Honda Shows Off FCX Fuel Cell Concept Car
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 09.28.06
Honda FCX Fuel Cell Car
We've written a lot about the Honda FCX hydrogen-powered car (see links at the end of this post). So far we only could show you computer renderings of the car, but now Honda has shown a working version of the next-generation FCX (to see the 2005 version, see this) doing about 100 mph (160 kph) on a test track. "The company says it plans limited marketing in Japan and the US for the vehicle starting in 2008." That's faster than the "3-4 years" announced in early 2006, so presumably things are going better than planned on the technical side of things.
According to Reuters:
Honda also showed off a prototype of its next-generation fuel cell vehicle which runs on a newly developed compact and more powerful fuel cell stack.The new stack is designed to allow the hydrogen and water formed during electricity generation to flow vertically instead of horizontally, making the component 20 percent smaller and 30 percent lighter than the previous version.
Honda's new FCX fuel-cell car now has a driving range of 570 km (354 miles) -- a 30 percent improvement from the 2005 model -- a maximum speed of 160 km (100 miles) per hour and can be driven in temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius (86 F).
Honda plans to begin marketing the car in limited numbers in 2008 in Japan and the United States.
Honda said it also developed a flexible fuel vehicle (FFV) system that can operate on any ethanol-to-gasoline ratio between 20 percent and 100 percent. That car will be sold in Brazil, the biggest market for ethanol-based vehicles, later this year.
"Way out in the future, the ultimate green car will be fuel cell vehicles," Fukui said. "But in the meantime, you need a wide range of green technology to meet varying local needs and fuel supply."
For more technical specifications, see this.
We wish that Honda was spending more energy on electric cars and plug-in hybrids (if they are, they're keeping quiet about it), but since there probably won't be a single silver bullet technology to solve our transportation problems and it's impossible to predict what kind of breakthroughs will happen in the next 5-10 years, it's still good to see companies making steady progress with fuel cell hydrogen cars. A lot of that expertise can be used in electric cars anyway.
::Reuters (page 2), via ::Honda Showcases FCX Concept
See also: ::Honda FCX Fuel Cell Vehicle: Production in 3-4 Years, ::More Details on Honda's 2006 FCX Fuel Cell Car, ::New FCX Fuel Cell Concept by Honda, ::Honda's Improved Fuel Cell Concept Car Unveiled
I saw this at NAIAS 2006. It looks incredibly slick in person.
An interesting aside is that the very first FCX used tanks filled with NiMH powder to store the H2. Every FCX concept thereafter had "regular" carbon fiber compressed gas tanks. I don't see this car holding a lot of fuel. This puts pressure on the fuel cell stack research team to make it more and more efficient to squeeze out more range.
Personally, I'd like to see this as a PHEV.
One thing about Honda is that they don't do pointless PR exercises. This company is focused on good engineering so when they announce something like this you know it isn't just hot air.
BTW, they have recently announced their intention to do a plug-in hybrid. Unlike GM they aren't putting all their eggs in the fuel cell basket.
Cue GM hating...
Funny, GCC has a post titled "GM’s Lutz: Not All Eggs in Hydrogen Basket, GM Studying Plug-Ins".
Cue GM hating...
Cue whining about non-existent "hating".
Yup (rolling eyes here) GM has been working on fuel cells and fuel cell vehicles for years as has Honda. I'll reserve judgement on what's PR exercise. Some small minds have already convicted GM.
Now any H2 powered vehicle needs a fuel infrastructure. Plus we need a clean, efficent way to generate the H2. Without that a hydrogen economy isn't going to happen.
Does GM have a home charging station like Honda?
I think Honda is the only one: http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/10/hondas_more_pow.html
They are making one
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2006-09-24-gm-hydrogen-usat_x.htm
"Way out in the future, the ultimate green car will be fuel cell vehicles," Fukui said. "But in the meantime, you need a wide range of green technology to meet varying local needs and fuel supply."
Honda has the right idea. It's going to take a long time to figure out a large scale hydrogen production and distribution system. It's best to develop a range of transitional technologies for the next decade.
