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Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars
Honda (FCX) Clarity Electrically propelled vehicles have been around for awhile, but have never really been practical because their range was limited to amount of electricity their batteries could hold. The batteries were heavy, took a long time to recharge and eventually needed replacement (typically every 2-3 years).
Overall, not a very low maintenance and practical car! Now, Hydrogen Fuel Cells have also been around for awhile, and they have never really been efficient enough to mass produce, until now of course.
Leave it to one of the planets best automobile companies to improve this technology to a point where it can be practical enough to bring to the market. The basic function of the hydrogen fuel cell is to convert H2 (hydrogen fuel) and O2 (oxygen) from the air and produce electricity, while emitted only water vapor into the air. Obviously, driving vehicles that use this type of fuel will reduce our dependency on foreign oil, and also significantly reduce the amounts of carbon dioxide emissions in the air, which in turn will reduce the greenhouse effect. The Honda FCX not only revolutionizes the market for hydrogen fuel cell cars, but is also stunningly sleek & beautiful and incorporates state of the art electronics within the vehicles such as, Satellite-Linked Navigation with voice recognition & rear view camera, Multi-layered dash panel with 3D gauges, XM Radio with USB inputs, and much more. The FCX incorporates 5 basic components that function together to propel the vehicle.
Below are 2 videos that review the actual car. The 1st video is from Edmunds and the 2nd from Top Gear (great show!). This next video is Top Gear's review of the car.
There you have it! The car is beautiful, functional and gets enough mileage to make it very practical for everyday use. So why isn't everyone driving one of these? Well, primarily because of lack of hydrogen fuel stations. This has made the car primarily available only in Southern California where hydrogen stations are available in enough numbers that you won't be going for a ride and then towing your FCX home because you couldn't find a hydrogen station. The other bit of bad news is that it isn't available for sale, but rather offered only as a 3 year lease for about $600 per month. So there you have it, for all intense and purposes, this is the first practical hydrogen car, and if not important enough for it's actual production numbers, it should be noted as the car that forced other manufacturers to get serious and release their own hydrogen fuel vehicles. It's now more than ever obvious that vehicles running on fossil fuels are going to soon (relatively) be as extinct as the dinosaurs that the fuel came from. Stay tuned!
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