This seems to generate more questions than answers. I'm sure someone has been thinking about some of these:

What does it take to generate H2 in commercial quantities without using fossil fuel? Hook a solar, wind, or nuclear electricity generating plant to a huge electrolysis plant, or something like that? With the new economics of fossil fuels, that might actually be economic soon.

Then, what does it take to distribute that H2 to rapid-refueling stations? I'm sure there are some interesting engineering problems there, but I'm also sure it can be done.

And, could it be economic to build and use a home-based H2 generator for overnight charging? Maybe a solar electrolysis unit, or something like that?

Looks to me like the supply of H2 in the USA now is roughly the same as the supply of gasoline was in about 1890. In a decade or two we could build out the plant. The only real issues are economic. How does H2 fuel compare with other non-fossil alternatives?

Then, what are the manufacturing costs? If we assume that a mass-production facility can be built to reduce the per-unit labor to near zero, the remaining cost is mostly the material and logistics. What materials are needed to make one of these fuel cells? How does that compare with the materials needed to make a conventional battery?

I suspect that electricity->H2->electricity double-conversion, plus the H2 storage and distribution costs, will prove to be less economic than battery or ultracapacitor technology. But, if the conversion-efficiency, manufacturing, storage and distribution problems can all be solved, it might work out.

In the mean time, those units will be nice toys for the people who get them. Look to see them in the futurist movies. I wonder if they are available with custom coach work?

 

I don't think this is a publicity stunt as others have suggested. It is a pilot program that is limited to a specific region due to the availability of trained service technicians and refueling options. Honda is also developing the Home Energy Station to help with the refueling of these cars. As these resources become more available the program will expand to other areas.

Honda is looking for drivers who fit a specific driving profile as well as other criteria so they can gather data on everyday driving performance, problems and issues.

The cost of each car is more of a research and development cost rather than a production cost. If and when the next generation of these cars goes into mass production, the cost will be reduced as it is with all prototypes.

I think this is a great program. When electric cars were first introduced, they faced many obstacles: driving range, recharging, size and number of batteries, speed, etc. Each of these has been overcome with the development of the Hybrids. The FCX will have it's problems, some of which have not been discovered yet. New technology such as this often provides more questions than answers. We need to start somewhere.

 

First of all, except for the fuel cell itself to create electricity , there is no new technology in this car. Electric motors had been used in the cars since about 90 years ago, they're used in heavy equipment and locomotives, I won't even mention hybrids. Same goes for AC, power breaks and power steering as seen in TCH. Even fuel cells are not entirely new, I think NASA started using them back in the Apollo days, but I may be mistaken and confused it with Shuttle, but they seem reliable if they can survive launch G-forces and space. The problem is we need something now and H2 as common fuel is at least 10 years away, even by Honda's estimate. In the meantime they dropped the ball on hybrid cars , instead of improving them and competing with Toyota and that's why I think it's more publicity stunt than anything else. They should have improve Honda Accord hybrid and make Impulse bigger instead of planning for year 2020. What about now? And where is that diesel Accord???? I ask again.

 

Quoted from Wall Street Journal:

"Mr. Fukui said the new fuel-cell car costs tens of millions of yen, significantly less than the several hundred million yen it cost to make previous models. The price would need to fall to below 10 million yen, or about $92,000, for fuel-cell cars to be a mass-market product, he said.

"''I think it wouldn't take 10 years' for his company to slash the price of its fuel-cell car to this level, he said."

Pretty dismal, IMHO. Here's a link to the article. I don't know how accessible it is without a subscription:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1213...RelatedStories

 

Why is this in the Camry Forum?

 

I can't speak for post author, but I imagine he put it here since everyone here seems to be interested in car efficiency as well as reduced emissions. The car represents the next generation of vehicles and provides food for thought.

 

You can find a CNN article here:

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/...8e14c89f85.htm

It does state 200 cars total over the next 3 years, but I couldn't find anything to back up the $1MM per copy figure. If I had to guess, I'd say that' including ALL development costs. You can't simply allocate over the first few vehicles, it gets spread across an entire production run, or even multiple product lines if technology is shared.

 

BTW, just to bring this little more on topic here is the story about Toyota fuel cell car:
"Toyota has developed a new fuel cell hybrid, a green car powered by hydrogen and electricity, that can travel more than twice the distance of its predecessor model without filling up, the automaker said Friday. The improved model's maximum cruising range is 516 miles (830 kilometers) compared with 205 miles (330 kilometers) for Toyota's previous fuel cell model, the maker of the Camry sedan and Lexus luxury cars said in a statement."
Will be available for leasing in Japan later this year.

Now, this is more like it with 516 miles range, more than double than Honda.
Full story here :

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...TO01/806060422
Hopefully by the time I'm ready to retire my TCH some new technology will be ready for market.

 

No one has mentioned the best part. You can't buy this car, well at least not in California. You pay $600 per month just to lease it from Honda. They can/probably will take it away from you at the end of the term. So all this talk of saving the environment is BS if you rent for this short of a duration.

At least Toyota has given a 7 year warranty on their HSD system. It gives people confidence in their technology and the way they're going about to procure the same idea.

3 years with limited range and the car is ours or 7 years unlimited range and you keep the car. Hrrmmm... I think the answer is evident. Honda is pitching a product that is too far ahead of the technology curve.

HP did the same thing with their "KittyHawk" drive way back in the early 90s (pretty much a micro hard drive with similar ideals to the Solid State Drives of today). They were super psyched and poured undisclosed amounts of time, labor, and capital into this project. To make a long story short, it was too little (storage space), too expensive, and too slow to produce. HP's dreams to cash in on a new market flopped. It was not until recently that the general public came to accept the SSDs and their expensive price point. Even with an ever decreasing technology cost, the price of SSDs are still way above my reach.

I don't believe the market is ready for this car, especially if it is not yours to own.

 

The point of the lease is that they want to control the limited distribution. They are putting a small number of cars on the road for a brief amount of time in a small, controllable, central area as a form of a test.
It's easy for them to evaluate the cars with only 600 cars on the road, all of which we will be returned to their southern California in three years.
There are far too many unknowns with the technology for them to risk their name and reputation.
Were these cars all turn out to be disasters after an extended period of time, with multiple owners, it would tarnish their image and customers would vow to never buy from the manufacturer again.
Considering the lack of fueling stations, this car, even if it were tested and deemed ready for the mass market, couldn't go into full scale production for quite a number of years.