In the meantime, Honda is, by far, the most fuel effecient car brand sold in the US.
Yeah, GM is putting their fuel cell in a big, hunkin' SUV.
Energy is energy, and the laws of psysics dictate moving more mass uses a lot more energy than less mass.
So GM will be using a lot of hydrogen in the future, instead of a lot of gas.
GM is "planning" on developing a refueling station exactly like the one Honda has had in operation for some time now. (Those geniuses at GM, how do they think this stuff up? :)
"General Motors is building a prototype for a home hydrogen refueling unit in hope of selling fuel-cell cars by 2011.
The unit, which would make hydrogen using either electricity or sunlight, would help sidestep one of the most vexing problems surrounding the creation of the pollution-free, alternative-power cars: how to persuade oil companies to invest in expensive new hydrogen stations that would compete with their core product, gasoline."
"GM isn't alone in home refueling. Honda unveiled the third generation of its home unit last year, created in conjunction with a fuel-cell company called Plug Power. It produces enough hydrogen from natural gas to power both a car and a home.
Honda also has a solar-powered refueling station in operation at its test center in Torrance, Calif. It makes enough hydrogen for 30 miles of driving a day."
"Planning" is quite a bit different than "third generation"...
Meanwhile, their products they are offering today are just not innovative or impressive, unlike Honda's.
Oh GAWD. Honda hasn't released anything too impressive. What innovative product have they come up with? They released a hydrogen generator with Plug in power huh? Plug in power has been working on one for years, what exactly did Honda do? The Sequel platform is pretty impressive. But whatever.
Who gives a flying f*ck who came up with the idea (which I can tell you wasn't honda either) and just be happy them we are getting moderatly cleaner sources of power. I sad moderatly because the hydrogen is being produced via natural gas.
Cue someone who doesn't want to get caught up in the "my car company, who may not give a damn about me anyway, is better than your car company..." debate.
I really do wish people would stop looking for a silver bullet when comes to 'new' fuels. Personally I would like to see parrallel development. I applaud Honda for this vehicle. If GM, Ford, Nissan, Toyota, Yugo etc. are doing work like this wonderful.
I condemn them all for dragging their feet, kicking and screaming all these years. Most of the hydrogen development in the auto industry appears to be built off of 90+ year old technology. So if anyone in this string works for one of these companies:
SHUT THE F^^% UP AND GET BACK TO WORK!
Ben's right and as I've said before to all the plugin hybrid and electric vehicle fans. While it's a great idea without the extra, clean power generation to charge batteries or generate hydrogen none of these technologies can have wide spread use. At lease since most poeple would be charging at night during off peak times the grid should be able to handle the load in most places. We'll still need more power plants because with extended usage comes more maintenance, more plants will be needed just so some can be partially shut down to maintain them. No matter how some would like it theirs no free lunch.
Eric, take a lude, man. All that anger is going to give you a freakin' heart attack.
All fuel cell, and no news on honda's other breakthru of the moment?
Honda's new two stage catalyst for the cleanest burning diesel ever fails to make Treehugger? What a surprise... if they'd managed to make it out of bamboo it'd have been up her before the fuel cell car.
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editor note: I'm quite excited about the new diesel tech and we'll definitely cover it. Patience, grasshopper.
Simple yet appealing, not to mention eco-friendly. Good thing Honda will release limited unit vehicles based on the FCX concept for the U.S. and Japanese market come 2008.
I think some of you guys are missing the point of Honda's research--the ultimate goal is to eliminate the need for an infrastructure altogether. Very briefly, here's the story. As Edwin Black points out in the smashing, unprecedented revelation that is Internal Combustion, we were once poised at a crossroad between decentralized, clean power (Edison's 20th Century Electric Home, where all electrical needs--home & auto--would be provided by electrical generation/recharging system) and the petroleum bondage that we ended up with instead.
