Honda confirms hydrogen fuel-cell sedan for 2008

[TOY4TWO]

Honda has new fuel cell vehicle

Hydrogen-powered FCX, with range of 270 miles, to hit road next year in U.S., Japan.

David Shepardson / Detroit News Washington Bureau

Friday, May 11, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Honda Motor Co. unveiled its next-generation hydrogen fuel cell vehicle here Thursday, saying it would begin producing a small number of vehicles next year for use in Japan and the United States.

The new Honda FCX is sportier and sleeker than the current version, with a top speed of 100 mph. It has a longer range -- 270 miles, up from 210 -- and a fuel cell power system that's 400 pounds lighter.

"We're calling this the 'FCX Concept' but I can assure you it 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 Steve Ellis, Honda's manager of fuel cell vehicle marketing.

Ellis said the vehicle is an important tool in reaching out to green-conscious customers. "It will be positioned as the ultimate environmental badge of honor for our customers."

Honda's FCX plans come amid growing concern about greenhouse gas emissions and calls in Congress to dramatically raise fuel economy standards to reduce tailpipe emissions.

Hydrogen vehicles offer dramatically lower net carbon dioxide emissions. Hydrogen power would also help end U.S. dependence on foreign oil. But the main problems are still the expense of building hydrogen fuel cells and the lack of hydrogen fueling stations around the country.

One idea Honda is looking at is an experimental home energy station that uses natural gas already supplied to most homes to generate hydrogen fuel, electricity, hot water and heat.

The main advantage to hydrogen is that it can "be derived from a broad range of sources, including methane or natural gas, bio-mass and renewable sources like solar or wind," said Ben Knight, Honda's vice president for research in the Americas.

He said the new generation FCX is a "quantum leap forward." It will have a higher price than the $500 a month Honda charges for its current FCX, which is only a fraction of the roughly $1.5 million each costs to build. Honda has sold or leased about 30 worldwide and said production of the new model would eventually exceed the current fleet. Honda leased one to a family in California two years ago and in March, leased one to 17-year-old actress and environmental activist Q'orianka Kilcher. Honda let journalists drive two FCX Concept sedans in the parking lot of Washington's RFK Stadium. Government officials also were invited, including top White House environmental adviser James Connaughton.

When accelerating, the FCX's fuel cell sounds more like a jet engine than a conventional gasoline engine, although it's quieter. The new FCX also has superior acceleration over the current model, with a top speed of 100 mph

The production vehicles will be similar to the concept showed off Thursday, with upgraded bumpers and a revised interior, Honda said.

Hydrogen vehicles are being researched by most major automakers, and the industry has spent billions on research. China is also investing heavily in hydrogen and may become the first country to adopt hydrogen vehicles in large numbers.

General Motors Corp. said in September that it would introduce the world's largest fleet of hydrogen vehicles later this year, putting 100 consumers in hydrogen-powered Chevrolet Equinox SUVs through its "Project Driveway" program in New York, California and Washington, DC.

Next week, GM plans to take journalists on a 300-mile drive from its labs in Honeoye Falls, N.Y. to Tarrytown, N.Y., and update them on its hydrogen research. GM hopes to have a 1,000-vehicle fleet between 2010 and 2012.

Ford Motor Co. is working on the HySeries Edge, a plug-in electric hydrogen-powered vehicle with a range of 225 miles. It also has a fleet of hydrogen powered E-450 shuttle buses, among other hydrogen vehicles.

DaimlerChrysler AG has more than 100 hydrogen fuel cells in use worldwide, including 25 in California. BMW has more than 100 Hydrogen 7 vehicles on the roads and plans to begin leasing them this year.
source : detnews

[xmicro_Redline]

Maybe I would think of one of those in about 10 years, let everyone else pay those crazy prices for lack lustre cars. My biggest issue is no engine grumble. The thing I enjoy most about my Sky is my Magnaflow system. I cannot get enough of that sound. I seriously listen to my stereo about half of what I used to because I enjoy the sound of my exhaust!

Anyway, they need to focus on private plane usage, and industrial emmisions before I go and shut down my little tail pipes. I can see my zippppppping along on the Jersey Turnpike in my new $40,000 dollar ****box that emits less carbon as I drive past more Industrial stacks than you can count, just smokin away.

