Japanese motor manufacturer Honda’s first advanced hydrogen fuel-cell-powered vehicle has come off-line at the company’s dedicated fuel-cell vehicle manufacturing facility in this country.

It took 19 years to develop the four- seater FCX Clarity, which runs on electricity produced by combining hydrogen with oxygen, and emits only water vapour from its exhaust pipe.
The FCX Clarity was designed from scratch as a dedicated fuel-cell vehicle.

It is powered by a compact Honda V Flow fuel-cell stack.

Honda says the car boasts a “low-slung, dynamic and sophisticated appearance, made possible by the innovative layout of the fuel-cell power plant”.

Lease sales are scheduled to begin in the US this month, and later this year in Japan.

The combined sales plan for Japan and the US is expected at a few dozen units within a year, and about 200 units within three years.

US actress Jamie Lee Curtis will be among the first to take delivery of the vehicle.

The BBC reports that one of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of wider adoption of fuel-cell vehicles is the lack of hydrogen fuelling stations.

It also notes – in an ironic twist – that hydrogen is costly to produce and that the most common way to produce hydrogen is still from fossil fuels.

The FCX Clarity made its world debut at the Los Angeles International Auto Show in November last year.

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