No matter how much they claim otherwise, hybrid buyers like to wear their green credentials on their sleeves. That's the beauty of the Prius: It can scream "green" without being covered with badging like the Tahoe Hybrid. It's smugness lies in its subtlety. So how can Honda rip off the Prius design while still producing a unique design? We're not sure, but if the artist's rendering on Hybrid Cars is anything remotely like the finished product, they apparently can't. [HybridCars.com]

The technology behind the Clarity is basically a flashback to tenth-grade chemistry. Tank-stored gaseous hydrogen is pumped into the "stack," which consists of layer upon layer of fuel cells. Inside each cell, hydrogen gas reacts with a hydrogen electrode, causing a catalytic reaction that ionizes the hydrogen atom (electricity is of course nothing but flowing electrons). The electron-less atom (ion) next bonds with oxygen to create water, which recirculates through the stack to keep the electrolytic membranes damp, before exiting the vehicle through the tail pipe. In turn, the fuel cell stack powers an electric motor, which drives the front wheels. There is also an auxiliary lithium ion battery to store extra juice created by the stack, the motor (which behaves like a generator when decelerating) and additional energy gathered from the regenerative braking system. The battery is used during start-up or to assist the engine if the demands of the right foot exceed the power output of the stack. See? Piece of sugar-free cake.

As intense and complicated as all that sounds, you'd never suspect the FCX Clarity was anything but a run-of-the-mill Honda. While some have complained that it looks like a Hondaized Prius, the Clarity is so large as to mitigate that comparison. I maintain it looks like an elongated Accord with Infiniti G Coupe haunches, a chopped front end and a chrome new-gen Volkswagen beard. Sure, it's a little longer than the Hondas we're used to, but that's the price paid for having a fuel tank that can store enough hydrogen for a 270-mile journey while ensuring plenty of back seat legroom and a real trunk. The Clarity is also a bit wider than most Japanese mid-size family sedans because the stack is nestled between the front seats. Hey, you have plenty of elbow room.

The interior is extremely comfortable, nearly luxurious and made from all sorts of high-tech green materials, like corn. The instrument panel is similar to the current Civic but manages to crank up the Fisher-Price-meets-Buck-Rogers chic. For example, a small blue circle appears in the center of the digital dash when the Clarity is "idling." During acceleration the ball grows larger and turns green. Really stand on the go pedal and the ball morphs into a glowing-orange sun. The backseats are especially spacious. There's plenty of legroom, and the door panels are scooped out, giving the back compartment a circular feel.

Our drive started at the ritzy Fairmont Mira Mar Hotel on Ocean Drive in Santa Monica, where Autoblog Sam turned north onto Pacific Coast Highway and wound his way through Malibu and that city's recently charred canyons. I looped us back. While dealing with stop-and-go traffic in Malibu, we were surrounded on all sides by Hybrids. Every fifth car seemed to be a Prius. At one point we even found ourselves behind a Ford Escape Hybrid with a license plate that read, "NO HUMMR." I was reminded of Star Trek IV when Kirk and the boyz warp back to the year 1986 and Bones finds a woman hooked up to a kidney dialysis machine. He feeds her some pills made from super futuristic technology, unhooks her from the apparatus and declares the then contemporary state of medicine, "Barbaric." All around us people were driving vehicles that in their minds are atop the environmental food chain. Yet they're still emitting loads of dirty old carbon dioxide (and whatever else) into the atmosphere derived from a tank full of Middle Eastern crude. Meanwhile we're zooming past all of 'em, dripping only water while nestled comfortably behind the wheel of the future.

Malibu, California

Naysayers, Ron Paultards, the blindly patriotic and those not convinced that human activity is cooking our globe will all roll their eyes and dismiss the FCX Clarity as nothing but vaporware. A passing fad. A cynical gesture by Honda aimed at appeasing "environmental nazis," CAFE standards and nothing else. All that's fine, as people said similar things about Henry Ford's Model T. But even if you hate Al Gore and despise Ed Begley Jr., there's no way $100 for a barrel of oil (up from under $60 one year ago) makes you happy. Something has to give, and give in a big way.