YOU FIRST RICH PEOPLE AND INDUSTRY, YOU CAN AFFORD IT, AND HELP THE PRICE OF NEW GREEN TECHNOLOGIES GO DOWN FOR US LESS RICH PEOPLE!!

[KappaMan]

Hydrogen is a ruse. The vast majority (more than 95%) of hydrogen is produced and supplied by none other than oil companies (via companies like air products and praxair). It is made via methane reformation, and produces between 2 to 3 TIMES the amount of carbon dioxide per mile driven than a car that gets 18 miles per gallon.


Large scale "clean" hydrogen production requires...


...'clean' electricity. We already know how to make electricity, and only 35% of it can be considered 'clean'. Why the f*** waste it on making hydrogen at no better than 60% efficiency and a net energy ratio of 0.16 (gasoline is NER of 9, Ethanol is about 1.15 from corn and approaches 5 in Brazil when derived from sugar cane).

A NER of less than one means it takes MORE energy to refine the medium than you get in the medium itself. Meaning it would take the equivalent of about 5-6 kg of hydrogen energy to get a useable kilogram of hydrogen to go use in your fuel cell car...

...to make F*#KING ELECTRICITY!!!


That's another reason that hydrogen is a dead end.

This fantasy that hydrogen is 'clean' is something that hopefully will be more well known in the future. It is one of the most inefficient, dirtiest, most expensive and least practical ways to power transportation that we can think of. It is a waste of resources, and a waste of energy.



A good, electric-primary drive, plug-in hybrid that allows non-combustion driving for some limited amount (30 - 50 miles?) covers 80% of most people's driving needs. Get up, unplug your car, go to work, plug in, work, leave work, unplug your car, drive to the store, then drive home and plug it back in overnight.

Gallons of gasoline burned? ZERO.

Equivalent cost of the energy used? Like getting your gasoline for $0.58 a gallon.

Drive to grandma's house 200 miles away by leaving town on electrical drive, then the 'hybrid' part kicks in when you're on the highway. Your mileage will prolly end up around 35 MPG, but it's better than





THEN, if hydrogen ever does become efficient and clean and cheap, you replace the <whatever makes the electricity for your plug-in series hybrid> with a fuel cell and a hydrogen tank - but I'll personally stick with a biodiesel regen turbine (among the most efficient ways to make electricity from the currently available fuels).



Hydrogen requires 5 basic hurdles to be surpassed, Dr. J. Romm calls them "miracles"


1) fuel cells are not currently low cost or practical. The fuel cell problem must be solved. They don't do well in cold, and they are sensitive to very low levels of contamination. They do not have a long life.

2) Hydrogen is not very energy dense. It is not space-efficient in storage. Even liquid hydrogen requires 4 gallons of space for every gasoline-gallon equivalent of energy. So, just to break even, you have to have a vehicle that is AT LEAST 4X as efficient as a comparable petro-fueled vehicle - or you need a huge tank.

3) minor, but true, there is not a large network for distribution of hydrogen. It isn't conducive to piped delivery, and trucking it around isn't that appealing, either, but that's exactly how the handful of stations are currently supplied. We can deliver electricity, gasoline and diesel and their bio-fuel cousins using already-established delivery infrastructures. IF hydrogen was the hottest, most efficient and viable fuel around, though, we would figure this out in short order, but it wouldn't happen overnight.

4) Current hydrogen production is not cheap. It ranges from $3.50 for dirty hydrogen per kg., to as much as $15/kg for solar electrolysis produced hydrogen. For equivalency, the energy in a kg of hydrogen is equivalent to a gallon of gasoline. Most hydrogen cars get about 30 miles on a kg of hydrogen... (wow, aren't these cars supposed to be really efficient?)

5) Technology, like the internal combustion engine, plug-in hybrids, batteries and alternative electrical energy storage.... ALL of these technologies are far superior to hydrogen, so for hydrogen to surpass ALL of these technologies, they ALL have to either stagnate while hydrogen must experience a tenfold leap in technology... or ALL of these other options must completely FAIL leaving hydrogen as the only viable choice.

notgonnahappen.com.

