Today's NY Times has a very positive review of the Honda FCX Clarity -- a hydrogen car that Honda feels is ready for production. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/automobiles/autoreviews/09HONDA.html?pagewanted=1
"Ready" is such a slippery term. A car that costs $1 million+ per copy is not what I call "ready" for production. And while I did enjoy the article, and am happy to see Honda make such a nice electric car, they just HAD to put in the part where *could* be cleaner than a battery car. It isn't, of course. Since we don't actually make "clean" Hydrogen in any quantity. But they had to compare the dirtiest electricity with the cleanest, all-but-non-existent Hydrogen. So you take this great car, strip out the fuel cell stack, stuff in a battery pack, and you've instantly got a 300 miles battery car for under $100,000 that can be sold today, and fueled with 100% clean energy, or plugged in anywhere. Remind me again why we're waiting for H2 when we could have this thing on the street today?
I'd LOVE to have a hydrogen car. But it's only the hydrogen infrastructure that we're waiting for? I'd want it to cost less than a half million dollars. Silly me. How is a car ready when it's cost excedes the average yearly income by 20 TIMES ? Oh, and I'd love it to use less fossel fuel than it consumes in converting fossel fuel into to hydrogen. You know ... little things like that. Pickey pickey pickey.
