Below is a good video on the Honda FCX Clarity, their fuel cell car that’s on the roads now.  Unless you’re a fan, you don’t hear much about it.  Partially because fuel cell is seen by the masses as “hybrid”.  Which is bad and good.  Bad because it’s the powerplant that will overtake everything else in time, and you should know more about it.  Good because you can get boy-toy actors like Ewan McGregor to provide voice-overs to marketing videos on the Clarity:

It’s hard enough getting people to understand how a hybrid works (“is there some kind of small human in there?”), much less a regular gasoline engine (“why do I need to know how it works, as long as it works?”).  I think the challenge for fuel cell will be similar to that of it’s cousins.  What I’m waiting to see is how they address the hydrogen issue.

I know that a hydrogen fuel cell is not much more than a canister of compressed hydrogen.  I know that compressed hydrogen, when mishandled, tends to go BOOM!.  I also know that there’s decades of technology to make compressed hydrogen canisters safe.  BMW has been working very hard on tank safety systems.

When the car is parked for extended periods, the evaporating hydrogen builds pressure that must be safely released. A boil-off system mixes the hydrogen with air, runs it through a catalytic converter and releases water vapor through a rear-bumper vent.

Redundant safety systems abound. If the pressure inside the tank rises too high, a vent in the roof can release gaseous hydrogen directly. And if the car happened to roll over and block the roof opening, hydrogen would reroute through the underbody. A hydrogen detection system makes the car’s four door locks glow red to warn of leaking fuel in the trunk, fuel nozzle area or under the hood; windows automatically open if hydrogen should enter the cabin.

Honda is doing the same thing with the Clarity.  But when that day comes when fuel cell vehicles reach that point where they become aware to it’s marketing critics, we’ll hear “the cars can blow up!”, and other such stupidity.  Don’t think so?  According to these “rocket scientists”, the Tesla was unsafe because the batteries could catch fire.  These same scientists forgot to mention that there were over 250,000 car fires in 2008.  They also neglected to take a look at how Tesla was designing and testing safer batteries.

In a nutshell, if you are in an area that sells the FCX Clarity, you should test drive one.  I wouldn’t take it on a cross country tour, because you can’t get the vehicle fueled and serviced nationwide.  But for driving in it’s service area, I think the Clarity would be a car that surprises you-in a good way.

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