Fuel-cell Vehicles for Americans

hey writes "An article titled Fuel-cell vehicles run clean, but is their future clear? in the Japan Times says Honda is leasing fuel-cell cars to individual Americans. The article mentions: 'Honda officials said it is easier for the automaker to start leasing in the U.S. because there are more hydrogen gas installations there than in Japan.'"

Comments

Won't take off in the US...

[MosesJones]

Until the legislation and tax rules are changed to make it un-economic to run a massive SUV. Sure these things are cleaner, but with Gas in the US being so much cheaper than pretty much all of the rest of the western world, and no additional taxes on large vehicles then what will be the incentive for the MAJORITY of Americans to do this?

Sure one or two tree-hugging people will go for this, but it won't actually matter until its cheaper to buy a Fuel Cell powered vehicle, and its ridiculously expensive to buy ridiculous cars like the Ford Excursion.

Re:Won't take off in the US...

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

but it won't actually matter until its cheaper to buy a Fuel Cell powered vehicle, and its ridiculously expensive to buy ridiculous cars like the Ford Excursion.

You know, it's funny how people become completely blind about the cost of owning a vehicle: buying and using a Ford Excursion *is* ridiculously expensive. So is buying and using most other cars. It's strange, but most people only consider the price of gas when they think about how much a car costs them.

I go around by bike and public transportation myself, and I occasionally call a cab, or rent a car whenever I need to. I'm not particularly ecology-minded, but I calculated that driving about 20000 miles per year (which isn't much really) in the mid-sized sedan I had costed about 5 grand a year. That included gasoline, insurance, amortization, repairs, parking tickets, etc etc etc... With my current scheme, I stay healthier and it costs a grand total of $1000 on bad years.

$5000 is a big hole in many people's budget, yet they don't seem to realize. And I dare not imagine what it is when people buy cars on credit...

Re:Won't take off in the US...

[aengblom]

Why should the government interfere? It's the free market that's finding a replacement for gasoline.

Because the free market does not at this time account for the real cost of environmental pollution.

The free market is so good because it provides very accurate price signals to account for time humans spend to make something. But (car manufacturers) are able to build cars and people are able to run their cars that cost pollution that they are not charged for.

Somebody, eventually, will pay that cost though. Either through increased health care or by eventually being forced to use and even cleaner vehicle because the environment has absorbed all it can.

Remember, purchasing a low-emission or no-emission does nothing to clean my air, so there's a huge free rider problem.

Oil isn't the only source of energy.

[CyricZ]

While the US government would want you to believe otherwise, oil is not the only source of energy. You can use a renewable power source, such as solar/hydroelectric/wind power, when producing hydrogen. While you still need the initial input to create the solar plant, dam or windmills, the amount of hydrogen produced with very little impact on the environment would be astronomical!

Re:Not necessarily less pollution.....

[prionic6]

But it's easier to build better power plants every few years than to get everyone to buy better cars every few years. Centralized energy production may not be more effective right now but it has a better perspective. At least so I think.

It's fairly interesting to me...

[suitepotato]

...that /. readers go apoplectic over the Supreme Court decision to let the government of the city of New London, CT take property from private individuals to give to developers, but are more than happy to suggest further intrusions on property and basic economic rights when it comes to alternative energy and environmental pet issues.

There are many many issues to be worked and a top-down socialistic approach of using coercion and forcing the people to make changes that people haven't thought through or properly justified to a degree commensurate with the methods being used is only a prescription for disaster.

The American economy is part and parcel of the world economy. If the American economy takes a total nose dive, then so too does the rest of the planet since we all trade with each other. Consider it an economic food chain or food web. You can't total any sizeable portion of it without totalling the rest.

Let's say they use punitive taxation to force people to use alternative and hybrid vehicles? What about the fleets of trailers and diesel locomotives that bring goods to the people? Will they be similarly targeted? Of course, why leave those polluting behemoths out? Up goes their costs, there's no near-term solutions, drastic moves cost money, and guess who that gets passed to? We're going to save the environment by making Americans pay $10 for a gallon of milk and $20 a pound of beef? Increase the costs of every damn thing on the shelf of every store because the cost of getting it there skyrocketed? At the same time their cost of getting to work in the morning and back home in the evening has gone up 5000%?

Give me a break.

The solution is to keep putting hybrids out, keep making them more efficient and cost-competitive, and allow them to be hooked up to power at home to kick-start them, without having to make owners mod them to do it. They need to make engines for the hybrids that run on gasoline, ethanol, diesel, etc. Pretty much rotary or gas turbines.

The solution is to keep working on increased efficiency and decreased cost of solar panels and solar water heating systems, making them something you'd find standard at the big home stores like Home Depot and Lowes and something that high end home builders would include in their homes encouraging them to be commonplace and low cost enough for lower end home buyers to install.

The solution is to come up with systems that turn sewage into methane and other useful things, perhaps even within the home itself, putting out less pollution into the sewage systems in the first place.

The solutions are indeed technological advancement and economic positioning to bring costs down to make adoption natural and not something that will crash a powerful part of the world's economy.

If anyone proved that top-down control of society by the state is not an answer, it was the Soviet Union and where is Russia now? Struggling to dig out from under. Where is China now? Struggling to find a way to join the modern world without undergoing a dangerous destabilizing total revolution that would set them back for decades never mind the rest of the world that is doing business with them. Statist solutions are not solutions, they're a guaranteed ticket to global disaster.