Ford Model T

Coincidently, 2008 marks 100 years since Ford put America on wheels by rolling out the Model T. It's also the year Honda will begin leasing FCX Clarity models (and their home-based, natural gas powered hydrogen refueling stations) to select customers around Southern California and in Japan. Yes, the natural gas emits CO2, but only half as much as petroleum. More important, tank-to-wheel energy efficiency is more than double that of Honda's existing hybrids, and three times that of their small internal combustion cars like the Fit. And remember, if the hydrogen is created using green energy — solar, wind, geo-thermal, hydro or atomic — there are no greenhouse emissions whatsoever.

At this point you probably want to know how fast the FCX Clarity accelerates, its top speed and how many Gs it pulls around corners. Well, Honda didn't bother to say much about the Clarity's performance other than it's comparable to a "2.4-liter internal combustion vehicle of similar size." So, we have to guesstimate. As the 100 kW (136 hp) electric motor creates 189 ft-lb of torque from zero rpm, zero-to-60 times are most likely in the low seven-second range. Never forget that Americans buy horsepower and drive torque. Top speed is limited to 100 mph. Much more impressive is how effortlessly the Clarity cruises. At one point the speedo indicated 53 mph and I was convinced I'd accidentally switched the display to metric. A moment later we passed one of those police "your speed is" contraptions that indicated 53 good old American miles per hour. The ride, helped out by the long wheelbase, is outstanding. The Clarity weighs in at 3582 lbs. A four-cylinder Accord weighs 3,433 lbs. and the V6 model weighs 3600 lbs. Going around a corner, you'd be hard pressed to detect a difference between the three. But performance is hardly the point.

Honda FCX Engineers and their Baby

Every year I go to New York to watch the Packers play the Vikings. We watch the game at your typical sports bar with a dozen or so TVs hanging from the walls. One year a Giants or Jets game finished up early and the local station switched over to the Green Bay/Minnesota game we had until then been watching on Satellite. However, the local channel's feed was about ten seconds ahead of the satellite. "Turn it off! Turn it off!" one of the more colorful patrons began screaming, "Turn that fuckin' TV off!" We tried to reason with him, explaining that it doesn't matter if one feed is ten seconds in front of the other. "No way man," he shot back, "That's the future!"

Climbing out of the FCX Clarity and back into my own car, I couldn't help but feel the same. Sitting in the world's most heinous traffic surrounded by millions of my fellow Angelenos all burning countless zillion gallons of gasoline, how on earth is all this going to change? Where's the hydrogen infrastructure going to come from, if it comes at all? I don't know. Honda is going to stick a few refueling stations in and around Los Angeles along an already existing hydrogen pipeline (common in industrialized areas) but obviously that's not enough. Their home energy station is pretty damn useless if you live in an apartment. And the $600 per month lease is no friend to most of us. Honda (and Ford and Toyota and GM and every manufacturer investing in fuel cell technology) has a real chicken-and-egg situation on their hands. Fortunately the Honda FCX Clarity is one hell of a chicken.

