Honda’s FCX Clarity rolled off their Japanese assembly line last week and arrived in California where some Hollywood big shots were eager to get their hands on the new “zero-emission” car that runs on hydrogen and electricity. According to CNN Money, the car emits only water and none of the gases which are thought to contribute to global warming. A few dozen cars will be leased to certain individuals this year and some will be available to the general public on a very limited scale in early 2009. Details, inside…
The article says,
Among the first customers are actress Jamie Lee Curtis and filmmaker husband Christopher Guest, actress Laura Harris, film producer Ron Yerxa, as well as businessmen Jon Spallino and Jim Salomon.
“It’s so smooth,” said Harris, who played villainness Marie Warner on the hit TV show “24.” “It’s like a future machine, but it’s not.”
Harris, Spallino and Yerxa were flown to the ceremony, courtesy of Honda. Yerxa says he’s excited to show off the car and believes there’s “a lot of interest.”
The biggest obstacles standing in the way of wider adoption of fuel cell vehicles are cost and the dearth of hydrogen fuel stations. For the Clarity’s release in California, Honda said it received 50,000 applications through its Web site but considered only buyers living near hydrogen fuel stations in Torrance, Santa Monica and Irvine.
We’re not yet sure how much it will cost to fuel this car once it is available. But whatever the initial cost is, we imagine that we will happier spending our money on hydrogen rather than gasoline.
Honda rolls out fuel cell car [CNN Money]
2009 Honda FCX Clarity [Business Week]
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Awesome. Definitely a step in the right direction, and as they become more widespread, so will hydrogen fuel stations; The system for deploying a liquid fuel is already in place! (thanks, gasoline – don’t let the saloon door hit your ass on the way out).
How soon will it take Exxon to get the leasing rights to all the hydrogen in the universe?
@veterandem: I once read a science fiction series that, in historical context, showed how when earth first discovered means of FTL travel, it divided the universe into 3 equal parts, with earth at the centre. Can’t say it’s that far-fetched, really. Sort of like if Exxon said they own all the hydrogen in the universe
I can see it happening … High school science teachers under arrest for violation of a DMCA-like law prohibiting hydrolysis …
@cobaltthorium: Ironically, gasoline is a very good source of hydrogen.
Although they really can’t speculate how much hydrogen fuel will cost in the future but it would have been nice to report how much it is going to cost TODAY.
Now all we need is an economical means of producing hydrogen in sufficient quantities to fuel all these H2-powered cars.
@cobaltthorium: It’s kind of like Ford taking people to court for using an assembly line, but let me point out that the RSA encryption algorithm is patented; they make this point clear when teaching it in computer science classes. If you can patent a series of mathematical formulas, why not a whole process for producing something like H2?
Unfortunately most of the hydrogen in this country comes from natural gas. To be renewable, it would have to come from an electrolytic process powered by a wind farm or nuclear reactor or some other green energy source.
Good step in the right direction though.
@cobaltthorium: I dunno, other life forms in the universe might not take kindly to an exxon hydrogen monopoly.
I still want my “Mr. Fusion” that was showcased in “Back to the Future.”
Seriously, though – Honda has demonstrated a “Home Fuel Station” that will provide hydrogen and power for your house. Who knows how far away that is, but it’s a cool idea.
@hypnotik_jello: How did you know what happened?!? Yeah. The chinese section got gobbled up by a religious socialist state, the american/european section by a capitalist state filled with poverty, and the russians by a atheistic feudal slave-state. In 50 years, someone might appreciate the irony …
Well I guess my Pius is officially obsolete.
@dh86sj: Hopefully some entrenpraneur will step outside one day, look up, and notice the giant ball of burning gas that hangs in our sky and think, maybe we can use that to produce H2.
I would love this to take off, but I fear that it may not be feasible. You may see technology that strips H2 from the gasoline later on.
Fact: There is more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline than a gallon of liquid H2.
Love this :
you have 1 company doing hydrogen-powered fuel car whos MPG was 35 when i bought my car 7 years ago,
and you have other companies happy to be introducing 31mpg cars using oil in 2008.
