Honda FCX Clarity 2008 Review - International

Quiet, space efficient, wind-tunnel smoothed and nimble, the four-seat Honda FCX Clarity intends to be the first hydrogen fuel-cell car retailed to the public through dealers in Japan and North America. And if you suspect that statement comes with a hitch the size of the Hindenburg, you'd be correct.

Starting around June, Honda will lease the FCX for a fixed three-year contract at US$600 per month with no option to buy. Production numbers are still secret, but Lamborghinis will be as common as lamp posts by comparison. American lessees will be selected by a committee at Honda based largely on geographic location. Those who don't live in greater Los Angeles can pretty much forget about it.

LA is where three of the US's few publicly accessible hydrogen stations currently pump the ethereal gas for about US$5 per kilogram (the FCX holds 5.3kg or 171 litres, good for up to 435km under a light right foot, according to Honda).

Fuel cells are an undercooked and uncertain technology of the future (and it may always be so), but Honda is cautiously taking it out for a stroll anyway. Hand built, mostly from steel and some aluminium in Honda's dreamcar factory in Tochigi, Japan which also produced the NSX and Honda Insight hybrid, the FCX Clarity basically replaces the Insight as the company's green tech flagship.

The main innovation is called the "V Flow" or vertical flow stack. In the Clarity, the stack is not much larger than two computer towers and fits neatly into a tunnel between the front seats. The single hydrogen tank wedged between the rear five-link suspension stores gaseous hydrogen at up to 5000psi, while a small lithium-ion battery pack buffers the stack's power delivery and captures energy from the regenerative brakes.

Up front, the driveshaft passes coaxially through the centre of the 100kW AC permanent magnet traction motor, gear reduction transmission, and differential, making for a very neat, compact package.

Honda believes it can hasten the future's arrival by making it look and feel a lot like the present. Sized between the Civic and Accord, the 1630kg Clarity disappears in traffic and drives like the Accord with which it shares its front control-arm suspension.

Instead of engine growl, a distant motor hums and a slightly disturbing, stepping-on-a-cat scream emanates from the Roots-type compressor feeding outside air to the stack. The driver faces a multi-tiered Syd Mead-inspired dash with luminescent three-dimensional meters. Hydrogen use is tracked by a "consumption ball" that starts out small and blue and grows larger and more orange (the Earth on fire?) the more throttle you use.

After shelling out US$21,600 over three years, you'd be forgiven for expecting to own at least part of this smallish sedan rather than a wad of cancelled cheques. Plated with platinum catalysts and lined with exotic membranes, fuel cells are still NASA priced. While Honda admits that the Clarity is a money-losing experiment, it exists mainly to encourage the nascent hydrogen infrastructure. No doubt, the nightmare of 20-year-old Claritys landing in school parking lots, their fuel tanks patched with duct tape and Hubba Bubba, is another factor in the lease-only strategy.

All of which means the Clarity will prove as hard to get your hands around as a hydrogen atom.

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