A new, zero-emission car that doesn't use a drop of gasoline has begun rolling off the assembly lines of one of the world's most well-regarded automakers. It can be yours, if you can afford to fork over $600 a month. And if you live in Southern California. And if you're famous. The rest of us will have to wait.
The AP reports, "The FCX Clarity, which runs on hydrogen and electricity, emits only water and none of the noxious fumes believed to induce global warming. It is also two times more energy efficient than a gas-electric hybrid and three times that of a standard gasoline-powered car, the company says." Honda expects to lease only "a few dozen" models this year, "and about 200 units within three years. In California, a three-year lease will run $600 a month, which includes maintenance and collision coverage." The first cars will be delivered to customers who applied for leases on Honda's website over the last year. Though Honda won't explain how it chose its first few dozen customers from over 50,000 applications, it's worth noting that the chosen few include "actress Jamie Lee Curtis and filmmaker husband Christopher Guest, actress Laura Harris, and film producer Ron Yerxa."
The New York Times says the Clarity "looks like an ordinary family sedan, costs more to build than a Ferrari and may have just moved the world one step closer to a future free of petroleum." The car is said to accelerate from zero to sixty mph in about nine seconds, and have a top speed of about 100 mph. It has a range of about 270 miles between fill-ups.
In a press release (found on Autoblog), Honda estimates that the Clarity will travel approximately 72 miles on a kilogram of Hydrogen, which they say equates to getting 74 mpg from a gasoline-powered car.
Hydrogen fuel-cell powered cars have long been "a sort of holy grail of the auto industry, offering the promise of driving without emitting air-polluting exhaust," according to the Times. "Fuel cells work by combining hydrogen and oxygen from ordinary air to make electricity, in a process whose only byproducts are water and heat." For now, the forces limiting fuel cells from widespread use are a lack of filling stations -- Honda chose Southern California for the roll-out, in part, because it has a few of the rare facilities -- and the tremendous cost of building the units -- Honda is taking a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars on each of the first Clarity models it builds.
According to the Wall Street Journal, "Honda Motor Co. President Takeo Fukui said prices have to fall further for fuel-cell cars to reach the mass market, even as the Japanese car maker unveiled the latest generation of fuel-cell vehicle." He estimated that "it wouldn't take 10 years" for Honda to be able to make the vehicles profitably, but he could not be more specific.
Honda is not the only automaker working on fuel-cell cars. BMW has been showing its Hydrogen 7 on the auto show circuit this year. The German automaker claims the H7 actually cleans the air as it drives.
Research the greenest new cars with U.S. News' car rankings and reviews