Honda today unveiled the FCX Clarity fuel cell vehicle at the Los Angeles International Auto Show, announcing plans to begin limited retail marketing of the vehicle in summer 2008.
The FCX Clarity is a next-generation, zero-emission, hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle based on an entirely new Honda V Flow fuel cell platform, and powered by the highly compact, efficient and powerful Honda V Flow fuel cell stack. Featuring tremendous improvements to driving range, power, weight and efficiency - and boasting a low-slung, dynamic and sophisticated appearance, previously unachievable in a fuel cell vehicle - the FCX Clarity marks the significant progress Honda continues to make in advancing the real-world performance and appeal of the hydrogen-powered fuel cell car.
Honda plans to lease the FCX Clarity to a limited number of retail consumers in Southern California, U.S., with the first delivery taking place in summer 2008. Full details of the lease programme will be set closer to launch, but current plans are for a three-year lease term with a price of $600 per month, including maintenance and collision insurance.
How the FCX Clarity got its name
Honda chose this name to express the idea that the company is creating a fuel cell vehicle that will offer a clear solution to the challenges of the future, helping society achieve sustainable mobility.
How the FCX Clarity works
The FCX Clarity utilises Honda's V Flow stack in combination with a new compact and efficient lithium ion battery pack and a single hydrogen storage tank to power the vehicle's electric drive motor. The fuel cell stack operates as the vehicle's main power source. Hydrogen combines with atmospheric oxygen in the fuel cell stack, where energy from the reaction is converted into electric power used to propel the vehicle. Additional energy is also generated through the capture of kinetic energy from vehicle braking and deceleration (known as regenerative braking), which is stored along with surplus energy from the fuel cell in the lithium ion battery pack, and is used to supplement power from the fuel cell, when needed. The vehicle's only emission is water.
Honda V Flow FC Stack
The V Flow FC Stack features an entirely new cell structure that achieves a higher output of 100kW, smaller size and lower weight, with a 50% improvement in output density by volume, and a 67% increase in output density by mass, compared to the previous Honda FC stack.
V Flow FC Stack (Vertical Gas Flow Cell Structure)
The new V Flow FC Stack introduces a cell structure in which hydrogen and air flow vertically, and gravity is used to facilitate more efficient drainage of the water byproduct from the electrical generation layer. The result is greater stability in power generation. The new structure also allows flow channel depth to be reduced by 17% - a major contributing factor in creating thinner cells and a more compact stack.
Wave Flow-channel Separators
The V Flow FC Stack incorporates wave flow-channels for the hydrogen and air, with horizontal coolant flow channels weaving between them. The wave flow channels provide greater flow length per channel than straight channels, while the resulting turbulent flow within the channel promotes improved hydrogen and air distribution. As a result, the hydrogen and air are spread over the entire electrode layer, making more efficient use of the compact electrical generation layer and achieving approximately 10% higher generating performance than with straight flow channels. The horizontal coolant flow also ensures more even cooling over the entire electrical generation layer, allowing for a reduction in the number of cooling layers to half that of previous stacks. While the previous stack had one cooling layer for each cell, the new stack needs only one cooling layer per two cells. This results in a 20% reduction in stack length and a 30% weight reduction, which is a major breakthrough in compact, lightweight stack design.
Improved Startup Capability at Low Temperatures
Improved water drainage due to the V Flow cell structure facilitates better output immediately after startup. The reduced coolant volume and single-box design made possible by the wave flow-channel separators results in heat mass 40% lower than previous stacks. As a result, startup is now possible at temperatures as low as -30° C.
Honda V Flow Fuel Cell Platform
The FCX Clarity's revolutionary new V Flow platform packages the ultra-compact, lightweight and powerful Honda V Flow fuel cell stack - 65 percent smaller than the previous Honda fuel cell stack unit - in the vehicle's center tunnel, between the two front seats. The compact size of the new V Flow FC Stack allows for a more spacious interior and more efficient packaging of other powertrain components, which would otherwise be unattainable in a sleek, low-slung sedan.
