The very first set of keys for Honda's brand new FCX Clarity have been delivered to film producer Ron Yerxa and Annette Ballester. The duo took delivery of their new hydrogen fuel cell-powered FCX Clarity on Friday, July 25, 2008 at Honda of Santa Monica. Now that the first production second-gen FCX has been delivered, we'd imagine that Jon Spallino, Jim Salomon, Laura Harris, and Jamie Lee Curtis will be getting phone calls of their own in no time at all. Mr. Spallino has actually been driving an FCX for the last three years, though it was one of Honda's first generation efforts. The new car is worlds better, featuring a new vertical flow fuel cell stack delivering a 270 mile range.
Despite the fact that Honda has delivered its first set of FCX Clarity keys, don't go rushing to your nearest Honda dealership to get your own. There are only three U.S. dealerships certified to lease hydrogen Hondas at the moment, and all of them are in the far-left state. So, if you want one... perhaps a move to Southern Cal. is in order.


[Source: Honda]

Do you like the Honda FCX Clarity (above) but wish it had a more standard hybrid powertrain instead of its million-dollar hydrogen fuel cell guts? You might get your wish, kind of.

Honda president Takeo Fukui has given out a few details on the new global hybrid that Honda is planning for release in 2009. The car will look at least a little bit like the FCX Clarity and will have one name around the world (like the Accord and the Civic do today). Speaking of the Civic, the new global hybrid will cost less than the current Civic Hybrid and will use an engine based on the Civic's, but smaller and lighter. Honda favors nickel metal hydride batteries, for now, but we know that lithium-ion options will be possible if and when Honda believes that battery technology is ready.

[Source: Hybrid Cars]

EVS23, the 23rd major symposium on Electric Vehicles organized by the Electric Drive Transportation Association (EDTA) and the World Electric Vehicle Association (WEVA), began Monday morning in Anaheim, California with a series of addresses that set the stage for what will happen here over the next three days.
It is true that there were a series of press conferences on Sunday (and the public ride and drive), but the less said about me traveling out of the Midwest in some nasty, nasty weather, the better. All I'll say is that you all can blame icy roads and a lame taxi company for a lack of EVS23 updates from Sunday.

Anyway, opening remarks for EVS23 were delivered by Rick Kasper, the president and CEO of GEM. He introduced professor C.C. Chan from the University of Hong Kong (and the president of the Electric Vehicle Association of the Asia Pacific (EVAAP) and Robert Stüssi, the president of the European Association for Battery, Hybrid and Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles. I'm not sure how the welcome speakers were selected, but I don't think that it was an accident that Asia, Europe and the US were all represented. The electric vehicle market, which, for the EDTA and WEVA includes hydrogen, hybrids and pure-electrics, is a global one. Fitting for a global problem.

(continue after the jump for more on the EDTA opening session, including audio files)

Click on the FCX Clarity for a high-res gallery

What you see pictured above is the world's first fuel cell-powered car designed from the ground up expressly for that purpose with series production in mind. It's not converted from any existing vehicle like the Chevy Equinox, Toyota Highland and Ford Focus that you can find elsewhere on this site. The Honda FCX Clarity takes the layout and design themes first seen in two years ago in the FCX concept to completion. As we reported earlier this week, the FCX Clarity will be available for lease to retail customers beginning in the summer of 2008.

In the days following the world premiere of the FCX Clarity at the LA Auto Show, Honda invited a select group of journalists to drive a pair of pre-production examples in Santa Monica. As pre-production samples, these two cars are essentially hand built but using production tooling. Some reports have the value of these cars as much as $10,000,000 which may or may not be accurate for the current stage of development, but read on after the break to find out what happens when bloggers take to the PCH and Malibu Canyon in Honda's latest creations.

All photos ©2007 Sam Abuelsamid / Weblogs, Inc.

Click the FCX Clarity for a high-res gallery

At the Los Angeles Auto Show this morning, Honda got to step three of a process that began at the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show when they first introduced the non-driveable FCX concept. A few months later they introduced a running version of that concept and almost exactly a year ago they started letting media, including AutoblogGreen, drive those cars at the Laguna Seca raceway in Monterey. At the time of the original introduction in Tokyo they stated their intention to begin low-volume production in mid-2008. They repeated that intention last year and today they publicly showed the production intent version of the car now known as the FCX Clarity.

