Up, up and away – the hydrogen car is here

The hydrogen fuel cell is the holy grail of greener motoring and Honda has got there first

There was every conceivable type of environmentally friendly car on show at the Tokyo motor show last week, but Honda scooped them all by announcing it will be putting the world’s first hydrogen fuel cell car into production next year.

The car will travel an estimated 270 miles at speeds of up to 100mph and will produce only water vapour from its exhaust. It is expected to cost £50,000 and will be available initially only in America and Japan.

To be unveiled at the Los Angeles motor show next month, the car is expected to closely follow the design of the FCX concept car. Inside, it will provide space for four in a futuristic looking cabin. Instead of a fuel gauge there will be a range meter that tells you how far you can travel with the hydrogen left in the tank.

It is also expected to feature lithium-ion batteries to recover energy during braking. The transmission will be gearless so you will simply select neutral or drive.

The announcement by Takeo Fukui, president and chief executive of Honda Motor Company, is a landmark in new car technology. The fuel cell has long been the holy grail of eco-motoring because it produces a smooth, almost silent ride and zero emissions. Honda has been working on various forms of the FCX for more than five years. However, last week’s announcement took the motoring world by surprise: previous estimates for a viable fuel cell car ranged from 10 years to 20 years in the future, while the modest price tag means the Honda will cost less than many current prestige family saloons.

As well as technical difficulties, there are practical hurdles, too. Hydrogen takes up more space than the amount of petrol required to travel a similar distance, meaning that fuel tanks for hydrogen have been bulky, while the lack of infrastructure means there are few places where drivers will be able to fill up with hydrogen fuel.

“When the car was invented, countries weren’t full of petrol stations,” said Fukui in response to questions about the lack of infrastructure. “When the demand is there it [the hydrogen economy] will happen.” Other car companies are also vying to harness to the power of hydrogen. BMW last year built 100 hydrogen-powered 7-series cars (although they were not for sale and use a combustion engine rather than a fuel cell) and Mazda revealed its Premacy RE hydrogen hybrid at the Tokyo show.

The Premacy features a rotary engine that can run on hydrogen or petrol and will become part of a commercial leasing scheme next year. It has a range of about 120 miles on hydrogen and will be used as part of the HyNor project, a scheme to introduce a 110-mile “hydrogen highway” in Norway between Oslo and Stavanger.

Not all car makers at the Tokyo show see hydrogen as the future. Away from the spotlights and flashguns, Toyota – the world’s largest car company and maker of the hybrid Prius – was quietly testing the car it sees as the future of green motoring at its track at the foot of Mount Fuji.

Powered by a battery pack twice the size of that of the existing Prius, the new vehicle will be able to run much greater distances on electricity alone than the existing model.

It plugs into the mains overnight, and, says Toyota, has lower running costs and emissions than the Prius. Toyota hopes the newCO2 technology will be the solution to a problem that the company privately acknowledges: the Prius is not as fuel-efficient as many conventional cars.

The prototype on test last week was fitted with nickel-hydride batteries, but when the new model goes on sale – possibly in 2009 – it may be equipped with more compact and lighter lithium-ion batteries.

Toyota claims a twofold advantage for these vehicles. First, more energy can be stored, giving increased range. Second, mileage costs are reduced because electrical recharging is far cheaper than refuelling with petrol or diesel. The new Prius has been designed with an eye on the American market, where some Prius owners have been paying several thousand dollars to convert their car to make it mains-rechargeable.

A recent American study showed that applying the cost of US electricity at the typical rate of 9 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), 30 miles of electric driving costs 81 cents.

Toyota also says that compared with the current Prius, the new model achieves a 13% reduction in CO2 emissions on a 15-mile journey. But the plug-in hybrid could add little environmental benefit unless the mains electricity comes from a source that does , such as solar or not emit CO2 nuclear power. “Otherwise there is the issue of just shifting the pollution from cars to power stations,” said Scott Brownlee, of Toyota UK.