The FCX Clarity boasts numerous other significant advances in the performance and packaging of Honda fuel cell technology, compared to the current-generation FCX. These include:
a 20-percent increase in fuel economy (about 2-3 times the fuel economy of a petrol-powered car, and 1.5 times that of a petrol-electric hybrid vehicle, of comparable size and performance); a 30-percent increase in vehicle range - to 270 miles (approximately 430 km); 120-percent improvement in power-to-weight ratio, in part due to around a 400-pound?(approximately 180kg) reduction in the fuel cell powertrain weight, despite a substantial increase in overall vehicle size; a 45-percent reduction in the size of the fuel cell powertrain - nearly equivalent, in terms of volume, to a modern petrol-electric hybrid powertrain; an advanced new lithium-ion battery pack that is 40 percent lighter and 50 percent smaller than the current-generation FCX's ultracapacitor; a single 5,000-psi hydrogen storage tank with 10 percent additional hydrogen capacity than the previous model.
FCX Clarity Design
More than just a fuel cell vehicle - the FCX Clarity portrays Honda's vision of the future of automobile design and performance freed from the constraints of conventional powertrain technologies. The FCX Clarity's four-door sedan platform features a short-nose body and spacious cabin with comfortable accommodation for four people and their luggage. Major powertrain components - including the electric motor, fuel cell stack, battery pack and hydrogen tank - have been made more compact are distributed throughout the vehicle to further optimise space, comfort and total vehicle performance.
Advanced Materials and Components
In keeping with its theme as an environmentally-advanced automobile, the FCX Clarity features seat upholstery and door linings made from Honda Bio-Fabric - a newly-developed, plant-based material that offers CO2 reductions as an alternative to traditional interior materials, along with outstanding durability and resistance to wear, stretching, and damage from sunlight.
Designed to appeal to forward-thinking customers seeking the ultimate in zero-emissions, alternative-fuel vehicle performance, the FCX Clarity is also equipped with a full compliment of advanced safety, comfort and convenience features. These features consist of a state-of-the-art navigation system with hydrogen station locations, a rear view camera, Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC), Collision Mitigation Brake System (CMBS), a premium sound system, climate controlled seats and BluetoothTM connectivity.
Other improvements, such as shift-by-wire, electric power steering (EPS), and a newly designed instrument panel with easy-to-read display of hydrogen fuel consumption, further improve its customer appeal and ease of operation.
CO2 Emissions
The FCX Clarity's only emission is water. CO2 emissions related to the production of hydrogen vary by source; however, well-to-wheel CO2 emissions using hydrogen reformed from natural gas - the most widely used method of production today - are less than half that of a conventional petrol vehicle. With the production of hydrogen from water by electrolysis, CO2 emissions can be further reduced and ultimately approach zero if the electricity is generated from sustainable sources, such as solar, wind, hydro and wave power.
In the area of solar technology, Honda has developed its own solar cells, with half the CO2 emissions in the production stage compared to conventional crystalline silicon cells; and has begun mass-production and retail sales of this technology in Japan for both commercial and residential use. These panels are also used to generate electricity for the Torrance R&D refueling station.
Fuel Cell Leadership
For forty years Honda has worked hard to reduce the environmental impact of the automobile, including efforts to reduce emissions, boost fuel efficiency and, now, many industry-leading efforts to advance the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle - a technology and fuel that Honda believes may hold the ultimate promise for a clean and sustainable transportation future. Honda's pioneering achievements in this area include the first U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and California Air Resources Board (CARB) certification of a fuel cell vehicle (2002); the first lease of a fuel cell vehicle (2002); the first fuel cell vehicle to receive an EPA fuel economy rating (2002); the first cold-weather customer (2004); the first and still only individual retail customers (2005, 2007); and the first and still only fuel cell vehicle to be eligible for a U.S. federal tax credit.

