What Are The Odds?
As many of you now know I am the proud lessee (at 600$ a month) of one of the few Honda Clarity Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles. My husband and I were chosen for our proximity to the refueling center (5 miles) and our green credentials. My husband converted a Dodge pick-up to natural gas, had the EV1 until it was taken back (see: Who Killed The Electric Car) and had been a Prius driver, while I had the Lexus hybrid. The other qualification of course was being a celebrity. And the car does get ATTENTION.
The first day a woman in a white Volvo pulled up along side me and said "That car is BADASSSSS!!!!!".
Today, as I was getting a cake for a birthday party, I parallel parked on a lovely, local shopping street. There was a woman standing next to the car parked ahead of me. She was looking at me with a perplexed expression on her face. I thought she liked the car.
Since I know the car garners attention, and I have become a very loquacious ambassador for the Clarity, I rolled down my window to say hello and she said that she thought I was her husband.
It turns out she was Annette Ballester who was waiting for her husband, Ron Yerxa to arrive after re-fueling THEIR Clarity. He pulled up and there we were. THE ONLY TWO HYDROGEN FUEL CELL CARS IN THE CITY PARKED DIRECTLY NEXT TO EACH OTHER!. What are the odds? After exchanging pleasantries and comparing all favorable notes abut this extraordinary vehicle, I drove away thinking...WHY IS THIS SO RARE? Why aren't there more?
I commend Honda for being a leader but isn't it about time that we all demand more? The tipping point was gas prices. We all knew that as soon as they went up, would it be $3.50, $4.00, $4.25 a gallon that we would change our ways. When people had to choose between better food or gas...is that when the change was going to come? It certainly isn't going to be in my tax bracket because the higher gas rates really don't affect us.
The bigger question is how do we all make this change? Who do we turn to? What do we do?
Today in the paper was a story about a woman in Orange County who put in fake grass and who was penalized by the city. WHAT!?!?
We looked into fake grass. There is a big cost but IT DOESN'T NEED WATERING! We live in a drought zone, a desert. We import our water like our oil (read Cadillac Desert ). It tells the tale. What are the odds that we will turn back the effects of Global Warming? What are the odds that people are ready for change? We have an election ahead where the candidates need to tell us what their plans are for our country's future and the worlds environmental future. Terry Tamminen and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger have done a a great job bringing a green initiative to their policy making. Corporations, like Honda, are beginning to pay attention and lead, as they should, the general populous who they employ and serve and need. Green has become the new black.
What were the odds that Barack Obama would be the candidate for CHANGE?
Odds shmodds.
Let's make some change and build the Hydrogen Highway and invest in science and development and conserve.
One hydrogen car at a time,
One human being at a time.
One patch of fake grass at a time.
One vote at a time.
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The reason the cars are so expensive is they're still experimental. They're not ready for mass production. A few years ago the hyrdogen fuel cel car was an idea. It is now a reality...
That car does look badass. I can't wait for either electrical cars or hydrogen cars become mainstream. anything to get us off of oil.
There aren't more because some of us (myself included) are waiting for BMW's 12 cylinder hydrogen model to come out in a year or two.
I don't care if I have to convert my GARAGE to a hydrogen fillup point, I'm getting one of those cars. A Honda? Ehhhhh, not so much.
People like Jamie Lee and most other on this site, think the way to go is new, alternative sources of energy. Republicans say: "Lets drill!!" To me, thats indicative of their entire mindset...
We've always had diesel VWs in my family cause they get 40-50 mpg. Now I live in NYC so if I need a cake I walk to the bakery.
Not sure if fake grass is a decent alternative for having to water the real stuff. Indigenous plants would work better to suck up the CO2 and emit O. I agree though living in a desert and trying to make it something it's not takes a boat load of energy (currently provided mostly by fossil fuels). Say hi to Chris.
I have a toyota diesel imported from Canada. It gets about 45mph and cost almost nothing to maintenance and insure.
Hmmmmm.
But why are the hybrids and your hydrogen car so expensive? If the prices came down, perhaps you'd get some converts.
