Q'orianka Kilcher trades in her old Honda FCX for a new Clarity
With the two-year lease up on her first generation Honda FCX fuel cell car, actress and environmentalist Q'orianka Kilcher has decided to trade up to the latest model. Kilcher this week took delivery of a new FCX Clarity in Santa Monica California. The only cars that the 19 year old Kilcher has ever had are the two hydrogen powered Hondas, so she proclaims that she has never pumped a single gallon of gasoline.
One of the locations that Kilcher will use to fill up her Clarity is a Shell outlet in west Los Angeles that produces hydrogen on-site from water via electrolysis using a roof mounted unit. That station is reportedly the first retail hydrogen station to operate in that fashion. Honda also has a solar powered hydrogen station at its Torrance headquarters campus. The Clarity recently won the World Green Car of the year award in New York and is the first series production car in the world built from the ground up as a fuel cell vehicle.
PRESS RELEASE:
Honda Delivers FCX Clarity Zero-emissions Vehicle to Environmental Youth Leader Q'orianka Kilcher
05/08/2009 - TORRANCE, Calif. -
American Honda Motor Co., Inc., announced that actress and environmental youth leader, Q'orianka Kilcher, took delivery of the FCX Clarity hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle on May 7 at Honda of Santa Monica. Kilcher completed a two-year lease term as one of the original FCX customers.
"Since my first car was the Honda FCX, I am proud to say that I have never pumped a gallon of gasoline," said Kilcher. "As a young person, I feel it is my responsibility to always try my best to think about the consequences of my actions and choices as a consumer, and the impact they have on our planet."
Kilcher, winner of numerous environmental youth awards, is the world's youngest FCX Clarity owner at 19 years old. The zero-emissions vehicle can be refueled at a Shell hydrogen station in West Los Angeles, which is the first retail hydrogen station to produce hydrogen from water via a roof-mounted electrolysis unit.
The FCX Clarity is a next-generation, hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle. Propelled by an electric motor that runs on electricity generated in the fuel cell, the vehicle's only emission is water, and its fuel efficiency is more than two times that of a modern gasoline-powered automobile.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
jboy 7:37PM (5/09/2009)
Looks like we know now who Gorr is.
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jpm 1:51AM (5/10/2009)
no, not quite. This car has H2 stored onboard. Gorr would only lease the car if it had a pure stand alone water-electrolyzer that requires no energy input to split H20.
Ignatius 7:51PM (5/09/2009)
Might not have pumped a gallon of gasoline, but just wait for the price of hydrogen to skyrocket, there is almost no infastructure for it.
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floorman56 10:24AM (5/11/2009)
OK one more time... MAYBE we can get a answer this time to a VERY basic question..
How much for a fill up?
When ever you ask this question you don't get a answer . Me thinks because the answer will make everyone go... WTH????
Chris M 9:44PM (5/12/2009)
The fuel tank of the FCX Clarity holds almost 4 Kg of H2, enough to propel the car 270 miles. Current retail cost of H2 is about $8 to $10 dollars per Kg, making a fillup costing up to $40.
More important than the cost per fillup is the fuel cost per mile, which comes out to 12 to 15 cents a mile, about the same fuel cost as the average SUV. Driving electric, on the other hand, has a per mile "fuel" cost of 2 to 3 cents.
jharlan 7:56PM (5/09/2009)
Man! Is she ever green! She's greener than the grass, She's greener than the mold on bread! she is a lot greener than we are, but who the hell cares. I've never heard of her.
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Matt 9:10AM (5/11/2009)
Exactly!
+1 for jharlan
Nicholas 8:07PM (5/09/2009)
"she has never pumped a single gallon of gas..."
Oh yeah that is right, chicks don't fart! whatever.
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jboy 8:51PM (5/09/2009)
I just googled her to see who she is...talk about a no name. Besides being in pedo love scenes with Colin Farrel, she has no claim to fame.
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contact 9:25PM (5/09/2009)
So there's 2 places she can fill up her stupid car. That won't cut it for the rest of the country.
I'll wait for my EV please .
