Is the Hydrogen Car of the Future Running on Empty?

By Steven Ashley

A Lamborghini Murciélago zips by as we cruise through central New Jersey on Route 78 West. My fellow motorists watch the sleek, $350,000 roadster until it slips out of sight but pay no mind to our tidy, four-door sedan. The only clues that our car is at all unusual are its exterior badges, its ultraquiet operation and a faint but persistent compressor whine. In reality, however, our 2008 Honda FCX Clarity is a potentially revolutionary vehicle: hydrogen fills its gas tank and powers its fuel cell.

"Nobody notices us even though this car probably costs as much as the Lambo," I observe. Unconfirmed reports say the Clarity costs more than $200,000, but Chris Naughton, the Honda rep sitting in the passenger seat, refuses to disclose the price tag. "This car is a lot cleaner," he offers.

Slide Show: Take a Tour of Honda's Fuel Cell Car

His statement is undoubtedly true: Nine pounds (4 kilograms) of hydrogen gas stored in a 5,000-pound-per-square-inch tank flows into a compact fuel-cell "stack" parked between our seats, where the gas molecules are ionized by catalysts, shedding electrons in the process. The resulting positive ions pass through a thin, selective polymer membrane whereas the electrons flow to a 134-horsepower electric-drive motor. When the electrons emerge, they recombine with the positive hydrogen ions as well as with oxygen atoms from the air to form water. Water vapor, and not much else, emerges from the tailpipe.

Fuel cells hit the road

The latest fuel cell cars are nearly indistinguishable from conventional vehicles in looks and, to a large extent, performance. More than a thousand of them are said to ply roads worldwide. Yet the evolving environmentally friendly propulsion technology is still priced far out of reach for most motorists.

Honda plans to lease about 200 of what it calls the first production fuel-cell car for $600 a month during the next three years. But that program is aimed at demonstrating the technology in everyday use until production volumes rise enough to start cutting manufacturing costs. In the meantime, other automakers have fielded fleets of prototypes, including Mercedes-Benz (F-Cell), General Motors (Equinox FCV), Ford (Focus FCV) and Nissan (X-Trail FCV).

In the U.S. many of those fuel-cell cars are concentrated in California, but even the Golden State has only 18 hydrogen fuel stations in operation, far too few to service many vehicles. Honda must therefore limit its fuel-cell leases to customers who live near one of three 24/7 public hydrogen outlets around Los Angeles.

Finding hydrogen

These circumstances highlight another major obstacle to greater adoption of the technology—the lack of a nationwide hydrogen distribution and refueling infrastructure. Chris and I are driving about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from New York City to fill up at a hydrogen station in Allentown, Pa., that is run by Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., one of the few such facilities in the Northeast. There, I learn that the actual five-minute "gassing-up" procedure is a snap, as it closely resembles standard refueling with gasoline.

The Air Products folks are reassuring about the safety of the refueling process. Nick Pugliese, an engineer, cites the industry's half century of experience with handling the flammable gas and that fact that his company has safely refueled more than 72,000 vehicles.

Air Products naturally is bullish on expanding the domestic hydrogen production and distribution system, so Pugliese discusses several pathways by which the nation’s infrastructure could be enlarged with help from the energy industry and the U.S. government. But he is less forthcoming regarding the pump price of hydrogen, alluding to the many factors that determine costs. Hydrogen reportedly goes for $5 to $10 per kilogram (2.2 pounds)—or more—across the country. Advocates claim that the high energy efficiency of fuel-cell drivetrains make hydrogen competitive with gasoline on a per-mile basis.