There are others, too, even if we decide all hydrogen is made via solar or renewable resourced electrolysis. Like you need clean water to do this... and water is quickly becoming a more-scarce resource... but it is convenient to sum it up in 5 major points.

[ku4zs]

Originally Posted by KappaMan

Hydrogen is a ruse. The vast majority (more than 95%) of hydrogen is produced and supplied by none other than oil companies (via companies like air products and praxair). It is made via methane reformation, and produces between 2 to 3 TIMES the amount of carbon dioxide per mile driven than a car that gets 18 miles per gallon.


Large scale "clean" hydrogen production requires...


...'clean' electricity. We already know how to make electricity, and only 35% of it can be considered 'clean'. Why the f*** waste it on making hydrogen at no better than 60% efficiency and a net energy ratio of 0.16 (gasoline is NER of 9, Ethanol is about 1.15 from corn and approaches 5 in Brazil when derived from sugar cane).

A NER of less than one means it takes MORE energy to refine the medium than you get in the medium itself. Meaning it would take the equivalent of about 5-6 kg of hydrogen energy to get a useable kilogram of hydrogen to go use in your fuel cell car...

...to make F*#KING ELECTRICITY!!!


That's another reason that hydrogen is a dead end.

This fantasy that hydrogen is 'clean' is something that hopefully will be more well known in the future. It is one of the most inefficient, dirtiest, most expensive and least practical ways to power transportation that we can think of. It is a waste of resources, and a waste of energy.



A good, electric-primary drive, plug-in hybrid that allows non-combustion driving for some limited amount (30 - 50 miles?) covers 80% of most people's driving needs. Get up, unplug your car, go to work, plug in, work, leave work, unplug your car, drive to the store, then drive home and plug it back in overnight.

Gallons of gasoline burned? ZERO.

Equivalent cost of the energy used? Like getting your gasoline for $0.58 a gallon.

Drive to grandma's house 200 miles away by leaving town on electrical drive, then the 'hybrid' part kicks in when you're on the highway. Your mileage will prolly end up around 35 MPG, but it's better than





THEN, if hydrogen ever does become efficient and clean and cheap, you replace the <whatever makes the electricity for your plug-in series hybrid> with a fuel cell and a hydrogen tank - but I'll personally stick with a biodiesel regen turbine (among the most efficient ways to make electricity from the currently available fuels).



Hydrogen requires 5 basic hurdles to be surpassed, Dr. J. Romm calls them "miracles"


1) fuel cells are not currently low cost or practical. The fuel cell problem must be solved. They don't do well in cold, and they are sensitive to very low levels of contamination. They do not have a long life.

2) Hydrogen is not very energy dense. It is not space-efficient in storage. Even liquid hydrogen requires 4 gallons of space for every gasoline-gallon equivalent of energy. So, just to break even, you have to have a vehicle that is AT LEAST 4X as efficient as a comparable petro-fueled vehicle - or you need a huge tank.

3) minor, but true, there is not a large network for distribution of hydrogen. It isn't conducive to piped delivery, and trucking it around isn't that appealing, either, but that's exactly how the handful of stations are currently supplied. We can deliver electricity, gasoline and diesel and their bio-fuel cousins using already-established delivery infrastructures. IF hydrogen was the hottest, most efficient and viable fuel around, though, we would figure this out in short order, but it wouldn't happen overnight.

4) Current hydrogen production is not cheap. It ranges from $3.50 for dirty hydrogen per kg., to as much as $15/kg for solar electrolysis produced hydrogen. For equivalency, the energy in a kg of hydrogen is equivalent to a gallon of gasoline. Most hydrogen cars get about 30 miles on a kg of hydrogen... (wow, aren't these cars supposed to be really efficient?)

5) Technology, like the internal combustion engine, plug-in hybrids, batteries and alternative electrical energy storage.... ALL of these technologies are far superior to hydrogen, so for hydrogen to surpass ALL of these technologies, they ALL have to either stagnate while hydrogen must experience a tenfold leap in technology... or ALL of these other options must completely FAIL leaving hydrogen as the only viable choice.

notgonnahappen.com.

