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I was reading about a new car Honda are working on called the FCX. Its based on hydrogen fuel cells – hydrogen reacts with oxygen to produce electricity, which drives motors in the car. The only by-product of this is water vapour! No nasty CO2 or other noxious fumes, just simple water. Currently the FCX costs about £1 million, so its not something you’re going to find at your local Honda dealer any time soon, but from what I’ve read it seems to be shaping up as a viable alternative to combustion-engine vehicles. Most existing electric or Zero-emission vehicles are pretty low powered, or have next to no range. The FCX seems able to match the range and speed of most small cars, but still pack a bit of grunt for pulling away – according to this article in The Times, it has more torque available than current 1.7 litre Hondas. Pretty impressive.

Of course there’s the fact that there exists no hydrogen stations in the UK yet to refuel from. I personally can see us able to buy an optional personal hydrogen generator you can use at home to fuel up with, and the likes of BP, Esso and Mobil aren’t going to sit on their hands too long if there becomes a demand.

I hope that in 10-15 years, I’ll be driving zero-emissions car to work every day. With luck, it’ll be sooner.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 9th, 2005 at 4:42 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.