What Honda's FCX project represents is a return to that same crossroads. In order to get around the nearly omnipotent energy cartel that runs the world by creating wars, "terrorists" & the Remember-the-Alamo/Pearl Harbor/9/11 jingoism that fuels all of the above, Honda has had to be very circumspect about what it's up to. The first stage of the FCX Home Energy System does use natural gas, in order to appease the oligarchs, but they've already got the next generation worked out, where the whole thing is solar-powered.
This means no natural gas, no infrastructure, no green house gases...and no more petro-politics.
Another quaint practice that will have to disappear is the time-honored suppression of science. In addition to the 4,000+ sealed alternative energy patents down at the cartel-controlled Patent Office ("national security," don't you know) there have been many, many murders and unexplained disappearances of inventors, engineers & scientists who were bold/stupid enough to step out of the box. For just one example of this, see Dr. Eugene Mallove's Open Letter: Universal Appeal for Support, from May 13, 2004 (the day before he was murdered, or just coincidentally expired, depending on one's POV).
As far as the suppression by assassination meme goes, Edwin Black has already put his neck on the line here. Maybe he did with his IBM and the Holocaust as well, but this time he’s taken it a huge step further. In the final chapter of Internal Combustion he lays it out very clearly: We already have the technology and enough infrastructure to switch over, right now, to a hydrocarbon-free economy. If you haven’t read this yet, I can explain this in detail, if you’d like, (* a very telling passage from the book follows my commentary here) but what I’m saying here is that he’s thrown down the gauntlet in such a well-documented fashion that he can’t be refuted. The only question is whether he’ll be killed or ignored for his temerity.
I know better than to underestimate the resources or the ruthlessness of the worldkillers, but I frankly don’t see how either strategy will keep the lid on this. Martial law and WWV might do the trick in the US, but what about the rest of the world?
* From Internal Combustion:
Decentralized Energy Independence & the End of Greenhouse Gases
More than a car, the Honda FCX comes with its own home-based hydrogen energy station that obsoletes gas stations and gasoline - and even cuts the tether to utility bills. About the size of a common home air-conditioning unit, the Honda Home Energy Station will be driven by natural gas, not electricity, and will create enough hydrogen daily to fill one or more FCX vehicles and heat and power an individual home. Honda's Home Energy Station is no pipe dream. Plug Power, an upstate-New York fuel-cell maker with more than six hundred installations worldwide, supplied Honda home power stations for several years before March 16, 2006, when they jointly announced the smallest model yet and most ambitious phase of their partnership - FCX program. Honda's Home Energy Station will soon be configured to run on solar, either from panels or perhaps from nanosolar materials embedded in its sleek case or other nearby home surfaces. An estimated twenty square yards of nanosolar wrapped around a pole or a building surface could independently power Honda's Home Energy Station. A Plug Power source confirmed that the company's home station can be mass produced for the price of an air conditioner, opening the way to scalable untethered energy. Honda controls the license on Ply Power's home station technology. (p. 309)
Did you catch that, folks? All power needs for both home & auto supplied by twenty square yards of nanosolar wrapped around a pole or a building surface, for the price of an air conditioner?! He also goes into greater detail about the current capacity of wind & solar in the US--eight times the current need. I just don't see how this can be ignored--reacted to, sure, but not ignored. Once the hydrocarbon economy collapses, well, that's bound to be nasty, but countries survive depressions. Especially when alternative frameworks exist...say, what do you guys know about bio-regionalism or the resurgent carbohydrate economy?
Care to find out who killed not just the electric car, but the science of George Washington Carver (wrong color for a heroic scientist) and who went on to assist in any way possible those Nazis we love to hate? Try this on the death of chemurgy and this on those American blackshirts. The single greatest aspect of Honda's research is that it might just break the grip of the worldkillers in time to avoid..well, you know what.
Namaste
They are busy buidling a hydrogen high way in california, but besides that BP are using sulphur to produce hydrogen which is a by product of crude oil. It has some chemical reaction. Visit BP, that is why the motor companies are pushing hydrogen. The go and in hand
Fuel Cell tech is the way 2 go, roll out the H2 cars,
ASAP, & at any price. Defeat big oil and break the addiction at any cost. I urge America, choose renewable energies, and fast.