There are others, too, even if we decide all hydrogen is made via solar or renewable resourced electrolysis. Like you need clean water to do this... and water is quickly becoming a more-scarce resource... but it is convenient to sum it up in 5 major points.

I just took a class on hydrogen production in the nuclear economy. Hydrogen IS a clean fuel, depending on how it's made. The intent is to use high temperature fast reactors to produce a high enough temperature to run a Sulfur Cycle, or Hybrid Sulfur cycle, which uses the heat directly produced by the reactor as part of the reaction. This removes the 33% efficiency in the Rankine cycle that current light water reactors use. This can provide over 50% efficiency for thermal energy generated to HHV H2 produced. Attached are a few slides from the class I took.

[ku4zs]

This is the only other slide I see of interest. Lets you see how much uranium (and energy) is available from nuclear power in the world.

[TOY4TWO]

when you buy this car, it comes with a "power station" that converts your natual gas line into hyrdrogen. We will have to wait and see, how much does natual gas cost vs. regular unleaded? Of course this would only work with people that have garages because hydrogen fuel stations are at least a decade away.

Until the American public gets back to building nuclear power plants (4th gen+, not the old type we use today) hydrogen will never catch on. Better to store our waste where we know where it is then burn it into the air so all the living things on the planet can breathe it in (ie hydrogran from fossil fuels).

I don't understand why there aren't more of the 4th gen nuclear power plants in the country, it can't be safety because by their very design they can't meltdown, if you had a runaway nuclear reaction by its very design it would fizzle out, like pebble bed reactors etc.

[ku4zs]

Originally Posted by TOY4TWO

when you buy this car, it comes with a "power station" that converts your natual gas line into hyrdrogen. We will have to wait and see, how much does natual gas cost vs. regular unleaded? Of course this would only work with people that have garages because hydrogen fuel stations are at least a decade away.

Until the American public gets back to building nuclear power plants (4th gen+, not the old type we use today) hydrogen will never catch on. Better to store our waste where we know where it is then burn it into the air so all the living things on the planet can breathe it in (ie hydrogran from fossil fuels).

I don't understand why there aren't more of the 4th gen nuclear power plants in the country, it can't be safety because by their very design they can't meltdown, if you had a runaway nuclear reaction by its very design it would fizzle out, like pebble bed reactors etc.

Well pebblebed reactors have the added convenience of refueling without shutting down, and since the pebbles are coated, they are themselves their own containment, so really a containment building isn't needed either (though I'm sure the public would insist on one).

We are in the process of building Gen 3 reactors. The Westinhouse AP1000 is on order with several stations in the country, including one near me at Gaffney (Cherokee County) nuclear site, for Duke Power.

The one thing about advancement in nuclear power in this country is proving to the NRC that "so and so" is safe and licensable. It takes slow baby steps in order to make progress.

[KappaMan]

Originally Posted by ku4zs

I just took a class on hydrogen production in the nuclear economy. Hydrogen IS a clean fuel, depending on how it's made. The intent is to use high temperature fast reactors to produce a high enough temperature to run a Sulfur Cycle, or Hybrid Sulfur cycle, which uses the heat directly produced by the reactor as part of the reaction. This removes the 33% efficiency in the Rankine cycle that current light water reactors use. This can provide over 50% efficiency for thermal energy generated to HHV H2 produced. Attached are a few slides from the class I took.

Yep - and that'll be online when?


I'm familiar with dual step thermoelectrolytic cycles. That is 'being developed'. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have been "in development" for decades.

The current fact of today's world is that hydrogen comes from fossil fuels. That is not going to change overnight. It still doesn't solve the hydrogen distribution or onboard storage problem. That means hydrogen, for the near and mid-term, is "dirty" (meaning it generates more CO2).

The bottom line - there are more efficient ways to produce, transport, and utilize electrical energy. Attempting to utilize hydrogen as this 'future fuel is still a waste.


People forget that a hydrogen-powered fuel cell car is nothing more than an electric vehicle whose battery consists of hydrogen analogous to an anode, and oxygen (from air) as a cathode, with the PEM functioning like the electrolyte in a battery. We just don't have to carry both the cathode and anode.