How about leasing the fuel efficient cars to regular people who are the target customer base and would appreciate help with the current high gas prices. With private planes and limousines, i find it funny when someone in Hollywood touts their Prius.
@Steaming Pile: The RSA patent expired several years ago. Patents are good only for so long. By the time we realistically get mass adoption of H2 cars, their patent will have expired, too.
@Zaos: Honda is also happy to be introducing 31mpg gasoline-powered cars today. The fact is, gasoline was much cheaper in the past, and so people didn’t really look at MPG when buying cars. Now that that’s changed, car manufacturers are scrambling to make cars that are more fuel efficient.
Sorry to be negative, but fuel-cell cars are just a distraction. Hydrogen just stores energy (like a battery), it is not an energy source (since there is no free hydrogen on earth.)
An FCV is an electric car (including batteries, the FCV can’t accelerate without them.) So take a perfectly good EV, and add a big fuel cell and H2 tank on top. Such a car will always be heavier, less efficient, and more expensive than a plain old electric car – and cost more to fuel, as well.
New battery technology allows 10-minute charging, and 20-year battery lifetimes. Pure electric vehicles is where research money belongs.
I thought water vapor was a greenhouse gas.
@jeffjohnvol: But then what would you do with all the carbon that’s left over?
@Apeweek: There is free hydrogen, as in it’s free to produce. Sun+Solar Panel + Hydrolysis machine = free H2.
@Apeweek: Glad somebody said it. We need to go in the direction of pure EV. There are more than a couple companies working on newer and better batteries capable of 10 times what today’s batteries are. Give them a few years, that’s where the future lies.
Then why not just Sun+Solar Panel=power. Skip the h2 part and save energy. H2 is a waste of time and money. It is the hippie version of the golden fleece.
BTW: You forgot to mention this is NOT available to everyone. It is limited to a three year lease for $600 a month and only available to certain people who they hand pick in California. You have to qualify and meet certain requirements to even be considered. You can’t even buy the car, it’s leased for three years.
@cobaltthorium: Yes, hydrogen can be produced with electricity, I agree. This is why hydrogen is just another battery technology.
However, the electricity –> hydrogen and hydrogen –> electricity cycle is much less efficient than any other battery technology. Just put the same electricity in a battery and drive twice as far.
Most hydrogen comes from burning fossil fuels. BTW if you want to save gas, hypermile. I’m currently getting between 35-43 mpg depending on how light traffic is in city with a 1999 Ford Escort ZX2 with 70K miles. On one 100 mile highway trip I got 47mpg. This with a regular 2 liter gasoline engine, just by changing driving habits.
@Steaming Pile: the formulae aren’t patented; it’s the use of the formulae in a certain process that was patented.
Hydrogen must first be separated via more conventional methods, so while the car might have zero-emissions, the emissions are really just off-loaded to another place. Calling this (in and of itself) “green” is just bunk.
However, if you were to use nuclear power to separate hydrogen to power your car, then at least all emissions and waste would be contained, rather than spewed to all corners of the earth. So, I suppose it is a helpful step — but only in conjunction with a cleaner power source.
@Apeweek: That’s a great point. I just get pissed when people complain that hydrogen isn’t clean. It can be clean. I’ve heard of the “Zenn Car” someone developed in BC that runs on batteries, or supercapacitors, or something, but the federal government hasn’t deemed it safe for roads and is leaving it up to the provinces. Bummer. Still, not really practical since a lot of energy it consumes stiff comes from dirty sources.
It is my understanding that traditional fuels (coal, gasoline, nuclear) are used to produce the hydrogen. Moreover, compressed hydrogen can function as a large bomb during an accident.
I think hydrogen is a scam intended to keep us going to pumps to fill up. The worst thing in the world for Mobil and the rest is if we fuel our batteries up at home by plugging in our cars.
Where was the story on the fuel-cell Chevy Equinox when it was released in limited quantities a week or two ago?
