Honda's vision of the future -- a car powered by hydrogen

Michael Taylor,

The future of driving, if Honda has anything to say about it, came to a Monterey County race track Tuesday in the form of a dark red sedan that is slated to be the first fuel cell car on the planet to come off a production line.
The Honda FCX looks like a slightly futuristic version of a blend of cars, especially those made by Honda Motor Co. But by one particular yardstick, the car is special -- it doesn't run on fossil fuel. Instead, a fuel cell car uses hydrogen.
"This is the first purpose-built fuel cell vehicle to be put on the road in the hands of retail customers," said Stephen Ellis, fuel cell marketing manager for American Honda Motor Co. "It's not a car that is remade from some other platform."
Fuel cell cars have been made by several of the world's biggest carmakers, but by and large they were cobbled together from an existing gas- or electric-powered vehicle. Honda itself earlier made a homely looking fuel cell car, one of which has been in use by a Los Angeles family for more than a year.
Honda says that within two years it plans to produce and lease to the public an untold number of cars based on the concept car the company put on display Tuesday. Tentative plans call for leasing the car for perhaps $600 or $700 a month. Automakers typically lease experimental cars to the public rather than sell them outright as a way of retaining control of them.
On Tuesday, Honda rented Laguna Seca Raceway to show off the only two FCX cars the company says exist in the world. Reporters were allowed to take the cars -- each is worth as much as $2 million, according to industry insiders -- around a portion of the race track, past signs encouraging "acceleration," "braking" and other exhortations.
The car performed like any moderately sporty sedan. It is quiet, it has a low center of gravity, and it's relatively fast.
What makes the car unlike any other sedan is its fuel cell stack, a sandwich of plates that generate electricity through an electro-chemical process using a combination of hydrogen and oxygen. The front wheels are driven by an electric motor. The only emission is water vapor.
The hydrogen can be refined from a number of sources, including coal, natural gas and methane.
Being a concept car, the FCX at the race track was far from the finished product. Every time a driver mentioned a possible problem, the reply was that it's a concept car and the problem will be fixed when it's in regular production.
A fuel cell car in regular production? Honda knows it faces enormous barriers as it tries to introduce a completely new way to propel a car.
The biggest problem is where to fuel it. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's long-touted "hydrogen highway" is behind schedule, said Honda's FCX product planner, Christine Ra.
Still, a few stations accommodate fuel cell cars, and more are planned, said Catherine Dun- woody, executive director of the California Fuel Cell Partnership, a group of companies that promotes the technology.
"There are 23 in California, mostly in Southern California," Dunwoody said Tuesday, "and 14 more are on the way. Most fuel cell cars fuel at one or two stations, and we need to move to the point where any car can find a station."
UC Davis environmental science Professor Joan Ogden, who specializes in fuel cells, said a study she has seen says that in the next 10 years, there will be a "roll-out of hydrogen cars and stations" in California.
Others think it will take longer.
"Fuel cell cars have real promise to do double duty -- help the climate and end our oil addiction," said David Friedman, research director for vehicle programs at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, D.C. "But that future is 20 to 30 years away. All the car companies are working really hard to make fuel cell vehicles a reality, and they deserve praise. Yet there are real hurdles to overcome."
Friedman cited problems of making a fuel cell system start in minus-40 degree weather and making the systems as durable as possible.
"We have to get a fuel cell vehicle that is durable and cheap enough," Friedman said, "and make sure the hydrogen is clean enough. No one will cheer if, at the end of the day, we make all our hydrogen from coal and melt the planet."
As for the economics, Honda Vice President Ben Knight said a fuel cell car can get the equivalent of a gasoline-powered car's 65 miles per gallon. An FCX filled with 8.8 pounds of hydrogen can go about 270 miles, he said.
One unknown is how much a hydrogen retailer -- probably one of the big oil companies -- would charge for hydrogen. Honda also is developing a home refueling station that draws natural gas from a home's utility supply and processes it for hydrogen use.
Then there is the real-world question of what a fuel cell car is like when you have one, day in and day out. Jon Spallino knows.
In June 2005, American Honda began leasing a 2005 Honda FCX to Spallino, a 41-year-old Redondo Beach businessman with a wife and two daughters. The Spallinos became what apparently is the only American family to use a fuel cell car every day, for such things, Spallino says, as "going to the shopping center, to the soccer field and to ballet lessons."
Asked what stood out, Spallino said, "the lack of trouble. I expected technical problems. All that happened was one flat tire."
He said he fills up the car about once a week at Honda's U.S. headquarters in Torrance, and otherwise it behaves like a normal car. Except that he does get a lot of attention, given that "Honda Fuel Cell Powered FCX" is written in giant letters on the side of the car.
"I finally ended up carrying a stack of brochures explaining the car," Spallino said. "All of that was part of the fun."
Fuel cells: electric power from hydrogen fuel
Fuel cells create electricity through an electrochemical process that combines hydrogen and oxygen. Vehicles running on fuel cells would need to be supplied with gaseous hydrogen extracted from a hydrocarbon fuel, such as coal, natural gas, or methane. Honda is developing a home refueling station that draws gas from the home's utility supply and processes it for hydrogen use.
How fuel cells work
Hydrogen fuel is fed into the anode of the fuel cell. Helped by a catalyst, hydrogen atoms are split into electrons and protons.
Electrons are channeled through a circuit to produce electricity.
Protons pass through the proton exchange membrane.
Oxygen enters the cathode and combines with the electrons and protons to form water.
Water vapor and heat are released as byproducts of the reaction.