Metal-air batteries are analogous to this, using a metal as an anode, air as a cathode, except once the reaction has taken place and the electrons generated, we have to hang on to the byproduct (the metal oxide residue), and can't easily reconvert the byproduct - unlike a fuel cell, where you can dump the dihydrogen monoxide into the air, and call it something harmless... like water.

But - we already KNOW how to generate efficient electricity from a number of means (50% coal, 20% nuclear, 20% nat'l gas, the remaining 10% through petroleum, hydroelectric and other means such as waste generation, solar, wind, and geothermal).

We have battery technology that can be used, before the decade is out, to make primary electric drive series hybrid vehicles. Heavy equipment and locomotives use similar technology without batteries today (diesel generator powering a very high torque electric motor).

In many respects, battery technology is more advanced than hydrogen fuel cell technology today, and in an odd way is really a redundant system - we utilize something LIKE a battery to power a motor, and charge ANOTHER battery... so IT can ALSO power a motor... Hydrogen fuel cells are wasteful.

Better electrical energy storage all of a sudden makes hydrogen fuel cell vehicles better, maybe closer to being viable - but then pure electric vehicles become even MORE VIABLE. We plug in at home, or plug in at work, or elsewhere with a meter. We suddenly have no need for the fuel cell, or any of this hydrogen silliness.


Mark my words - history will go something like this:

-a series plug-in, electric primary drive hybrid vehicle will be built. It will have some "electric only" range (40 miles, maybe), and a range likely to be obtained by burning a fossil fuel of some sort used to generate electricity primarily for either propulsion or for charging the battery bank, but gaining significant mileage for an average sedan.

-in fact, several of these cars will make it to market in the next 10 years. Some will be powered by small gasoline/e85 engines, some diesel, and maybe even some with efficient turbine generators - all still running through a thermo cycle to generate onboard electricity.

(hydrogen FCV's will STILL be about 2 decades off on the horizon by this time. Maybe clean hydrogen production will be developed, but i predict the fuel cell will still be near-stillborn technology.).

-a breakthrough or several rapid, small and significant breakthroughs, in electrical energy storage tecnology will occur. The 'electric-only' range will steadily increase through finding more efficient ways to build the 18650, managing heat generation, microscopic subconstruction, electrical energy storage life, etc. This will cause an increase in the watts/kg of about 150 today to eventually over 450 or 600 w/kg.

-as the 'electric only' range approaches 300+ miles, the onboard electrical generation system will be only available as a tow-trailer, or disappear altogether, leaving behind an electric vehicle as we envision it. My prediction - we'll see this before 2020.

-Eventually, it will work it's way to large transportation by 2025. Motors will replace truck engines, and the engines used to pull the loads that drive our economy today will follow the same progression, but in a faster fashion.

Anyone who looks at the gestalt of modern transportation propulsion can see that if you have limited time and budget to allocate to research - you certainly wouldn't waste it on hydrogen.

The energy we use today, and the energy medium of the future (quaint as it sounds) will definitely be electricity.

We'll still have gasoline and diesel, but in a much different form by 2030. They will have to still be around so I can drive my SKY RedLine or Solstice GXP.....

Petroleum fuels will also still be around, powering the airline industry... any transformation to a hybrid of ANY sort will be a LONG way off in the future.

[KappaMan]

Originally Posted by TOY4TWO

when you buy this car, it comes with a "power station" that converts your natual gas line into hyrdrogen. We will have to wait and see, how much does natual gas cost vs. regular unleaded? Of course this would only work with people that have garages because hydrogen fuel stations are at least a decade away.....

See, this is exactly what I mean. All that this 'power station' does is methane reformation.

CH4 + 2 H2O (plus a catalyst and a buttload of heat energy) >>> 4 H2 + CO2

Ahem - the end result is that pesky little + CO2

It is not 'sequestered', it is not 'filtered', and you can't 'burn' it because it's carbon dioxide. All you can do is waft it into the air and let it go.

Every gallon of gasoline releases 19 lbs of CO2 into the atmosphere.

