Test drive: 2009 Honda FCX Clarity

Where can I sign up?
Isn’t there an at home fueling station setup that’s tied in with your home natural gas hook-up?
I can’t see how this won’t be a winning prospect, provided they can produce the car at prices average people can afford.
Congrats to Honda for such a singularly dramatic and profound effort!!!

I like the Clarity but have to wonder why they didn’t simply go the electric route since the infrastructure would be so much easier to create.

On the other hand, I’ve read that there are some promising technologies that may help to free hydrogen from less green production methods.

But then, the same could be said of power production in general. I’m on the fence. Nice car. May the best technology win.

Having had the opportunity to ride in the Clarity (thank you Aaron), I must say Honda went to great lengths to make the experience as similar to a normal gasoline powered vehicle as possible. I’m guessing the angle there is to eliminate the differences as much as possible so there are no obstacles in the buyer’s decision process. In the end, though, the technology under the hood is far more advanced than the technology outside and there is an obvious disconnect in that line of thinking.

Now with regards to filling stations and range, keep in mind this is still an experiment. A beta, if you will. More filling stations will arrive in addition to the optional home filling station as indicated by Hawaiian Don. The range will increase with the higher PSI capacity tanks making allowing the same range as most gasoline cars on the road today. As for the hydrogen vs. full electric debate, the problem with full electric cars is that once you have gone the maximum distance (i.e. 200 miles) and need to refill you can’t just pull in a fueling station and recharge in a matter of seconds like you can with hydrogen.

The other debate seems to be over the method of creating hydrogen, as it is not harvestable by itself. There are multiple methods of creating hydrogen and sure all of them require some form of energy to produce but the bottom line is simple. There is potentially an endless supply of hydrogen because it is basically everywhere. Using natural gas is great but there is a finite amount of gas available same as there is with oil. Creating from water is the best solution currently but there is the question of how much water will be used during drought conditions and how much electricity is required for the process. Yes the electricity is made mostly from coal plants but the same argument can be said for the electricity required for a direct electric car as well. Not to mention the plans to use solar panels at the filling stations to augment the electricity requirements on-site. For the water question there is also the possibility of making the hydrogen from sea water that is undrinkable.

So, is this car ready for the masses today? Sadly, no. More infrastructure is required to make it viable in the market. But is this a sign of what is to come? Definitely! This, to me, is the most viable option as a solution to the long term goal of eliminating the need for oil.

Wow! Great info there DFI or should it be Dr. DFI, PhD. That was quite comprehensive. The upside to the infrastructure issue is that our new president has regularly been talking about infrastructure initiatives. Hopefully, hydrogen refueling centers may just be part of that big picture.

>the problem with full electric cars … you can’t just pull in a fueling station and recharge in a matter of seconds like you can with hydrogen.

No, but quick-charge technology is a possibility. The previous generation of electric cars, developed in the 90s, could often pick up 80% of their charge within an hour or two. Topping off the batteries is what takes a while. Surely if we can overcome the obstacles to efficient hydrogen production, we can overcome the obstacles to efficient battery charging. — Aaron

Very informative comments so far!

Regarding what Aaron said: just a couple of weeks ago there was a breakthrough in charging technology for lithium ion batteries. By coating some part of the battery with some kind of glass, they are able to create a battery that charges in a couple of minutes rather than an hour. This technology makes “filling stations” a possibility but the high currents necessary may not work for home charging (and thus may not be ideal for EV use). Here’s more info as reported by GM. http://gm-volt.com/2009/03/13/qa-with-lithium-battery-charging-breakthrough-inventor-byoungwoo-kang-and-what-does-this-mean-for-electric-cars/

Of course with the Volt, the idea is that most driving is done near home. Thus a car that has a 40-50 mile range before it shifts to gasoline use is very interesting even though it is, by definition, a transitional technology.

