In June of 2005 Honda became the first car company in the world to lease a hydrogen fuel cell powered car to Jon Spallino, of Redondo Beach, California. During the 2005-6 auto show season, they showed off a concept version of their first purpose-built fuel cell powered car. Earlier this year they announced that the car would go into low volume production in 2008 and yesterday they allowed a group of journalists to drive the first two prototypes at the Laguna Seca racetrack along with the two of the current generation FCX cars. I was there.

The day began with a technical presentation of where Honda's fuel cell development has been and where it's going. Unlike most other car-makers working on hydrogen power, Honda is designing and building their own fuel cell stacks. The previous generations of stacks have been laid out much like the ones from companies like Ballard where the gases flow horizontally through the stack. This horizontal flow is what has led to one of the problems with fuel cells in cars, cold weather performance.

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In June, 2005, Honda Motor Co. leased it first fuel-cell vehicle, the FCX, to the Spallino family (pictured) for two years. The Spallinos, who live in Los Angeles, use the vehicle as their daily vehicle to shop, ferry kids to sports, and some long-distance travels. They log their usage of the FCX, thus providing real-world information to the automotive company. The Spallinos have also another role: impromptu fuel cell educators.

"I am surprised at the amount of attention and rubbernecking received while driving the FCX," says Jon Spallino. "Despite being a developing technology, we have not suffered from any reliability issues and the car has all the comforts and conveniences we need."

Additional information on the FCX can be found at the link. 

Related:
Honda plans production version of FCX fuel cell concept
Honda to unveil new fuel cell vehicle this year

[Source: PR Newswire]