Honda's Clarity Puts Fuel-Cell Technology in Limelight

t's a safe bet Sir William Robert Grove had nothing like this in mind when he successfully combined hydrogen gas and oxygen in 1939 to produce electricity in the world's first fuel cell—a device he called the gas battery.

In the hands of engineers and designers at Honda Motor Co., Grove's gas battery – albeit with a modicum of refinement – has become the heart and soul of an ultra-modern, clean, fuel-efficient green car: the FCX Clarity.

Honda introduced the production version of its newest hydrogen-powered, fuel-cell electric car at the Los Angeles auto show earlier this week and on Friday gave a few journalists the chance to delve a bit more deeply into the fourth-generation technology that makes this most advanced of the alternative fuel vehicles work.

The company will begin leasing the limited edition car to select customers in mid-2008. Lease terms will be three years, at $600 a month, and the car will only be available to Southern California residents who live near existing hydrogen fuel pump facilities in Irvine, Torrance and Santa Monica.

As more hydrogen fuel becomes available, additional vehicles could be leased in other regions of the country, Honda executives said.

(Honda won't sell the Clarity because, although technically a production model, it still is largely hand assembled and is crammed with expensive technology that likely would require Honda to charge close to $1 million a copy to break even on.)

(releated from blog.edmunds.com)