I’m being a LITTLE tongue-in-cheek here … but … is this liberal media hating on the big American corporation?
@veterandem: Exactly. I’m more excited about the Chevy Volt!
@Apeweek:
Agreed.
The real big hurdle for electric/battery cars is the charging. How far can you go when you have to charge your car overnight?
With the development of quick charging batteries, like Toshiba’s nano battery, the electric car could really be here soon.
@cobaltthorium: It doesn’t matter so much that the electricity used for EVs or hydrogen production still includes dirty fuels; these vehicles are far more efficient than gas vehicles.
More miles on less fuel equals less pollution, regardless of what gets burned.
@sardonumspa: My own EV is old-technology. I can go maybe 50 miles (but I charge at home and work, too, so I have miles to run errands on the way home.) Picture of my EV is at the top of this page:
[www.squidoo.com]
Newer EVs like the Tesla can get over 200 miles per charge.
@kpfeif: But Mr. Fusion only powered the Flux Capacitor and time circuits and allows the DeLorean to create the 1.21 gigawatts to make time travel possible. It also powers the modified flight capabilities of the car.
As noted in the third movie, the car still runs on the standard combustion engine for normal driving, which is why they had to find alternative means to get it up to speed in the end since the fuel line was damaged and all the gasoline was lost.
This is AWESOME!
Using lots of gasoline to inefficiently generate and transport hydrogen, which is then used to inefficiently generate electricity in a car! This is almost as good an idea as using lots of gasoline (and fertilizers) to grow corn, and then transport it, and ferment it, and distill it, and pour it in some other gasoline, and then burn it!
Maybe we can eventually get a car that simultaneously burns ethanol and fuel-cell-converts fossil-fuel-derived hydrogen at such a rate that its efficiency reaches the critical singularity of 0% efficiency. It’ll just be a big flash!
@Apeweek: “Sorry to be negative, but fuel-cell cars are just a distraction. Hydrogen just stores energy (like a battery), it is not an energy source (since there is no free hydrogen on earth.)
An FCV is an electric car (including batteries, the FCV can’t accelerate without them.) So take a perfectly good EV, and add a big fuel cell and H2 tank on top. Such a car will always be heavier, less efficient, and more expensive than a plain old electric car – and cost more to fuel, as well.
New battery technology allows 10-minute charging, and 20-year battery lifetimes. Pure electric vehicles is where research money belongs.”
By your definition, a fuel cell is basically a glorified battery – so you’re being rhetorical, right?
It’s nice to see. But it irks that Big Oil takes their billions in tax money to figure out how to turn gasoline into hydrogen. And the Gov’t okays this energy three-card-monte.
I want a refund, dang it.
I hope this doesn’t turn out like the last car that went up against the fuel companies.
I remember watching a movie “who killed the electric car” that followed another car that didn’t use fuel.
wasn’t it called the Evo?
The eletric car will never take off until there is a recharge time of less than 5 mins and a range of 300 miles @ 70 MPH.
The Telsa has the range, but takes 3 hours to recharge and only goes around 250 miles.
I see a great war in the future, like HD-DVD vs. BluRay
I personally like hydrogren as a middle man, a lot of gasoline engines could be converted to run on hydrogren while we wait for the electric car to get better
This whole fuel cell/hydrogen car/hydrogen economy business is a lot more complicated that the politicians let on. Here’s a comprehensive analysis of just how much trouble it would be to actually do anything on a large scale using hydrogen fuel.
[www.thenewatlantis.com]
@Apeweek: If I didn’t live in such a cold climate, I would love to build an electric car. Maybe if there was a way to build it in an old roadster or something like that.
@domestic_goddess: The EV1. GM pulled it from the market because it was impractical, lost them a ton of money and wasn’t really all that great.
It did give them a good test run for the Chevy Volt though, which is expected to be up for sale in 2010 which is an electric plug-in car with a small gas generator for long trips.
@mariospants: Yes, a fuel cell is indeed a glorified battery. That is indeed the point I’m making.
