Honda’s new hydrogen-powered vehicle, set for leasing within a few months, radically reduced the sizes of its fuel cell and motor. leaving the same interior space as a regular car, engineers said Tuesday, the Associated Press rerpots.
That’s a vast improvement from the company’s first such model introduced nearly a decade ago. That fuel cell was so bulky that the car could barely seat one person , and crept along at a snail’s pace.
The new FCX Clarity reaches maximum speed of 99 miles an hour and comfortably seats four people.
“This is the ultimate in cars,” said Sachito Fujimoto, a head engineer at Honda who oversaw the new fuel cell’s development.
Clarity, unveiled at the Los Angeles Auto Show late last year, was shown to reporters at Honda Motor Co.’s Tokyo headquarters.
The garnet-colored, low-slung sporty sedan is set for leasing in California this summer at $600 a month, and in Japan this fall at a yet undisclosed price. Clarity is an improvement on Honda’s current fuel-cell vehicle.
The main improvement came from a design breakthrough in the fuel cell stack, which is the unit that powers the vehicle’s motor. Inside the fuel cell, hydrogen in the fuel tank combines with oxygen in the air to produce water. A fuel cell vehicle does not produce any of the noxious fumes or gases linked to global warming.