The layout of the car remains largely the same as the concept with Honda's unique vertical flow fuel cell in the center console of the four door sedan body. Like the concept, Honda has chosen to stay with a 5,000 psi fuel storage system for the compressed hydrogen gas. Given the space age cab-forward style of the original concept one might have expected a significant change in styling for the production car. You would be mostly wrong. Aside from the nose being stretched a few inches in order to provide some crush space, the Clarity looks almost identical to the concept.

There's more after the break.

[Source: Honda]

Honda will be taking the wraps off the "production" version of their latest generation FCX at the Los Angeles Auto Show next month. The new fuel cell-powered FCX is based on the concept version that we drove a year ago and will be available to fleets and retail customers in the US and Japan starting in 2008. Initial volumes will be low and it's expected to only be available on a lease basis in places where there is some hydrogen availability such as California. The original FCX in 2003 was the first fuel cell vehicle get full EPA and DOT certification for meeting safety and emissions requirements in the US.

Related:

• Honda FCX concept fuel cell car in depth, Pt. 1 - The new fuel cell stack
• Honda FCX concept fuel cell car in depth, Pt. 2 - Styling and powertrain
• Honda FCX concept fuel cell car in depth, Pt. 3 - Construction and interior
  
• Honda FCX concept fuel cell car in depth, Pt. 4 - Driving at Laguna Seca
• AutoblogGreen Q&A with Prof. Joan Ogden and Stephen Ellis- Hydrogen efficiency
• AutoblogGreen Q&A with Jon Spallino - World's first retail fuel cell car customer

[Source: Honda]

Honda's next-generation FCX Concept fuel cell vehicle made its European driving debut at the Gotland Ring in Sweden yesterday. The FCX is claimed to have a energy efficiency of around 60 percent (which is 3 times more than a gasoline car, twice as much as a hybrid - but there was no mention on how efficient was obtaining the hydrogen). Honda is developing a new fuel cell vehicle and the FCX is an intermediate step. This vehicle should be available in 2008 for Japan and the US.

Technically, the FCX concept has a so-called V Flow fuel cell platform. Whereas in previous models the hydrogen and the water formed in electricity flowed horizontally, the new platform features a vertical-flow design, which allows gravity to improve water drainage and thus efficiency. The new stack is also 20 percent smaller and 30 percent lighter, with a central tunnel layout and a power improvement of 15 kW. All this changes have allowed the FCX to be designed as a sedan. The new FCX also adds a lithium-ion battery, which helps to increase power output and global range, making it a hybrid as well. Finally, even the seat fabrics are made from Bio-Fabric, a plant-based material claimed to resist sunlight damage.

Continue reading for the full specifications according to the manufacturer.

Related:

• Comparing rides: Honda FCX and Chevy Sequel
• Will the line start forming now to lease a new Honda FCX?

[Source: Honda]

Honda has been making headlines on sites such as ours as of late with the greening of their automotive fleet. Remember, Honda is not exactly a newcomer to the world of green vehicles, their Insight brought them into the hybrid game right from the start. Not only that, the combined fuel economy of their fleet of vehicles is the best in America. They offer hybrid versions of their Civic and Accord, and have been working on their hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for years. They also have CNG versions of the Civic. So, it should come as no surprise that they have won the award as the "Greenest Automaker" for the fourth consecutive year from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Want to know more? Check out this article from The Auto Channel. Don't forget to watch the included video.

[Source: The Auto Channel]

"Hydrogen: Here And Now!" This is theme of the upcoming Hydrogen Expo in San Antonio, Texas, to be held March 19-21. The question is, should it be "Hydrogen: Here And Now? And, if not now, when?" To get a sneak peek at the possible answers to these questions, perhaps you should attend the expo. At the very least, you will have a chance to sit behind the wheel and even drive one of the fuel cell vehicles that will be there, including the BMW Hydrogen 7.

In addition to the cars, there will be examples of hydrogen fueling for your home, your portable electronics and generators. Will any of these technologies become commonplace in the future? Nobody really knows for sure. Judging from comments on our site, there are doubters. However, there are some very smart people working on how to make the "hydrogen economy" a reality. Why not go to the expo and find out yourself?

