely the most advanced fuel-cell car yet — a sleek sedan that drives as well as it looks. Like fuel-cell cars from GM, Ford, Toyota and others, the Honda carries a tank of compressed hydrogen onboard, which mixes with oxygen from the air in a chemical reaction. The result is enough electricity to cover 280 miles on a tank, with heat and water vapor as the only by-products — not a trace of tailpipe pollution.
The problem: all the inconvenient truths that Honda and other fuel-cell makers keep glossing over. Yes, the technology is intriguing. But it will still be several years (at best) before you’ll see hydrogen cars in a showroom. Don’t believe me? Ring up some Honda dealers and tell them you’d like to put a down payment on a shiny new FCX Clarity. After they stop laughing, we’ll talk.
Made for the Media Honda got the flashbulbs popping in Takanezawa, Japan, where the first FCX Clarity models rolled off the assembly line on June 16. As they have in the past, Honda executives promoted the fiction that the FCX Clarity is an actual production car. But by any accepted definition, a production car is one that sits on showroom floors that people can actually buy. The FCX Clarity is more of a working prototype, a test bed for technology.
View Pictures: Hydrogen Powered Cars
You — meaning the average car buyer — will never own this hydrogen car, no matter how much you’re willing to spend. You can’t take one for a test drive. If you live outside of California, you will likely never see an FCX Clarity on the road.
At the plant in Japan, several of the first recipients were on hand to see their hydrogen cars take shape. Honda has selected roughly 100 Americans — including celebrities Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Harris — who will be allowed to pay $600 a month to lease an FCX Clarity for three years, and then return the car to the manufacturer.
Fair enough. Automakers have to start somewhere. And since experts peg the cost of building a single fuel-cell car at $500,000 to $1 million, automakers aren’t about to roll out thousands of these babies at once. But in a U.S. market that will buy roughly 45 million cars over the next three years, what exactly will 100 hydrogen Hondas do for people struggling with gas prices, or for global warming?
And why is it always celebrities? Why should the rich-and-famous get the first and often only crack at these sci-fi cars? You can answer that one yourself. Where there’s a celebrity, there’s a TV camera. To Honda, it doesn’t much matter whether real people drive the FCX Clarity, or whether it does anything to save fuel or ease global warming. What’s important is that people see Honda’s green conscience in action.
Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell
Hydrogen Cluster Honda is far from the only automaker developing a hydrogen test fleet. BMW has been loaning its Hydrogen 7 — a big sedan that can burn either gasoline or hydrogen in an internal combustion engine — to the likes of actor Will Ferrell.
GM has been recruiting people to test its fuel-cell Chevrolet Equinox in California, suburban New York and Washington, D.C. And while celebs will take part, the GM selection process appears to be more democratic: Customers are largely being chosen from the general public, based on their participation on the company’s Project Driveway Web site devoted to hydrogen issues.
It’s hard to blame Honda or any other automaker that’s trying to steal some green ink from Toyota. If you don’t make big promises, no one’s interested.
As I’ve reported previously, Ben Knight, Honda’s U.S. research-and-development chief, estimates that Honda is targeting the year 2018 to bring affordable fuel-cell cars to dealers. Yet Honda knows better than to emphasize the point that its hydrogen cars are at least a decade away. Doing so would scare away the TV producers and editors who are desperate for feel-good stories on green cars. But this technology hype does a disservice to consumers who want real solutions to $4-a-gallon gas.
Even if Honda or GM can lick the huge technical and cost issues of hydrogen cars, I’m not convinced they’re the best approach to getting us off gasoline. Stories on fuel cells tend to paint hydrogen as a free lunch. But it takes massive amounts of energy to create usable hydrogen fuel. Theoretically, the source of that hydrogen could be clean, as in nuclear, wind or solar energy. But it’s just as likely to be dirty, using electricity from coal-fired plants.
Certainly proponents of electric cars and plug-in hybrids have their own axes to grind. But the creators of the electric Tesla Roadster have asked a great question: What’s the point of using electricity to create hydrogen, trucking it to stations and pumping it into a car, just so the car can convert hydrogen back into electricity? Why not just put the electricity directly into cars?
One answer is batteries aren’t yet efficient enough to let cars travel long distances, but that’s likely to change as automakers race to develop plug-ins juiced by lithium-ion batteries. I wish Honda and others well in their efforts to make fuel cells a reality. But years of fuel-cell promises have convinced me that hydrogen will lose the tech race.
My prediction? By the time fuel-cell cars are available at a price a non-zillionaire can afford, other technologies — whether plug-in hybrid, diesel hybrids or pure electric cars — will have beaten it to the punch. When everyday drivers can afford a plug-in that tops 100 mpg, they won’t need to think about hydrogen cars — or how to become rich and famous enough to get one.
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