Jamie lee
Remember me(stupid question eh) Well long ago I flew you and others from Phoenix to Denver or Colorado Springs (can't remember) in a G-3. I'm glad to hear that you are putting forth an effort to lead some into the wonders of hydrogen power. However the price of the fuel, and the fact that you just can't buy the stuff, has to have crossed your mind. I know you are 10 square smarter than the Oil Folk who would laugh and say "600/mo for a one way trip to the refuel station isn't going to solve our problems." I was wondering if possibly driving a domestic that gets 35 mpg on fuel you can purchase might be a simpler solution. Reinventing the wheel sounds like a noble gesture, but few can afford it. Honda's building of the Hydrogen fueled car is a blessing to their C.A.F.E. ratings and little else. Maybe you could ask the People of Toronto their feelings on stored explosive material. Sorry for the condensed version, I know you can find your way through it all.
Jeff
P.S. You are as lovely as ever.
While I applaud you for your green activities, I disagree on the hydrogen fuel cell road. It's also not enough just to offer this type of opportunities to celebrities. Despite the amount of news here in California about celebrities, believe it or not there are more of us "regular Joes" out there who do as much or more to promote green living. Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately for us) cameras do not follow our every move, so our green efforts go unnoticed.
I wish more was being done to promote the Prius (we love ours), electric vehicles, and real, responsible public transportation. Despite the increased ridership, it's really hard to chose public transportation over driving yourself when the commute time on public transport is 3 times longer.
what's wrong with hydrogen? the prius, in all its technical splendor, does little to alleviate gas dependency. hydrogen *can* be produced by under-oxidized burning of hydrocarbons, but can also be produced as a by-product of nuclear energy, coal burning, and solar (close to water sources). if you shift the production off somewhere else, say, one of the sources i mentioned, it's much easier to regulate and improve efficiency, than if you have to do it in millions of individual cars.
Notably absent from the story : the cost to refuel, and the cost of fuel per mile (the equivalent of mpg).
Hard to know what the cost for the hydrogen fuel is because it is subsidized by the state of California. The really interesting thing about the Honda FCX Clarity is how efficient it is. It gets the equivalent of about 70 MPG because of its fuel cell powertrain, and has a range of about 350 miles on a single hydrogen fill.
doesn't matter. there's no economy of scale right now. the equivalent is probably a few million dollars per equivalent gallon of gasoline. that cost will come down exponentially over time.
Right now the cost to refuel, and therefore the cost per mile is a useless statistic, since not only is it being highly subsidized by the state, it's also at a higher level than normal, since they haven't yet started selling it in large amounts. Just like DVD players cost more when they first came out.
Jamie Lee has said and done some really sensible things lately. Good on her for getting it, walking her talk, and keeping her sanity and humanity.
Pretty cars!
Please, let us all not forget that we need to ask ourselves where the electricity, the hydrogen and oxygen for fuels cells, and the compressed air all COME FROM. If the electricity is being produced by a coal power plant, or nuclear power plant then in essence you are driving a coal or nuclear powered vehicle!
I am not trying to rain on anyone's parade here, early adopters of alternative should be commended, and often these vehicles benefit from being more efficient, regardless of the fuel source. It's just that it is important to consider matters from a holistic or ecological perspective in order to avoid the pitfalls that choices in technology inevitably lead to.
That's not the right way to look at it. Your car and mine (mine is a normal gas-guzzling SAAB) is about 8% efficient. So moving to electric cars would increase efficiency to about 30% or so. Fuel burned by power plants is much more cleanly burned too. So you get about a 4.5x improvement in overall efficiency with electric cars.
There is enough off-peak generation capacity in the US RIGHT NOW to have an entire fleet of electric cars nationally.
Yes,
Only isn't your 30% number a little low. Even factoring friction and wind resistance, aren't electric motors almost 100% efficient?
