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The first Honda FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell vehicle has rolled off the production line in Japan. The zero-emissions Honda won’t be coming to Europe yet, as Honda is initially leasing a fleet of 200 vehicles to customers in the California and Japan.
Customers will pay roughly £300 per month over three years for the privilege, but drivers will be conscious of the car’s 270-mile range as there are only 3 hydrogen filling stations in California and 12 in Japan.
John Kingston, environment ma...Read the full article

It needs to get over to the UK as soon as possible, and the Government need to get some Hydrogen Fuel Stations up and running as soon as possible! Or Honda should get the home-fill-up-stations ready for use in the UK. This car would sell at the bucket loads providing they were to price it right!

 Its going to take a lot more than right pricing to sell these cars.

 It has to be economical to run and so far that doesn't seem to fit the description of

hydrogen. The most common way is to make H2 from natural gas and that is going to be a loser and will ensure we don't have energy independence.

 

The car also has to serviceable and safe...we have yet to see that. 

 
I don't know what Honda plans and maybe they have everything dialed in but don't count

on it yet.

 

Remember, this is the same company that was not successful with its hybrid cars.
 

 I'm glad that alternative fuel vehicles are now starting to appear, but I really don't see that locally refuelled Hydrogen cars are the answer. These are basically electric cars with an on-board power station, whose fuel evaporates into the atmosphere if not used quickly.

Rather than build an expensive network of hydrogen filling stations, which will be stocked by thousands of hydrogen-carrying road tankers, why not build larger, more efficient energy converters in the form of Hydrogen-fuelled power stations, and distribute the power through an existing network, i.e. the national grid.

This would keep Hydrogen away from the general population and from terrorists, and avoid the issue which receives little attention - that of water (the exhaust) being spread across our roads. Not good in a cold climate!

The inefficiencies of distributing and storing the power on-board in batteries would surely be offset by the greater efficiency of a central energy converter. However, if we really do want to have a 'distributed power generation system', then why not have nuclear-powered cars?

I look forward with great interest to see how this technology develops.

Will there be problems? Probably and not just a few, but we cannot shy away from these perceived problems.

The real initial challenge will be convincing many to ignore their preconceptions and allowing the technology a foothold to develope. 

 

'exhaust is only water...'

 This equals FOG to me. One car, fine 20,000,000 might be like LA now but instead of smog: FOG.

 The law of unitended consequences will prevail.

In case you hadn't noticed, a fair proportion of what comes out the back of a petrol/diesel car is water vapour...you'll probably find that a typical petrol car produces more water exhaust than a hydrogen-electric car.

john_bon:

 This equals FOG to me. One car, fine 20,000,000 might be like LA now but instead of smog: FOG.

I think I would prefer to breath in fog rather than smog if that was to be the case.

 With fewer moving parts that a combustion engine you would think it would be cheaper to service and more reliable.

I think the only issue with this would be the production of the Hydrogen

Think you should try to see the episode of top gear and listen to James Mays comments on the Honda Clarity- hes spot on and it is the future on a completely pragmatic level