that is until Honda recalls all their Clarities after 5 years for destruction ala GM

Begin Rant..... This is what... You know what, never mind....

And when you want beer and Doritos when you fill up, no more Mini Marts to deal with. Just hit your fridge and it's all free.

Is Honda planning to offer an FCX Clarity Hindenberg Edition...?

I'll take a Honda Civic GX instead that I can home fuel by eating lots of beans and farting into the tank.

Good health, free gas and endless fun playing 'pull my finger'... Hurray!

And this makes more financial or ecological sense than straight CNG conversions because ... ?

So all that comes out of the tailpipe is water? Should make winter driving a real sport!

@rgseidl: ...of marketing.

Yeah, well the next generation Hyundai Elantra will be atomic fusion powered anyway.

And the next Sebring will be a well built, good driving car.

@yellofury:

Oh, come on. Honda has leased FCX's to people for years. I know you enjoyed What Happened To the Electric Car, but come on, think a little.

@rgseidl:

Carbon emissions, theoretically. But in reality, hydrogen is retarded.

@rgseidl: Besides, with a fuel cell powering electric motors you can sneek up on unsuspectiong pedestrians silently and then run them over...!

@Rust-MyEnemy: ...Keep your eyes open for the Hyundai Elantra Hiroshima Edition...

Does hydrogen make sense financially or ecologically when you count in the energy needed to convert natural gas to hydrogen? The thermodynamic efficiency is typically only 10% to 40% or something, which means that 60-90% of the input energy becomes wasted energy. Starting to sound a lot like teen-age angst...Only a few people like Kurt Cobain was able to harness that energy before he was bored and old into money and fame!

"Hydrogen is the most abundant of the chemical elements, constituting roughly 75% of the universe's elemental mass."

I was about to call the "hydrogen haters" here "Luddites" (especially in light of the Hindenburg jokes), but I just learned why the Bush cabal has been so pro-Hydrogen...
It seems Big Oil is the current largest hydrogen producer and they plan to keep it that way, using dirty fossil fuel extraction and making visions of your home solar extractor more unlikely.
"Hydrogen's Dirty Secret" [www.motherjones.com]

@Mark Miller: NIce! Here is a quote from the article you linked, which answers my question:

John Heywood, director of MIT's Sloan Automotive Lab, says a system that extracts hydrogen from oil and natural gas and stores it in fuel cells would actually be no more energy efficient than America's present gasoline- based system.

"If the hydrogen does not come from renewable sources," Heywood says, "then it is simply not worth doing, environmentally or economically."

So the dirty hands are always behind everything we (are allowed) touch and see. Thanks Big Brother!

@Mark Miller: Yup, hydrogen is just another alternative energy scam. At present and for the near future, the only viable, scalable alternative to hydrocarbons is nuclear. The sooner everyone realizes this they happier we will all be.

There she is, in the daylight. The car was hard to make out on the dark show floor.

I'm confident that Honda wouldn't bring a car to market that was any more dangerous than a normal gasoline car. Just keep it away from St. Elmo's Fire, I guess.

That movie sucked.

What most people seem to forget... talking negatively about hydrogen or electric/hybrid cars... is that these technologies are very young and that you cannot criticize them for being "not perfect", not because they're not flawless, but because someone has to start somewhere if you want to find a solution for the ending (politically or naturally) supply of oil.

Oil companies are the biggest producers of hydrogen? Only natural, it's an investment in their business future after oil runs out.

So buying a hybrid or leasing this Honda is making a commitment to each and everyone and should be applauded by all, especially by those who prefer to continue driving their gas guzzlers...
Some soldiers have to be on the frontline.

They lost me at "natural gas"--our heating bill is crippling.
@sos10: Wow, that's the longest comment you ever made--I thought you had a rule that you do just one liners!

I said it once, so it bears repeating. Why didn't one of the American big 2 3/4 put this to market..... and it was so eloquently pointed out to me that it really isn't profitable or feasible yet. Seems like a great engineering company like Honda did it, so the American companies are just Marketing People, able to sell the product, powerless to engineer it.

You know how the American Big 2 3/4 can become more profitable practically overnight? Lay off the feeble Marketing Departments, get rid of the over paid management staff, and let REAL Engineers run the companies.

If it isn't a Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor, I am not interested.

Might I point out water vapor is a major "greenhouse gas"?

@rgseidl, akirachan: Maybe this is more efficient than burning CNG in the car because a fuel cell-> electric motor is so much more efficient than internal combustion? As the Home Energy Station uses the heat from the process to heat your home (and supposedly even makes electricity) the overall efficiency goes up.

There are so many details to determining the efficiency and emissions of this system. I suspect recharging batteries is more efficient and lower emissions, but I applaud Honda for trying something innovative. GM and Ford's hydrogen prototypes just assume you live near a hydrogen refilling station.

@NORAD: Indeed, water vapor is a greenhouse gas, but its concentration in the atmosphere is a function of temperature. As the weather warms, more sea water becomes vapor in the atmosphere, and that dwarfs the effect of man pumping out water vapor.

@skierpage: Thank you, Mr. Gore.

@rgseidl: Also keep in mind that there is some really innovative research being done in hydrogen development, while we've pretty much been refining oil into gasoline in the same way for a hundred years. It's also very unlikely that we'll be reaching "peak hydrogen" any time soon.
It's new, and right now it's not as good for the enviroment as, say, an electric vehicle running off of sustainable energy, but it does have a lot of potential.

@Novaload: Normally I don't have much time to write moe than one line, like now.

@sos10: Dang. I thought you were a zen master.

Dang, there's a Diesel Audi 4000Q on PDX's Craiglsist right now for $1499, it "needs the brakes bleed" and "the paint looks kinda bad," who doesn't want a biodiesel PCH? It's tempting, my neighbors across the street with the vintage Mercedes "D" collection know where to get the stuff...

[portland.craigslist.org]

@Turboner: Whoops, my bad! It's a 5000. That's like 1K better than a 4KQ! What are the RallyAmerica rules on alternative fuels? What are Gawker's policies on sponsoring race teams? ;)

Hydrogen tends to get contaminated if it sits in a tank for too long. I believe it leaks like crazy out of all but the tightest, meaning expensive, of seals.

i wonder do people realize that the fluctuation in global temps have been goin on a long time .. the temps have climbed in the past and dropped back down . the real difference is very slight. weather records have only been kept for less than 200 hundred years, so scientist know far less about this than they want the public to know. we do have respected scientist who say that global warming is a total hoax...... and i know common sense tells u that lightening fires in ancient times that went unchecked for weeks or months would put far more gases in the atmosphere than current day industry.. so think aobut it