HYDROGEN GOES MAINSTREAM; OH, THE HUMANITY (SAVED)

(A Honda engineer, left rear, shows the couple who had just taken delivery of the US' first leased FCX Clarity, how to 'fill 'er up!' at a West Los Angeles Shell station recently fitted for hydrogen storage and pumping; the Honda dealership handling the lease is about three miles from this gas station ... What a coincidence, huh? And, yes, that's the car its-own-self, glaring at the camera ... You'd think Honda PR people would take better photos, wouldn't you?)

History isn’t usually made at car dealerships, at least pleasant histories, but last Saturday that’s exactly what happened at Honda of Santa Monica, CA, when it delivered a new car, unlike any other, and about which few people could complain.

Local Southern California residents Ron Yerxa and Annette Ballester got the keys to the first FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell EV sedan in America. About 200 of the vehicles will be leased over the next three years around the country. Southern California will have three Honda stores with personnel factory-trained to sell, deliver, service and maintain these truly groundbreaking family sedans.  

The timing of Honda getting their FCX cars on the roads of America couldn’t have been better. Just a month ago, a Shell gas station in West Los Angeles, just a few miles from the Honda of Santa Monica store, was outfitted with the equipment to store and sell hydrogen, one of about 45 places in the country where hydrogen is available to the public. Honda, at their US headquarters in Gardena, CA, also has hydrogen fuel “pumps” for filling-up hydrogen fuel cell-powered  vehicles. (GM's Equinox, a fuel cell-powered CUV which will be leased, at Chevrolet dealers; GM says Chevy will handle leasing and sales of all the corporation's coming green fleet).

FCX Clarity is, according to Honda, “a next-generation, hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicle. Propelled by an electric motor that runs on electricity generated in the fuel cell, the vehicle's only emission is water, and its fuel efficiency is three times that of a modern gasoline-powered car.”

The company says this latest-generation FCX will travel about 280 miles, or 74-mpg GGE (miles per gasoline gallon equivalent). “GGE?” Great, yet another abbreviation to remember.

General Motors will also lease about 200 Chevrolet Equinox hydrogen fuel cell EVs over the next two to three years, finding their way into government, university and industry test fleets, as well as some lucky private citizens. The monthly lease for Equinox and FCX Clarity is about $600. (The instrument panel in Equinox comes with the now-requisite nifty and just-oh-so de riguer animated screen constantly informing everyone in the car just how much gas they're saving, or is it hydrogen? Aww, forget it! See what Toyota started with that screen on the Prius? Next, a loudspeaker will be announcing mileage each moment to those outside the car, too).

There’s an old joke in the car business about the public doing the last million miles of road-testing for new GM products, but in this case, it’s more true than not.

Click below to find out more about the FCX, the Equinox ... and espeically how they plan to turn all that hydrogen into electricity!

Ever wonder how astronauts get electricity and drinking water in space? Fuel cells.

First described as theory in 1839, the first working model was built in 1845. Fuel cells’ first commercial use was in the US’ Mercury manned space program. Today, large industrial fuel cell installations supply back-up power for hospitals, factories, office buildings and government installations worldwide. And there are tests being run to see how fuel cells might power private homes, much to the chagrin of power companies around the world. (Fuel cells were never used commercially until the very deepest pockets of Uncle Sam opened wider than ever to beat the Russians into space with a human aboard; whatever happened to the Soviet Union, anyway? Last I checked they were on a milk carton).

How do they work? Pressurized hydrogen passes through a fuel cell “stack,” really a series of chemical membranes, producing electricity and H2O. Which is how astronauts get their water and electricity, and how fuel cell cars, like Equinox and FCX Clarity, work.

BMW and Mazda have begun loaning and leasing a small number of 7-series “Hydrogen 7” and RX-8 “Hydrogen RE” models, outfitted with existing piston and rotary engines modified to run on both gasoline and hydrogen (but not at the same time).

No greenhouse gases are produced by FCX Clarity or Equinox because there are no carbon elements in the hydrogen fuel. (BMW's 118-d was named Green Car of the Year at the most-recent New York Auto Show; power is from a clean diesel engine, the kind which are headed to the US in droves starting later this summer).

Mazda and BMW have gone this dual-fuel route because there is no wide-spread hydrogen infrastructure –- as yet. But existing oil and natural gas pipelines and pumps could be retro-fitted for hydrogen and, voila, there’s the start of our hydrogen economy.

America is now fighting wars on several fronts, from the Horn of Africa throughout the Mideast and on to Turkey, in Mexico and throughout many Central and South American nations, almost anywhere there are oil fields or might be in the future, all for the sake of filling our gas tanks. (A Mazda RX7 concept from the Tokyo Motor Show; Mazda says the car's rotary engine is perfect for running on hydrogen, too).

Like any addict, the first thing we have to do is admit we have a problem. Nationally, we haven’t come close to doing that, with the two old men running the country keeping the oil companies close to their hearts and their bank accounts.

Comments

[Steve Parker]

Thanks for dropping us a note at SteveParker.com.

Visited your site and it looked interesting ... very clean and spare, a look which I like.

Are you in the US or in the UK?

Steve

Thanks again.

[eXpertMotor]

thanks ... great article. i was searching for this. keep it going