Honda still plans 200 FCX Clarity leases, showroom sales by 2015
Honda FCX Clarity - Click above for high-res image gallery
When Honda announced the FCX Clarity fuel cell car in November 2007, the company announced plans to build and lease 200 of the hydrogen fueled cars. So far however, only 10 examples have been delivered as Honda struggles with the process for mass producing the fuel cell plates. Nonetheless, project manager Sachito Fujimoto is confident the company will soon work out its issues and expects to hit the 200-car target. The company is working out the production processes which would allow the productivity to go up and costs to drop. According to Fujimoto, the main cost driver now is not the precious metals but the production rates. Fujimoto still plans to start mass production of the next iteration of the Clarity by 2015, about the same time frame that Toyota and GM have indicated they will begin production of fuel cell vehicles as well.
Gallery: 2009 Honda FCX Clarity First drive
[Source: Reuters]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Serge 10:27AM (9/09/2009)
Ha, showroom sales by 2015 because a project manager said so. Sam, you actually worked for a large company, didn't you? In that case you should know better.
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paulwesterberg 10:38AM (9/09/2009)
Greg Blencoe may no longer be personally contributing his propaganda to the comments section, but his spirit of baseless disinformation lives on.
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Joe 10:40AM (9/09/2009)
Paul, I don't know if you knew this, but Toyota is going to be selling an FCHV by 2015 and the price will be "Shockingly" low.
And by 2020? Flying cars!
Reality Hurts 10:50AM (9/09/2009)
If they think they can bring these cars to production, let them. IF they make their deadline, no amount of eco-snobbism will prevent these cars from blowing EV's out of the water. America wants a car they can refuel at the station. A car they can bring on long trips.
Note that I said "IF" and that is a big "IF"
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Snowdog 11:14AM (9/09/2009)
Exactly what makes a H2 vehicle better than Gas Range Extender like the volt. Seems EREVs would blow the mythical H2 vehicles out of the water.
Once you start driving most miles on electricity it becomes increasingly irrelevant what your range extender is fired on from an environmental/fuel import perspective. If you burn 2 or 3 tanks of gas/year then the battle is essentially won. You don't need a trillion dollar infrastructure to save those 2 or 3 tanks/year.
Using a gas range extender you get to market faster, at a lower price and you already have a full infrastructure for refueling covering the whole continent.
H2 doesn't just lose to pure EVs, it loses to Pure EVs, EREVs, and even very efficient hybrids like the Prius.
Reality Hurts 11:25AM (9/09/2009)
@Snowdog
Which post were you reading? I never mentioned an EREV or regular hybrid... both currently are superior to the H2 and EV cars. EV's are not practical, ecosnobs have to make excuses to make them practical:
- You can rent a (unenvironmental gas car) for long trips
- You can take a bus
- You can have a second car
- You can walk/ride a bike
These are all excuses that eco-snobs use to make EV's practical, when in fact, they are not, and making them practical is a HUGE undertaking( making an EV cost a reasonable amount of money and get a range of 300 miles with safe charging time under 5 minutes with NO ADDITIONAL EQUIPMENT (FAST CHARGER) on a standard 120 v outlet) and H2's are actually closer then EV's are as far as practicallity.
EREV's can revolutionize the auto industry and have potential of leading into an EV future, but other then the 1 million EV nuts out there, there is not many people who believe EV's are practical, and there are many who believe they NEVER will be practical to the standard four member family that can't afford to rent a car to go to grandma's house.
An EV with 300 mile range, and under 5 minute charge time on a standard 120v outlet and under $30,000 is what is needed for an EV to be practical for everday use.
Most drivers can drive to work with an EV that gets 50 miles range... but for 30,000 you can get 3 Nissan Versa's with 3 times the range and still have TONS of cash for gas. That is NOT practical.
Serge 2:10PM (9/09/2009)
"Eco-snobism" does not prevent these cars from hitting the marketplace, it's the physics and economics.
As for your "America wants a car they can refuel at the station" statement, let me ask you a question. Do Americans prefer to fill up their cellphones at special stations? Or at home or at any other opportunity when necessary. A car is no different. And don't worry, there will be quick-charging stations for those long trips.
GoodCheer 2:38PM (9/09/2009)
Reality:
I don't think "excuses" means what you think it means. Perhaps you should try 'mechanisms' or 'work-arounds'. You also forgot my personal favorite: a system of trailer-generators available for rent at U-Haul, gas stations, and especially highway travel plazas. Just like U-Haul, you don't need to drag around all that capability every day of your life, you only need it for the fairly rare long trips.
Also, I don't know any vehicle that I can fill with fuel/energy from my house in 5 minutes. Do you? I have to take my car several blocks away to a gas station, which is some very specialized infrastructure.
