It’s a start.

The key is to anchor major urban area with filling stations. LA first, then NYC. The rest will follow.

Very interesting.

So how many years is it going to take for our infrastructure to support hydrogen, ethanol, bio-diesel and other alternative fuels???

Need4SSpeed about 15-20 years

Wow Honda. Now when is the Volt going to be on the roads ? 2015 or so ?
I hope a site like Edmunds or C & D get one in their fleet so we can see how it is as a daily driver
The design looks like a future civic. They whould make a hybrid version of this to go head to head with the Prius …and the Volt if it ever hits the streets

should make a hybrid version

I thought LLN is support to keep us posted on things like this. This is the first I’ve heard of this car. And why do the “VIP’s” in hollyweird get this car?

HemiRoadRunner:
It’s all about visibility. Hollywood quickly jumped on the Prius, giving Toyota tons of free publicity. You’ld be suprised by how many read ‘People’ magazine and all its copies

1115:
Because of the unique construction, there probably won’t be an Internal Combustion Engine version of this car. The fuelcell resides in the center tunnel. Honda’s upcoming Small Family Hybrid is supposed to carry many of the same design features as the FCX, it’s due for release in 2009

Jamie Lee Curtis in an FCX… Mmmmmm Still remember her from ‘Trading Places’

Nice technology, but there’s one major problem which the article left out: it’s estimated the Clarity costs $1 million to build each one. Maybe in 50 more years it will be more affordable and ready for mass production.

Well done HONDA, we will definitely gonna need this car in the future because there are talking about the gas going to be $10 a gallon.

Everyone needs to start somewhere, thankfully the Japanese and European automakers invest heavily in new technology which today may seem unrealistic, but in the future will become mainstream while the profit hungry domestic automakers who only think about today and not tommorow will be dealing with more and more angry employees demanding to know why more and more factories are being shutdown in an age where more and more people are buying cars.

Perhaps I am backward, but I am not excited about hydrogen based fuel cells. They’ve been power source for a lot of of application in space exploration, where there is no good place to store refuse from any other form of power generation, but I don’t believe it is energy efficient for Earthly applications.
Despite all promises of production hydrogen within nuclear reactor, most of the industrial hydrogen today is produced via electrolysis. This process requires gobbles of electricity. So you spend energy to extract hydrogen from water, then you run hydrogen through the engine to extract energy and end up with the same distilled water you started with. Knowing that every step of the process has quite large energy losses, one has to wonder where are the gains? This is far cry from free lunch.
Now we have to solve an additional problem of not only satisfying demand for electricity for growing population, but producing extra electricity to run electrolysis to generate hydrogen. If I recall correctly couple of years ago CA had rolling blackouts since there was not enough “Juice” to satisfy demand. So you have either deliver electricity to CA or hydrogen (since manufacturing hydrogen near source of electricity will translate into less losses for transmission of electricity). Which of two evils is more plausible?

Global_lightning,
I just hope Honda makes a proper four door hatchback competitor for the Prius That Prius is everywhere now

As far as JLC I would do her now but just picture how she looked back in 1983 I would do the same with Sophia Loren

Gas @ $10 per gallon sounds scary as hell! They should make a horror movie about that. It would be just like the movie “The Strangers” but instead of people with masks it would be oil execs in suits

$1million to build!? that’s crazy! If they (carmakers, etc.) really want to find new ways of running cars, they really need to start doing something about it.

‘xyunya’, that is what I’ve mentioned before … if the head of Electrovaya acknowledges this, I’ll bet on him over this.

A few years back an article in Scientific American posited that gasoline has enough liberated hydrogen in it that you might be able to make a fuel cell vehicle that ran on gasoline itself, and used solar power on the roof or plug-in power at night to “crack” the gasoline into hydrogen gas. Obviously you’d have a waste product, similar to engine oil, which could then be recycled. Certainly this is a much more viable idea than the pipe dream of getting every AM/PM and Circle K in the nation to somehow install a $300,000+ hydrogen refueling station and then somehow make a profit on it when 99.9% of the cars out there do not need the fuel.

hybrid version? you ****in moron they can barely figure out hydrogen technology nevermind pairing it with electricity.

Can’t wait for the first wreck. ***BOOOM***

you ****in moron they can barely figure out hydrogen technology never mind pairing it with electricity.

It would be a great comment if there was some fact to back it up
Ok Honda can barely figure it out yet its coming out soon and where is Audi’s hybrid or fuel cell ? ?????
Sit down lil guy

A4, your depth of ignorance is only surpassed by your lack of intelligence. Brassmonkey, a hydrogen car will never explode; that’s the first issue they solved. Sit down indeed.

Chevy Equinox Fuel Cell. Honda was not the first, its just that the Press loves Toyohondasan.
GM really needs to hire new media reps.

Its up to our flacid Govmnt to get the infrastructure in place. Instead of a windfall profits tax they should force the oil companies to put hydrogen tanks in every gas station in the US.
This country needs a benevolent dictator because clearly this democracy thing isnt working very well right now.

Chevy Equinox Fuel cell LOL Is that available ? If so where ?
This country has a dicatator. The illusion of democracy is what this country has

What do you mean a hydrogen car will never explode? Pure hydrogen has a flash point that is about 1/25th that of gasoline. It also burns with a “clear” flame and gives off minimal radiant heat. Basically someone could crash a hydrogen car and be on fire and you could not go in to help them. The storage methods for hydrogen are also impractical from a cost and reliability standpoint. Platinum is used in the fuel cells for storage of the atoms and there is not enough of this metal in the world for all of us to have fuel cell-powered vehicles. As far as reliabilty goes,look up hydrogen embrittlement. Also the infrastructure is impractical as hydrogen has to be stored under immense pressures (10,000-12,000 psi.), so a tanker carrying a shipment to your local station could only store enough for about 20-25 cars. There is a lot to still work out. Buy a deisel for now.

A hydrogen-powered vehicle stores its hydrogen as a liquid, and without the presence of oxygen. Without an oxygen mixture, hydrogen will not burn. The tanks they use for storage can withstand around 100 tons of force, so any accident that would burst the tank would kill you long before the actual hydrogen ruptured, sublimated to gas, mixed with oxygen and then caught fire. The Hindenburg was a mixture of about 20% hydrogen to 80% normal air, which is why it burned so well.

Oh, and diesel fuel is around $5.25 a gallon here, I think I will pass for now.

Sorry, but you are misinformed. The FCX stores its fuel as a gas at a pressure of 350 atm (about 5150 psi). Oh and also, it stores hydrogen and OXYGEN in its fuel cell. Fuel cell tank strength is a major problem right now. I am sure there is a tank out there that can withstand 100 tons of force, but you don’t specify over what dimension (ft., in., mm.?), and I really doubt the tanks in passenger vehicles are this strong since they would be ungodly heavy and expensive. And on the subject of deisel if you pay 20% more for a fuel that gets around 50% better fuel economy, then you wind up saving money. Plus deisels are typically at much lower price points than hybrids, and hybrids have to have their batteries replaced every few years at the cost of a few thousand dollars. It is always obvious to me the people who use scientific terms and “facts” in a forum, and the ones who really can grasp what’s going on behind the scenes. But I guess we all can’t be engineers now can we?