
Hydrogen fuel-cell cars may be hitting the streets sooner than everybody
thought if Honda lives up to recent promises. Despite predictions that the
prohibitively expensive nature of hydrogen fuel-cell technology meant that
consumer vehicles would be over a decade away,
Honda has announced that it plans to produce a consumer model "in three to four
years." It's not clear if Honda has figured out a way to make the vehicles
more affordable or if they're just going to charge $100k+ for them, but in any
case the cars will run on simple hydrogen and emit nothing but clean, safe
water.
Honda is also working on an energy station for the home that creates hydrogen
out of natural gas, allowing drivers to fill up in their own garage and wave
bye-bye to gas stations forever. While some may point out that natural gas is
still a fossil fuel, bear in mind that it has a much higher energy density (more
efficient; as good as $0.20/gallon equivalent) and it burns significantly
cleaner than gasoline.