Sean 2:50PM (9/09/2009)
@Reality Hurts, lets look at these "excuses"
"- You can rent a (unenvironmental gas car) for long trips"
Yes, you can and if use a EV for 95% of your driving you will use 5% of the 'unenvironmental' gasoline. Don't pretend you can't understand that.
"- You can take a bus"
I have never heard this used in support of EVs. Don't make s**t up.
"- You can have a second car"
Because its soooo rare for households to have a second car. American households with at least one car has on average 2.28 cars.
http://www.autospies.com/news/Study-Finds-Americans-Own-2-28-Vehicles-Per-Household-26437/
That means that overwhelming majority of car owners have a second car.
"- You can walk/ride a bike"
Just like riding the bus this has nothing to do with the EV debate.
Batteries are currently too expensive for a practical economy car to be purely battery powered. Range extenders are the perfect stopgap technology to tide us over until cheaper batteries are ready for market.
Instead of making any sort of reasonable comparison between hydrogen and batteries you make up silly rules for what an EV needs to be practical:
"making an EV cost a reasonable amount of money and get a range of 300 miles with safe charging time under 5 minutes with NO ADDITIONAL EQUIPMENT (FAST CHARGER) on a standard 120 v outlet"
In case you haven't noticed, neither HFCV or ICE cars an refuel without special equipment. By your standards, not one car on the market today (or any prototype or concept car) is "practical".
I think that in 10 or 20 years BEVs will be a large portion of new cars and most people will charge them at home at night when electricity is cheapest and there will be fast charging stations where you can stop for 10 minutes for a 45 mile charge. This does not sound terribly impractical to me.
"H2's are actually closer then EV's are as far as practicality" and where does this come from. The fact that HFCVs cost many times more than the impractically expensive BEVs? Or is it because HFCVs cost several times more to fuel and require a multi-billion dollar infrastructure to refuel at all? None of that matters because HFCV have quick fueling times? MIT has a BEV charging for 200 miles in 10 minutes but that doesn't count because even though its much cheaper than a HFCV it still costs more than other BEVs and it only works with a quick charging station. And no vehicle will ever succeed if it requires a special station to refuel.
Snowdog 5:24PM (9/09/2009)
@Reality Hurts
"Which post were you reading? I never mentioned an EREV or regular hybrid..."
Just because you didn't mention it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You make up some kind of bizarro world were everyone can only own one car and regularly takes trips longer than EV range to claim H2 vehicles are superior.
Well this is nonsense and EVs don't exist in a vacuum, most families are multi car, so right away an EV is completely practical commuter for them, and we have blended options like EREVs that will bridge the gap for the single car owners who must go on long trips.
Nothing anywhere makes it sensible to spend a Trillion dollars on a hydrogen infrastructure to do something we can already do.
Chris M 8:06PM (9/09/2009)
Hurts: You complain about the "excuses that eco-snobs use to make EVs practical", then turn around and use even more absurd excuses to claim they are not practical? Since when was it necessary to recharge in just 5 minutes at home? Demanding a "charging time under 5 minutes with no additional equipment on a standard 110 volt outlet" is just as silly as demanding to refuel a H2 fuel cell car in 5 minutes from a GARDEN HoSE with NO ADDITIONAL EQUIPMENT! (or for that matter, insisting on refilling a gas tank with an eyedropper in just 5 minutes.) In fact, you can't refuel a H2 car from home in just 5 minutes, even the commercial refueling places take 10 minutes or more. To even refuel a H2FCV at home would take $50,000 worth of equipment and a natural gas connection, and even then it takes over an hour to refill! A "home quick charger" would cost less, but isn't really needed as charging can take place automatically while the owner is doing something else, like watching TV, eating supper, or sleeping.
It is EVs and PHEVs that will "blow H2FCVs out of the water", as they have big advantages in cost, operating cost, convenience and performance. Even the supposed "fast refill" advantage of H2 fuel is lost with the advent of fast chargers and battery swapping.
meme 12:30PM (9/09/2009)
Cute -- with the fortune they've invested in this, they "struggle" to produce a mere 200 cars? Your average EV-conversion-shop-in-the-owner's-garage can do more than that in less time than they've taken to make ten.
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Chris M 6:48PM (9/09/2009)
They probably need to get more government H2 subsidy money, they've only received enough for 10 Claritys so far. It didn't help when the US H2 research subsidies were reduced.
So at this rate, they'll only get enough subsidies for 10 Clarities per year, so by 2015 they will only be 130 short of their goal. Hmm, maybe they are hoping for a rich H2 fan to give them a private grant?