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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Again with the leasing of electric cars?? Does no one learn anything?? When do they get to actually own the cars so the companies don’t come by and take them and crush them again??
i hate marketing. i bet honda is doing that so people go “oh look honda is being environmental, ooohhh and celebrities are buying them, so honda must be cool now….but i can’t afford a hydrogen car, but gee, the new civic sure looks nice….”
The morning of 9/11 two things stick in my memoey. (1) I was paying $1.28 for gasoline.
(2) I was reading news online when 9/11 started. Specifically I was reading a press release from Royal Dutch Shell how they were thrilled to announce they were completely divesting all their interests in oil by 2010, and going to be a hydrogen based energy company by 2010. In that press release was included a link to a General Motors web site where GM proudly demonstrated their fuel cell technology … fuel cells the size of a closet they were ALREADY using to power some of their office campus locations.
I got up from the Mac and went to say “Wow!” to my darling bride and got stopped in front of the television … and never got back to saving that web page. And … it … is … gone … forever.
Here’s Shell Oil, one of the original Seven Sisters crowing about getting out of oil, and fully invested into hydrogen … and today nary a word. Dead. Gone. Not a peep about that press statement. Now … here’s the conundrum …
…. who can make a global powerhouse oil company back down from getting out of oil and leading the way in hydrogen? First one says Bush needs an MRI and to gargle a purgative for the parasites eating into your brain.
Who is powerful enough to bully an oil company into staying with oil, when the course has already been committed to hydrogen?
That, I think, is an indication of just how big the Real and Unspoken War is. Not Iraq, Afghanistan, I Hate Bush etc etc etc … the real war. The real power struggle. Who can buffalo a Seven Sister? Not even nations can do that.
As to Honda?
HOORAY! Because I can, and have made (simple test with wind power) my own hydrogen, by damn. Home and car hydrogen fuel cells puts a ‘Chris Matthew’ tinge up my leg.
@mandiejackson: The Civic is a good car, small and efficient. Nothing wrong with people buying Civics. And Honda really is being environmental. They were making fuel-efficient cars decades ago, long before it was cool.
@synergy: When the product is ready for prime-time. Note, for example, that the lessees can’t leave LA with their new FCX, because there’s no way to fill it up. If the price of gas stays high (here’s hoping!) that day will come sooner rather than later.
Last I heard (last week), it was going to cost $190,000. Yup.
I bought my iPod Touch knowing I was going to get hit with an Early Adopter tax, gleefully shrugging it off, of course. But somewhere deep inside me, a tiny tear welled up.
A hydrocar Early Adopter tax of, what, $120,000? Whoa.
I’ll stop teasing my friends that have a MacBook Air from now on.
Still nice to see car companies trying alternative tech out. But, whoa, that’s a lot of green to be first.
I recall the chairman of GM said that ten years from now, you’d be able to go into any GM dealership in the country and buy a fuel cell car. He said this ten years ago.
@Trai_Dep: I’m not sure what “early-adopter tax” you’re talking about. It’s a 36-month lease for $600/month, or $21,600 (plus some other stuff) over the length of the lease. Maintenance and collision are included. Seems pretty fair if you’re the kind that brag to all your friends about your fuel cell car.
@Gokuhouse: Hydrogen has a place, same as electric does. If we go pure electric, how many more power plants do we need to build?
Oh yea, we haven’t really been allowed to build them.
@Michael Belisle: My bad, I took GreatMoose’s quote of $190K as being the list price. Not that I was knocking it – I was saying I gleefully did a similar thing, although with a more modest item.
Hey, SOMEONE’S got to jump in the breech!
$22K is insanely reasonable, actually.
I’m assuming the fill-ups on these is a small fraction that an internal combustion sedan would cost, so even better.
And that’s not counting the Cool Factor.
Shame, really: there was a time when US companies would have been the leaders of new tech. But it’s good to see someone doing it; we all benefit.
i’m glad gas prices are high now cause its forcing the car companies to develop new technology faster. the hell with paying all of this money to the OPEC countries…theyre like one big mafia. reaping the money from us in order to build massive buildings in their countries.
if little idiot bush had spent the money he wasted in the bulls*it wars and used it to build massive solar / wind farms for the production of hydrogen, and built the infrastructure for distribution. the states could be about 70% free from oil right now.
yes its true, and it would have cost less then what the wars have cost.
Hydrogen is not that great a fuel. In fact, in any green application, it isn’t a fuel, it is a battery. It can be refined from natural gas and/or petroleum via chemistry, which would be the cheapest method, but it would have the same problems as a gas engine with marginal (but welcome) increases in fuel efficiency. The “green” way to do it would be to harvest sustainable electricity from solar, wind, tidal, and possibly a well run nuclear plant, and use that electricity to electrolyze water, which separates the hydrogen molecules from the oxygen molecules. In this case, hydrogen effectively serves as a battery.
However, hydrogen is not a very efficient “battery.” It is currently around 35% efficient in terms of carrying and delivering energy, and it has a theoretical limit of 45% efficiency. Meanwhile, lithium ion battery technology has a limit of around 85%, currently residing around 78% and rising every year. Hydrogen has the benefit of refueling in a few minutes like gasoline, while electric cars need an overnight recharge on home appliance circuits. However, electric cars could charge as quickly as 10 minutes if given enough juice quickly enough, either through massive power circuits to the home or capacitors that charge up over the day to quickly charge the car in a few minutes. There are currently plans to provide charging stations in japan that will charge a car within an hour.
@Shadowfire: Actually, we could run 3/4 of the nation’s cars on electricity with the existing power grid. The key thing is that the cars would need to charge most at off peak hours, ideally with a smart charging system that works over the internet to determine how fast they can safely charge. Capacitors/batteries inside the chargers could ensure that there would always be a big charge available locally for power outages and peak hours where electricity would be too expensive.
Some concepts also propose that electric cars could sell back electricity they received at off peak hours to the grid at peak hours. This makes the owners of the cars money, and makes for a more stable grid.
Of course, for the rest of the cars, we would need more plants. But it’s not that hard to build a much needed power plant. Believe it or not, even coal plants get subsidies. And the grid will need to grow for increased power usage in general. The population is going up, and everyone likes their air conditioning. NIMBY will never overcome the power of human aversion to heat.
@TVarmy: Tesla Motors is working with Lithium Ion batteries. Good idea. There are still difficulties to overcome, though – they’re more expensive than Ni-MH batteries, and because of the size and number of batteries in use, and that they’re stored in a place that can become very hot very fast, the risk of fire is great. Still, I think it’s a great option to keep exploring.
But again, you have the problem of power plants. We can’t build plants as it is (i.e. not allowed), so where are we going to get the power to fuel this fleet of electric vehicles?
@TVarmy: I want more power plants to be built, but they won’t be for a while. You won’t find many people who support nuclear power more than I do.
@Shadowfire: There are a few of us out there. Plus I want the grid updated in my lifetime. I remember living through the Northeast blackout (we had it for about a minute) and NYC had it for a couple days or something.
@Trai_Dep: There’s a reason why they’re leasing and and throwing in collision: that $190k could very well be how much the thing is actually cost to build. The cost makes sense because the cars appear to be assembled by real, live humans.
@Shadowfire: they’re stored in a place that can become very hot very fast, the risk of fire is great.
Lithium-ion batteries do indeed have a nasty tendency to burst into highly toxic and dangerous flames (hence, the FAA restrictions, countless recalls, and free laptops).
Somehow, I just don’t see Li-ion batteries running our nation’s automobiles any time soon, even despite their efficiency.
detroit responds with a new model of SUV…
Hondenburg.