Click above for a gallery of the FCX Clarity
The LA Times' Dan Neil loves electric cars. He also loves just how beautiful the Honda FCX Clarity is. What he doesn't like is that the Clarity uses a hydrogen fuel cell. Plug In America's Paul Scott, writing as an individual, not on behalf of PIA, I hasten to add, says that Neil's recent article, "pounds the final nail in the coffin of fuel cell vehicles." I doubt this is true, but Neil certainly doesn't mince words. He calls the Clarity, "the most expensive, advanced and impractical car ever built" and adds:
Hydrogen fuel-cell technology won't work in cars. It's a tragic cul-de-sac in the search for sustainable mobility, being used to game the California Air Resources Board's rules requiring carmakers to build zero-emission vehicles. Any way you look at it, hydrogen is a lousy way to move cars.
Not exactly subtle, is it? It is totally true that the automakers have gotten hydrogen vehicles on the road way before the infrastructure builders figured out a way to effectively get hydrogen to market. As Scott writes in a recent email, "While Dan's words should smother this foolish idea [hydrogen cars], its heart will keep beating until Schwarzenegger and Obama finally pull the plug and deny them any more of our money."
Neil ends his article this way: "Behold, the grand and lovely futility of the FCX Clarity. It's hard to scold something so wonderful, so I won't. Just bring me one that I can plug in." For more of Neil's always-interesting pontifications, listen to this.
[Source: LA Times]
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