How a fuel cell generates electricity from hydrogen

Hybrids are one solution but they still need petrol even though their internal combustion engines are small (the electric motor shares the work). Solar energy is simply too difficult to collect and convert into sufficient power to run a vehicle in a practical way and the bio-fuels still rely on a mix with petrol.

Hydrogen, which is readily available in the air, has been found to be a suitable fuel and using a fuel-cell (which was originally invented for spaceships), the gas can be put through a process that generates a lot of electricity, enough to power a vehicle at a practical speed.

Honda, as a responsible automaker, has been hard at work to develop a practical fuel-cell vehicle (FCV) which runs on hydrogen and have already been offering such a vehicle on a lease basis in California and Japan. This has enabled the engineers to get feedback on the vehicle’s performance in real-world conditions. The next phase of Honda’s program has now come to fruition in the form of the bigger car that was recently unveiled at the Los Angeles Motorshow this week. Called the FCX Clarity, it is a limited-production model which will be offered in the US market from mid-2008. Full details of the lease program will be set closer to launch, but current plans indicate a 3-year lease term at US$600 per month, including maintenance and collision insurance. The actual price of the FCV is probably very high at the moment due to the advanced hardware and R&D investment so leasing would be a better way to popularise it.

Honda is also developing a service infrastructure that provides customers with the best balance of convenience and the highest quality of service. When the FCX Clarity requires periodic maintenance, customers will simply schedule a visit with their local Honda dealer. American Honda will transport the vehicle to their fuel cell service facility, located in the greater Los Angeles area, where all required work will be performed. At the completion of the work, the customer will pick up their car from the dealer.

The FCX Clarity, which is about the same size as an Accord sedan, is a next-generation, zero-emissions, hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle based on the entirely-new Honda V Flow fuel cell (FC) platform, and powered by the highly compact, efficient and powerful Honda V Flow fuel cell stack. Featuring tremendous improvements (compared to the earlier FCX hatchback) to driving range, power, weight and efficiency - and boasting a low-slung, dynamic and sophisticated appearance, previously unachievable in a fuel cell vehicle - the FCX Clarity is said to ‘mark the significant progress Honda continues to make in advancing the real-world performance and appeal of the hydrogen-powered fuel cell car’.

The V Flow stack works in combination with a new compact and efficient lithium-ion battery pack and a single hydrogen storage tank to power the vehicle's electric drive motor. The fuel cell stack operates as the vehicle's main power source. Hydrogen combines with atmospheric oxygen in the fuel cell stack, where chemical energy from the reaction is converted into electric power used to propel the vehicle. Additional energy captured through regenerative braking and deceleration is stored in the lithium ion battery pack, and used to supplement power from the fuel cell, when needed. The vehicle's only emission is water.

The  revolutionary new V Flow platform packages the ultra-compact, lightweight and powerful Honda V Flow fuel cell stack (65% smaller than the previous Honda FC stack) in the vehicle's center tunnel, between the two front seats. Taking advantage of a completely new cell configuration, the vertically-oriented stack achieves an output of 100 kW with a 50% increase in output density by volume (67% by mass); torque is 256 Nm. Its compact size allows for a more spacious interior and more efficient packaging of other powertrain components, which would otherwise be unattainable in a sleek, low-slung sedan. The decrease in size over the past decade has been impressive considering that the first fuel cells could only be installed in bus-sized vehicles!

The FCX Clarity boasts numerous other significant advances in the performance and packaging of Honda fuel cell technology, compared to the current-generation FCX. Of note is a 20% percent increase in fuel economy - to the approximate equivalent of 28.9 kms/litre (82 mpg) combined fuel economy. This is about 2-3 times the fuel economy of a petrol-engined car, and 1.5 times that of a petrol-electric hybrid vehicle of comparable size and performance. The range is also 30% better and with the 171-litre tank of hydrogen gas on board, it is claimed that a cruising range of about 432 kms is possible. Before you say that if all 171 litres of fuel gets you is 430 kms, what’s the big deal, remember that the hydrogen is in the form of gas and if the same volume is in liquid petrol, it would be equal to about 15 litres.

In keeping with its theme as an environmentally-advanced automobile, the FCX Clarity uses seat upholstery and door linings made from Honda ‘Bio-Fabric’ - a newly-developed, plant-based material that offers CO2 reductions as an alternative to traditional interior materials, along with outstanding durability and resistance to wear, stretching, and damage from sunlight.

Designed to appeal to forward-thinking customers seeking the ultimate in zero-emissions, alternative-fuel vehicle performance, the FCX Clarity is also equipped with a full complement of advanced safety, comfort and convenience features, including a state-of-the-art navigation system with hydrogen station locations, backup camera, premium audio, climate-controlled seats and Bluetooth connectivity. Other improvements, such as shift-by-wire, electric power steering, and a newly-designed instrument panel with an easy-to-read hydrogen fuel-consumption display, further improve its customer appeal and ease of operation.

BRIEF DRIVING IMPRESSIONS
Since 2006, Honda has been readying the FCX Clarity for production and journalists have been offered short drives in pre-production models. During a recent visit to Honda’s R&D facility at Tochigi, north of Tokyo, I was among the lucky ones who could get behind the wheel and experience the sort of car my son will probably be driving when he reaches my age. Conditions for the drive were, however, not pleasant as a typhoon had blown in and it was raining all day long at the test track.

Automatic transmission is operated by small knob switch on the right of the instrument panel. Instead of a meter which shows road speed, the large meter shows the battery output in kW (right). The speedometer is a digital display above the panel.

One thing about these electric vehicles is that the start-up is noiseless, like switching on your room light – you just turn the key. There is no physical indication at all which can be confusing to first-timers in such vehicles. Maybe the designers will have, in the short-term, provide something like a light or even a small tremor in the seat to inform the driver. The Honda engineer in the right seat instructed me to operate a small lever on the right side of the instrument panel to select ‘DRIVE’. ‘D’ on the panel confirmed my selection and with a gentle press on the accelerator was accompanied by a whine, rather like a jet plane moving off.

It wasn’t my first go at a fuel cell vehicle but the one I tried before (by Mercedes-Benz) was well remembered for its loud whining. The FCX still had the compressor whine very evident but not as intrusive and the engineer told me that the production units should have even lower noise levels.

I can’t tell you anything about the handling since our drive was only a straight 1-km sprint one way and then a u-turn back to the start. Without a stopwatch to confirm, the acceleration felt like it was around 10 seconds to get to 100 km/h and that was about the max speed achieved although Honda says the car can do 160 km/h. Easing off on the accelerator pedal and then flooring it again showed the torque to be impressive although that’s typical for electric cars which is why those little radio-control cars zip around so quickly.

I also sat in the back seat and it was very spacious with the large glass areas giving a very nice sensation (even though it was raining). There was a lot of legroom and it felt a bit like a limousine although the dimensions are the same as an Accord. The only thing we had negative comments about were the way the slim door handles worked. They were probably too ‘advanced’ for us!

These FCVs do not pollute the atmosphere and that’s great but they do have water as a by-product. A thought crossed my mind as I stepped out of the FCX into the rain: if, in future, FCVs are as plentiful as petrol-engined cars today, there’s going to be a lot of water being discharged from them and we could start having floods caused by cars!

So when will we see FCVs on Malaysian roads? Probably not a while yet (we have yet to see the hybrid car population being larger than the Ferrari population!) but this is a start and as the saying goes, every journey starts with the first step or in the case of the FCX program, the first turn of the wheels.

FCX Concept tested in Japan had a slightly different rear end but overall styling was same as FCX Clarity