So, this model is good enough for Lithium Ion batteries but the Prius is not? I'm confused.

The Li-Ion pack is probably smaller than the Prius main battery. Plus, Toyota dead-ended in their choice of Li-Ion chemistries and is back to the drawing board, while Hondo probably chose right and got lucky.

To an extent, I'd compare this program to Ken Livingston's plan to buy 10 hydrogen buses for London at a cool $2,000,000 a pop. This has the hallmarks of a serious and commercially viable program -- a major manufacturer behind it, initial units sold (fine, leased) at a price that is not orders of magnitude away from a comparable conventional model, etc. Honda has also been working on their home fueling appliance for a while -- a natural gas burning thing that sits in your garage and generates electricity, hot water and pure hydrogen if you like. It's supposed to be relatively efficient as these things go, so even if the hydrogen in this FCV ultimately comes from fossil energy, it should be pretty clean and have a lower well-to-wheels CO2 number than a regular car would have.

My one concern is that this program is founded on a distortion. The CARB ZEV mandate gives an absurd amount of extra credit to manufacturers who put FCVs on the road, relative to those who put BEVs on the road. Honda may have concluded that subsidizing a smaller number of FCVs is better than paying for a larger number of BEVs, but without such technology-specific rulemaking they probably would not have gone for either.

Who pays? We all do, by spending more for our regular cars so Honda and all the rest can have the cash they need to subsidize ZEVs. If what you want is a reducting in carbon emissions, just tax carbon directly. If FCVs were the best way to reduce emissions, that tax would naturally lead Honda to launch this program. But looking over at Europe, where they've taxed carbon (gas) very highly for a long time, I get the feeling that FCVs are not the most effective way to cut gasoline consumption. The ZEV mandate seems to be infatuation with gadgetry just for the sake of infatuation with gadgetry.

What's the mass of a full H2 fuel tank plus the fuel cell itself? What if you swapped those out for same mass in batteries? What would the range be?

Just wondering...

This is one heck of a technological achievement, but I'm not the least bit impressed with its implication for our transportation future.

Where will the clean, affordable hydrogen come from to fuel the mainstream use of such vehicles? EV's, especially those using quick-charge batteries, will likely be very competitive in two to four years--exactly when HFC vehicles are set to go mainstream. Once that happens, EV's win, hands down. (It will be much easier to add quick-charge capability to local gas stations than build an entire hydrogen generation, distribution, and dispensing infrastructure. Plus, the per-mile cost will likely be far less for EV's than hydrogen.)

EVs rool! Foll cells drool!

i hope its still a 0-60 car in 7 seconds.

So who can buy this? Although one has to think 600 INCLUDING maintainence is pretty damn good, but it sounds like they have to keep your car when they are doing it :S

"The lease will be three years long, with a monthly cost of $600 per month, including service, maintenance, and collision insurance. Customers will be able to drop off their vehicles at a Honda dealership for service, and Honda will then transport the vehicles to a dedicated service facility."

$21600 just to drive a FCX whoo! That does not include the cost of hydrogen as well, in terms of 1 KG (which equals 1 gallon of gasoline) per $ I have a feeling 1 KILOWATT is going to cost much less... espically when i'm paying 6.5 cents.

But given the recent "go hydrogen, i'll spend your tax dollars" gung ho we have here in British Columbia, I'm sure finding a station isn't going to be too shabby... I think?

NBK et al,

Skepticism is understandable regarding so revolutionary as this, and coming somewhat sooner than expected.
But, let's look at beyond the technicalities.

Let look at the PASSION that Honda is putting into this thing! The whole body sculpture is a piece of art! Far exceeding that of the Prius I and II. Like it's coming out of the finest Italian design studio. Look at the internal layout...a perfect blend of ultra-modernity with artistic passion. Even every internal details is finely sculpted to the last detail...reflecting absolute faith of the company in the car's mission. Look at the leap in performance between this model vs. previous generation.