But.... Let us ALSO not forget that those same power plants which you claim are too dirty to justify powering our cars are ALSO too dirty to power our HOMES, and our OFFICES. The fact is that we need to not only re-thing our TRAVEL, but our ENTIRE energy cycle! This should include LOCAL power generation, removing us from the grid, and perhaps (if Hydrogen Fuel Cells become a viable transportation generator) local hydrogen production. I've been reading recently about a small unit no larger than a washing machine which takes in distilled water (which isn't that difficult to make) and electricity (which can come from ANY source!) and produces Hydrogen and Oxygen, and you can pump the Hydrogen into your car!
nothing wrong with nuclear. i just wish that the nuclear folk would end their love affair with uranium, which requires MASSIVE refinement, and move to thorium, which the u.s. has the world's largest deposits of, and requires very little refinement in order to serve as a fuel.
coal can also be made a LOT more efficient, though i'd rather see thorium power plants than coal ones. however, coal power plants could also produce an awful lot of hydrogen.
i'd also argue that hydrogen is a LOT safer than gasoline or other fuels. remember the hindenburg? about a third of the passengers died. why? because hydrogen is light, and it burns upward. of course i'd imagine that in a freeway underpass crash scenario, that might not be so cool. but still.
Love ya, Jamie, but you and everyone here needs to educate themselves on the Hype about Hydrogen (along with the wonderful book and movie recommendations you made, I would add a book by the same name (ie, "The Hype about Hydrogen") by Joseph Romm of climatepro
It's generally believed that at least five miracles are required to happen in order for hydrogen vehicles to appear on any showroom flow. I summarize them as follows:
1. Cost has to be lowered by about a factor of thirty (*30*).
2. Find an energetically and economically efficient way to produce hydrogen. Yes, hydrogen is abundant, but it always comes strongly bonded. Producing it in pure form requires "debonding" it, which in turn requires a LOT of energy.
3. Find a similarly efficient way to STORE hydrogen. In order to bring hydrogen on board a vehicle, it has to be cooled or compressed, which again requires a LOT of energy.
4. Build a multi-BILLION dollar infrastructure so that drivers can fill their tanks with this "fuel."
5. Accelerate all of the above, relative to their historical pace, by a factor of 20-?...
The manager of Toyota's Fuel Cell System Development Group would add:
6. No evolution of rival technologies.
The rival technology he is probably thinking about are simple battery-electric &or plugin hybrid electric vehicles.
Lucky you, Jamie, but more than likely, no one else here will ever drive -- much less *purchase* -- a mass-produced hydrogen vehicle.
I absolutely agree. Jamie Lee is lucky enough to have been chosen to drive one of these cars. Perhaps most of that "luck" is money. She lives in Los Angeles ($$$), near a refueling station (probably an expensive neighborhood $$), has a proven "green" record (for most $$$), can afford a pricey car lease ($$$) and is a "personality" (read "makes lots of $$$$"). I do not fault Jamie Lee for any of those points. I say, "You go girl!"
But it's Honda I take some issue with on this. $600/month to LEASE a car is the higher-end of a car market. If Honda were really interested in finding out about driving habits and use of their Hydrogen car, then they'd make it more affordable (say $200-$300/month) for less well-known folks. Leasing these cars to Jamie Lee and other "celebrities" promotes the car by "star power" rather than the virtues of the car itself. Personally, I'd like to know how far it can travel on a "tank" of [hydrogen] gas - could I travel the SF-LA corridor without refueling, or is this car just a glorified golf cart?
On the other hand, I congratulate Jamie Lee and millions of others in the U.S. and elsewhere who ARE trying to make a difference in their footprint. It's not easy, and often not cheap to act responsibly toward our planet so that future generations can live in a safe, healthy world. Thank you!
The estimated cost of one of these is $300k-$1m AFTER they roll out a production line instead of a prototype manufacturing team. If we divided R&D by the number of vehicles so far, they'd cost hundreds of millions.
That's 41 years to pay off, for the low estimate, at $600/month.
This is a PR campaign, and thus, it's not surprising at all that the two cars would be in the same place.
If this was an ICE vehicle with these performance specs, noone would pay more than $15k for it.
I live in Alameda, CA where speed limit is 25 mph except for one street with 35 mph. If we go on the highway we dirve hubby's car. My next car will be a street legal golf cart.
I don't have $600 a month to spend on food or anything else - much less leasing a car.
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