We told you about Honda's impending FCX Concept by at the Los Angeles Auto Show and how they wanted to start selling it here by 2008. Well guess what? They weren't fooling. The new and improved Hindenburg hydrogen fuel cell vehicle will be hitting both our shores and Japan in 2008. Where do you get the hydrogen? That's the beauty part – anywhere. Ben Knight, Honda's vice president of research in the Americas says that hydrogen can, "be derived from a broad range of sources, including methane or natural gas, bio-mass and renewable sources like solar or wind." They're also toying with a home hydrogen energy generation station that runs off natural gas. Just plumb it into the same line as the Bar-B-Q. Which would be pretty cool. But forget the fact that the new CXF "Concept" has a 270-mile range and can hit 100 mph, the real story is what Steve Ellis, Honda's manager of fuel cell vehicle marketing said;

We're calling this the 'FCX Concept' but I can assure you it is not just some far out, pie-in-the-sky exercise in what may or may not come to fruition some day in the distant future. It will be positioned as the ultimate environmental badge of honor for our customers.

Honda has new fuel cell vehicle [The Detroit News]

Related:
LA Auto Show Still Breaking: Honda Reinvents the Hindenburg; FCX Concept Becomes Reality in 2008 | Yeah, Barack Obama's Got A HEMI! [Internal]

Honda may in fact be just as highly precise as the boys from Stuttgart, but they don't brag about it. Instead, they flaunt their massive levels of high-efficiency. So highly efficient in fact, that North American Senior Veep John Mendel mentioned it four times. Which isn't very efficient. Luckily for the "energy diversity" crowd out there, the FCX Concept is. Featuring a fuel cell stack that is 20% smaller, 30% lighter yet 14kW more Bruce than the current Honda hydrogen stack. And no, we have no clue what a kW is either. Though total output is rated at 127hp. Most coolest is that the FCX has an auxiliary "high-efficiency" lithium ion battery, which when combined with the smaller, buffer stack equals maximum hydrogen hoonage potential.

Related:
Honda to Produce Next-Gen FCX Fuel Cell Vehicle [Internal]

Just months after Honda announced it's putting a fuel-cell sedan into limited production by decade's end, the company will show off the next-generation of the system at this year's Los Angeles auto show, according to Edmunds Inside Line. The updated fuelie rig won't be getting a new concept car to wrap it in — it'll be installed in the same FCX sedan Honda showed off at the Tokyo show last fall. Still, it will likely be closer to the hydrogen system powering the production FCX, which will be available via short-term lease to fleet users. No word yet on which celebs will arrive at the 2010 Oscars in one.

IL Insider: Honda To Unveil Third-Generation Fuel Cell in LA [Edmunds]

Related:
Honda to Produce Next-Gen FCX Fuel Cell Vehicle [internal]

Four months ago, Honda debuted its next-generation FCX vehicle, looking for all the world like a combination of the new Civic and Chrysler's recently-snuffed LH cars. Yesterday, Honda CEO Takeo Fukui announced that the car will be available for sale in the next three to four years, with limited driving opportunities available to members of our particular estate (although we live in a van down by the river, not in the mansion on the hill) as early as the third quarter of this year.

Honda FCX fuel cell vehicle production announced [Gizmag]

Related:
Bears go Cruising in F-Cell: Call Researchers Get Hydrogen Car [Internal]

Honda has announced the Home Energy Station III, the latest sequel in Honda's blockbuster Home Energy Station series. Starring Leslie Nielsen and the ghost of George Peppard, as well as Sally Field and Brooke Burke in supporting roles and cameos from such luminaries as Alex Trebek and Larry the Cable Guy, the Home Energy Station III promises to be the biggest yet. Spun off from the direct-to-DVD Phill, Home Energy Station III features an invention that converts natural gas to hydrogen and can be used to power a home in an emergency. It's currently playing at Honda USA headquarters in Torrance, California, in a double feature with the Honda FCX.

Honda fuel cell refueller doubles as emergency home energy centre [Just Auto]

Related:
More on Honda's CNG Home Refueling Station [Internal]

Traveling California's "Hydrogen Highway" just got easier for Honda FCX drivers (ok driver). Honda's experimental hydrogen fuel cell—powered car, the FCX, will be fitted with a navigation system that can pinpoint the nearest hydrogen fueling stations, such that there are. A variant of the nav option already offered in gas-fired Hondas and Acuras, the voice-activated system currently has 26 H2 stations in its database, though only nine of them lie outside the state of California.
Hydrogen-Station Homing on Honda FCX [Green Car Congress]

Related:
Honda Picks California Family for Fuel-Cell Lease [internal]