Here’s the important part: it’s a really, really bad and inefficient battery, one which involves shipping and storing hydrogen all over the country instead of just charging your battery at home.
If you have a fuel-cell car, you’ve got an electric car. So why bother with the H2? Just plug the darn thing in.
@differcult: the magic battery (10 minute charge, 20-year lifespan) is already here; the problem is with the press, which have ignored it. It is used in this car:
[phoenixmotorcars.com]
@battra92: I live in a cold climate (Michigan), and I drive an electric car. Do you know why cold temperatures are not a problem? My car is plugged in overnight, charging. The batteries are toasty warm in the morning.
@differcult: I personally like hydrogren as a middle man
I actually see Diesel as more the middle man. If we could get more high mileage Diesels we’d be doing alright. Diesel is selling for $4.87 a gallon near me ($5 most places) and Europe has some sweet high mpg cars/trucks. Plus you can use bio if you are green.
@DashTheHand: Waaaay off topic, but since I was just talking with a friend about BttFIII, I need to bring it up here:
Could Marty and Doc have simply siphoned out the gas from the other DeLorean that existed in 1885?
@Apeweek: Hmm …
I was more referring to the snow and junk here. I assume there are decent heaters and such in your car.
I drive 25 miles each way to work. On weekends I often make 100 mile round trips. I do relatively little in town errands driving plus I don’t know if my work would let me run an extension cord out to my car.
Great idea, and I’d love to do it someday maybe if I had my current car paid for. It’d be nice for my folks who do almost all in town driving in a pickup truck and get 20mpg.
@battra92: FWIW, my EV handles great in snow. It’s got lots of ballast (batteries) and electric motors excel at low-speed torque.
And to be truthful, I don’t use the heater in my car – instead, I use a portable one on a timer, that heats up the car before I get in. This way, I don’t have to use my batteries for heat.
Of course the EV is not my car of choice for long trips. Many families have more than one car. We use the EV whenever we can, and the gas car when we have to.
Charging at work may be tricky to set up, but your employer may even see it as some positive PR for the company. The electricity just costs a few pennies.
“Harris, Spallino and Yerxa were flown to the ceremony, courtesy of Honda.”
Lets hope they didn’t fly in private jets or they’ll never drive those cars enough to balance the emissions out.
@sn1per420: @Zaos: I have a 1993 Honda accord that the EPA says gets 21/29 MPG. (My fill-up calculations concur that this is still true after 180k miles.) The 2008 Accord gets 22/31.
I used to think about how it wasn’t a staggering improvement in 15 years. Now I realize that, by comparison with, say, a Ford Taurus (18/24 in 1992, 18/28 in 2008), it was already really good for a car of its size.
@Steeb2er: Where was the story on the fuel-cell Chevy Equinox when it was released in limited quantities a week or two ago?
It’s the liberal media hating on the SUV. Chevy, please just let it die. Also, anyone can hypothetically lease an FCX. That doesn’t seem to be the case with the Equinox Fuel Cell.
@artki: This whole fuel cell/hydrogen car/hydrogen economy business is a lot more complicated that the politicians let on
Breaking news: Hydrogen Infrastructure Doesn’t Yet Exist to Power the Country’s Cars
Update: Problems Will Have to be Solved
Update2: Hydrogen is Just a Fancy Way to Store Energy (that one’s for you, Apeweek)
@Apeweek: Charging at work may be tricky to set up, but your employer may even see it as some positive PR for the company.
I work for the wrong kind of Utility company.
Thanks for the info though, very interesting. Too bad I couldn’t see one in person, ya know and give it a test drive. Being a techie this sort of stuff really interests me.
Personally myself, I think I am going to look toward investing in hydrogen fuel cell stations. Cause I am sure gas is not giving up without a fight. They will try whatever they want to do to kill this idea.
Thing is, I would make equipment that would allow it to be filled by the water in your house. Reason being is because the Oil companies would have to “outlaw” you using water from your house for the car.
that would be awfully hard to do, and even harder to convince any congress to let that happen.