Hydrogen Fuel Cells Hit the Road

caffeined writes "Well, it looks like Honda is doing a real test of their fuel-cell car. A family in California is renting the car for $500/mo. Honda is charging them so that they take it seriously - an executive explained that if it were free they might not get the kind of feedback they want. If someone is paying for something and they're not happy - then you're going to hear about it. This is apparently the first fuel-cell car on the road anywhere in the world, according to Honda."

Comments

Nice

[ackthpt]

They need to try this in more than warm, sunny southern California. My sister has a Prius and loves it, though the battery sometimes doesn't respond well to being parked outside overnight in sub-zero. You also have to wonder what cumulative effect road salt ions will play. Seems the ions in the sea air in California like my 12v battery a lot, I do wonder how hybrids are doing with their higher voltage.

Still, it's promising. I wished they gave us a little tip off on how the trial is going rather than all the peripheral issues, but I suppose Honda wants to keep as much of that confidential as possible.

Re:Sign me up!

[GungaDan]

You should not have to modify a reasonably modern diesel engine to run biodiesel. Volkswagon's TDI engine can run straight biodiesel (or a blend of bio and petro, which is MUCH more commonly available) straight from the factory. If they put that engine in a Cabrio from the mid to late 90s, it should burn biodiesel just fine with no mods. The hard part is finding the reasonably-priced VW TDI...