Honda: the fuel cell - powered FCX goes on stream

A turning point marked by the opening of the first hydrogen car facility

Fotogallery Ten years have passed since Honda top executives first unveiled the FCX-V1, a hydrogen-fuelled prototype whose design started 19 years ago. June 16th 2008 marks an epoch-making date for the Japanese company which inaugurated the world’s first dedicated fuel cell vehicle manufacturing facility at Tochigi in Japan. It is something revolutionary as it ushers in a large-scale production and sale of zero-emission cars.

Twelve cars are said to be available by the end of 2008 and two hundred more in the next three years. The “Honda New Automobile Model Centre”, with its new dedicated fuel cell vehicle assembly line, capable of installing fuel cell stacks and hydrogen tanks, will produce the FCX Clarity, a sedan designed for the American and Japanese markets, where it will be available for leasing on three-year-long contracts.

The FCX has a long history starting from 1999 with the presentation of its prototype; then, in 2000 the V3 version is introduced: it is a car equipped with high pressure tanks. In 2001 the first road tests are carried out in Sacramento, California, while hydrogen production and storage testing is started at the research centre. In September 2001 the FCX is ready and few months later it becomes a qualified fuel cell motor vehicle as it meets the requirements set by the Japanese Ministry of Transport and by the US agency for the environment as well as by the department of the California Air Board Resources.

After further tests, which proved to be successful, in 2003 a new fuel cell system, capable of working at very low temperatures (-20°), is ready. In 2004 the FCX undergoes very hard tests on the island of Yakushima, where hydrogen is supplied by the local hydro-electric plant, thus ensuring a zero emission cycle. In June 2005 the Spallino family, who are from California but whose origin is Italian, lease a hydrogen-fuelled FCX for two years and they become the first private customers of the local hydrogen refuelling station. The following year marks the latest development of the FCX, equipped with a new stack of V flow fuel cells. What occurs next is common knowledge: actually now a new age has begun with a race towards the production of clean cars.