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Matt 9:17AM (5/11/2009)
Can they not just throw a bigger battery in the FCX and call it a day? I mean, take out the fuel cell, toss in some Li-Poly-Ferrite-Fairydust battery and sell me one. No lease required; thanks.
letstakeawalk 2:07PM (5/11/2009)
It's really not hard to find a hydrogen supplier - just look in the local phone directory for "Air Products Suppliers" or something similar.
Barring that, you can buy a similar system to the one that gas station has from Quantum Tech.
Chris M 3:05AM (5/12/2009)
That's not really a valid option to get fuel for this car. The few compressed gas vendors that do sell hydrogen sell it in steel cylinders at a fraction of the pressure that this car uses, and a smaller size. It would be like buying gasoline a half-pint at a time.
Besides, the connectors aren't compatible.
Yanquetino 9:31PM (5/09/2009)
Oops...! Too bad she didn't see this news before signing on the dotted line:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/science/earth/08energy.html?_r=1&hpw
Let's hope that CARB will get a clue, now that they can't count on the feds to subsidize their bias.
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Snoopy 10:51PM (5/09/2009)
Y,
They covered this on the site yesterday as well. Just in case you missed it... http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/05/08/obama-doe-slash-hydrogen-fuel-cell-funding-in-new-budget/
Anyway, she shouldn't really have an issue with the fact that the level of funding dropped. She already has the car. Most likely, she`ll end up using it in a similar fashion to the way she used her original FCX. While I can`t be sure what that fashion is, it's probably not anything that ends up with her worrying about not being able to get hydrogen for her car.
That said, while I don't care for hydrogen overall, it's not a specifically bad thing that she got the car. Sure, some people say it's a $2 million car (http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/13/business/fi-neil13). And while she could probably buy and charge a full fledged battery electric car for cheaper, and then spend the money saved on other environmental causes, there's nothing specifically bad with buying the Clarity.
It is the most beautiful Honda ever built though, and that's cool.
Yanquetino 11:35PM (5/09/2009)
Snoopy: No, I didn't miss that news, but --like I said-- it's too bad she did. Of course, if she is leasing the Clarity precisely because it is the "most beautiful" model Honda has ever built, then you're probably right that she wouldn't care anyway.
DaveD 12:08AM (5/10/2009)
This is so sad.
They keep using these empty headed hollywood types to promote hydrogen cars... and they think they're doing something "green" because the car farts oxygen. They don't tell these poor "tools" that they get the hydrogen to run it from petroleum and pollute the hell out of the environment and fund more foreign terrorist while doing so. What a joke.
I bet you Saks could get this poor bimbo to wear one of their fur coats to a PETA rally! LOL
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Matt Welke 12:26AM (5/10/2009)
DaveD, you really don't read do you?
"One of the locations that Kilcher will use to fill up her Clarity is a Shell outlet in west Los Angeles that produces hydrogen on-site from water via electrolysis using a roof mounted unit. That station is reportedly the first retail hydrogen station to operate in that fashion. Honda also has a solar powered hydrogen station at its Torrance headquarters campus."
How exactly does using the sun and electrolysis on local tap water fund terrorism?
DaveD 1:22AM (5/10/2009)
Ok Matt, how much energy does it take to produce that hydrogen from a "clean source" and how much further would the car go if it simply had batteries instead of a fuel cell and used that same electricity?
The most efficient systems for producing hydrogen from water are about 65%.
The most efficient fuel cells are less than 50% efficient.
So .5x.65=32.5% efficiency
Battery Electric Vehicle: 80%+ efficiency
(many sources such as: www.metricmind.com/data/bevs_vs_fcvs.pdf)
So, yes, I read the articles. But just because somebody writes it, does not mean it's logical or intelligent. Think for yourself for a minute and ask how wasteful this is.
Now, let's look at the cost of a fuel cell vehicle vs a BEV today. Yet another joke that I won't even go into here.
The fact that they produced two...yes, that's only two... stations producing hydrogen in a green way and everyone is all happy because she is leaning on a "green car"???
Give her a real, practical, sustainable, "green" vehicle that will make a difference for us in the next 50 years and I'll be happy with the rest of you.
Until then, stop using Hollywood stars as tools to promote this stupidity.
juk 12:35AM (5/10/2009)
i much prefer to think of it as an EV with a fuel cell range extender. Much like a Volt.
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