[Source: Hydrogen Expo via Earthtoys]

Fox 11 Los Angeles has posted a four-part video series online called Auto Evolution which looks at the green vehicles and auto technology of the future which promise lower emissions and better mileage. John Beard and Christine Devine filed the reports which offer a good cross-section of interviews, background information and on-the-road examples of the technologies covered. Each episode runs around 5 minutes. Part one is below, and the other three are after the jump.

Part one covers hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles including Hyundai Tuscon, Mercedes-Benz F-Cell, Honda FCX and hydrogen refuelling infrastructure...


Analysis: These four videos are well worth your time - check them out.

Thanks for the tip Linton.

Related:

• Interview with Ian Bruce, founder of Venture Vehicles, part one - background and design
• Left Coast Electric converts 1978 Triump into an EV in three minutes - Video
• Introducing the BioBronc project - with lots of video

[Source: MyFoxLA.com]

We mentioned this on AutoblogGreen over the holidays, but I came across another aspect of the claim by Honda President Takeo Fukui's statement that he expects hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to be widely available in 2018 that bears thinking about. As Sam mentioned in his original post, Fukui believes that within a decade after the FCX is released, fuel cell cars will be available if the cost of these cars comes down to about a tenth of what they are now.

The problem is that all of these hydrogen fuel cell prototypes cost about a million bucks. One-tenth of that is $100,000. Sure, there is a market for one-hundred-grand green vehicles (see example A, the Tesla Roadster), but how many FCXs (or whatever the initial production model will be called) does Honda expect to sell at that price? Fukui told the Kyodo news agency that he's confident customers will buy these cars if they cost no more than 10 million yen ($84,000). Really? I can see a hydrogen car in the mid-fifties doing all right, but if Honda thinks they can do well with an $84,000 hydrogen car in 2018, well after when Tesla says they'll have their $30,000 EV sedan on the road, I think Fukui is in for a big let down.

Readers, your thoughts?

[Source: AP in the Suburban Chicago News]

A writer for the San Francisco Chronicle spent a few days in a Mercedes-Benz FCX fuel-cell car. Although he wanted to feel like a pioneer with the upcoming technology, he discovered that hydrogen fuel-cell cars are quite similar in most driving aspects to mainstream vehicles. There are the quiet operation and the adjustments for refueling, but Michael Taylor found the experience not unlike driving an electric vehicle (as AutoblogGreen readers should already know). One concern: driving in the rain put him on edge because the lights and wipers were using up juice.

[Source: Michael Taylor / San Francisco Chronicle]

Honda has already announced their plans to make a production version of the fuel cell powered FCX concept available to the public in limited quantities starting in 2008. Now in an interview with Kyodo News in Japan, Honda President Takeo Fukui has stated that he expects that fuel cell cars will be widely available on the market within ten years after the launch of the FCX. In order to make the fuel cells widely available at an affordable price, Fukui says that they still need to reduce the amount of catalytic noble metals in the stack, improve hydrogen storage, and reduce the cost and increase the availability of hydrogen production. The cost of the cars would have to come down to about one tenth of where they are today.

[Source: Kyodo News - subscription req'd]

(Editor's Note: don't miss Parts One and Two of this series)



The body structure of the Honda FCX concept is a combination of a steel lower body structure mated to a carbon-fiber composite upper structure. The production version will switch to an all steel structure to help keep costs down and simplify manufacturing. The steeply raked windshield inevitably means a really long dash board, and the risk of nasty reflections. On a sunny autumn day at Laguna Seca, reflections didn't pose a problem on the concept, hopefully this will be carried over to the production version.



(Continued after the jump)

(Editor's Note: don't miss the Part One of this series)



The new Honda FCX concept is a four-door, four seat sports sedan with a profile reminiscent of the Lamborghini Portofino concept of the late 1980s. It has an extreme cab-forward stance, with a sharply raked windshield, and a fairly tall rear deck. The A-pillars stretch way out toward the front corners with a fixed quarter window between the pillars and the leading edge of the doors. This design element is also reminiscent of another late eighties vehicle, the unfortunate first generation GM mini-vans. However, on this car the whole design seems to work much better.

The roof line sweeps back from the front bumper to trailing edge of the trunk lid one continuous sweep. The total effect is futuristic and slightly aggressive. It definitely doesn't have the top-heavy, slightly clunky look of the current FCX. The 2008 production version will look almost identical to the current prototypes, the main difference likely to be in the front bumper area. The front styling is expected to be maintained but the structure will be modified.

(Continued after the jump)