Honda FCX Clarity

HOOFING it out of the convention hall after Chevrolet's press update on the Volt at the Los Angeles auto show, I came away feeling that I, finally, once-and-for-all, absolutely, had the future of the automobile figured out. Mo question about it: Plug-in hybrids like the Volt [or as GM prefers to call it, an extended-range electric vehicle) will be how we and our kids will get around in our looming SIOO-plus per-barrel-oil and climate-changing world. "The Volt's on schedule," they confidently stated, and its first set of development batteries—which arrived on Halloween at GM's research center in Warren, Michigan—"turned out to be a treat not a trick,"their battery czar quipped. It's nice when the light above the road to tomorrow is suddenly so brightly illuminated like this.
The trouble is, the next morning I found myself gliding along in another, entirely different conception of that future, and it is—both compelling and notably—not a concept. Although few of Malibu's star-jaded drivers in neighboring lanes are paying much attention, Honda's product ion-ready FCX Clarity hydrog en-fuel-eel I sedan is whining along at 50 mph trailing nothing but water vapor (specifically a gallon of water per 30 miles, we're told.) About that certainty of the future? Put me down as confused again.



And you got it right: This thing is no concept, no prototype. It's a finished automobile. And a beautifully finished one at that. [Question to self: How did this thing get its design charisma from Lamborghini, while the new Accord got its from Lada?) Right now, Honda plans to have the FCX Clarity available for three-year leases in Southern California for $600 per month. The lease amount doesn't reflect the car's production cost, of course; instead, it's meant to filter the applicant list down to the car's eventual, actual audience— specifically, households earning 5150,000 per year, with presumably well-educated, tech-sawy, brainy occupants who all own DVD director cuts of 7001: A Space Odyssey."

Before the test drive, we attempted to press Honda on the FCX Clarity's production numbers or even trick Honda into guessing at how many cars the Southern California hydrogen infrastructure could support in the near-term. No such luck. Although Honda is proving to be unbelievably confident by raising the stakes this high in the hydrogen car game, it obviously isn't about to be held to any specific figures should things unexpectedly unravel.

On the road, the FCX Clarity drives similarly to its concept predecessor, but it's a breathtaking architectural and engineering advance over the dowdy 2005 version Honda has previously let loose on select municipalities and notably, the well-documented Spallino family of Bedondo Beach, California. Compared with that car, the Clarity's fuel-cell stack is relocated to under the driver's right arm, is 65 percent smaller by volume, packs 17 percent more power (100 kW or 136 horsepower), and can start at temperatures as low as -22 degrees F (owing to its vertical, gravity-draining water path). Combined with its compact, coaxial motor and reduction gears up front, lithium-battery pack under the rear seat (bye-bye, ultra-capacitors), and single, SOOOpsi storage tank behind the rear passengers, the Clarity craftily stashes its powertrain hardware in just about every nook and cranny. Think how efficient Tokyo-dwellers can be with space utilization and you'll get the idea.The Clarity's interior space is consequently generous, particularly its rear-passenger legroom. And trunk volume is commendable.



As noted, that storage tank is of the more-readily rechargeable 5000psi variety, not 10,000 psi as some other manufacturers are pursuing. Why? With its excellent 270-mile city-cycle range from a big, single tank, Honda feels 10,000 psi isn't necessary and maybe even counterproductive, in terms of efficiency, as a fair amount of energy is lost in doubling the pressure. Moreover, like the rest of the car's subsystems, the tank's componentry is astonishingly simplified.
Simple, too, is the thinking that drives many of the Clarity's energy-reducing tricks. For instance, the cockpit's air-conditioning load is markedly reduced by surface-cooling the seats themselves.

Press your foot deep into the accelerator and you're gently, but relentlessly, pressed back into the driver's seat while a whine—sounding rather like the deployment of an airliner's wing flaps—fills the cockpit (that's the air compressor feeding the fuel cell). Keeping a glowering, HAL-like eye on your profligate right-pedal proddings is a ball-like icon hovering in the middle of the dash. Take it easy and the ball stays a small friendly blue. Get crazy and it grows bigger and turns yellow, then bigger again to an angry orange. Don't screw with the ball, I say. From a stop, the lithium batteries offer an initial energy surge to bridge the electron gap until the fuel cell awakens from its "Auto Stop" hibernation, and during braking, they're replenished with up to 57 percent of the vehicle's kinetic energy. Cruising, the FCX Clarity is eerily silent. A few whines, maybe. And there's not even much aerodynamic noise.

It's hard to imagine the car's electronic-driving-game feel isn't intentional on Honda's part, as the maker is obviously fully capable of endowing it with any level of steering, brake, and ride sensation it likes. Had Honda chosen to, it probably could've had the control feedbacks of an F1 car, but Instead the Clarity is trancelike numb to drive. Perhaps it's an experiential statement about its Zen-like location in the far-edge of the automotive-versus-environment spectrum.
All this is well and good [even great) but—let's say it together, shall we—"Where will the hydrogen comefrom?"Currently, it's mostly derived from carbon-carrying natural gas. 8ut even fueled from this source, the Clarity produces a scant one-third of the well-to-wheel COj spewed by comparable gasoline cars (and one half that emitted by a good gasoline hybrid). Still, there are some big, awkward holes in the hydrogen-supply flowchart. Aren't we running out of natural gas, too? If it's created from coal, will the captured carbon really be sequestered in giant underground caverns? And if you buy that, I need to speak with you about some nice Florida property.

On the other hand, Honda is the opposite of stupid. It's working on hydrogen home-refueling stations, high-efficiency solar cells to produce hydrogen via efficient, low-voltage electrolysis, all kinds of wild stuff that might make this work after all.The confrontation between extended-range plug-in EVs like the Volt and hydrogen-fuel-cell cars like the FCX Clarity is going to be the blood-soaked battleground of the automobile's future. And while car companies can say all they like about both technologies having "a place at the table"—that's nonsense. One will win. Honda hasn't put this much technological horsepower into fuel-cell technology—or named this car the "Clarity" (meaning it's intended to clear the course to the automobile's future)—for nothing.