Up, Up And Away - The Hydrogen Car Is Here

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One area of developing technology I am interested in is the future of the motorcar. Right now I can’t afford to run a car, particularly when I take into account the fact that petrol costs are set to rise and rise as well as pollute the environment.  However, if there was an affordable environmentally-friendly car… now that would be a different matter entirely.

Electric cars have been around for years, but have not been efficient enough to break into the market, as far as I understand. Their range and speed are too low. Plus of course, the electricity to power them has to come from somewhere, i.e. power stations which themselves are mainly powered on fossil fuels. So then you would be simply transferring the pollution from the car to the power station, unless someone can come up with a clean method of producing vast amounts of electricity.

Hydrogen-powered cars are a different proposition, inasmuch their waste product is just water. Pure water. No dirty emissions! And Honda are about to put the first one into production next year. It’ll cost £50,000, and only will be available in the States and Japan. However, it will have a pretty decent range of 270 miles, and a more than adequate top speed of 100mph. Here is the relevant blurb from the Times article I read about it in:

The announcement by Takeo Fukui, president and chief executive of Honda Motor Company, is a landmark in new car technology. The fuel cell has long been the holy grail of eco-motoring because it produces a smooth, almost silent ride and zero emissions…

…As well as technical difficulties, there are practical hurdles, too. Hydrogen takes up more space than the amount of petrol required to travel a similar distance, meaning that fuel tanks for hydrogen have been bulky, while the lack of infrastructure means there are few places where drivers will be able to fill up with hydrogen fuel.

When the car was invented, countries weren’t full of petrol stations, said Fukui in response to questions about the lack of infrastructure. When the demand is there it [the hydrogen economy] will happen.

OK, at the moment, £50,000 is about 5 times the cost of a normal car.  However, when prices come down, as they invariably will, you can guarantee as soon as I can afford one, I’ll become the very proud owner of a hydrogen-powered car!

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