Honda FCX Clarity

[Peter T]

Did anyone see the report on the new Honda FCX Clarity on Top Gear last Sunday?

At last someone has produced a working, fully engineered family car that is powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.

Admittedly it's only available in California at the moment but hopefully it will be rolled out to other parts of the world as the infrastructure becomes available.

And hopefully it should sound the death knell for these silly hybrid vehicles and the even sillier battery powered vehicles.

 

[wizer]

I know nothing of science, but doesn't Hydrogen precede BOMB? :shock:

 

[Peter T]

I know nothing of science, but doesn't Hydrogen precede BOMB? :shock:

Think of the poweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer

 

[MooreToolsPlease]

I saw Top Gear too, looks like a great idea. Hopefully with the lack of moving parts the maintainence costs will be reduced too.
I wonder how long it will be until we have them here?

 

[Travis]

I hope that the Hydrogen car don't have the same problem that the natural gas cars had in my home town. One of the local service station installed a natural gas pump and tanks to store the gas. Long story short, the city were the only ones to use natural gas in their vehicles and they installed their own pumps. 6 months later the service station removed their pump and tanks for lack of use, Pumping hydrogen may be more dangerous than pumping gasoline.


Travis

 

[MikeG.]

Don't get too carried away folks.......

Hydrogen is almost always commercially produced from natural gas, or split from water using electrolysis (requiring electricity, obviously)......meaning that the hydrogen powered vehicle is actually reliant on huge amounts of fossil fuel. Whilst it may emit water vapour through its exhaust pipe, it is the same deal as electric cars.........simply transferring the pollution and carbon emissions elswhere.

There are some very early stages projects to use algae to produce hydrogen, but at the moment this is working at about 1/30th of the efficiency necessary to compete with orthodox methods..........and would require vast areas of the planet to be covered with greenhouses if it were ever to become the favoured production method.

There are unimaginable fortunes awaiting the first people to come up with a scheme to produce hydrogen cheaply, extensively and without requiring any fossil fuel input........get thinking!!!

Mike

 

[Travis]

Thanks Mike for raining on our parade. I thought that this was going to be the silver bullet. Back to the drawing board.

T

 

[Travis]

I have just discovered what hydrogen might be capable off.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KwyCoQuhUNA

Travis

 

[MikeG.]

Thanks Mike for raining on our parade. I thought that this was going to be the silver bullet. Back to the drawing board.
T

Not sure that there is ever going to be a technical "silver bullet". I think that most of the world is hoping that you guys just elected the political equivalent of a silver bullet ..........getting a few targets agreed by everyone would be a great place to start.

Mike

 

[Peter T]

Nevertheless there are many companies who are working towards using fuel cells for large scale electricity production and small scale heat and electricity production for domestic use.

Also, I'm sure that Honda can't be the only auto manufacturer who has a hydrogen powered vehicle.

I'm guessing that as hydrogen consumption ramps up, production methods will improve and become cleaner and less reliant on hydrocarbons.

 

[wizer]

As Jay Leno said, Hydrogen is going to save the horses.... Or some similar twisted logic :roll: :wink:

 

[Peter T]

As Jay Leno said, Hydrogen is going to save the horses.... Or some similar twisted logic :roll: :wink:

I think his idea was that hydrogen would become the normal power source for transport leaving enough petrol left for us to drive our gas guzzling V8s at the weekend.

 

[woodbloke]

without requiring any fossil fuel input........get thinking!!!

Mike

Cold fusion's the answer! :lol: - Rob

 

[Peter T]

without requiring any fossil fuel input........get thinking!!!

Mike

Cold fusion's the answer! :lol: - Rob

Absolutely............. we could run everything on banana skins!!!

 

[ProShop]

BMW produced a hydrogen 7 series car about 2 years ago.
So it's not that new.
The Germans also opened the first hydrogen filling station roughly at the same time :shock:.

I remember reading the official press release at the time.

 

[Peter T]

BMW produced a hydrogen 7 series car about 2 years ago.
So it's not that new.
The Germans also opened the first hydrogen filling station roughly at the same time :shock:.

I remember reading the official press release at the time.

I remember that. They made a big splash about it and then it just disappeared.

I don't know if it was really a production vehicle or just a prototype.

 

[MikeG.]

This is very far from new!

It has been under development for cars for over 20 years, but has been used for powering houses in Germany for some years, as well as providing electricity for most space missions for decades.

Mike

 

[Peter T]

This is very far from new!

It has been under development for cars for over 20 years, but has been used for powering houses in Germany for some years, as well as providing electricity for most space missions for decades.

Mike

Agree, but it's only recently that the technology has been cheap enough to be commercially viable.

 

[ProShop]

They made a quite a few of them, got various dignitary's to drive them around in Europe & the States I seem to recall.

Somewhere in one of their very recent press releases they are still committed to the hydrogen engine. I suspect getting costs down is the real challenge.