There is no doubt that Honda is passionate about the future of FCV, just as Toyota was and still is passionate about HEV being the future of personal automotive. This is much more than just a company's attempt to satisfy CARB's ZEV mandate!
Gentlemen, don't just think...FEEL the emotion behind the design and the execution of this masterpiece of engineering and design! FEEL, or thou shall miss the spirit and the passion that life has to offer! This is what living is all about.

Roger Pham wrote: Sure hope I can get my hands into one of those.

Good luck with that...

Gentlemen, don't just think...FEEL the emotion behind the design and the execution of this masterpiece of engineering and design!

Roger, I went to the website and checked it out. It made me FEEL like throwing up! It looks like everything that's come out of Japan in the last couple decades, all mixed into one car. A little Prius, a little Solara, a little (very little) Insight, even a little of that ancient Subaru rod... Lots of zoomy styling cues, not much soul. Now don't get me wrong, I'm impressed that they've been able to deliver this much, but we can only speculate as to the true cost of the car. Several hundred thousand, if not approaching a million. The real reason for it to be out now? Many things, I'm sure, not the least of which would be marketing and halo effect. When it gets down to competing (non-subsidized) against real cars in the real world, I don't expect to see FCVs for quite a while.

Honda appears to lead the race on fuel cell cars. I can’t wait to hear more about the home refueling station they also develop for their FCX. Can they make an affordable (less than $10000) 5000 psi home hydrogen station? If so then hydrogen cars would start selling on commercial terms some 5 years from now and not 10-15 years from now I think.

I still don’t understand why they use a 100000 W fuel cell and a small lithium battery. Why not a 33000 W fuel cell and a 16 kWh lithium battery? You would get a PHEV with a fuel cell range extender. It should have the same acceleration as the current model and it should be able to do 80 mph with the 33kW at the highway. The costs would probably do gown from this downsizing because the fuel cell is more expensive still than the battery.

I have little faith in the claims about FCX Clarity: 1.5 better fuel economy compared with gasoline electric hybrid, that cannot be true. Honda is probably silent about the huge energy loss during conversion of gasoline (or other type of fuel) into H2. The true fuel economy is probably much less compared with an advanced gasoline/hybrid car that has an electric engine and electric generator. A gasoline/electric-engine hybrid can have a range of over 1000 miles, easily.

Honda got rid of their Honda Insight and replaced it by this lame inefficient hydrogen fueled "FCX Clarity"; this is the opposite of clarity.

$600/month for the FCX? Out of reach!

$100,000 for the Tesla? BEVs rock!

EVs rool! Fool cells drool!

Andrey:

Granted, CARB's mission was originally aimed at controlling local air pollutants, and not GHGs, but they have recently taken an interest in that topic as well. Just visit their website. In any event, my remarks earlier about GHGs apply equally strongly to their original mission of reducing PM, NOx, SOx and other such pollutants.

After a brief search, I have not found support for your proposition that CARB mandated specific technologies (such as a three-way catalytic converters, or a certain kind of such converters) in their rulemaking. While they may have set standards in such a way as to make it improbable that anyone would attain them without, at minimum, a three-way catalytic converter, I didn't see any command-and-control language dictating specific technological solutions.

Instead, I found this little gem in the California Health and Safety Code:

43011. (a) The state board shall establish criteria for the evaluation of the effectiveness of motor vehicle pollution control devices. After the establishment of such criteria, the state board shall evaluate motor vehicle pollution control devices which have been submitted to it for testing.
(b) The criteria established by the state board pursuant to subdivision (a) shall include, but need not be limited to:
(1) Provisions for the testing of vehicles on which a device is installed, when an engineering evaluation of the device indicates such testing is warranted.
(2) A requirement that independent test data be supplied to the state board for each device it is requested to test.

If you read through all that, it basically says "set some standards, let manufacturers submit vehicles designed to meet those standards, and test them independently to see if they work."

That's what I'm talking about.

Shaun

The reason that SOFC are not used is that they are too heavy and too costly to make it into a car ever. For example Ballards fuel cell for residential use Mark 1030 cost $45000 for a 1,32kW system and it weights hundreds of pounds. Honda’s FCX is a 100 kW PEM system.