One gallon of gasoline is roughly equivalent to 1 kg of hydrogen.

A car that gets 25 mpg on the highway emits about 190 lbs of CO2 in 250 miles.

The FCX stores about 5 kg of hydrogen, meaning the equivalent efficiency is about 54 mpg. Impressive, huh?

But wait. For every kg of hydrogen produced via methane reformation, 12 1/2 lbs of carbon dioxide is produced just from the reaction. This is not counting the wasted energy in creating the 1000-1200 degrees to get the steam reformation to work properly - which in a 'home reformation hydrogen production station' amounts to burning more natural gas... this means you get to add between 3 and 9 more lbs of CO2 per kg of hydrogen produced. Call it an even 19 lbs/kg produced - similar to gasoline.

The FCX still produces 90 lbs of carbon dioxide for that 250 miles of range.


Great, eh?

Don't forget, the early 80's diesel rabbit got about 50 miles per gallon. That's about 110 lbs of carbon dioxide for that same 250 miles of range - and we already have the delivery infrastructure, the fuel, a biofuel alternative, the ability to burn simple VEGETABLE WASTE OIL in some locations of the country with NET ZERO CO2 emissions... and that was 30 years ago.


OR, we can keep trying to fool ourselves that hydrogen is some wonderful new thing that is completely clean and can be implemented in cars tomorrow, come to your honda dealer and pick one up right now.

If we simply made a rule that all sedans over a certain weight and size were required by law to be diesel powered by 2010 (i.e. no gasoline engines), that means an increase in fuel efficiency of about 25% to 40%, and a third less CO2 emissions. This would MORE than offset any fantasy market penetration of <1% fuel cell vehicles made with make-believe clean hydrogen...

[TOY4TWO]

Kappaman, thats some really good info. Thanks for sharing

[Valistener]

We need the Volt....Now

http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dl.../70507012/1024

[TOY4TWO]

Originally Posted by Valistener

We need the Volt....Now

http://www.autoweek.com/apps/pbcs.dl.../70507012/1024

That car is a dream come true, it looks way better than current hybrids too. Why do they tease us GM will sell tons of them.

[Mad4MySky]

I saw this pretty cool article about hydrogen technology on MSNBC the other day and thought it was pretty good. I'm not very up on this area, but for those interested it's a pretty good read.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18700750/

[vrod]

I have to agree with some earlier posters here.

The only reason that hydrogen power started coming up, was because it was something that the current infrastructure (oil companies) could cash in on.

I was looking into an electric 1-seater vehicle (Corbin electric Merlin), but they went bankrupt. Too bad. We seem to get awefully close to an all electric vehicle, then you just don't hear anymore about it.

The VW Rabbit was brought up. My '96 Toyota Celica gets 32+ MPG on the highway. Not the fastest on the block, but not too shabby for economy. If Toyota produced another one like this one (albeit new), I would trade my Sky for it.

I checked my mileage this morning. Nearly 19MPG (despite DIC saying 21 point something) on the R/L. Pitiful. I'll likely clean my plugs, re-install my stock air box, then see what happens. I was expecting a little more than this.

[Valistener]

Originally Posted by vrod

I have to agree with some earlier posters here.

The only reason that hydrogen power started coming up, was because it was something that the current infrastructure (oil companies) could cash in on.

I was looking into an electric 1-seater vehicle (Corbin electric Merlin), but they went bankrupt. Too bad. We seem to get awefully close to an all electric vehicle, then you just don't hear anymore about it.

The VW Rabbit was brought up. My '96 Toyota Celica gets 32+ MPG on the highway. Not the fastest on the block, but not too shabby for economy. If Toyota produced another one like this one (albeit new), I would trade my Sky for it.

I checked my mileage this morning. Nearly 19MPG (despite DIC saying 21 point something) on the R/L. Pitiful. I'll likely clean my plugs, re-install my stock air box, then see what happens. I was expecting a little more than this.

It really does amaze me how poor gas milage these cars get. I have mentioned before that I get the same milage in my 4000 lb, 350HP, 350 ft/lb tq GTO that I do in the Sky. My 92 Camaro gets 28 MPG highway and that thing is 15 years old.