Honda Fuel Cell Nears Production

Honda FCX Concept

Washington DC December 14, 2006; The AIADA newsletter reported that Honda has said it will put a fuel-cell vehicle into limited production in 2008, which company insiders have said will closely resemble the space-age FCX Concept, reports The Detroit Free Press.

This car "is not just some far-out, pie-in-the-sky exercise in what may or may not come to fruition some day in the distant future," said John Mendel, Honda's senior vice president. "This is a real car."

The company hasn't said how many will be made and how much it will cost to lease the car, but we do know the car is a four-door sedan with a good-size trunk, it has a fuel-cell stack where hydrogen and oxygen combine to create electricity – that's 40 percent lighter and 43 percent smaller than the one used in the previous version of the car, and it has a 270-mile range.

The previous FCX had a 210-mile range. The vehicle still faces serious hurdles; however, as very little infrastructure exists to supply hydrogen to vehicles. "The technology ... shows by far the greatest promise to meet our future energy and environmental needs," said Ben Knight, vice president of Honda R&D Americas.