That’s a sweet looking auto – I’d buy one.

That pic is of the wrong car, its the “Honda FCX” concept from the Toyko Show last year which they are talking about.

Nuclear powered electrolysis and hydrogen powered vehicles should be the way of the future. Too bad the US is stuck on subsidized corn ethanol and irrationally afraid of nuclear power.

Waste ethanol for the win. Kill two birds with one money saving, oil addiction ending, stone.

Can’t wait for the “If it’s not hybrid it’s crap” crowd

“Too bad the US is…irrationally afraid of nuclear power”
Agreed.

Liquid hydrogen would be so much better once all the (large) loose ends are tied up.

still takes more energy to create the hydrogen than is saved by the operation of the vehicle. Still not worth it.

Otherwise, I agree with pretty much all the comments above… we have a number of options, people are just too closed-minded to look at them.

Hey 7, you are correct. But if we use safe nuclear energy to create the hydrogen, we won’t need to burn oil. Ain’t that worth something?

#8: no need to preach to me about the benefit of nuclear technology….I am on your side there…

where are they gonna fill up?

i seriously doubt the first hydrogen cars will be afforable… and i still wanna know what happens when tank go boom…

Ever see what happend to the Hindenberg? that was a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. hahaha

Honda has already leased the FCX to the first private consumer, let alone many municipalities.
Hyrdrogen production is not a problem if your using nuclear power to create it.
Driving a bomb? You already are.
Infrastructure… still a problem.

Ford should just whip up a hydrogen car right now and call it a Pinto

I’ve read that fuel cells are not the way of the future as they use platinum, which would make mass produced fuel cells unworkable because of the short supply of the precious metal. Ethanol is the way – could possibly be 70 cents a gallon if production was scaled up in the US, with mileage not quite as good as gas but who cares for 70 cents a gallon. Good to see innovation all around, but my money is on e85.

Ethonal is not the way, Fossil fuel is not the way, Period. Technology already exists to see this Hydrogen Economy be made a possibility, with Certain types of Nuclear Reactors, they can be made to make Hydrogen or Heavy Water (Deuterium) as a by product to be used in vehicles. Kudos for Honda for being the first to take the plunge, I hope Canada and North America focus on this problem before we lose a chance to be part of the major changing.

Yeah hydrogen sure does explode. Are we forgetting that gasoline does too?

My current car runs on hydrogen.
A lot of hydrogen linked together with some carbon…

TO END THE EXPLOSION QUESTION:

It has nothing to do with what you are exploding but how much energy you are exploding. Granted the hydrogen actually does burn faster than petrol but its not noticeable from a “human” perspective. If you are going to release 1 million btus of energy (8 gallons of gas, roughly) in less than a second, its going to be a huge explosion. Doesn’t matter if its hydrogen, gasoline, TNT, or nitroglyceride. It goes boom.

I say GO HONDA! SCREW OPEC!

We can deal with the infrastructure problem. A short term solution would be to build shift reactors (google it). Inexpensive and can be run on domestic coal. Even if it produces CO2, its less CO2 (due to scrubbing technologies) and, most importantly, NO MORE FOREIGN OIL!

Wouldn’t it be great to actually tell the world to go screw itself because we don’t need its oil?

There was a recent study that strongly suggested hydrogen vehicle crashes are actually inherently SAFER than gasoline ones.

Ethanol production of any form is an energy-intensive – and wasteful – process. And it still produces carbon dioxide, the majority of which is NOT – I repeat – NOT reabsorbed by plants. It’s absorbed by the ocean.

Also – hydrogen can be biologically produced through genetic modification of algae. Renewable biofuel if there ever was one.

With regards to platinum costs- agreed. That’s a challenge even in the catalytic converter market. Sodium borohydride and/or metal hydride fuel cells could solve this problem. Ovonic has been working on the latter for quite some time.

Seriously good mpg.

I guess you will eventually fill water and turn it to hydrogen with electric, solving that boom boom fear…

Ethanol also takes more energy to produce than it yields and the supply is reliant on the yield of the harvest. Not to mention it would take the area of 3 times the entire US to grow enough corn to fuel our own cars. Why do they always try to make corn into various things? They inject our livestock with hormones so they can eat corn, because they can’t naturally digest it. They make it as a sweetner in the form as high-fructose corn syrup, replacing sugar, but the syrup makes us an obese nation as it boosts appetites for the sweets they’re in by releasing doppamines like drugs do, and they slow down the connection to our brain telling us we’re full. Other countries don’t use the corn syrup, they stick to sugar, but we subsidize our corn farmers and feel obligated to squeeze corn into every part of our daily lives. Ever wonder why soda outside the US taste different (better to some, like me)? Its because its only sugar. Sorry for veering off, but this whole ethanol thing is propaganda to fuel (no pun intended) the corn farmer’s business. Why is this happening? The first couple of primaries for presidential candidates are crucial. Iowa, in the heart of corn farming central, is one of the first primaries, and to win that primarie all the canidates have to please the corn farming lobbiest, which is a fraction of the US population.

To comments about Hydrogen blowing up like the hindenburg, the flames were orange, it was not fueled by hydrogen as hydrogen burning is colorless. The Hindenburg fire was from its engine room which was not running on hydrogen.

If the Hydrogen market will ever take off, the cars offering such techology need to also run on the current infrastructure, so it will be PRACTICAL to buy such a car. I’m all for the conversion, but its got to be taken in steps. So far, ford and Mazda have engines that run on gas and hydrogen.

well i think hydrogen suits well, don’t forget stations are well ventilated places and fumes raise sraight up, not so with gas you can be rounded with fumes nowadays when filling up, thinking only industrial and car inside needs that high security level most people talking about.

I think people are missing the point. Healthy development work and competition between technologies (Ethanol, Hydrogen, Hybrid) all stands to reduce our dependancies on Saudi crude for automobiles. It will also dovetail into side initiatives and technologies that can benefit us on numerous fronts.

Ethanol is a dirty band aid. Hydrogen is a cure. E85 is only good for politicians and GM. Hyrogen is the answer for the rest of us…

Until H2 gets here we should be squeezing OPEC (and lower prices by doing so) with conservation and clean diesel vehicle technology that already exists…everywhere in the world but the US.

Water as fuel anyone? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzJZJjo9MNA&search=water%20as%20fuel