Honda's Improved Fuel Cell Concept Car Unveiled

sooo then it's -still- fossil fuel based eh?

That would be spiffy, if we weren't already facing a crisis in natural gas production that will "cliff" sharply before oil slowly slopes down. I rather wish the car companies, instead of brain-deadishly trying to continue the personal mobility paradigm, would really decide to "think different" about the whole issue of why should we need to drive so much, at all? Put this down as "Almost."

if only it could use solar, wind, hydro as well as natural gas. you could do away with those awful batteries in your off-grid home and power your car with surplus. seems that would simplify things quite a bit and you could gain some real independence.

You really think it's up to the car manufacturers to come up with ways for people to stop using cars? I'm all for pushing corporations to act responsibly, but you've got to be kidding me with that!
I think this is a great solution. While the hydrogen is generated from fossil fuels, that generation is OUTSIDE of the car itself. Later on, someone can come up with a way to generate hydrogen more cleanly, or I guess you could even just buy hydrogen yourself and not use the natural gas generator.
This solution has flexibility to become even cleaner that it already is without compromising on functionality now. I can't see what more you could honestly expect short of a pure electric car. Which I would like. ;)

While I find the idea of the home refueling/power station to be very appealing, I would like to see something like this that integrates more green alternatives. Unfortunately, I commute 50 miles each way to work. It would be great if I could install a unit like this to refill my car at night, but use excess energy from solar and wind inputs to generate and store hydrogen using electrolysis to both refuel, and act as a large backup power unit. We could take this green aspect even further and use water from air conditioning and dehumidifying units for the input water.

I read sometime back about a concept house that used photovoltaics for electricity and generated hydrogen for heating and cooking. Some day I hope to be able to buy/build a house that contributes to the concept of sustainability. at the very least, the electrical grid and other utility infrastructures could become used more for assisting in maintaining a constant level of service in conjunction with built in features, as opposed to relying entirely on these outside resources.

Actually, the powerful thing about this car is that all that natural gas refinement is that it's contained within the home unit. I see that natural gas based unit changing into a cleaner hydrogen generating apparatus as technologies improve. I know it's not the best thing ever, but it appears to be built with future technology and fossil fuel alternatives in mind.

Like it or not, until h2 is on offer in every petrol station across the country, no-one is stupid enough to buy a car that they can't refuel. Why aren't LPG cars more popular? largely because you often have to drive 50 miles refuel them! By providing a simple & safe way to refuel it at home, honda are removing this problem. Once they're more popular, then the petrol stations will sit up and listen and provide h2.
Sure, it'd be nicer if it made h2 through electrolysis from solar power (like we get enough sun here in the uk?!), or even through using cheap night-time electricity, but this is a start. We're going to have to take this a step at a time, and Honda are at least providing the first step.

yes, maybe it is foolish to expect car companies to come up with alternatives to motoring. But they are the entrenched interest that essentially gets billions of dollars in invisible subsidy (i.e. public highways, roads and their upkeep - and wars for oil) to allow the public to buy their product - a product no one "needed" to have until we allowed our city planning to become subjugated to it, making motoring essential to daily life. It's not like Bombardier and Alstom are suddenly going to benefit from an equivalent amount of money in, say, new public light rail infrastructure built without them begging and pleading, no matter how much sense it makes.

Think of it as a Web 2.0 paradigm. Who wants to own software? What you need is the service you get from the software, so it could easily be on a web site as on your own desktop. Similarly, why own a car when you can be part of a car-sharing service, or have your transportation needs met by something that makes more sense? In this case, the pressing need is for better public transit, and the car companies, if they chose to see themselves as "providers of transportation," could get into the service model - man, just a fraction of the money spent on car marketing and advertising alone could provide 10 medium-sized cities with some decent light rail or at least some new bus lines.

So much ink spilled on so little news...

Why can't this car run on methane collected from ones septic system or 'harvested' from sewers/farms etc?