With regard to using natural gas or ANY fossil-based fuel to produce hydrogen: If you use fuel to produce electricity which is then used as the direct energy source in an EV, there is more capacity for efficiency than using fuel to create electricity to create hydrogen which is then used as a fuel. Each step in the process introduces a little more inefficiency (in a perfect variable-free environment). Inefficiency, in this case, results in pollution.

But I’m excited by all of the possibilties including the Clarity. Whatever technology the market chooses, the environmental/political/economic impacts will be profound.

Hmm, I don’t know. Seems like an Engineering 101 lesson about energy not being created or destroyed, just converted. If this thing has an electric motor powered by a battery, and that battery is partially recharged by generating electricity from hydrogen, and that hydrogen is extracted from natural gas, or from water+electricity…then it seems incredibly inefficient. Didn’t we just go in a big circle of energy conversions, all the while losing a little bit of that stored energy to unintended consequences during each conversion?

If natural gas is the source, then why don’t you just put natural gas in the car??

If water+electricity is the source, then…what? Why would you use electricity to extract hydrogen from the water to generate electricity to recharge the battery to power the car, instead of just recharging the battery with electricity to begin with??

The whole thing sounds to my naive, yet MBA-educated, soul like a marketing ploy. Sounds like Honda’s marketers recognized the past failures of electric cars and are convinced that the market will not accept electric cars. So they are using very advanced technology to stick an energy storage device in the middle of everything, while emphasizing to the public the existence of said energy storage device, but all the while simply hiding that it’s really just an ELECTRIC CAR, albeit one that’s intentionally built to be less efficient than a traditional electric car.

Haven’t we learned from GM’s past failures what happens when marketing people instruct engineers in how to design and build cars?

Bryan, your points are technically valid and sure there would be greater efficiency to use pure electric cars, however, I think you are missing the bigger issue of range and convenience. How do you tell a microwave owner he must use a conventional oven for everything from now on because it’s more efficient? (I’m not making an argument that ovens are more energy efficient than microwaves, just that microwaves are more convenient).

The problem with pure electric cars is that you can’t simply jump in a car and drive across the country stopping every now and then for a quick recharge. Sure Aaron has spoken about the quick charge technology that is being researched but is it viable? We don’t know yet. It comes down to presenting an alternative fuel that has at least the same or better convenience as the current petroleum solution in order for the masses to adopt it.

For the natural gas question, sure, we have natural gas vehicles now. Do they sell? Not really because refueling is not as convenient due to poor investment in providing the proper filling infrastructure. The bigger issue with natural as a long term solution is first of all; burning of natural gas still gives off greenhouse gases (i.e. more hurricanes from global warming); and secondly there is a finite amount just like oil. Hydrogen is a renewable resource that can be extracted from multiple sources.

Bottom line is this, you need the marketing guys to be involved because they are necessary to help choose the technology that is sellable. People are used to the convenience of pulling in at some random place and refueling in a matter of a few minutes. Is it the most efficient solution? No. But it sure is the most likely to be adopted by everyone.

Well i do not know the size of batteries in electric cars, but in a mass market there could be a workaround about the weakness of not charging chickly. What about if they offer you in every “gas”station instead of charging your battery simply changing it in two, three minutes. You just leave your empty battery and get a new charged one for some money. Also the might consider the age of you battery to know which values does your battery have, or they just change it for one for a similar age. In a world of credit cards and technology some kind of system which can manage that could be surely created. Also of course the battery has to be easy accesible. What do you think?

Jan, that’s a really good point about gas stations just changing your battery/batteries out on electric cars for you quickly. If they were designed properly, it could take only a few seconds, much faster than filling up a tank with gasoline or natural gas.

It reminds me of the gas grill propone tank exchanges that so many stores do now. When your old one’s empty, you just exchange it for a new one, for only $10-$20. It only takes a second.

Why can’t electric cars just have batteries that can be replaced in 30 seconds, instead of ones that require several hours to recharge?